Grand Tour 2012, Stage 2, Goa to Anandashram, Kerala

Royal Enfield's Rider Mania 2012 in Goa was a bit of a disappointment. I've been to all four, starting in 2009, and this was probably my last one. There was very much a feeling of same-old, same-old. It was nice to connect with some fellow bikers that I may only meet once or twice a year, but the event itself was uninspiring. First some good points:

- Reasonable cost.  Only Rs 500 for registration, which includes the event T-shirt. But of course no food or accommodation is included at that price. There are some fast-food stalls at the venue, but the prices are high for the portion size. I had all my meals outside or took take-out to my lodge.

- Cheap beer. A new sponsor this year: 500ml Foster's can for Rs 20, a real bargain. Last year, Kingfisher pints were 2 for Rs 30. Barcardi alco-pop also a bargain at Rs 30.

- Dirt bike race. One of the highlights from last year.

Some drawbacks:

- The new Thunderbird 500 was on display, but no opportunity to take a test ride.

- The event calendar was a work of imaginative fiction, bearing little resemblance to the actual event timings. I can understand that they can't update the printed schedules, but why not at least update the chalkboard version?

- Some events were cancelled or rescheduled without any notice. For instance, one of my favourites, the "destroy your bike broken field obstacle course". And one of the highlights from last year, the group ride, was a damp squib. With over 1,000 participants at the event, about 2 dozen bikes did the group ride. There was a very brief announcement about it, but when I looked at the parking lot about five minutes after the scheduled start time, it was still packed, so I concluded that the ride had been postponed. But in fact it just wasn't encouraged or publicized. By that time, Sunday afternoon, no-one believed the event schedule meant anything.

- Vagator is getting expensive. Lodge and food prices are up 25-50% from last year.

From Vagator I took a brief ride south, and stopped for a couple of days to visit a friend in Vasco. Then I continued on to Gokarna, got my same room back at my guest house, started my yoga classes again, and spent a pleasant nine days there.

I would gladly have stayed longer -- Gokarna is one of my favourite places -- but I had already registered for the Bulls of Shimoga 2A event near Koppa on 8th December, so I left Gokarna on the 7th, stayed overnight in Shimoga, and headed for the venue on Saturday morning.

I mentioned in my previous post that I'm not a fast rider, and I really am noticing that I'm slowing down even more. I took the Sirsi route instead of Gersoppa, and the ghat section is under construction, which slowed me down a bit, but the 228km route took me seven hours, with lunch and two or three chai stops. Even for me that's a pretty leisurely pace.

Now for a couple more gripes. Kenith and the Shimoga guys, please take these comments in the right spirit -- I really want to help you to improve your future events. Please pass the relevant comments on to the venue management. If no one tells them about problems, they won't know that they need to be fixed.

The directions to the venue were unhelpful. The BoS event flyer just gave a link to the venue's website, which had a Google map reference which was completely incorrect. The Google map said to take the Koppa-Jayapura road about 20km, to just before Jayapura, then turn back north-east. In fact, the correction directions were to proceed 2.5km south from Koppa on the Jayapura road, and turn left. An excellent schematic map was distributed at the venue -- if that map had been posted on the website, it would have saved me quite a few unnecessary kilometers. Directions to the venue: one star out of five.

Sorry, I don't have 10K to 30K to spend on a GPS unit -- I rely on printed maps, road atlases, and online research on Google maps and MapMyIndia, all of which can be riddled with errors and inconsistencies.

There should have been someone at the turnoff vigorously waving down passing Bulleteers, instead of just a tiny sign where it wasn't expected.

After about 10km of challenging dirt-road riding, I reached the venue, Kalgreen Valley Resort.

The welcome at the venue was warm and friendly, the T-shirt design was great, and everyone was most helpful showing me to my digs. The accommodations were excellent -- comfortable beds, hot water in the morning, lots of space to put one's gear, and almost all the electricals worked -- only one small bulb was burned out. Five stars out of five for accommodations and camaraderie.

The food was the biggest disappointment. After reading the blurb on the website, I was expecting something of pretty good quality. The veg dishes at lunch were Ok, if limited, but the one non-veg dish, their "special chicken masala", consisted of a watery broth and chicken bones with some tiny snippets of chicken meat. The chef obviously had instructions to keep the cost of this dish as low as possible.

Dinner consisted of chips and snacks at the dance party, plus some excellent Chicken 65, the only top-notch food item at the entire event. If there was a sit-down dinner in the dining hall, it wasn't announced, and when I drifted away from the party, the dining hall was locked up tight.

Breakfast was the usual idli-vadai with a sweet side-dish, and India's worst import from the West -- sliced white bread with the consistency, taste and nutritional value of processed cardboard. India has so many great domestic bread types -- puri, chapati, roti, parotta -- why oh why take the worst that the West has to offer? I asked about getting an omelet, but the staff said no way. When breakfast was nearly finished, they brought out a bucket of hard-boiled eggs, so at least I got a bit of protein. Food: one star out of five.

Libations: beer was available at Rs100/bottle, but most of the guys came well provisioned with their own supplies, and poured them out generously to everyone within range. Booze - six stars out of five.

The dirt bike race was fun to watch, but I like my bike too much to inflict that sort of treatment on it. As a spectator sport, five out of five.

Dance party and entertainment. The DJ obviously subscribed to the theory that playing the sound system at maximum intensity and haranguing the crowd was an adequate substitute for good music selection. Granted, taste in music is a very personal thing, but there wasn't anything played that inspired me to get up and boogie. Two stars out of five, but only because I met and chatted with a couple of new acquaintances.

Overall event rating: 4 stars out of 5. Would I go next year? Hell, yes.

Just a side note, not directly related to the event itself. Due to the Cauvery River water dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the border road crossing between Sathyamanagalam and Chamrajanagar was closed to all vehicle traffic. Our fellow bikers from Coimbatore had to go via Palghat and Mangalore (i.e. through Kerala) to get to Karnataka. Doubled their journey distance to attend the meet, so they rented vans instead of riding their bikes.

Since Koppa is quite close to Sringeri, I decided to spend a couple of days there. It's a beautiful, peaceful place nestled in the mountains, and very easy on the budget -- a room at the ashram's most basic lodging is Rs 60/night, with a fabulous view if you get the right room (TTD 18, 19, or 20). A nice veg lunch or dinner is about Rs 60 at my favourite, Hotel Guruprasad opposite the entrance to the temple. You can even get a free lunch or dinner at the ashram, if you're satisfied with plain rice and thin sambar. It's enough to survive on, I suppose. I like something a little more tasty and substantial.

From Sringeri I headed south-west on SH13, the most direct route to Mangalore, a beautiful ride through Kudremukh National Forest. The road has been resurfaced since I last rode it about three years ago, and the entire route to Mangalore, via K.S. Border (the south-west corner of the park), Karkal, and Moodabidri is now in great shape all the way to where you join NH48 just east of Mangalore.

It's only when you hit the Mangalore bypass that road conditions start to deteriorate. It's still under construction, and the road surface is not great. If you are heading south to Kerala, as I was, the only possible problem is just south of the city where there's a four-exit roundabout. Just make sure you get on the Kerala road. It's clearly marked, but the traffic at the circle is a bit chaotic.

Then it's bump bump bump all the way to the border. When you cross into Kerala, the road is great, with only a couple of slow-you-down bad patches. There is some road work being done just south of Kasargod, but only for 2 or 3 km, then it's smooth riding all the way. Much better than it was a couple of years ago. (I wound up taking NH17 from Kasargod instead of my original plan of the coast road via Bekal, because the latter was being repaved and thus single-lane with alternating traffic. I turned back to NH17 right away.)

When you get to Kanhangad, there's a turnoff to the right to the town, then about 200 metres later, just after the Indian Oil petrol bunk, there is a left turn clearly marked Panathur. This is a great route to Kodagu. After a couple of kilometres you arrive at Anandashram, my next destination.

I'm now at Anandashram. I'll report on the road conditions up to Panathur and beyond after I reach Kodagu and then Mysore.