It was the month of August and the monsoon season in my place was coming to a close. And that means occasional showers when we least expect it and quite sunny the day around. I had a particularly tiring week at my office and wanted to break away from the routine and relax. But as fate would have it none of my friends were in town and I was left all alone with a long uneventful Sunday ahead of me.
For no reason I woke up early in the morning and sat in front of my computer browsing through every odd stuff and when I got bored of that I shut down the system and lay on the bed with my empty eyes on the fan on the ceiling. The blades made uninterrupted circular motion, slicing the air in a regular rhythmic and monotonous pace. And suddenly the idea struck me and I wasted no time to get into my trousers and t-shirt.
“Wouldn’t she be sitting alone and bored too”
I rang up one of my lady friends and asked her whether she’d be interested to join me for a ride to Ponmudi. And there begins the next edition of my Motorcycle Diaries.
Ponmudi is a hill station, around 60 kms from my home town, Trivandrum. Unlike other major hill stations like Kodaikanal or Ooty, Ponmudi aka. The Golden Peak is rather a little place known for weekend stay overs, picnicking, hiking and trekking. ‘Everything that glitters is not gold’. Ponmudi used to be a favourite haunt for the cupid struck and honeymooners but now, not much people visit the place owing to the lack of descent amenities. The place does have a Govt. Guest House and a couple or other private accommodation but for some reason or the other, it has ceased to be a preferred destination for travelers.
Coming back to the literature of the ride, we started our ride at around 9 in the morning with not much preparation other than me loading fresh cells into my camera. Hoping on the pillion of the bike my friend said she’s out with me for a joyride and that she didn’t want me to touch more than 40-50 kms/hr. Ah! And there’s a perfect co-traveler for I never like to ride fast when I go for long rides. Besides there’s only 60 kms ahead of us to travel and an entire Sunday stretching in front of us. What’s the hurry anyways?
Fifteen minutes of ride through the not so heavy traffic, but with annoying stops at every red signal and we reached the outskirts of the city. Another few minutes ride along the country road and I stopped at a rustic tea shop before we started our 910 meters climb. There’s always something good about the tea from the foot hills – it taste really fresh. That maybe because they make it with the leaves fresh from the garden.
A brief 10 minutes break gazing at the laid back country life with dogs lying around the road side unmindful of the occasional motorists who speed past them and the little kids, naked and running around their houses; the cattle grazing around in peace and chewing, chewing and chewing all the time, we resumed our ride.
Meandering along the winding climbs of Ghats we started to have a spectacular view of the lush greenery around, bordered by hills running along each other and little silvery streams trickling down the hills and disappearing behind the thick of the woods at the foot. 25 kms of ride without a stop and we broke the ride at the edge of a hairpin bend. The view of the green-green valley from there was splendid.
I did look around for a tea shop but gave up for two reasons – firstly the place was quite deserted with only the tall trees around us and secondly because my friend started showing annoyance, without any assumed sophistication of a new age girl, at my “odd” fondness for tea. She prefers coffee over tea and so do most of the people that I come across. Many of them go to the extend of taking lectures on how one should have “better tastes” to enjoy coffee and enlighten me to the fact that there are more coffee lovers around the globe than lovers of tea. Arguments apart, I still cherish that really strong tea made of thick buffalo milk that I had at a rural settlement called Yelandur en-route to Coimbatore from Bangalore via Satyamangalam.
