Pondy Coastal Bike Ride with CTC

I had done few moderate/easy treks and cycling trip organized by CTC, so I want to take a bike trip with CTC as they are arranging lot of bike trips. I am a travel lover and want to go everywhere in every medium of transports. First I want to test my ability to travel a small drive as a pillion (I drive only without gear bikes/scootersL). So I registered for a Pondy Coastal scenic bike trip organized by Praveen /Vibin.

  

I got selected for this trip as pillion and they mailed the list of participants. I have to accompany Azeem as pillion and I mailed him regarding the meeting point to join. But he said he was residing in Kodambakkam and I got a mail from Praveen that Hassan is residing in Ambathur so you can come along with him to reach Tidel. (the meeting /Starting Point), I called up Hassan and we fixed a point near Padi to meet around 2.00 pm on Saturday. Saturday was holiday for me, so I was bit relaxed and done my packing for the trip and reached little late around 2.15pm near Anna Nagar to meet Hassan. We reached Tidel around 3.00pm and there was already few peoples are waiting there for the Organizers. L

Everybody reached around 3.30pm and introduced with their bikers/pillions. Most of them are freshers, so Praveen gave instructions to everyone and said that Vibin will be taking over as lead and Sai as the sweep for the journey. Praveen had an unavoidable official work, so he handed over the organizer responsibility to Vibin and he had stepped in to lead the trip.

The ride started with 9 bikes (totally 17 souls including bikers/pillions) from tidel around 4.00pm and our Ist stop was near Injambakkam /Sholinganallur junction as some of the bikers as to join with us. Now 2 bikers with one pillion added and the team size increased to 21. The real scenic coastal ride was started after mayajaal. Everyone enjoyed the ride with safely. (Organizers instructed not to ride over 80kmph due to safety reasons). On the way after Mahabs we stopped few minutes for photo session near a lake /back water. It was really beautiful watching the sunset near a backdrop of the vast lake water. Then we headed to Pondy and reached there around 7.00pm. The meet up/assemble point near the Pondy entry was slightly confusion, so some of us was crossed that point. We waited for other peoples to come and the confusion was then sorted and we rode down to the beach.

The beach side buildings were beautifully decorated on the eve of Republic day and there was good amount of crowd along the beach.  Malan, Nikhil and Dr.Arun from Pondy came there to meet our CTC team. Actually we are supposed to stay in a farm over the night arranged by Malan but for some reasons it was changed. Malan and Vibin arranged campsite at the beach near Pondi University with the help of Vallan and Kannan (Pondy CTCians).  It was 9:00 pm and we all were hungry. After wasting a lot of time, we rode to a fast food shop near Kalapet for dinner.

Everyone filled their stomach with food and proceed to our campsite. In campsite we have 2 options; you could either sleep in a house or on the shore watching the stars. I had choosen option 1 in a house, as I don’t have a sleeping bag and I don’t want to freeze in the cold weather. But went to beach for a small night walk. Everyone was gathered near beach and arranging tarpaulin to sleep, suddenly Bala suggested we have a camp fire over there near beach. Immediately everyone gathered few sticks around there and the camp fire was made. It was really awesome sitting around the campfire and feels warm next to the beach watching the waves and stars. The intro session was started over there near camp fire and everyone known others well by their name and their profession.

The intro session and Vibin’s Organizer speech was finished by 12.00 am in the night, we finally decided to wind up for the day and went for sleeping. I and few of us went to the house arranged nearby the sea shore and taken rest and others having sleeping bags stayed there in the beach side for night. It was nice sleep for few hours for me and woke up by 6.00 am and finished my morning duties. Now I saw the house was full as all the team members are came to the house in the morning as some drizzling started. Few peoples went to a morning walk near the beach and took some photos. Everyone started around 8.30 am and had our breakfast and left to Quarry for taking bath on the Pondy-Tindivanam route.

Somebody said the quarry was 200 ft. deep and there was a scuba diving session in progress. Most of the swimmers dive in to the pool and taking diving pictures. Non-Swimmers like me just dipped in the water for taking bath. I had taken my swim tube along with me, so I floated with the help of tube; otherwise I have to be a spectator like few othersJ. After changing our wet cloths we took a group photo with bikes near the quarry. Then we started to Paradise Island near Sunnambukulam.  

With the help of Arun we made a good deal to enter into the Paradise Island for some fun water activities. We took a speed boat to the island and we had a mini lunch as there was not many varieties are available.

First we tried Banana ride and it was really awesome and adventurous. Though I had never taken the ride, I decided to go on that, but the caretakers said non-swimmers are not allowed. I boarded on that and had a very good experience. The banana shaped air bladder was dragged by a jet boat and they dropped us in the middle of the water. I was struggled little bit and somehow managed with the help of friends and returned back to shore safely. After that everyone went on that and few of us done kayaking in the meantime. We returned back to Pondy by 7.30 pm after had a so much of fun in the Island. Actually our plan was to leave Pondy by 4.00pm and reach Chennai by 7.00pm, but it was delayed due to, we wasted some time here and there.

So we had our dinner there itself and left Pondy by 8.30pm. Vibin instructed everyone that we have to ride safely and carefully as it was weekend and night time. So everyone ride the bike with the speed between 60-80kmph and followed Vibin one by one and it looks like, a straight line moving on the black road. The team finally dispersed at Kovalam/Tidel and everyone reached home safely with nice memories.