In Madurai

27/9/11

  Left for Puducherri, not a big ride only 62km according to some people at the hotel, or 162km according to the road signs, or 146 according to the speedo when I arrived lol. Puducherri is a bit French but then you get that.

Lake on the side of the road on the way to Puducherri

28/9/11 to 1/10/11

  Got hold of Karl and dropped the bike off for a few things to be done, mainly in the front end.

The bike took a little bit and I wanted to fix a couple of other little things which make it easier to pack. Walked around town quite a bit, and had a lot of French bakery stuff lol.

Went for a test ride on the Saturday to make sure the bike was running well, all good.

Gandhi

Temple at sunset

2/10/11

  Went out to a little village call Arriya (I think that is it) which is some multi national experiential place full of alternative life style people. Only got to chat to one guy who I gave a ride to a local tea shop seems like an interesting place.

There is a lot of Church here

3/10/11

  Road down to Nagappattinam which is a port down about 200km south of Puducherri. The ride was interesting and had my first accident, well sort of, a car pulled across into my left side bag and ripped the pocket open, bugger, well I said worse to him but you get the meaning. Oh well will have to wait till I'm in a nicer town then will look at getting it stitched up.

The damage

4/10/11

  Headed down to Madurai. Tried to go via the ECR (East Coast Road) But before I got to the coast I took a wrong turn and ended up a bit lost for a while. It did mean I got to ride through a few small villages and nice rural areas. Getting lost did mean that I didn't make it into Madurai till 20.00 which was a pain riding here at night isn't too nice.

Some kids who stop to talk when i was lost.

5/10/11

  Had one of those shopping experiences today, I'd just bought what I wanted and walking back to the hotel when I saw a group of tourists walking out of a shop with bags of shopping. I looked at my shopping, a 1 meter piece of 5mm breaded garden hose and thought, I'm just not the same am I lol, but I think the hose will work a treat for stopping the fairing vibration.

  The hotel has a lovely view of the temple complex from the roof and well sitting on the roof listening to the music (you can really here the Led Zeppelin influence in it lol) and watching a storm coming in from the south, I noticed that there was a big Buddha statue to the south and some nice looking hills just behind it. After a small amount of indecision I decided to stay another day and go for a ride out to the Hills in the north and around through them to the south.

6/10/11

Got up early and headed out north towards the hills, found a nice empty dam with a good view, although tar seal roads all seem to be on the flat and not up into the hills. Ended up riding out to Teni and back through another valley to Madurai.

The dam is dry at the moment, but the North east monsoon is due this month some time.

One of the valleys i rode

7/10/11

Have decided to stay one more day and try and get my blog updated.
 All is well here will be heading south for a while, then up the other coast ish for a while.
   Enjoy your life