Bangalore to Kabini Road Trip

Shift a gear

From our busy schedule of work to chasing the monsoon by bike ride was our plan to enjoy ourselves. The plan was made around June 2019 to somewhere, anywhere possible. Since it had been long, my friends had not gone for any trip. After struggling for few days and fighting over the locations we decided, we would like to experience Kabini.

This is a place between Karnataka and Kerala border in South India. The place has its name from the river called Kabini. It is near to the Nagarhole National Park. 

This was a weekend Road Trip from Bangalore to Kabini of 6 people on 3 bikes, with our luggage in one bag for each bike. The adventure started early morning from Bangalore. All of us met at the NICE road entrance near Electronic city. From this location to the homestay- Cocoon Royale our bike ride started. The weather was nice and calm and the excitement of exploring a new place in bike was exhilarating.

The route that we had taken was from Bangalore to Kankapura and then to Nagarhole National Park. The distance from Bangalore to our resort was approx. 300 kms. We covered pretty much of the kms stopping in between for some breaks and refreshments. Almost when we were reaching Kerala Border, it started to drizzle. The ride through the drizzle made it a lot memorable. However, we didn’t know that the rest of the trip is going to be in all rain as well.

      

To reach Kabini you may find two route one which goes around the Nagarhole National Park and the other is through Nagarhole National Park. We choose to go through National Park to save the distance and to enjoy the view. However, the entry to the park will close at 6:00pm. We barely managed to get inside in due time and collected our entry pass. When we went few meters ahead in the Park, we realized that inside the park we all had lost our cellular network. The park was filled with greenery and the road was well maintained with lots of humps in-between testing our riding skills. As we were passing through the lane, we were able to see reindeer, elephant, monkey and few other animals. In-between we meet few local residents who were selling fresh vegetables and fresh catch from the lake or river near the roadside. After many steep twists and turns we finally came out of the park and entered “God's own country” (Kerala) and got our cellular network back. 

                                                                                                                                                                        

Upon riding further, we noted that there were two ways to reach the resort. On the left there is one mud sort of route which will take you to a not so good road. The plus side to this route is that you will be riding next to the river. The rainy weather added to the charm to the river. this route isn’t fortunate to ride during monsoon. We tried going through but ended up taking you turn and choose the other one which goes straight to our place of stay. After few minutes of ride, we finally reached our destination.

The place we stayed is this beautiful property called Cacoon Royale which was found on Oyo app. It is surrounded with the greenery and there is a river flowing behind the Homestay. The price was reasonable for the location. 

The weekend trip brief-

3^rd August 2019 

We reached the place around late evening and had out Kerala style dinner, arranged by the staff.

4^th August 2019
The next day started with sunlight and drizzle. We started our day with Kerala style breakfast and Kaapi at Holiday Hill Family Restaurant. After our breakfast we picked our first destination, Tomb of Veera Pazhassi

The next point was around 20km in distance, Banasura Sagar Dam, The distance was long, and weather was against us. It took us 2 hours to reach the dam completely drenched in water and shivering in cold. We parked our bikes and headed to the nearest tea stall to have a cup of tea and omelet. As the rain started fading out, we started climbing the stairs to view the dam. The view from the dam was spectacular. Due to rain we had the entitlement to see the rainbow rising from the backwater touching the sky and fading put on the mountains. It was a nice place to click lots of pictures/selfies.

As we were coming towards the end of the trip. we partied in the Homestay till we had energy in our body. It started at night we had carried speakers for music and  booze from Karnataka since we knew that the resort was at a remote location and availability will very limited and food was arranged by the staffs. The night was getting darker it started raining and soon our booze got over but the Homestay staff had arranged an auto for us to reach a nearby shop and get more booze. The auto ride was a breathtaking experience. We got out party stuffs and reached back to the Homestay and continued our party till everyone started fainting.   

5^th August 2019- Coming back to Bangalore via the same route. We still enjoyed the rain while riding and the weather played hide and seek with us for most of the way. The weather started to get clearer as we were reaching Bangalore.

  This concludes our Bike ride. Hope you enjoyed this and would might give this place a worthy shot.