Mission ‘Mazhu’ (Part-I) — Bicycle trip
Cochin Airport to Trivandrum Airport (February 18–26, 2012)
Prologue
My father had owned a bicycle from the day I can stretch myself to remember. He would commute to school on it each day. It would be lifted into the house at night and rested against the window in our front room. I would pretend to ride it, holding on to window bars, even when my feet could barely reach the pedals.
Those were the days when the number of cars in town could be counted on fingers and only a few owned a bicycle.
I was admitted to IIT Madras (1966) and the day arrived for me to leave. My dad asked me hours before I was to leave, “would you like to take the bicycle with you?”. The bicycle thus became a proud family heirloom for me.
I travelled to Madras Central Railway Station with the bicycle in the luggage van. From the station, I set out on my bicycle in a new city, in another state, with no GPS or google maps to help me find the way to IIT Madras campus to start a new life.
Two weeks may have passed at Jamuna Hostel, IITM and a notice went up on the hostel notice board. “Outdoor Club is organizing an overnight bicycle trip to Mahabalipuram. Interested students kindly give their names . . . . .”. I had by then met Mohana Krishnan, another freshman, who had bought a brand new bicycle soon after landing at IIT. We both gave our names. “The rest will be seniors and they will rag you. Watch out”, we were warned. I remember the name of only one of the 3 seniors who made up the five-some on that trip, Neelmegham of Chemical Engineering. It was a memorable trip in which we covered 120 km in 24 hrs. All five of us slept cramped in a 2 man tent, cooked rice-dal-khichdi in water drawn from a deserted well, and saw the temples of Mahabalipuram.
I must have repeated the IIT-Mahabalipuram bicycle trip several times during my 7 years at IITM and also some trips to other destinations.
Twelve years (1973–1984) in Bangalore were lost to cycling. During my first twenty-seven years (1984–2011) at IIT Bombay, I bicycled to work and back but did not venture out on long trips!
On 12th December 2011, we were having dinner at ‘Tanal’, Thevara, Cochin and I was narrating all of the above to a small gathering. Tharun (my nephew) jumped up, “Why not we do a cycling trip in Kerala?”
The idea of Mission ‘Mazhu’ was born that evening. Here I record Mission ‘Mazhu’ (Part-I). Chronologically Mazhu (Part-II) and Mazhu (Part-III) happened later. But I started working through my backups ‘first in — last out’ fashion. So Mazhu (Part-III) appeared on Medium first followed by Mazhu (Part-II) and now finally comes Mazhu (Part-I)
Plans for the bicycle trip were drawn up by Tharun and I. Prof Hemendra Arya, my colleague at IIT Bombay got interested and joined later. Suraj (my son) emailed from Nairobi indicating keen interest. But the distance and expenses involved made us wonder if it was worthwhile for him to join!
Prof Arya and I inquired with airlines about transporting our cycles as checked-in baggage. “Only bicycles with both wheels detachable can be checked in, we were told”. We located the German ‘Schnell’ as the only bicycle in the market that fitted this requirement. But they were available only in the Mountain bike models (not suited for long inter-city rides) and boasted of 7 x 3=21 gears and disc brakes on the front and rear wheels (these features are too common now). Not wanting to wait longer we bought Mountain Bike model Schnells and finalized plans.
February 17, 2012.
All personal items were packed in a haversack and ready. Several items jointly needed by the group (eg. bicycle pump, spare tubes, first aid kit, fluorescent jacket for the front and trailing riders, etc) were distributed evenly between us to carry.
Suraj reached from Nairobi by late at night.
February 18, 2012
Early morning the yellow top cab reported — 2 bicycles and 3 of us (Arya, Suraj and I) set off for the domestic airport.
We were at the Jet Airways counter and checked in the bicycles in their original cartons. In another 3 hours, we were at Cochin Airport. The two bicycles were quickly assembled (with a small amused crowd watching every move) and we came out of the arrival lounge to meet Tharun who was waiting with 2 new 5 gear Hero bicycles that were bought the previous day. These bicycles were delivered at the airport couple of hours before.
We four (Arya, Tharun, Suraj and I) started our journey from Cochin International Airport at Nedumbassery. The first stop was Cochin University of Science & Technology (CUSAT) — a distance of 20 km.
The stop at CUSAT was by design and that is how most days of the trip were planned. Start pedalling by 05:00 hrs each day; reach the next place of night-stay by 11:00 am; check into a hotel; have a quick wash and lunch; proceed to the engineering college nearby; interact with final year students for an hour or two; return to the hotel and rest.
After two hours of interaction with the students of CUSAT, followed by lunch with a few faculty of CUSAT we reached the Guest House for a short rest. We started again at 16:00 hrs and pedalled 12 km to Emerald Hotel, Vyttila, Ernakulam for a night halt.
February 19, 2017
We set off at 05:00 hrs. The restaurant staff had packed sandwiches for breakfast. We were on Aroor bridge by sunrise and it was an ideal setting and time for breakfast.
As we pedalled along the National Highway (NH), we were surprised by a cycling enthusiast who suddenly appeared alongside us. Mr Shibu Basheer was on one of his regular, early morning bicycling rounds. On weekends (that was a Sunday) he stays longer on the road. A group doing cross country cycling was a rare thing those days (not sure if things have changed since then) and Shibu was curious. He rode by my side and we chatted. When it was time for Shibu to turn around and head for his home, we stopped by a Chayakada for tea.
We rode on and stopped just before Chetalai town for tender coconuts. We chatted up the vendor, took snaps, noted down his address to send him a copy of the photograph and finally got back on the road for the last stretch of a ride for the day. Hotel Travancore Palace was just by the side of the NH and looked traditional and grand and we decided to try it out. It turned out to be a great place to spend the day. We had covered 34 km on the second day.
Bath, change of clothes, lunch and we hired a cab and headed to the College of Engineering, Chertala. An interesting 2-hour session with the final year students and we headed back to the hotel to relax and explore the place.
February 20, 2012
We were up early and were on our way by 04:30 hrs. The destination was Alleppey Boat jetty (22 km) to catch the 10:30 Alleppey-Kollam boat. My sister-in-law and her husband who live in Alleppey met us near the boat jetty and we had breakfast together and boarded the boat.
The boat was filled with overseas tourists and we were perhaps the only Indians on the boat apart from the crew. There was a stopover for lunch and we finally reached Amrutapuri by 15:30 hrs (The nearest stop to the engineering college we had agreed to visit).
We bicycled 2–3 km to a resort suggested by locals. It stood by the edge of backwaters and would have been an ideal place to spend a night, but was littered with liquor bottles and appeared as a place frequented by men who wanted to be away from home and family! We pedalled back to the jetty and headed towards Karunagapally town and took rooms on the National Highway (NH) in Hotel Grand Muscat.
The place became a blessing in disguise as right next to the hotel was one of the biggest bicycle stores; run by a chap who had a massive order to supply bicycles to girl students as part of a government scheme. The owner was impressed with our mission and agreed to attend to some specialized tinkering to set right some problems we had with the Schnells.
February 21, 2012
We hired a cab to take us to Sree Buddha College of Engineering situated around 30 km from where we were staying. A session with students was much better organised and we spent more than an hour with the students. Susan was a student at Buddha at that time. I met Susan again in 2016 at Trivandrum, by then a working professional and a smart lady.
We passed through Oachira town famous for its Parabrahma Temple. The “Eduppu Kala” festival is celebrated there from December to January and we were lucky to witness the unwinding of the gigantic idols of ‘Kala’ (Bull) made out of hay and cloth.
We returned to the hotel at Karunagapally, checked out and set off for our next destination — Kollam. We were keen to take a coastal road and hence peeled off from NH and headed westwards. Search for coastal road took us to several dead ends and we had to navigate through private properties, through narrow gaps between huts, and across a deserted railway bridge that we labelled as ‘dangerous to cross pushing the bicycle’ after we had crossed over!
Soon we were next to the sea and had some wonderful stretches to bicycle along. We lost time stopping frequently to enjoy the sights and reached Kollam by 22:00 hrs.
We located a hotel within the city, checked in, had dinner and hit the bed. Arya and I shared a room while Suraj and Tharun shared another.
February 22, 2012
It must have been 03:30 hrs when a mobile rang. I woke up and realized that it was Arya’s mobile and he was busy talking on his phone. I could see he was restless after taking the call, but I was too tired to ask him why? By 05:30 or so he informed me that he had bad news of the passing away of a close relative in Rajasthan and that he had to leave. We searched for flights, booked a seat by the first flight out of Trivandrum, arranged a cab and Arya was off.
It was Tharun, Suraj and I from then on.
During cycling our tea breaks and resting slots were always at Chayakadas (tiny sheds that serve tea and one or two local snacks — usually parippuvada and pazhampori). We would park the cycles outside and step into the Chayakada talking to each other in English. Locals would have marked us as silly guys, sweating it out on bicycles when buses and trains can help cover distances in comfort. They will talk among themselves in Malayalam and laugh at us. We will continue drinking our tea and pretend we have not understood a word. Finally, as we were about to leave Suraj will greet them in chaste Malayalam and their jaws will drop. There were so many such moments during the trip and we had started liking these breaks.
We reached Varkala beach and took about an hour to locate a place to stay. ‘Bamboo resort’ (or some such name) is where we checked in. It was a clean and neat place and very reasonably priced. We three formed the minority Indian tourists amidst predominantly European tourists that had populated the place.
We hopped into a cab and headed for the College of Engineering Attingal to interact with the students. Back to Varkala beach we relaxed, stepped into restaurants, seated ourselves facing the sea and spent hours sipping coffee/tea or nibbling at the omelette.
Varkala beach with its unique topological features was a wonderful place. Our calls back home and the way we described Varkala, motivated Tharun’s parents to drive down from Cochin and an aunt to take the next train from Kozhikode to Varkala.
We stayed the night of the 22nd and 23rd at Varkala beach.
February 24, 2012
We started from Varkala early morning; 04:30 hrs or so. Trivandrum was our destination. But as we were passing by Puthenthope we chanced on a hotel/resort on our right. We turned into the property for a coffee but ended up checking in for the night. Wild Palms on Sea is a homestay (as they prefer to call it); but is a collection of cottages, run under the close supervision of the owner couple who reside in one of the cottages. We spent the afternoon onwards on the beach and the pool.
February 25, 2012
After breakfast, we were ready to leave Wild Palms on Sea for Trivandrum. Suraj and Tharun were wondering what to do with their bicycles. The owner of Wild Palm on Sea made an offer to buy the bicycles at Rs 2000 less than the original price. The deal was stuck. He paid up and allowed them to ride on till Trivandrum and hand them over the bicycles to his property in Trivandrum.
We set off on our last leg. We passed VSSC, and ISRO at Veli and finally checked into Wild Palms on Sea branch at Trivandrum. Handed over the two bicycles and spent the day visiting some relatives. Tharun returned to Cochin with his parents.
February 26, 2012
Early in the morning Suraj and I (along with my Schnell) headed to the airport and caught our flight back to Mumbai.
A wonderful trip came to an end.
Summary
The route we took on our bicycles is racked on google map
Summary of sectors covered with distances and dates are in the table.
At Chertalai, Karunagapally & Varkala we travelled to and from the engineering colleges we visited by cabs and these distances are not included.
We also did some small detours on bicycles (not exceeding 10 to 15 km) that are not captured.
