7th Nov : Kovalam to Tirunelveli

7^th Nov : Kovalam – Tirunelveli

Through the green fertile plains of Punjab to the barren cold deserts of J&K and Himachal, from the lovely high-speed roads of Rajasthan and Gujrat, down to Maharashtra, passing through the biking capital of India, to the 12 month tourist destination Goa to Bangalore via Mangalore and up the hillstations of Ooty and Munnar down to the beaches of Kovalam, the GIR team today took a U-turn from the southern most tip of India, at Kanyakumari, and started their ride back towards New Delhi. More than half of the Leg 2 is over now and we have seen everything on this road trip. From snowfall to rainfall, from glaciers to deserts, from foggy hills to barren beaches, from pot-holed highways to superb multi-lane highways, from young cities like Manipal to the remotest back-waters of Kerala, they don’t call India a diverse country for no reason. We have been trying our level best to capture India’s beauty and diversity in our cameras and mind but we do know ‘More is never enough’ and no matter how hard we try to pass on what we have seen through text and pictures, nothing can replace what the eyes can actually see and what the mind and heart can in reality register while we soak ourselves in the beauty of this country. Yes, big cities are ready to explode anytime with ever increasing population, most cities face pollution, electricity and water problems, but the rest of India is just so damm beautiful and captivating that we all have realized no matter how much time you give to a place, you will never be able to get bored of it or cover it totally. Every day brings new places in front our eyes, new cultures, new structures, new roads and new feelings.

We started quite late from Kovalam and met the Trivadrum gang before picking up our machines from the Kinetic workshop, after which we proceeded to a college nearby, where many members study.


What a scene it was, half the hostel was out waiting for us and once we were their, they all crowded and cheered us. There was a traffic jam on the road and as we were already getting late, we moved on after 5 minutes, not before Sunny and I took a small round of the campus on the CBR and the Comet respectively. The Trivandrum gang rode with us till Kanyakumari, which surprisingly, hardly had any tourist around!

We were finally there, the tip of India and celebrated it by riding on a small stretch of isolated and wide roads next to the beach.




The most prominent figures around the tip of kanyakumari were a Bharat Mata statue holding the Indian Flag, the Thiruvalluvar Statue - 133 feet height and the Vivekanda Rock Temple.


The gang took quite a lot of pics and videos and then we proceeded for lunch and finally continue for our destination ahead, with the Trivandrum gang going back. Our original destination for the night, Madurai seemed like a distant dream and the roads too weren’t favoring us at all. We also came across the wind-mill farm again (we had come across a similar farm on our way to Munnar) but these were quite small ones. Nevertheless, they easily outnumbered the earlier ones in sheer numbers.
It was dark by the time we rode into the town of Tirunelveli and decided to stay the night here as the roads didn’t seem too good, and somehow we all too felt tired to carry any further. I went hotel hunting and managed to find a good one quite cheap. Tomorrow we ride to Rameshwaram for the night, a ride of around 224kms. That’s another interesting ‘tip’ of India! I have heard this place is famous for Halwas but unfortunately we may be leaving too early tomorrow to taste it! We are back in Tamil Nadu, the roads seem to be no good, the bus driver seem to own the road but the sheer beauty we see when we turn our eyes on the highway makes it all seem totally worth it.