First few days on the road have been enjoyable and it's been good having Torb join me...
17 Feb: Chennai
So my birthday was different, just hogged the internet airwaves of Chennai for the day and spoke to parents, sister and a couple of friends on Skype. Skype. Free calls. I love Skype! I performed my daily duty of making a INR40000 payment to Abbaas Autos for the new bikes. And I spent an hour or so roaming the streets looking for someone to make custom luggage racks for the bikes, with no luck.

Had myself a big lunch of rice, chicken curry and 8 different chutneys and sauces.

Road down to the beachfront, the “boulevard” some may say, where I walked out onto the sand towards the ocean, but gave up after a few paces – too hot, too far away, bags too heavy, wearing thongs, whinge whinge whinge :) Later I looked at the beach on google and in some places it is 400 metres wide!

18 Feb: Chennai
Ah, one of those days where I got plenty of stuff done and had that great feeling of being productive! 'Plenty' consisted of
A) Making the final payment on the motorbikes and collecting the second bike.
B) Having a musical horn put on the second bike as a cheesy gift for Torb (INR500 from Audithanar rd)

C) Having a side box installed on the second bike (INR650 from a shop on Mount road just near the Royal Enfield Showrrom)

and

D) FINALLY finding the very helpful Classic Accessories on South Coovam rd who made up a luggage rack for each bike within a few hours, INR800 each.

This gentleman was very excited to show me his work. My dad is the only one that I can think of that might be interested in this, so Dad, this one's for you. You can hardly see in the photo, but the guy is holding a set of motorbike handlebars that are chrome (well, they look like chrome, I don't know if they actually). This big bubbling vat of green liquid takes your average steel anything and turns it into a sparkling chrome anything. Very impressive.

As I waited for the racks to be made I got pulled into a Carom club for a quick game. Needless to say I got absolutely thumped.

The local wreckers let their wares flow onto the street

No I don't want half a truck, I want a whole truck!

19 Feb: Chennai to Kallakurichchi, 248 km, 5 hours
No longer planning on riding to Kanyakumari (the southern most point of India), we decided to head for Salem today, en route to Coimbatore the next day. Getting out of Chennai was both straight forward and hard work. Straight forward in that the one road, Anna Salai (AKA Mount) Road took us all the way out of the city, running basically south through Chennai and then heading south west towards... everything that is south west of Chennai. Hard work in that the traffic is chaos.

Towards 5pm with the sun very obviously racing towards the horizon before we could possibly get to Salem we passed through some small town with an impressive rocky outcrop and pleasant atmosphere and decided to stay the night there.

and on top of the hill

Unfortunately nobody seemed too keen on offering us a hotel so we kept moving and made it to Kallakurichchi, a reasonably non-descript town, but one with a couple of hotels to choose from. Here we tried, unsuccessfully, to purchase a sim card for Torb's phone and were told that we need Indian I.D. to take an Indian sim, even on prepaid phones. This of course poses a small problem for us in that we don't have Indian I.D. So we roamed the streets looking for the police station hoping that the big boss could somehow help us out – always worth a check with the big boss. Actually, in this case, it wasn't worth a check with the big boss, but it was interesting talking with him and watching the goings on at the station. Plan B is to find some trusting soul who will purchase a sim for us with their own ID in the knowledge that we are good Aussie blokes. Well, Torb isn't, but he's a Great Dane.

Feb 20: Kallakurichchi to Coimbatore, 282 km, 6 hours.
Torb, who got his motorbike license especially for this trip, has adapted to riding like a psychopath very well. I have been impressed and thankful as this frees me up to do the same, which comes very naturally (don't worry Mum, I'm being...safe and wise etc). Hence the first of the Cameronian Proverbs: “With Cam at the wheel, you're safer than you feel”. The terrain has been mainly flat and again the highlights came when we stumbled upon a giant rocky hill with a road that clung to the edge as it spiraled it's way to the top.

Here is sunscreen covered in pollution covered in a second layer of sunscreen. I felt aboslutely feral!

My new t-shirt which I want to show off: Every travelers worst toileting nightmare: “No water, no tissues” this monkey has discovered after already sitting down on the toilet :) P.S. look how ferral it is after a day on the road!!!

Feb 21: Coimbatore to Ooty, 94 km, 3.5 hours.
Ooty is the largest hill station in the Nilgiri Hills and sits at about 2200 m above sea level. The road up from Coimbatore is great for motorcycling and the views are spectacular. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, though the centre stand on the Enfield scrapes on the road before I lean the bike over too far.

By the way, got some stickers made for the bike in Coimbatore...

Details on cost, in Indian Rupees (INR):

ACCOMMODATION
Vaigai Lodge, Kallakurichchi, Tamilnadu: 250 for a double
Large room with barely functioning bathroom. Terrible fan. Free mosquitoes.
3/10 on the Brookesy scale.

New Vijaya Lodge, Coimbatore: 400 for a double
Near the main railway station, but down a side street.
Good sized room with double bed, TV, ugly bathroom, clean-ish, mozzie-proof and very little street noise. But if I find the person that ran the generator straight outside our room from 6am – 7am... bagh!

6.5/10 on the Brookesy Scale. No, because of the generator, 4.5/10

Hotel Preethi Palace, Ooty: 500 for a deluxe room (discounted from 770)
Ettines rd.
Small-ish room with double bed, TV, Clean bathroom with western toilet.
8/10

MOTORBIKE

All kinds of motorbike parts and works can be sourced on Audithanar Road, which is the extension of Police Commissioner road, running south west from near Egmore station)
Musical Horns from 200
Indicator Stay for a Thunderbird 40, fitting 60

Helmets 300-2000+, side boxes/panniers 350-750+, helmet locks 50, tank bags 220-350, all available from Mount Rd, just near the Enfield Showroom.

I wish I could explain to the other bikers out there how to get to Classic Accessories because they seem like the only people able to do “Tinkering”. The best I can do is this: Heading north on Audithanar rd, take a left at an intersection that looks like this

Go to the end of the street, turn right, ride past what seems like the end of the shops, Classic is on the left after about 500 metres.

Mileage 413 km from 12.3 litres = 33.6 Km/L (similar on both bikes)