Bangalore.

Well today is the second day of my trip and I'm at Bangalore.

Yesterday I started My Journey from Kannur at 9.40am and reached Bangalore around 6pm. The distance is 310kms. The roads through the ghats are very nice and winding, and made for some excellent riding. I had few times when I had something rubbing the road on both sides as I leaned into the corner. I suppose the culprit will most likely be the crash guard.

I will have to inspect that soon as I get to Guwahati.

Had a few stops in between for break and stuck to tender coconut and sugarcane juice for the whole ride.

Entering Bangalore was quite a different story. There was a lot of traffic. 2 lane roads had 5 lanes of traffic and it was so close that my saddle bags were rubbing on adjacent vehicles. A lot of this traffic has to do with the construction of Metro rail service.

Initially my plan was to start my journey on 21st and head to Mysore to my uncles farm.But since they had a case of flu I had to skip this step and head straight to Bangalore the next day.

In Bangalore I stayed at hotel Sriram Residency near Bangalore city railway station. The place is neat and nice. They had a nice buffet breakfast which was also up-to mark. The place cost me Rs3200 for 2 nights which was single occupancy AC.

Later after freshening up I went to the Parcel booking office to get some details about loading my Bike as luggage. The gentleman at the counter suggested that I come the next day as the train was only 2 days later.

Took a nice stroll through Majestic area and had some good vegetarian kannadiga food on the way back to the hotel

I am a tea drinker but when I am in Bangalore I turn into a constant coffee drinker. The filter coffee is a speciality in Karnataka, the volume is quite less compared how we Keralites drink our tea, but the taste as sweetness makes up for it.

So today I went in the morning to book the parcel and to my horror every parcel office employees told me that it was not possible to load the bike as luggage as they do not cater to guwahati. They suggested that I go to Cantonment railway station where they have 3 trains per week to Guwahati and book it as parcel.The only problem was that the next train from Cantonment was 2 days away which would mean I'll lose 2 days of my ride and will be forced to make up for lost time.

Finally a lot of effort, persuaded the parcel office supervisor to load the bikd

The sad part of all of this was that it took almost the entire day and luckily Sri who I met through the Himalayan forum on Facebook and later in Kannur was there through out the afternoon to give me some company.

We later headed out for lunch at the Hotel Empire famous for its Malabar cuisine.

Will be heading into the station in the early hours and then a 2 and a half day journey to Guwahati, where I'll meet up with Ben to start our journey through the Himalayas.