This day was better than the day we got to kumily, the one that I claimed was the best day ever. Truely Day 12 was the best day ever. We were in heaven all the time. Heaven with respect to the weather, with respect to the scenery. We had to cover a total of around 65 km . We covered the first 30 kms in 5 hours and the next 30 kms in 30 mins :P . ie an average speed of 6 kmph in the begining and 60 kmph in the second 30kms. We were going faster than buses from Munnar to Adimali. We were going so fast that I did not dare to record while cycling - too dangereous. plus the scenery from Munnar to Adimali was good not awesome when compared to Santampara to Munnar via GAP. So I decieded to rather enjoy the ride than take video and risk my life.

We did not start cycling from Santampara as such. Just after Santampara there is a 5 km stretch where wild elephants roam around even during day time. Too risky to cycle through that terrain. So Rejit uncle dropped us at Aana-Eranghal Dam ( roughly translated- elephant sighting dam ). The dam was awesome.. seriously.. From there we set off toward munnar at around 10 am. The plan was to leave Munnar for Adimali atleast by 3pm. So we set out. For 90% of the route from Aana-Eranghal Dam to Munnar, we were travelling through tea estates. Its one hell of an experiance to cycle 25 kms through tea estates. Much better experiance than travelling the same route via a car or a bus . On a cycle you can feel everything around you the best- we could even feel the deep cliffs as we went past them. We could feel the depth of the cliffs when we look at them from our cycles and image the fall if we fell into one of them. Anyway we did not fall into any of them. On the way we passed though a small section of the road (it supposedly highway ) known as the 'GAP'. The road becomes single lane over this section and the cliff becomes steeper but the view is mind blowing. On the other side of the GAP was tea estates . GAP was the highest point of the journey 1800m above sea level. From GAP road, the ride is downhill again through tea estates. Brilliant downhill ride. All of sudden we had this feeling- we deserve this downhill ride for all the efforts that we put in to get to this point. The downhill is video taped. Need to do some processing before I can upload them.

We got to Munnar town at 3:20 pm. According to plan we were supposed to leave Munnar town for Adimaly at 3 pm. Fearing we might get late, and with 35 kms to the place we are staying, we set out immediately. This 35 kms is the distance that we covered in half and hour. We were litterally flying on a cycle.. At some points we were doubtful if the cycle would break up into pieces while going downhill that fast . We were going at more that 60 kmph. Pure joy. Pure estacy after all that climb. Getting high but getting low. On the way downhill we meet two other cyclist from Banglore. The were riding from someplace in Tamil Nadu( I forgot the place :P) and I presume they must have come up via Marayoor supposely another brilliant route. If we had take that route it would have taken us to TN ( so lite only... we were going home..) They were also camping at Adimaly. We could not ride together for long as we had to take a detour to get to Neerajs uncles place where we were camping for the night. With the little chat we had with those two we realised that they were camping at random places like schools etc at night ... cool...

We had some difficulty finding Neeraj's uncles place ... particularly because there was a number of uphill climbs to get to his house. Those uphills were seriously not welcomed after all that downhill ride. Like at Erumely the uphills where very steep as we were then travelling through village roads. Village roads go over a mountain to get to a place. We started laughing our asses out seeing the uphill.. for no reason (technically we were supposed to cry but donno why we just laughed like mad men and then cursed the mountain). Finally we got to place we were staying at about 5 30pm . 1 and a half hours for climbing 15 kms. The next day is the last day of the trip and we will be going home, covering the rest of the distance , what ever is left on day 13.

Alex

This leg of the journey was supposed to be around 75 kms long. We set out at about 9 30 am. We got that late because its not possible to leave early with the temperature at Kumily. Its practically impossible to cycle before 9 am, and we need to get to Shantampara before 5 pm. We hit the state highway 19 which was supposed to take us to Shantampara and Munnar. Throught out the day we were more or less steadly climbing, but the climbing was never boring beacuse we were cyling throught dense cardomom estates. Either side was thick vegitations with the trees overhanging on to the road. Below the trees on either side was cardomom plantations all the way to Shantampara. The weather was awesome. Cold and chilly but since we were cyclying and getting warm in the same time the surrounding temperature suited us perfectly. Initially we were wearing sweater while starting from Murikkadi, Kumali and stuff beacuase of the cold, but soon we removed it as it began to retain the heat that we generated due to the cycling.

Like usual we had lunch on the way at 2pm. This time we had lunch at Nedumkandam. When we were like 15kms away from Shantampara, just 1km from Udumbumchola (:P) town we found a waiting shed on the roadside. Without thinking much we drove into the shed as we were really tired. Just as we left we noticed that the back wheel of A-200 is flat like it happened at Kollam. We were like properly trapped. We dont have the solution to fix the puncture. We filled air into the tyre like we did at Kollam hoping it would last and tried cycling to the next puncture shop. You cant find a puncture repair shop in the middle of a forest. The air was not lasting more than 5 mins. We got the cycle to the next town and found out that the next puncture shop was 18kms away just after Shantampara. There was a slight chance of finding  a person capable of fixing puncture 4kms away. We attempted the 4 kms away shop but finding that the air was not lasting enough ,we realised this way we cant get to the destination before nightfall.The next puncture shop is infact a few kms after the destination. Finding no other option we called for an auto to take us to the puncture shop.

Rejit uncle joined us from Shantampara and helped us find a puncture shop. After repairing the puncture we finally got back to house at Shantampara at around 6 30. I was chatting with Rejit uncle while Neeraj was uploading the photos.When it was my turn to do the blog, I was feeling sleepy.Switched on the comp, and before I could do anything I slept off . Woke up next morning. Now destination Adimali via Munnar

Until next post
Alex

Day 10 was an extra day at Kumily. Its sunday and my parents have arrived at Kumily to attend a function at the church. Nice try we are going to the next destination ... So we camped at Kumily for an extra day. Morning we went to the church- Kumily knanaya church. Neeraj finally had a first hand knanaya experiance. Don't think he would forget that for a long time to come. After the church we took our cycles to my other uncles place. Appu accompanied us for that trip. We skipped the main road and took a short cut to the house. 12kms was cut short to 3km. But that 3 kms was steep uphill. After getting to that house we left the cycles there and went to Thekady and Kambham by car. The plan was to go to Thekady on cycle but since one of my cousins - Don was accompaning us we had to use the car.

We got to thekady at around 3 30. Roamed around the forest for sometime. The view and the climate was awesome. We spoted some black monkeys in addition to the regular monkeys. After taking a number of snaps we left the place at about 4 30pm for Kambam( Tamil Nadu). Kumaly forms the border between Kerala and Tamil Nadu. From kumily its steep downhill to kambam. On a car uphills and downhills does not matter much. There we visited a wine yard. Most of the grapes had been harvested. So there was not much of grapes as such hanging around, except in one particular plot. The wine yards were nice, particularly nice to walk through the wine yard under the wines. It between the wine yard was the set for a tam movie "agathan". Took a few pics in front of that.

Finally we got back to the house at around 9pm. The next day we were leaving for shantampara 3/4th way between Kumily and Munnar.

This day’s route was from Erumeli to Kumali - from Neeraj’s territory to my territory.  The scenary on the way spectacular - I can never ever describe the scenary in this blog, much much beyond what words can convey … I have taken a number of raw video clips. They need to be edited before I can upload them.  I will publish it later .......The scenary shifts from lush dense rubber forest  at Erumeli to thick beautiful cardamom and tea estates. We travelled around 65 kms......but we did not cycle much on the main road. We skipped the main road as much as possible - to enjoy the scenary as much as possible.

We set of from Neeraj’s place at around 9:30. We got late as we were trying to upload some photos in the morning.  The plan was to get to Mundakayam via some local route that Chikku- Neeraj’s cousin knew. We were skipping Erumeli town as well because the Sabharimala season is in full swing and there will not be enough space to walk, let alone cycle. Chikku on his bike guided us for some distance to avoid confusion - lots of criss crossing roads. Finally he left us a few kilometers from his home . The road that we took was taking us through thick rubber estates. The view was awesome and the ride undiscribable - Again fast descents and painfully slow climb - but since it was more of downhill the ride to Mundakayam was extremely pleasurable. On the way the front chain tooth wheel got bend on my cycle. I am not sure how that happened but  I guess the only possibility that it bend when I changed gears when I was standing and cycling . Too much load on a small section. Before I could alert Neeraj, he had speed off and was no where to be seen, plus his phone was switched off - low battery. I need someone to hold the cycle to repair it .. All I could do is slowly push the cycle and hope Neeraj noticed that I was missing and have stopped somewhere. Since it was more of down hill I did not have to push much. Luckly he was not too far away. We meet up and started the repair. Initially I did not know what had happened to the cycle, and why the chain was repeatedly coming off. Having realized that the front tooth wheel was bend, while Neeraj was holding the cycle using 2 stones – one as hammer and other as a nail to make sure that the impact was applied at the right place. Finally we straightened it and set off again.

We reached Mundakayam at around 11 am. From there we caught a Tata Ace to take us to Kuttikanam 24 kms from Mundakayam. The road from Mundakayam to Kuttikayam 24 km of steep continuous climb without one single downhill. The altitude increase but around 1.5 km to 2 km. It started becoming cool all of a sudden.  With in half an hour we were at Kuttikanam the highest point in the locality. The main road to Kumily from there is more or less level but obviously there are climbs and descents on the way. At Perimedu we had lunch, and then we set then we quit the main road. We were going to Peruntenpara , a scenic place where a number of films are supposedly taken.  There is one issue with quiting the main road. The road becomes worser in terms of potholes and more than that the climbs and descent becomes frequent and steeper. The 4.5 km from the main road to Perunthampara tooks as almost an hour to cover. When we were almost there we nearly gave up, thinking we would have to go back the way to get to the main road and then cycle 32km to Kumily via the main road. It was almost 3 pm by then. We finally got to Perunthenpara. The place is awesome.  The speciality is that you get to see a lot of places from that point plus one side is a huge cliff. Asking some Ice cream guy over  there we found out that Instead of going back 4.5 km if we continue down the road around 8 km we can get to the main road again. We would be going through private estates and we would be saving around 15km .Added benefit – its downhill almost all the way. The catch- the road virtually does not exist. Only jeeps can traverse that route. We took it. The best decision ever made. We were cycling through tea and cardamom estates. Needless to say fantastic.....No one was visible for long distances except for occational estate watchmen and few laborers. The road was bad, very very bad, just like the ice-cream guy said. In another hour and a half for us to cover that 8 km just because the roads where bad. It was like the more offroad that the cycles to take. Finally we got to the main road at Vandiperiyar and on travelling further we met up with my parents who set out to Kumily just a few hours back from Ernakulam ( we got to that point in 8 days time :P). We got to my uncles place at Chottupara at around 5 pm.  Keeping the cycles there we left for my other uncle place at Murukadi on car. Ahh its nice to have a car ride after a long while.

Summing up todays ride was the best ever. No sun, no rain, cool climate, astounding scenary. Until today we were like thinking someone else might have done what we have done so far. With today’s ride, we have a feeling maybe we are the first to experience the kind of ride we had today. Maybe some crazy foreigners might have experienced it – nobody else. We are also not bad .. Crazy ??  Such heavenly was the ride today. We are camping at Kumily for an extra day. Will go to church,thekadi and maybe Kambham ( Tamil Nadu) tomorrow.

Alex

  This day we traveled around 40 km today which was supposed to be a silly distance compared to the 75 km that we covered from Kollam to Thiruvananthapuram. Under estimation- serious under estimation.  Route Pattanamtitta – Ranni – Vechuchira ( Erumeli ).   Pathantitta – Ranni was peaceful. We covered that 19 km in an hour. Ranni - Vechuchira was hell and heaven combined. The hills that we cover today from Ranni to Vechuchira were very very steep and insanely long. There is not much of altitude difference between the two points Pathanamtitta and Erumeli, but all the way it was steep  1 km vertical climb spread out over a horizontal distance of 2 kms, then a 1 km vertical decent. We were literally climbing a hill and then descending. In the beginning we attacked the hills but after long ascend the climb never seemed to end. This was all because we did not take the main road to erumeli. It would be too busy over there with the sabarimala season full in full swing. We had taken the village roads, the reason for the steep uphills and steep downhills. Never did we have to push the cycles at any point of time in the whole journey, and today we pushed, pushed real hard. Each slope we pushed for more than half an hour, but after getting to the top we had this feeling of “Yeah, I earned this ride downhill !!!” . The ride downhill was steep, fast and scary.  But the ride was long…real long …. But just when the we start enjoying for a while, comes the next uphill slope. All that we could do is look at the long steep uphill slope, stare at the slope again to see if the intensity of the slope has decreased or not. Seeing no difference, all we could do was get down from the cycle and start pushing. Multiple gears of our cycle is on no use at all. We have not sweated so much as we have done today. The route from Ranni to Vechuchira even though was very tiring- ohh you have no idea... , the route was through thick lush rubber forest . That was good. Check out the pictures when we upload them.  The net is bad here as well. I am not even sure when this blog will go online.

At Ranni, my mom’s home town, we had breakfast at Renji uncles place.  He had arranged for TV coverage, but we were late by an hour, so they basically went somewhere else anyway. They got more glamorous people for their coverage. Never did I imagine that I would be coming to Ranni on cycle. We snapped a few pics from the front of the house at Ranni and a few pics from the front of the Ithalapally where I got baptized. Visited appans house and we left for Vechuchira when all the climbing happened. Thinking about the climb, we were wondering that if we had had this leg of the journey on day 1 we probably would have abandoned the whole trip. Tomorrow we are going to Kumali. More of pushing tomorrow I guess. :P Lets see… " be optimistic , success lies in confidence " my dad always says

Ha…there was another interesting incident today, we met another cyclist from US. He was cycling alone but he had a car accompanying him. He had already covered munnar, marayur, all that kind of places and he was nearing the end of his journey. We did snap a pic with him. Until next time..

50 kms to a lower altitude. That’s what we did today. We were expecting downhill slopes but again like yesterday it’s a mix of uphills and downhills. When you are expecting downhill slopes the uphill slopes are more noticeable. Every 100m that we descent there is a 50m climb. Haa and there was lots and lots of cross wind. One it reduces our momentum when coming down a slope and then it makes cycling very difficult. The momentum becomes so low that for the slightest uphill after a downhill ride we still have to cycle.

The ride till Punaloor was good.  Real good. Lots of scenic spots to cycle by, amazing views, cool climate, gentle downhill slope, rare uphill. About the climate- Till we got to Konni there was practically no sun at all. It was cloudy- perfectly suited for cycling. With the clouds visible in the sky, it was clear that it was raining somewhere but all the while until today, we were never stopped or delayed but the rain.

We went by the 1877 suspension bridge at Punaloor. 1877 is long long time ago.. Sometimes looking at an ancient structure , I always wonder how that place used to look like when it was used. It would have been one of the major structures during that time. It would have been the biggest structure in that area and maybe people from far would have come to see this huge suspension bridge.

Anyway, we did not stay at Punaloor for long. It was getting hot and cycling in the sun is a tiring business. We also had to be extra careful because of the Sabarimala vehicles that drive by us close to the speed of light. The second half of today’s journey had been the most boring of all the days atleast as far as I am concerned. There was no radio signals and I did not have any songs on my phone as well. I formatted my phone memory expecting to use that memory card for the cameras. My advice- never do that, always have some music on your phone when you are going for such kind of long distance treks/cycling or any kind of activity that involves repeative-ness. It’s all in the mind. If the mind gets tired or bored then you are screwed, big time. Right now I am transferring some music into the mobile for the rest of the radio less journey.

We had lunch at Koodal, where an uncle known to Neeraj bought us lunch. After the lunch we forgot to thank him for the lunch, which I reminded Neeraj just as soon as we set out. Neeraj was like “ Okay , we will call him and thank him”. Then comes a call from an unknown number. Misunderstanding the caller to be that uncle he gave the caller a big thanks from the bottom of his heart only to realize that it was my father.  We could not cycle for the next 5 mins because we could not stop laughing.

We went to konni elephant house where we posed next to some elephants. After that we got to pathanamtitta town where another uncle known to Neeraj arranged us a lodge to stay. Next up Erumeli.

The delay in this blog turning up online is because of the lack of network for TATA INDICOM at Thenmala. There had been a slight technical snag. We regret the inconvenience cause. :P

This day marks the beginning of the next leg of the journey. No more lovely beaches.  Its all hills from now on.  No more flat terrain. Its all uphill and downhill slopes.  We covered a total of 75 km today on cycle and about 40 km on bus. The 40 km on bus because I forgot to take my wallet from the house that we stayed at Thiruvananthapuram and had to take a bus to go and collect the purse. We left at 7 15 from Thiruvananthapuram and at 8 15 am, Joseph uncle with whom we were staying with last night called up to convey that I forgot to take my wallet. We had a quick chat on what to do and decided to go and recover the wallet. I checked with a an auto guy if he can go back all the way to the house ( at Vattiyoorkavu - TVM ). Non of the auto guys wanted to go in that direction as there was a auto- taxi strike in the city. I had to catch 2 buses to get to the home where we stayed. Neeraj was staying back to stand guard to the cycles and try and upload something to the internet. Uploading did not happen as there was not network over there.

Finally I got back with the wallet at about 9 30. A lot of thanks Joseph uncle and Laly aunty. I did not know where Neeraj and the cycles where, so got down at some other stop and walked about 2 km on the way back.

We quickly refreshed and set out for rest of the journey.  Although we were expecting uphill slopes, surprisingly there were a number of long down hill slopes, which made us wonder whether we were actually climbing or descending. The cycles are awesome stuff. The make the hills look silly. Seriously, at the end of the day we were thinking “did we actually climb all this distance”. Because more that the climbs what we remember are those fast descents.

Once we got to Kulathupuzha , under a bridge in front of the Kulathupuzha Temple, we found immensely huge fishes. You  wouldn’t believe me if I tell you that  some of them were as big as a person. According to legend, these fishes turn up at this place due to lord Aiyappan’s presence. These fishes are not just huge, they are very colorful as well. They look like 50 times bigger than the largest carp that you ever seen.

At about 5 pm, we got to the Dam site where we were supposed to stay for the night. The Inspection Bungalow of KSEB that we were supposed to stay is just below the Dam. So essentially we stayed right next to the Dam. :P  That’s about it. We had seen amazingly awesome sceneries on the way. The experience is completely different when you are on cycle as compared to some other vehicle.

Day 5 we did not travel much. We were halting at Trivandrum / Thiruvananthapuram for a day . Morning at around 9am we had breakfast and left for the city at around 10 am. We had certain thing in mind. Get the cycles seviced, get a mini tripod , roam around the city etc. We set out to do the primary task- find some place to service the cycles. We had to go to the city to find one of the BSA GO stores to service the cycles as no one else was capable of servicing these cycles. It took us sometime to find the store. In fact we went right past the store but did not notice the shop as the shop was on a downhill slope. We were going decently fast and did not notice the shop the first time. We left the cycles at the shop when around roaming by walking.Before that, when we were trying to find out the cycle shop,lot of people did notice us.:)  We were still wearing the T-shirts .Lot of people was curious of what we are up to.

We then when to visit Patmanabhapuram Palace. Another of the amazingly awesome palaces in Kerala. After the Palace I got a mini tripod- Might help with camera mounting on cycle. Then we quickly checked out Big Bazar next to the cycle shop- just to enjoy their air conditioner, seriously hot outside. We then collected the cycle from the shop.They serviced the cycles for free. Gr8

Then what did we do? Roamed around for a while here and there, and decided to check out the KTDC ( Kerala Tourism Developement Corporation ) office to see if they can support us in some manner on the road. Sadly they were not interested. Government stuff !!!.  Should have  send them a proposal earlier it seems. We had already send them a mail. No replies obviously. Anyway,when we were about to leave the KTDC office we met an interesting person.He is Mr.Sundereshan Nair and he used to be round table boat rally champion. He also was the first person to drive the KTDC hovercraft.He is now retired. He gave us a lot of insights on tourists and tourism.

We then went to International Film Festival  free show and watched a movie for about  an hour. I finally managed to meet blucky there after calling him all day. Could not meet Kanju as he was called in sick. Alex-crack and AnandI  have no idea where they were. Phone switched off.

Finally we got back to the house at around 8 pm having travelled around 30kms for the day. Tomorrow - Phase 2 the hills start ....


Alex  - on road

Time to blog again.... Like I said in the previous blog, we had a flat tyre that was not repaired because it was sunday. So we woke up early morning but could not leave because of the flat tyre. Neeraj went in search of some place to fix the tyre at around 8 am but did not find any shops open till 9 30. Mean while I was editing the website. Its most frustrating when the net does not work. Thankfully at Thiruvananthapuram, which happens to be our pitstop for day 4 Tata Indicom works fine. Here we would like to thank the KSEB Engineers Association officials for giving accommodation at their guest house at Kollam.

Of all the days till now, today had been the worst. 

And immediately after the downhill slope gets over, there is an uphill slope. Curse who ever comes to the mind and  started attacking the slopes. The altitudes of Trivandrum and Kollam are the same . Both are sea cities. Imaging if there is a steep downhill like in the video, there has to be an equalent uphill. Maybe we would have climbed atleast 1 km vertical distance. It was a test of endurance, and it was all in the mind. The heat of the sun, the constant steep uphill climbs, and the thought about the rest of the distance to be covered was heavily wearing us down. What did we do? Took out our mobiles and turned on the radio. Radio Mango 91.9 - "Natillengum pattayi " and Club FM 93.5 - "I donno remember what their caption was " came to our rescue. Seriously, we were expecting to travel some 50 kms and then catch an auto or something. no we did not have to.... We covered the whole 75km stretch in 5 hours flat. Average speed of 15kms per hour. We cycled continiously for an hour and then took a 5 mins break. After 2 hours of cycling we stopped in front of an closed shop and crashed on the varandhah for an hour- from - 1pm to 2pm ( cycled from 11am to 1pm). We woke up at 2pm and set out again. By then we had coved 30 kms. By 4 30 pm we were only 15 kms from the city.

We then went to visit Balu, our classmate at Udyogamandal School, doing his final year at CET. Was supposed to meet kanju and blucky as well, but like usual, blucky should have kept his mobile somewhere and must have gone out to play. So he was not picking up the phone late in the afternoon. I did call him earlier... Lets see maybe will meet him tomorrow.

Thiruvananthapuram marks the end of phase 1- the plains. Now we are heading to the hills. We are taking a break for a day at Thiruvananthapuram for various reasons. We have not been around much at Thiruvanathapuram, have not seen blucky, kanju ... ,the cycles need servicing... Wheels are slightly miss alligned after the 230 km trip.

Next destination Thenmala. Tomorrow we might go to kanyakumari on train.. maybe... until next post...tata...

Alex

We set out from NTPC guest house at about 7 20 am, after planning to leave the place at 6 am. It had rained earlier and the atmosphere was very good, little bit of fog but that was starting to clear as soon as the sun came out. We would like to thank the NTPC officials for accommodating us in their guest house and for the plant visit. 


We had found out from various people that there are a few palaces on the way. We only had to travel 47.5 km today, so we were not in too much of a hurry, and Neeraj's muscle pains were easing out. We had covered around 10 km from our starting place when we met a special person. His name is Nelson Gomes. He was from Air force and during his time at airforce , he had gone on cycling expeditions and in one such expedition he had cover a total of approx 1900 km in a span of 20 days in the hilly terrains of UP,Mussorie in 1987. He took us to his home, showed us his collections, his photo gallery and gave us a lots of inspiration and a cup of coffee each. We were awestruck with his cycling trips and the kind of photos that he possessed . He used to cover 70 km on mountain terrain and 210 km on pain terrain per day. Yeah and we were covering 47.5 kms on plain terrain that day. One fourth... not bad.

Aftter snapping a few pictures and a lot of video at his place, we left. Ya before we left his place he did tell us how to park the cycles without the stand. That was useful, very useful. Our destination this time was Krisnapuram kottaram (Palace). This is pretty small palace but very beautiful palace. It looks like a large house, not exactly like a palace. This palace is particularly known for having the largest mural paining in kerala. The guide did tell us the exact diamentions, but i don't remember it right now. It also has a private access to the pool from within the house that used to be used by the womenfolk long time back when there were still occupants in this place. Check out the pics .. That should give you a better idea.  After looking around that palace in detail we left there at around 10 30 am.

On the way we had lunch at Chavara. Beef biriyani. We had skipped breakfast as we completely forgot about it. Lots of things happened in the morning. :) We finished of the biriyani in no time. Next aim - find an internet cafe- The net has been so bad that we were not able to upload anything. Sunday... who opens net cafe around noon on a sunday. So we cycled around without luck. Finally we  decieded to get to kollam and see if there are any net cafes around there. Kollam was only around 15 kms then. So we hit the road again, but luckly we found a cafe on the way. We almost started uploading stuff when we got a call from the guest house with the message that the person at the guest house have been waiting for us since 12. Its 2 pm and we still have around 9 kms to go. We packed our bags, gave the internet cafe guy Rs 10 for touching his comp and got to the guest house at 2 30.

By then we were very tired , having cycled a lot in the sun. We put some pics for uploading and crashed planning to go to Astamudi Lake at 5 pm. We woke up , took a shower and went downstairs to get our cycles to go to the lake, only to find that the tyre for the heavier cycle- the one that I was using (A-200)  was flat. Now we are in a big mess. Its sunday and no repair shops would be open. We immediately started the hunt for a cycle repair shop. We did not find any. Having asked a lot of people, and having pity on our situation one of the people joined us in the hunt to find someone to who could fix the puncture. He was slighly drunk :P but he did not seem harmful and we definately needed a pucture fix. He took us to a lot of place but sadly, every single place was closed. Then we went in seach of a person called Anandan who supposedly could solve our issue. We went around seaching for him for about an hour and finally when actually managed to locate him, he seemed to have stopped fixing puncture 6 months back and had sold his equipments. Our lake plans for the night and the early morning trip to  Trivandrun 75kms away is in waters now.. Now we will have to wait till 9 30 in the morning to get things fixed and then set out to Trivadrum. 75 kms is nearly double the kms that we cycled on day 3. Let see.. "Success lies in Confidence" my dad always says

Alex