The Temple City , kancheepuram, 27 Oct 2007

Date : Saturday, 27 Oct 2007
Destination : Kancheepuram, the Temple City
Planned Route : Home-Avadi-Ponamallee High Road(PH)-Sri Perambadur-Kancheepuram
Kancheepuram-chingelpet-Tambaram-PH road-Koyambedu-Thirumangalam-Home
Actual Route : Amazingly the route which I had planned !!!

A gloomy morning didn't deter my decision to ride to Kancheepuram today. Though my parents aren't convinced that I should be travelling for such a long ride when it is raining intermittently (yes the North East monsoon for the year has struck chennai albeit a few days late, but it has been raining for the last few days), but somehow had the feeling that it won't rain atleast in the direction which I plan to ride.So after having a small breakfast at Home I started my ride(Trip meter - 0 , 7:25 AM).
Went to the Shell Petrol Bunk and filled the Tank and started out on the road towards Avadi , the road was not that slippery though there were some sheets of water at quite a few places, but luckily there was no rain, for that matter not even a drizzle. Today being Saturday a working day there was a good amount of traffic on the road till Avadi. Crossing my college on the route (never minding to Stop) was surprised to see soo many new buildings near the college. On reaching the Bangalore Highway (Trip Meter - 38 Kms) (by hitting PH road), the traffic ceased down and the road was smooth and quite good. One of the objectives of this ride is to do the final run-in for my Thunderbird, as it has already topped 2000 Kms, but still haven't been run at more than 4000 RPM consistently, so I decided to throttle my way up to 100 in a short time and almost held up above the 80 km/h mark till I reached SriPerambadur(Trip Meter - 55 Kms,8:40 AM). Seeing the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial Site (where he was killed by a LTTE suicide attack in 1991) along the Highway, I stopped over here and ventured inside the memorial. Its a sprawling green campus with constructions made out of Rock Stones primarly. Except for a very few visitors (mostly passers-by) the place was almost empty (probably bcos it was only 8:40 AM by now ). I take my Camera out and take a few snaps of the Indian Flag hoisted at the site. Went inside to see some Huge pillars which were arranged around the exact place where Rajiv Gandhi was killed. These pillars are named after some of the major rivers of India and each pillar stands for a different theme like Peace,Courage etc. While coming out of the Memorial realized that I was unfortunate in being a little bit early to the place because just as I was exiting there was a bus load of college Girls who stopped by to see this Memorial. Hmm bad luck ..
I see the Distance-Hoardings telling me that I am still 37 kms from Kancheepuram, but the route is soo good that I am consistenlty throttling my way in the mid 90's quite easily. En-ruote I cross some of the major Industries on this Industrial corridor like Hyundai,Nokia, Saint Gobain and lot others. Taking a left from the Highway I reach Kancheepuram town after crossing the railway track (Trip meter- 87 kms, 9:25). By this time I had three missed calls (its a surprise for me as well !!) , it is from my Home, my sister and my friend. My parents are worried whether I am hit by rain as it has been raining heavily at my Home in chennai, I confirmed that there was no rain at Kancheepuram (Weather Report from Kancheepuram, by Arun Raj exclusively for his parents !!).
Entering the town, I realized that this town has more one-way roads than the total roads!! Almost every other road is a one way here. Went to the Devarajaswami temple famous for its ... (sorry I really don't know) took some snaps of the Temple and came out wishing to go to the Kailsanatha Temple, which was supposedly nearby. But deciding against visiting this temple I started to ride towards chingelpet, alas seeing Saravan Bhavan hotel on the way, I went inside to take a quick Breakfast ( the Hotel is a nice place, with good food and good parking facilities). After breaking my fast, I ventured on the road towards chingelpet (thru Ayiumpettai), but on reaching the outskirts of the Kancheepuram town I saw a temple with very tall surrounding walls, I decided to visit this temple and then continue. this Temple tunred out ot be the Devarajsami Temple which has one of the 1000-pillared mandap (only 96 exists now !!, not sure who stole the remaining, but the building frame suggests that there were never more than a hundred pillars !! ).I am taking a lot of snaps in this temple which seems to be a pretty old Temple.
I hit the road again (Trip meter - 97 kms, 11:40 AM) and drive towards Chengelpet and reached chingelpet(Trip meter - 132, 12:20 PM) and stopped near the huge flyover on the highway to take some rest on the road side. Now the road from here till Tambaram is very good and the road after Tambaram is very good if you take the Bypass which after a 19 km ride from tambaram takes you to PH road (near MGR engg college at maduravayal), as expected the PH road towards koyambed is in a really bad state (going by the dictionary meaning for the word "road", this stretch of PH road can't be said as one such), the road was muddy, watery albeit every thing but a road, after some difficulty reached the inner ring road but was caught in rain near anna nagar, so pulled my RE aside and took some protection under a tree for 20 minutes before stretching out to my home ... my bike was full of mud thanks to the PH road ..will clean it later , now its time to take a good nap at home :)

Sholvaram Lake - oct 20, 2007

Sholavarm Lake, there was a time when I used to go there almost daily and that was when I was 12 years old (1992) when we were staying at Paadianallur (near RedHills(near chennai)). Once I come back from school every day, It was almost a ritual for me to take my Bicycle to the old airport near the Sholvaram Lake. Now this old airport is nothing but two ultra-wide concrete roads criss crossing each other like a '+' symbol. It was used as an airport for World-War II airplanes. But for the past few decades this has been used to shoot Stunt-scenes of the Tamil movies. Infact I had seen a few Movie shootings during some of my Trips over here. Now a days it is used by aero-modelling enthusiasts to test out their Airplane simulations and also some times there are also some exercises conducted by millitary personnel.

Today, Oct 20 2007, which happens to be Auyudha Pooja as well, I decided to go and visit this old favourite place of mine probably to try and rekindle some old memories. woke up at 5:45 , got started from Home by 6:15 and took the NH5 till Redhills and then took the road towards Thiruvallur, 4 kms down the road found the entry for this old airport (infact I had come to this place a month back but could not discover this entry point, what a shame ), so was happy that I could find the entry without asking any one this time(yeah !! we males never ask for routes, unless you know in very rare circumstances which are as rare as rare !!!). It was perfect weather, a gloomy morning with an occasional drizzle, now this was more than what I wanted. So took one of the airport stretches and reached the Sholavaram lake. It was quite a scenic place, finally I found a Lake which had some reasonable water (during my trip to poondy dam, I was unhappy to see that the Dam was not even half-full) . Rode on the Lake's bund for some distance, there were only a very few people. Found a spot to park my vehicle, took some photos of the lake from here and also some snaps with my bike in the foreground (ooh !! does this machine look good or what ? its a real macho !! ), then decided to take the Lake's bund road till where ever it would take me, after a km I found a route to get back the NH5. Took the NH5 and proceeded in the direction of Nellore (odo - 25 Kms). The Highway which is a part of the Golden Quadrilateral was just too good. Slowly but steadily I ramped up the speed of my bike, soon I touched 100 Km/hr and the Bike though having some vibrations was pretty much ok, remmber I am in the final stages of running-in my Bike, yep ! it is nearing 2000 Kms which is the advised running-in period.
Stopped my machine by the side of the road and took some snaps, infact one of this snap was my favourite one of this trip. It shows the road NH5, but it also displays my machine's speedo-meter and the RPM box. Started again and proceeded till Gumidipoondi, infact all this while I was thinking whether to go till Nellore and have breakfast over there !! and call my parents and tell them I was having breakfast in Andhra Pradesh. Like I didn't even inform them before starting on this Trip (bcos my initial plan was only to go till Sholavaram lake) , the weather was still great, no signs of sun-shine yet, so it was cool with some dark clouds and gloomy ..ooh its tough to get such good weather, so has to use such days. But I decided to turn back and head home after reaching Gumidipoondi (decided to go to Nellore some time later).

Ride to Pondy Dam

Its been just a week (Aug 2007) since I started thumping in my new RE Thunderbird(RE). I was looking to find a location to start what would be the first among the many rides I plan to make with my RE. Since I did not want to travel too far in my very first Trip I tried to zero in on places which were less than 100 Kms from my Home. Thats how Pondy Dam came to mind. It was some 75 Kms off my home. so on a Saturday morning 6:30 I took off in an almost perfect RE riding gear, a open Helmet, dark Ray Ban Sun Glasses and denim trousers and a small back pack to hold my Canon DSLR camera and a water bottle.
Riding in the mornings in chennai is always a joy, its not cold as many other Indian cities which i had been to (Hyderabad, Bangalore) and the atmosphere is very thin and clean. Bcos as the day progresses the Chennai's atmosphere is not only known for its heat, but a thick layer of dust as well.
After filling petrol, I decided to take the route of Madhavaram-Puzhal-Pudur-Ambattur-Avadi-Thiruvallur-Pondy. The majority of this route was known to me as my college was near Avadi. No big surprises on the road except for curious on-lookers who were looking at my dazzling chrome laden bike and my attire. I reached Pondy Dam which to my surprise didn't have much water. (This time of the year, I expected it to be atleast half full). I took some shots of my bike and then some Birds which were flying near the flood gates.
Then I decided to go along a stream which was flowing into the Pondy Dam. so I started from the Dam and went upstream thru the Villages, the road through out was either gravel or of small granite rocks, there was no pucca road. But my RE was just not worried about that and so was my back. After some 4 kms of upstream ride, I came to a place where I could see some HomoSapiens and I took diversion and went inside to discover a small village with a Temple, Lotus Pond and some Houses. Took some snaps of the Lotus (with some comments from the onlookers, who were wondering who was I)

Relaxed for a bit and started again,started feeling hungry as well. My intial plan was go back to chennai in a different route than the one which I took for coming into Pondy. Before the trip I had planned to come back to chennai thru Ranipet, Redhills and Puzhal. I had been to Ranipet once as a kid when my father had a contract running in one of the companies over there.Its an isolated place with a lot of red soil.(Now we know why RedHills is called so)But this route was not marked clearly nor the persons whom I contacted could give me any clear directions, infact one person told me a route and asked me whether I intend to go alone on that route !! Now, me the brave heart went ahead but soon turnned back and decided to go to Thriuvallur, have my breakfast and then decide on the route to be taken. so rode my RE back to Thiruvalur and on the way gave lift to a person who advised me of a good Hotel for Breakfast when we reached Thiruvalur. I went and had my favorite breakfast (Pongal and Vadai), which was quite good, except for the Vadai's size which was quite big (even by my standards :) )!!
Started from the Hotel and decided to take the Avadi-Ambattur-Padi-anna nagar route as I had to go to my RE Dealer to get some of the Bike's papers. As I neared the City, Traffic started to increase and the sun was not helping either. Reached Anna Nagar and got the papers and rode back to my Home by 12:30 PM logging some 165 Kms in the process.

I was a little tired but thanks to my RE I didn't have any body-ache. My RE was ready for more .......