Agumbe: Ignoring the omens
Unlike my other travelogues, this post isn't going to help you plan a trip in any way whatsoever. This is a personal account of an exciting journey that I had set out on with some of my friends. Writing this had given me a chance to relive that thrilling
day and I do hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did while typing it.
On the eve of August 6, which was a holiday owing to NITK’s
Institute Foundation Day, 7 of my classmates and I formed a plan to hire bikes
and ride to a nearby hill station named Agumbe. Cops, breakdowns, relentless rains, a
fainting friend: What we imagined to be a slow leisurely monsoon ride ended up
becoming a luckless and yet, exciting adventure.
Here’s a timeline of the events that took place after we
woke up on the morning of the 6th.
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| Bike Clinic (Near Pumpwell Circle), Mangalore Contact them on +91 98 86 114622 to hire bikes |
0900: We wake up at 9 instead of 6 and reach the bike rental
garage only two hours later at 11. Overestimated ourselves, didn't we?
1100: The manager at the garage asks for photocopies of our
IDs before renting us his bikes. Sukruth and Ashutosh leave to look for a shop
to get it done. An hour passes and they still haven’t returned. Things start to
get tense.
1230: They return at last. Turns out there was this blackout
at the shop and BOTH of them had funnily forgotten to take their cell phones
from college!
1300: Didn't have enough money on us to pay the advance.
Bhojwani, Nirlendu and I go to 3 different ATMs. Funnily, they’re all out of
order! Thankfully, the next one we go to isn't.
1400: 4 bikes for the 8 of us. 10 minutes into our journey,
we’re going uphill on the Chowki flyover when the bike that Bhojwani and I are
on unexpectedly breaks down! We push the bike to a service station where the
mechanics tell us that it would take them 2 hours to get it repaired.
1600: We have lunch and return relieved that we're able to start
at last when we get yet another shocker: Nirlendu falls unconscious!
He had forced himself to come on this trip despite not feeling
well. Sukruth holds him close and rushes him back to NITK on his bike. Seeing
that the plan was going nowhere, 3 of our friends decide to quit, hand back their
bikes and return.
Bhojwani and I were in no mood to give up yet though. We choose to
head back, meet Sukruth and Premi and then plan our next move.
1800: We decide to continue with the plan even if it’s just the
four of us. The initial plan was to return from Agumbe at 1800 and here we were
starting our journey at the same time!
1830: We're passing by Padubidri and it starts to pour heavily. Very heavily. We consider getting back while we still can but then decide against it.
1830: We're passing by Padubidri and it starts to pour heavily. Very heavily. We consider getting back while we still can but then decide against it.
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1930: Drenched, we halt at Manipal, hoping to continue after
the rains subside. Instead, they only get worse. Spent the next 4 hours in
Dollops.
0000: People in Manipal had warned
us against travelling to Agumbe at night since the area was a Naxal-affected one but we hadn't come this far for nothing had we?
0100: We’re passing by this locality named Hiriyadka when 2
policemen gesture us to stop our bikes. They ask for the bikes’ papers and we
realize that we had forgotten to take them from garage’s manager! The cops
scold us and tell us to get back quickly before we could get caught by a senior
officer.
We restart our bikes and it starts to rain heavily again. We
turn them off and stand under a shelter. A police jeep approaches us and stops
right next to our bikes. Our worst fears are confirmed. It’s the Superintendent
himself!
After learning about us not having the bikes’ documents, he asks
us to hand over their keys and get inside the jeep. We negotiate with him in
the rain while he sits comfortably inside his vehicle. In the end, he pardons
us, seizes our IDs instead and threatens to contact our Dean unless we hand
over the papers the following morning.
0200: Drenched and disheartened, we ride back to Manipal,
stop near an ATM, remove our soaked t-shirts and shiver in the cold trying to
dry them. 4 shirtless college boys outside an ATM must have looked fishy, for another
police jeep came towards us.
The cops get out of their vehicle and shout at us to put on
our t-shirts and get the hell out of Manipal!
0230: We ride to Udupi. A short distance from the bus stand,
the bike that Sukruth and Premi are on comes to a halt: The fuel tank’s empty.
Could our luck get any worse today?!
We tinker with the tank a bit and manage to start the bike and
take it to the bus stand. Bhojwani and I roam around the town to learn that the
first petrol pump was to open only at 6. We’re stranded!
0300: We’re back at the bus stand. A few moments of silence
and we see another police jeep coming towards us. Desperate not to be forced
out of Udupi, we explain our plight to the cops and manage to convince them
that we weren't up to anything at all. Exhausted, I sit quietly on one of the
seats and fall asleep only to be awoken by Premi’s scream of delight an hour
later.
0400: Unable to sleep, Premi had dismantled the bikes and managed
to find their papers. There was now nothing to stop us from getting to Agumbe! Apart
from the fuel, that is. We wait till dawn.
0600: Breakfast at a shack. We depart after refuelling our
bikes. An hour later, we’re in the Hiriyadka Police Station to collect our IDs,
ignoring the cops’ hour long lecture.
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0800: 20 kilometres away from Agumbe and that’s
when the chain of our bike breaks!
We take the bike to a mechanic near this town named Hebri.
While he asks to wait, we go to a restaurant, have breakfast and fall asleep on
the tables there.
1000: The bike's been fixed but proceeding to Agumbe now would mean that we’d have to exceed the 24 hour window we were given to return our bikes. We’re in no mood to pay a fine and hence decide to head back to Mangalore. Biker boys Bhojwani and Sukruth take the wheel and race along the NH 66 at 100 kmph to get us back on time.
1000: The bike's been fixed but proceeding to Agumbe now would mean that we’d have to exceed the 24 hour window we were given to return our bikes. We’re in no mood to pay a fine and hence decide to head back to Mangalore. Biker boys Bhojwani and Sukruth take the wheel and race along the NH 66 at 100 kmph to get us back on time.
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1200: Bhojwani and I are now ahead of the other bike and
we’re passing by our college. Well, the world had to know what we were up to
didn’t they? ;-) We enter the college and proceed to the academic blocks in a bid "to be seen" when a car a few metres behind us sounds its horn. We look behind only to discover that the man inside the car is the Dean himself! Bhojwani rides the bike through the gaps left by
people leaving for lunch and dashes to the nearest exit of the college. Close shave!
1215: We’re passing by Mangalore Port when Bhojwani
confesses to me that he had just fallen asleep for a few seconds while riding the
bike. Frightened, I start talking about the most mundane of things just to keep
him awake.
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1230: An hour left to return the bikes. We’re 5 kilometres from the garage and it’s now our bike’s turn to run out of gas! Bhojwani and I push it to a nearby petrol pump and request the workers to fill petrol worth a meager 20 rupees. Why pay the manager more after all? :P
1300: 2 kilometres to go. We’re at a roundabout near Kadri without our helmets on. A policewoman blows her whistle and signals to us. We speed away in the opposite direction!
We then put our helmets on and return to the roundabout hoping that we wouldn't be recognized but I think we had almost forgotten how jinxed we were that day: The cop blows her whistle again. Bhojwani accelerates while I lower my bag to hide the number plate :P
1315: 500 metres away and we get a call from Premi. They've been detained by the cops who want to see their bike’s papers. Turns out their papers were with us!
1330: We return both bikes and have lunch hoping that our bus wasn't going to crash on its way to college :P
Funnily, the fact that ill-omened things just kept happening to us during our unfinished journey to Agumbe ended up giving us yet another experience we would always remember. How true that travel isn't about the destination! SoSpeakUpNow!, push yourself to set out on these trips and forge all those unforgettable memories!
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Funnily, the fact that ill-omened things just kept happening to us during our unfinished journey to Agumbe ended up giving us yet another experience we would always remember. How true that travel isn't about the destination! SoSpeakUpNow!, push yourself to set out on these trips and forge all those unforgettable memories!