Road Trip To Southern Tip Of India : Kanyakumari

Kanyakumari - The last chunk of scenic landscape in the southern tip of Indian Peninsular. Our caravan road trip to Kanyakumari from Bangalore via Hosur and Madurai is one of the best stretches of National Highways in India, the NH7. The same NH runs from Kashmir till Kanyakumari, the longest NH in India.

 Day1: Bangalore to Kanyakumari, hotel stay in Kanyakumari

A few glimpses of the scenic beauty all along our journey of around 650kms, which was covered in 10hrs (2008-09).

We concluded the first days’ journey by halting at the Hotel Madhini that offers an excellent view of the juncture of the Indian ocean, Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal.

The sunrise on the day 2 was a splendid sight to spot right outside the balcony of our hotel, sipping a kappa hot and strong south Indian filter coffee.

The day 2 activities followed by a visit to the Kumari Amman temple where the Goddess Kumari Amman had a diamond nose ring which was seemingly bright and sharp enough to fox the ships and big boats arriving at the harbour to misunderstand it for the light house.

To avoid any further mishaps, one of the entrances to the temple was closed forever. Unfortunately couldn’t get snaps of the idol of the great goddess.

The delights of the Dosas and idly vadas’ are always mesmerizing when one plans to stay in this serene place.

The most famous tourist spots, a must visit in Kanyakumari is the juncture point of the Indian ocean, Arabian sea and bay of Bengal along with the great Vivekananda Rock.

The peace lovers paradise and the very location where the great saint Sri Vivekananda found eternal bliss…. The Vivekananda Rock. The way to get to this place is through ferries that ply every 10 minutes from Kanyakumari.

After returning from the peace palace, we drove towards the west coast of Kanyakumari that had lots to offer in terms of superb sunset views, all along the coast.

With a lot of resistance, we had to pack our bags to head towards Rameshwaram, another holy and scenic city in the southern east coast of India. 

The famous Rameshwaram bridge is a must-stop location, with winds blowing at speeds good enough to flyaway… the kilometers of the sand that are left out for drying and processing is a common sight on the way from Kanya to Rameshwaram.

The Rameshwaram bridge was a total delight to watch the railway and the motorway running parallel and almost feels like, we are driving in the mid of the sea.

Read More

My First Car, My First Love…Mitsubishi Cedia

It was around the time when I wanted to change my job into a new global company and I had returned from a good saving.

Never had in mind to buy a car, instead, was interested to own a used super bike…. This was in the early 2008.

I was looking for options to own a super bike from various sources to own one… unfortunately the super bike market in India was not all that boom as it is now. Later when all my try out with the super bike owning options had run out my cousin brother fed my mind with the thought of owing a car.

This was the first inclination for me, later as time passed by we used to compare cars from the 3 top automobile magazines in India, the Auto Car, Top Gear and Overdrive.

The research began initially with not a real focus on which car to buy, eventually and essentially it was the vitamin M(Money) that was the real grounds to kick off the serious search. Next comes what type of car, is it gonna be a 3 box sedan or a hatch back or an SUV or a cross breed between the two.

I had literally tried almost almost all the cars in the above segments. Now the decision was fixed on what BHP of a car I really want, it was a minimum of 100 bhp.

The intensive magazine searches and helpful rievews from  team-bhp.com and some auto enthusiast friends, I had 4 cars that were fitting into the above segments, the Honda CIVIC, Ford Fiesta Petrol, The Chevrolet optra Magnum diesel and the Mitsubishi Cedia.

Test drove all the 4 above cars along with the Honda City with paddle shift as well, somehow didn’t get the shape of the car to be cary appealing, it got dropped off. The CIVIC was running out of my budget, the Fiesta was cramped and sluggish, the Opta Magnum diesel had too less on package to offer, finally it was the test drive of the Mitsubishi Cedia which just stood out of all other cars in terms of style, performance and substance. Also the rally pedigree in its design was edging all other family sedans by far.

Mitsubishi Cedia turned out to be the car I loved and owned, had the first modification of a new custom end can for the exhaust on its first birthday.

Followed by BMC airfilter and complete exhaust manifold rplacemant at Red Rooster. Now my Mitsubishi Cedia is seen on the google search words of “torque king Cedia”

Read More