Re-discovering Koraput : Day-2

Route : Berhampur-Srikakulam-Rajam-Rambhadrapuram-Salur-Pottangi-Semiliguda

When in Berhampur Do as the Berhampurias Do:

Though the actual Odia name of the city is "Brahmapur" it has come to be pronounced and written as Berhampur since the time of British rule, as the British had this ill-famed reputation of corrupting every Indian name to suite their tongues. As an unwritten rule any Berhampuria doesn't return from his/her morning walk without having breakfast or tea at some roadside tiffin(breakfast, as we call it in our part of the country) stall, or that is what it appeared to me. Udayan and me were supposed to leave Berhampur as "early" as possible in the morning. However it was not until 7.30 or 8 am that we were awake. Though the alarms were set at 6 o'clock, we slept till 8 o'clock, snoozing the alarms. We finished our daily morning chores hastily, taking turns. The first thing we noticed when we stepped out of the hotel to have breakfast, that it was a great sunny morning, exactly the kind of day you would wish for while on a biking tour. Having said that Berhampur is a pot-pourri of Odia and Telugu cuisines, the morning breakfast can not be skipped at any cost. I am a street food junky from very early days. So we set out to break our fasts with some steaming Idly accompanied by sambar, chutney and the typical Odia guguni. Guguni is not so popular among the Telugu people, but for Odia people it is like water. Especially the Odias of the coastal districts. Guguni goes well with almost anything and everything. Be it idly, puri, upma, kakara and halwa (can you believe it, curry of lentils and potatoes poured over your plate of halwa). The bond of guguni and coastal Odia people is so strong that we(me and my brother Situ bhaina, apparently belonging to hills of Odisha) used to crack a joke on this love for guguni. The joke goes something like this. A person breathing his last, in any other part of the country, will die asking for water, i.e paani...! paani...!(as we often see in our movies). But a typical coastal Odia guy in his death bed will die groaning guguniii....! guguniii...! (No offences meant). However personally I find it a little hard to digest that guguni can be had with almost anything. However a mixed serving of sambar, chutney and guguni with idly, puri, upma, uttapam etc is a combo that no Odia or Telugu guy can say no to. So we scout for a road side stall serving the above delicacies and there is no dearth of such stalls in Berhampur. Very soon we find one and start our gorging of literally steaming idly with sambar, chutney and guguni. What a sumptuous breakfast it was. The sambar and guguni were a little hotter than what I expected them to be. Along with us, some twenty men and women, most of them in their fifties were busy gorging similar stuff at the stall. They all, from their attire, appeared to me like morning walkers. Breakfast was followed by cups of tea. Then we went looking for a cobbler to repair Udayan's Woodland shoe, his trusted old companion of seven years in times thick and thin.
We checked out of the hotel at 9.30 am. Loading and fastening of our bags to the bikes took another 15 mins, In the meanwhile the hotel owner and a few other guys were questioning us like a judging panel. We said good bye to them before they could completely satiate their curiosity. We took the Komapalli-Lanjipalli flyover and were out on NH-5. We filled out fuel tanks at a filling station near Konisi. Right at ten we were cruising on NH-5.

On the outskirts of Berhampur 

NH-5 , The road as straight as a die:

We had to cover nearly 170 kilometres on NH-5. The roads as straight as a die and the excellent surface could not contain the teenagers with in us and we let the two REs run full throttle. When a RE goes all guns blazing on a highway it is a sight to behold, and there were two of them for the admiration and bewilderment of the onlookers. We went past each and every vehicle plying on the highway. Constantly clocking speeds of 110 and 115 kmph was an amazing experience. In certain patches we kept cruising at 120 kmph for kilometres together and our bikes responding to the throttle like the most docile horse. Tekkali was the pit stop for tea and re-hydration. At exactly hundred kilometers from Berhampur, Tekkali was the right stop for a break. We had covered the 100 kilometers in just one hour. At the tea stall which was inside a filling station we drank some water and sitting on the verandah of the shop praised ourselves for the zippy progress we had made. We knew that we were running 4 hours late from our schedule. Sitting there I clicked some pictures for the memoir. Two-three pariah kites(scavenging birds) were flying low near the filling station, offering good shots. When I was trying to get one of them into focus I spotted three more birds flying much higher. Initially they looked like open-billed storks. But a closer view through the view finder of my camera revealed something else. Alas. They were pelicans. Spot-billed pelicans in every probability. I motioned to Udayan that they are pelicans. In the excitement of the situation  I could not take a good photographs of the birds though. I clicked two photographs, one was out of focus and the other one was grossly against the sun. Anyway that was a lifer for me. Pelicans on the highway. The Telineelapuram bird sanctuary is located close to the town of Tekkali where Spot-billed Pelicans and Painted Storks arrive from upper reaches of our hemisphere in winter. Unfortunately the place was not on our itinerary.
Twenty minutes of rest and again we were on the roads with the exception that we had swapped our bikes. Once again we were cruising at three digit speeds till we reached the Chillakapalem tri-junction. We took a right turn from this junction to enter the Chillakapalem-Pondur-Rajam-Rambhadrapuram road. Here we stopped again to check our baggage and refastened them. Here the first glitch of the trip surfaced. We had swapped bikes for only 70 kms. Our backs having accustomed to the riding postures of our respective bikes did not take it too well. I felt the pain in my lower back and Udayan felt the pain higher on his back. We mutually agreed not to swap bikes any more through out the trip. The bikes did not take the swapping very agreeably as well and responded with punitive measures later in the trip, at least Udayan's RE did. To start with, Udayan's RE won't start with the self starter when we resumed our journey. It sprang to life with the kick starter but the electric motor starter did not work. His battery had run low. Udayan's heart sank at the juncture. I cheered him up saying that its fine and we will get it fixed at Jeypore.

The High-way

Udayan Rides On

Biriyani and Sambar

At one thirty in the after noon we were at Ramabhadrapuram. The dhaba at Ramabhadrapuram is a crowded place as most of the vehicles plying on NH-26(previously NH-43) beween Vishakhapatnam and Jeypore stop there for food or refreshment. Again our bikes parked out side the dhaba with the baggages tied attracted onlookers and admirers. My order was Chicken biriyaani(Andhra Style) and Udayan wanted a plain Andhra thali(meal) that included liberal helpings of  sambar and rasam to go with it. Udayan wanted me to try some sambar and rasam with the biriyaani. I hesitatingly took a morsel and found its taste quite amusing. After finishing off the meal we left the town of Ramabhadrapuram. Let me tell you for the information sake that Rambhadrapuram and Salur are among the filthiest towns of northern Andhra Pradesh. The lesser time you spend there, the better you will feel. Just outside the town we found for ourselves a shady place, on a culvert, to snatch some rest and stretch our backs. The pain acquired from the swapping of bike had waned to a great extent by now. We lay stretched on the culvert for sometime, listening to the calls of parakeets, bulbuls and copper-smith barbets in the fields near-by and  travellers passing by were giving us bewildered looks. 2.30 pm saw us back on the road.

Here come the Hills

Riding High

While travelling on NH-26, just prior to entering the small town of Salur, the faint outlines of distant hill ranges appear before you. These hills are the eastern face of the great Eastern Ghat mountains. Closer you approach them, they present a more imposing and majestic view. The NH-26 winds its way through these hills for around 40 kms. These 40 kms are a bliss to the traveller seeking picturesque view and a nightmare for the less fortunate ones having travel-sickness tendencies. There is a temple right at the beginning of the ghat from Salur side. The vehicles stop there to pray for a safe journey and passage through the ghat roads. I had my camera hanging from my neck when we began our ride up hill. The Classic 350 negotiating the curves like a hot knife slicing through butter. It was an ecstatic feeling. On earlier occasions I had driven cars along that road and it was great fun. But riding a RE Classic was something far more euphoric. The torque of the motorcycle urging hard to me to speed up but I kept a restraint on the throttle to make it a safe ride. Since Udayan had buried his camera somewhere deep inside his cavernous bag I had to do all the photography for the memoirs. We stopped now and then to click. After negotiating the first range of hills,  which are in Andhra Pradesh territory, we came to the top of a ridge. I was video-graphing the ride, with one hand on the throttle and the camera in the other, when we reached the ridge and the hills of my state appeared in front. Many a times I have seen them appear before me on earlier journeys along that road but the feeling I had this time to see them is beyond my words. The hills that I can call my own were welcoming me with arms wide open. The view from the border of the two states is bound to take one's breath away. It did take my breath away, one more time. There after the progress was very slow. We would stop often to take photographs, of the landscape and of ourselves. This continued till we reached Pottangi. Its worth mentioning here that the highest highway road point of the state is on this route. The point from where the descent to the western face of the hills begins, is the highest highway road point in the whole of Eastern Ghat. The altitude at this point is nearly 1100 metres from mean sea level. The peak of Deomali is clearly visible from this place. Many travellers stop at this point to enjoy the vista for a while before proceeding on their way. So did we. The expansion work of the highway is on(since last two years) near this part and is probably the roughest patch on the entire length of the highway.

Hills that Talk to You: View from the roads of Salur-Sunki Ghats

Winding Roads : Ride to Unwind
On Salur-Sunki Ghat

ME

Parked Beauties(Somewhere near Sunki)

Our Own Valley of Flowers(View of Deomali from highest road point)

We reached Semliguda at about 5.30 pm and checked into a hotel named Bright Star. We washed ourselves clean and set out to go to Sunabeda town where the aero engine manufacturing facility of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. is located and my friend Udayan had grown up. It was time for him to get nostalgic. We roamed about the town for sometime. Udayan showed to me his school, hang outs, play grounds and the house in which he lived. We also went to the aeronautical museum which houses a few photographs of the initial days of HAL and a "flying coffin" i.e a MIG-21. The MIG had participated in the 1971 war with Pakistan. The jet engine had been removed from the body and is on display separately. The body along with the cockpit is placed outside for the public to see. One thing that we noticed was, the MIG's body was full of patch works like a poor fellows rags. Small patches of metals riveted to the body at a hundred place. I wondered if the pilots who flew it knew about the patch works or were brave enough to take those machines out into open sky despite knowing the risks involved. My respect for the brave pilots of our nation doubled after seeing this for myself.
We went back to Semliguda as it was dinner time. There is a restaurant named C'n'C at the heart of Semliguda. We went in to it and ordered soup for the starter. Paratha and chilly chicken followed the soup. The food was good, but the place was too crowded. A noisy family was dining along with us and they appeared to be good enough to beat the size of the families from a Suraj Badjatya flick. A noisy end to Day-2.  The cruising on NH-5 and the Salur-Sunki ghat were definitely the high points of the day. I went to sleep  thinking how many souls get to travel through these heavenly landscapes? And how many of them get to ride on a Royal Enfield on those ethereal roads?

Lucky ME, huh?