What do you do when you learn that you have lost your job for little reasons of your own? You sulk. You fret. You yell. It marked stressful days ahead when twenty four-year-old Ashith R realised that he had lost his job as a site supervisor of a construction company. But it lasted only until the morning when he packed his backpack and decided to leave it all behind and take life for a ride!
Starting from Thiruvananthapuram, he took the Kochi- Alappuzha - Palakkad route. “It was a horrible road. To makes things worse, it started raining and I had to get a plastic cover from a house on the way to protect my bag and camera. I was forced to stick to 30-40 km/hr speed because of the bumpy road,” says Ashith who rode at almost 140km/hr in Thirunelveli where the road was bump-free and tyre-friendly.
On his biking trip across South India, he travelled almost 2000 kms and went to places like Bandhipur, Coimbatore, Ooty, Mysore, Bangalore, Selam, Mathura and Thirunelveli. Sometimes he stayed over at a friends place, sometimes at low-budget lodges. The total trip expenses amounted just to ` 6000 out of which 4000 was for petrol. “Travelling alone has its own challenges, but then it also lets you find peace with yourself,” he says.
Gazing at the pruned shrubs and every-coloured blooms, Ashith strolled through 55 acres of the Ooty Botanical garden. As he stepped out he started enquiring for Hotel Sanjay, this was the place where he stayed when he had first visited Ooty along with his friends during a school excursion.
He paused every time he saw something interesting enough to be clicked. Apart from monuments and local life, he recalls watching elephants, horses and a porcupine. “In fact in Ooty, I saw this horse and I wanted to click a picture of my bike next to the horse. And every time I parked and was about to click, the horse moved away,” he says as he shows the photograph he finally managed to click. He even has snapshots of green name boards of the places he visited with his bike next to them.
Ask him to recall a dangerous moment from the trip and he distinctly remembers the ride via Gudalur. “It was very misty and there was a faint drizzle, I couldn’t even see the immediate road ahead. The other side was a deep trench.”
This isn’t his first biking expedition. Along with his biking gang, called XBHP, he had gone on a trip to Dhanushkodi. He has a warning for all the foodies who plan on going for biking trips. “When you are travelling, especially on the bike, its better to eat cakes and biscuits and avoid oily stuff. Try not to experiment unless you are sure you have the place to crash in case your tummy gets upset.” All said, he tasted halwa from Thirunelveli, ghee-sweets from Mysore and he even bought lots of sweets and homemade chocolate from Ooty!
This week-long trip was more than just a fun ride, it was a stress buster and cleared his mind from all things gloomy and grey.
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