we passed the place where there is right turn leading to TIMBUKTU, and @ 10 km ahead is PENUKONDA, who I am told is the Kannada name for Kumbhakarna, Ravana's giant brother who used to sleep for six months. At this place there is a massive life-size statue of a sleeping Penukonda, with various lesser mortals trying to wake him up by poking at various parts of his body. We hit Bangalore much after dark and hit the sack.

Next afternoon, from Bangalore, we moved southwest towards Calicut (also known as Kozhikode) via Mysore and Gundlupet. On this stretch you get about the best (and cheapest) udipi food. One plate idli, two plain Dosai (not paper thin like in Pune, but quite substantial and filling) and two filter coffees cost just Rs.32/-, probably impossible in any other region. And the quality was one of the best I've ever eaten.

We entered Kerala through the southern part of Wayanad district. This road took us through the Wayanad wildlife sanctuary. It was quite late at night, very dark, and there was absolutely no traffic. The road was so bad, it was worse than non-existent. There were half built and half collapsed culvert bridges with no warning signs, suddenly appearing boulders and mud heaps, girders, torsteel rods strewn here and there as well as various types of construction equipment lying around haphazardly. Potholes were craters rather than holes. And there were no warning signs of any kind. In a while I understood why.

We espied a huge boulder on the left, and we felt it moved. So the Qualis which was following the bikes, honked. The boulder moved faster and like, turned. It was a wild elephant, who raised his trunk and trumpeted. Panic! The Qualis driver stepped on the accelerator and the Novas zoomed while the others on the back seat of the Qualis quickly started winding up the windows. How stoopid! As if you can stop an elephant by closing the glass window! Ha! That's reflex action. Survival instinct. Programmed behaviour. No logic. Take a picture? Forget it! Run for your life! Don't waste time even looking back! That split second maybe the difference between tomorrow or never ever! In the event, Shri Elephant Maharaj did not think it was worth his while to give us chase. A short distance later we came upon a nearly collapsed bridge. It is a wonder the Novas did not fall into the river. Here, we did see a signboard, which said, "NO PARKING. NO WAITING. ELEPHANTS CROSSING. It seems that the educated elephants cross at this place. Obviously, the one that trumpeted at us was uneducated.

While the elephant was an un-anticipated surprise, the anticipated tete-a-tete with Shri Veerappan did not happen. We believe this is Veerappan's territory, and seeing how thick the forest was and how steep and bad the road was, one can imagine why Veerappan cannot be caught. On this stretch we were crossing from the Deccan plateau, over the Western Ghats, down to the Kerala coastal belt. Wish we could have done it in daylight. We hit Calicut (Kozzhikode) much after midnight, grabbed a bite at the Bus Station, got to the hotel and hit the sack.

Next morning (17.Dec.2003), we set out for Alappuzha (Allepey). One thing I came torealize is, that what the river Ganges is to UP & Bihar, NH.17 is to Kerala. It seems the whole of Kerala lives along NH.17, and just as river towns in UP/Bihar begin where water ends, so most of thebuildings in Kerala (bang on NH.17) are touching the road. Widening this road is impossible. Also travelling north south on NH.17, you don't know where one town ends and the next one, begins. It is very thickly populated & inhabited. Driving on this road is no pleasure. In fact it is a pain, not because road quality is bad, but because there is too much traffic, too many people and too many buildings! The same NH.17 a thousand km north, in Maharashtra, is a pleasure to drive on. We made it to Alappuzha after dark, but not too late. We turned in early because next morning we were going for a boat ride in the world famous Backwaters of Kerala.

The backwaters are a wonder of nature. I am not sure whether this is freshwater (fit to drink), seawater, or brackish. Though I did not have the guts to drink it and find out, I believe it is brackish. There must be thousands of islands in these backwaters spread over hundreds of square kilometres, and lakhs of people living on these islands, going about their daily chores nonchalantly, unmindful of tourist laden boats shooting their life with cameras and peeping into their lifestyle with binoculars. Boats, are to them, what buses are to us and instead of bus stops, they have boat-stops. Gawd! I'd any day prefer the backwaters to Kerala to the ice of Kashmir.

After a couple of hours of boat ride, we got back to land, mounted the bikes and headed south towards our final destination-KanyaKumari (KK). Today is the penultimate day of our odessy. KK is in TN. NH.17 ended at Ernakulam=kochi=Cochin. From here on we ride on NH.47, and KK is 65 km southeast of the Kerala border. It was almost dark when we hit KK. We parked our Novas, and I immediately got into the "Measure-it-fill-it-shake-it-fill-it-shake-it-fill-it-Until you can fill no more", routine as described in the beginning of this story.

Mission accomplished. Everything and everyone was in one piece. No accidents. Everybody ship-shape. Bikes in fine fettle. Not even a puncture in 4000 kms. Two things about the bikes however, I must mention, both apparently related to the servicing we got done at the Kinetic dealer at Nagpur. After dark, the headlight of one of the Novas would not light. Investigations revealed water. Apparently the washing was too vigorous. The water was wiped off and problem solved. The other was oil leak from crankcase of same bike. Investigations revealed that it was overfilled!
We bled it to the specified level and leak stopped. This looked like a case of over enthusiastic mechanic. Young fellow. Newly employed. New job. Can't blame him. Law of Nature. "Naya Mullah zyada Namaz padhta hai".

Of the three Novas, one, MP.09.LA.7620 returned an overall average of 64.64 km per litre.
The second, MP.09.LA.7621 returned an average of 65.06 km per litre. The third, MP.09.LA 7622 returned an average of 67.67 km per litre. Thus the overall fuel average of all three Novas came out to be 65.79 km per litre.

To most people using any un-geared scooter, these figures may look incredulous. Fact is these scooters were ridden single seat on open highways at constant speeds of around 45 kph, except in the Nagpur-Hyderabad stretch, where due to the long distance (510 km) needed to be covered in the specified time I removed the restriction on speed or else we would not have been able to make it on time. Consequently on the Nagpur-Hyd stretch we got the worst fuel average of the whole journey. Also there was very little start-stop operation as there is in city traffic. It is the start-stop operation that drinks petrol. Add to this the over 112 km per litre average we got on the Kashmir to Jammu sector, the high drinking on the Nagpur-Hyd sector got evened out.

Truth is, this was a K2K Rally. Kashmir to KanyaKumari. All kinds of terrain. From the northern end of the country to the southern tip. From the high altitudes of Kashmir to the plains of Hindustan, and down to sea level on the Kerala coast and KK. From freezing Kashmir to sultry, sweaty, KK. From minus five Celcius to plus 40 Celcius. This is the entire country, the way God made it. And the Novas did it. In style. Without a glitch. And returned an overall average of over 65 km per litre. If you have any doubts, I'll do it again. Just pay the costs.