The Deep South: Goa to Kanyakumari | K2K Part 5

Goa was the halfway point in feeling, if not in distance. From here the country narrowed toward its southern tip, and the plan looked simple on paper: about 1,000 km of NH66 down the coast to Kanyakumari, two days of riding. The rain thought otherwise. It took six days and 1,838 km to reach the bottom of the map and start back up the other side, and somewhere in there the group I had ridden with since the plains quietly came apart.

Here is the deep south, day by day.

Down NH66 in the rain

From Goa, Kanyakumari was something like a thousand kilometres away, and on paper it was simple, since NH66 runs the length of the coast, so two days should do it. It did not. Heavy rain and flooded crossings forced the speed down and pushed us onto diversion after diversion, and though the road itself was good, it was slow going. We took breakfast on the edge of Goa and rode south through a day that disappeared into evening.

The high point was Trasi Beach, one of the best I saw on the whole trip, sitting right beside the highway with a view the rain only improved, green and clean and open. With the sun going down we pulled into a clean hotel beside the road, ate well, and slept.

The following day promised three or four hundred kilometres on a good highway and delivered the usual late start in heavy rain instead. Around Udupi we stopped for breakfast and a plate of mixed dosa cut into small, easy, very good pieces. The highway stayed fine until Mangaluru, where it narrowed and slowed us through crowded markets and towns.

It was nothing but rain and riding after that, and when it got too late to keep going we could not find anywhere to stop, so we pushed on and landed somewhere unexpected: Mahe, the small coastal pocket of Puducherry on the south of the peninsula. We took a hotel, over-ordered food we were too tired to finish despite the hunger, worked, and slept.

Into Kerala

The day into Kerala was all beautiful country seen through traffic and rain, long and unbroken, with one good meal somewhere along the way and a constant push to keep the distance ticking down.

By the time it was dark we found a place that looked shady from the road but turned out to be the best room of the stretch, a three-star hotel that was costly and worth it, with real service and a proper bathroom. There was nothing to eat nearby, so we ended up in the hotel bar over a beer and some light food, then back to the room to work and hang everything out to dry for the night.

Reaching the tip: Kanyakumari

We were getting ready to leave the next morning when the hotel called up to offer a complimentary breakfast, so we took it, along with a plate of Thattu Dosa that was genuinely excellent, before packing the bikes. The road started narrow and opened, after a few hours, into a new and beautiful highway.

Pankaj dropped out of sight somewhere, so it was just the two of us riding the last stretch toward Kanyakumari through green, almost unreal scenery. We stopped for lunch and learned Pankaj had already arrived, and after some confusion we found him too. He had booked a place and walked us straight through a five-star lobby to reach it, which was its own small embarrassment, before we located our actual room and checked in.

Dinner that evening came with Pankaj putting his usual Red Bull on our tab. Back at the room, we talked about staying an extra day, decided there was not much left to explore, and settled on a sunrise instead. Pankaj had said he would skip it, but when morning came and he saw us up, he grabbed his camera and came along.

East to Rameshwaram

After the sunrise we packed, took our photos at the last point of land, and turned east for Rameshwaram. It was a long, sunny ride, and somewhere along it the country opened into a landscape I had only seen in films, windmills and green coconut palms running to the horizon, the wind strong enough to lean the bike over on its own. It was close to a perfect day, with two problems: my chain was on its last legs and barely working, and nobody around spoke Hindi or English, so even small things took effort. We ate idli with several kinds of sambhar served on a banana leaf, and a boy at a shop outside, who spoke only Tamil, still understood me well enough to tighten the chain and oil it.

From there it was hot, sunny road to Rameshwaram, broken by a stop for coconut cream and water that brought me back to life. At the Rameshwaram bridge we stopped for something I had not seen before, a fierce wind off the sea, birds, fishing boats, the whole crossing alive with it. We rode for the far end point, but a checkpost turned us back, the policemen saying it closed after five.

As we left, one of them called me over and said I could go through after all, as long as there was no bathing. I said fine, with a grin, and we rode out to a perfect sunset and a stack of photos. We found a place to stay nearby, went out for a dinner of idli and some noodles I could not name but enjoyed, and finished the day with a few hours of work.

Turning north, and the group splits

Our last morning together as a group started late. Crossing back to the mainland, we took in the bridge one more time, the birds and boats and that hard sea wind, and stopped just past it for a quick breakfast. I looked for a mechanic for the dying chain and found none. After that it was map and guesswork north, the sign boards in Tamil with no Hindi or English and the place names running together, until I had pointed myself roughly toward Bangalore. I rode and ate coconut and rode, and stopped for the night at Namakkal, which was not anywhere I meant to be, only as far as a tired body would go.

I checked in, rested, and found a sandwich at a place nearby that was better than it had any right to be, then worked a few hours. By night I had forgotten how early everything shuts, and the market was dark except for one dosa house, where I ordered by pointing at what the man beside me was eating.

We met a rider there with a little Hindi and English and a Benelli 500 I could not stop looking at, and he too refused to take money for the help, no matter how I pushed. Back at the room I cleared the GoPro, because from the next morning I would be riding home alone. The others had decided to stay on in Bangalore and send their bikes back by road.

Next: The Solo Run Home, Namakkal to Gorakhpur (Days 44–53) →

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