Our Travel Plan

Kargil or nothing was our original plan. The timing couldn’t have been better as the roads to Leh are only open during these few months (May – Sep). Driving anywhere else is very monotonous and this is the only challenging drive. Have done Chandigarh - Leh and back in 10 days at a leisurely pace so I guess this could be difficult but not impossible. We also wanted to use this event to commemorate the brave heroes of India at Kargil, considering that this is also the 10th anniversary of Operation Vijay. Till we actually visited Kargil / Drass in 2007, the army was just a distant and unrelated term for us. When we visited the Drass War Memorial and learnt about the supreme sacrifices some of our brave soldiers made as well as the hardships our soldiers undertake, it really moved us. Most of us living our cozy urban lives don’t realize how selflessly our soldiers are actually protecting us. Every winter our troops move up to the Siachen glacier in Nov where they are stationed till May as during the winter they are completely cut off under the -30 Deg. Celcius weather. However, due to unpredictability of weather which leads to floods and landslides, coupled with the lack of alternate routes, we would need a couple of days buffer which we sadly don’t have. Hence it will be: Bombay – Kanyakumari – Bombay Sorry to have made you spend your time in going through the above which is not directly relevant to this trip but had to get it off my chest. Some of the places we want to experience and capture are the elephants in Thekkady, the lovely hills and tea plantations in Munnar, the gorgeous sunrise and sunset at Kanyakumari and the natural beauty of coffee plantations in Mercara. Being Keraliítes we’ve been to “God’s own country” a number of times but have hardly seen most of the places. All our trips are usually consumed in visiting our relatives and this trip gives us a perfect excuse to skip the well-trodden path. Detailed plan is as follows: Day Date From To Distance Total 1 17-Aug-09 Bombay 2 18-Aug-09 Mercara / Coorg 1200 1200 3 19-Aug-09 Mercara / Coorg Munnar 300 1500 4 20-Aug-09 5 21-Aug-09 Munnar Kanyakumari 916 2416 6 22-Aug-09 Kanyakumari Quilon 256 2672 7 23-Aug-09 8 24-Aug-09 Quilon Thekkady 328 3000 9 25-Aug-09 Thekkady 10 26-Aug-09 Goa 1,600 4600 11 27-Aug-09 Goa Bombay 600 5200 The longest stretch we hope to cover is Bombay – Mercara about 1,200 kms. It’d be great if we could do it in one day but have factored in an additional day. Quilon is our hometown and we certainly want to spend a day with our parents there and visit our family temple. We’d done Mumbai – Bangalore – Pondi – Kerala – Goa – Mumbai in Jan. This was about 4,000 kms in 10 days on our bike. With this perspective this trip sounds more feasible and enjoyable.