The Royal Machine - Riding the Enfild Bullet

Original blog: 07-June-2009

As I was sitting in front of 'intelligent box', whiling away time ,trying to find something interesting, surrounded by absolute silence( I could hear the sound of clock ticking in next room as if it was next to ears!), something broke this silence. It was the sound I have been hearing since my childhood,and perhaps my mother from her childhood. The sound brought a sudden smile in my face, numbers like 350,500, 18 popping up in my mind. It was the familiar sound of repeating thuds. It was a Royal Enfield Bullet.

Whenever I see a bullet I wish I could drive it some day. I always wished to control the 500cc (or 350cc) mean machine with the power of 22 horses (or 18 horses) under my control. But for that I need to know how to drive a bike, so decided to do what I can do: know more about this machine.

Well the Bullet had a British origin and was made by Royal Enfield in Redditch from 1931 to 1966 at west Midlands,England . The name of the company is derived from it association with Royal small arms factory in Enfield. Enfield also has some interesting history.
The world's first solid state circuitry color TV were manufactured by Ferguson(one of the oldest electronic company) at their now closed plant in Enfield.
The very first Dishwasher to be mass produced was in Hotpoint's(a british home appliance company) now closed Enfield plant.
The Barclays Bank in Enfield was the first place in the world to have an A.T.M.

Coming back to bullet, the bullets came to India in 1955 when the Army ordered bullets to be used for border patrolling. Initially the bullets were brought as knocked down kits from England and were assembled in Chennai. Soon Enfield India was started which started production of bullets in Chennai Plant. The 1955 model has remained almost unchanged with very few modifications in last 50 years.Though the British plant was closed completely in 1970, the Chennai plant continues producing these Royal beauties till this day. Currently the the Royal Enfield brand belongs to Eicher motors of India. Under the new owner, the demand for Bullet has revived and is now among one of the fastest growing motorcycle bands!

Though bullet remains a army/police bike, it has got its own set of fans. Even as new and attractive-looking bikes throng the market, the passion for bullet remains unchanged among true bike enthusiast. And I got my first chance to ride on this bike(as a pillion rider of course :-) when I was in 9th grade. I and my two cousins went to see a hill station near Coimbatore, India. On the way we were had a funny incident with border security police (as the hill station was near Kerala border) as neither of my cousins had bought their DL. Anyway what I really enjoyed  the ride on the bullet on the semi-hilly roads, cruising past the trucks with utmost stability. That is bullet for u.

The joy of flying my way

Original post date: 10-Feb-2016

Last holiday season I decided to meet my aunt and uncle and also explore Los Angles. Of course it is was a nice excuse to escape from the snow and cold weather. And as I realized later I had escaped a major power blackout that lasted as long as 72 hours in some parts of our city. So, as I was planning for my trip, I realized I was tad late in making my plan; the flight rates were already exorbitant. And I was not ready to pay that much. And I also wanted to go. So what should I do?

First I started by searching from nearby airports. Flights from Chicago were less expensive but I was not interested to take the risk of travelling in the cold weather, especially to catch a flight. Possible bad weather can disrupt my plans. It is December you see. All other nearby airports, there was no big difference in ticket price. I even searched for bus and trains.  They were immediately ruled out, I didn't want to spend 4 precious days of my vacation in travel, especially not in train. With expensive flight tickets, no proper bus and train options, I either had to pay with time or money.

That is when I decided to try something new; explore; take some gamble. Instead of booking a direct ticket to LA, I decided to break my journey into smaller legs. Divide and conquer you see. Take the cheapest routes from source and keep moving in the destination's direction. And if you are lucky, you have your plan. There are these smaller and low cost airlines which offer really good price. And always look for major airports. You will get both cheaper flights and better connectivity from there. And I was lucky that I had use only one transit point i.e. Las Vegas to reach my destination. The transit time was really good just over 2 hours, which is probably better than what a airline or travel agents would offer. So that was onward journey, Done!. I have cut the cost by more than half. Of course it comes with a gamble, if my first flight gets delayed, I would miss my second flight. But that was not a big worry for me as LA was just 4.5 hours by bus from Las Vegas.

Then I realized the problem with these type of booking. You really cant expect to the get proper connecting flights. I had no option but to fly the conventional route. But Fortune favors the brave they say! And it did favor me. Just when I gave up and decided to book an expensive flight for the return journey, I found a special fare flight ticket (1 seat left kind of). That would bring me to Chicago. And I had no problem to go back in bus. Thus with little bit of research, little bit of gamble and little bit of luck I had reduced my ticket cost by more than half! And  then I happy spent my vacation in LA.        

Adventure caving and history trip (St Louis - Mark Twain Caves - Springfield - St Louis)

Destination: Illinois/Missouri, USA. 
Trip duration 1 to 2 days

Alternate routes: This trip can be started and ended from any other cities like Quad city or Chicago

Full trip map

Springfield, IL is where Abraham Lincoln lived and the only house he owned is still well preserved. In fact the whole street is preserved and many of the houses there acts as museum with rich historic information. Of course Springfield, IL is pretty famous place and also the capital city of Illinois. There are lot of historic places in Springfield and most of them are related to Lincoln. After all Illinois is called as Land of Lincoln. But people who plan to visit Springfield can also experience an unique opportunity of adventure caving. 

Located on the banks Mississippi river in Illinois - Missouri border, this cave is located near Hannibal, MO. Called as Mark Twain / Cameron caves, these caves were also feature in the famous stories of Tom Sawyer! This place is about 100 miles west of Springfield. Though this cave system also offers "regular" walking tour, we were more interested in the "wild" tour. For people like me who had never done any "wild" cave tour before, this was indeed good opportunity to get a feel of it. Though not as demanding as some of the other "wild" cave tours, this tour still had lot of challenging stuff that are common in "wild" cave tours. For example, one has to do an army crawl for 25 feet in one section of this tour which is a 16in x 18in space. Also it does have lot of climbing and navigating by balancing on walls of the caves. Also we just use the light that is on helmet and no other light are available.  So it does offer an unique experience. 3 hours well spent! Any one with good physical health can do it though it does involve some heights. However the guides we had were very friendly and helpful and patiently helped some of us who had trouble in some sections of this tour.

Note this cave tour is available only on few Saturdays of Summer and requires advanced reservation by calling. Do check out the current schedule here: Tour details

Other than this tour Hannibal also have some of famous landmarks that was featured in Mark Twain's stories of Tom Sawyer. Though we planned to checkout some of these, we couldn't visit them More details about attractions here can be found at: VisitHannibal

A weekend in Wilderness (Louisville - Mammoth caves NP - Cumberland Falls - Louisville)

Destination: Kentucky, USA.
Trip duration 2 days

Following is the full trip map!

Full tour Map

Small wonder was one of my favorite TV shows during school days. An American sitcom dubbed in Hindi, it gave me a lot of laughter and also an idea of how the US is. In one of the episode, Ted takes his son for camping. And the whole idea of camping was fascinating. Also I remember an article which came in parts, about an expedition into a cave system in south east Asia (if I remember correctly). In that article the group encounter venom spitting snakes which was kind of scary to hear. The funny part was this article came in a gossip magazine and I didnt realize this, the innocent boy I was ;). These kind article was rarity in that magazine, which usually contains gossips about movie world. After reading the first part of the article, I wanted to read the next part too. So I wanted to immediately check if the next part in available in my father's office library. But because of the "reputation" of the magazine, my dad was reluctant to get it too soon :D. Anyways I got hold of that article which had made me excited about caves. And in this trip I could fulfill both of these childhood dreams

So excited I was, I bought a new cargo pants, trekking shoes and drove for almost 6 hrs after my office! There was strong downpour in Indiana, but it was before it became dark. The long days of summer coming for the rescue ;)! Weathering the thunderstorm and tiredness from work, I managed to reach to my friend's place by 1 am. The next morning we started of from Louisville towards the worlds largest cave system.

Mammoth  Cave tours:

(If starting from Louisville, a world of caution: Mammoth caves NP is in Central Time Zone. Also GPS doesn't work that well inside National Park, so I would suggest using App based Map. Also the Cellular connectivity is poor inside National Park. Also there NP doesn't have entrance fee as such but there is cost for booking each tour.)

When we went, we had already booked 2 tours online, for same day (the Historic tour in morning and the Domes and Dripstones tour in afternoon).  Both the above tours are available on all days of week. (Do check the below link to see the latest schedule)

The Historic tour is a 2 hour tour and requires moderate level walking. Though the tour will take us to more than 200 ft under ground, it take a smooth path down. However the return path is all stairs. This tour gives a good idea about history of Mammoth caves and is good tour for family. The entrance to this tour is through natural entrance and can be reached by walking from Visitor center

The Domes and Dripstones tour, unlike Historic tour, has so many formations. This is because the Mammoth caves is under a huge cap stone and this stone doesn't allow water from above to come down. Thus there is no formations. However the part of cave system which is not below this cap stone, beautiful formations are present. This tour is located in one such region. The whole of another tour called Frozen Niagara is included in this tour. The Frozen Niagara is beautiful natural formations. This tour is also a 2 hour tour and also requires moderate level of walking. And it does have lot of stairs. Note: to reach the cave entrance of this tour, a bus trip is needed. The people at Visitor center will guide you!

Though not part of trip, we did go to another tour named Grand Avenue tour in a separate trip. This is a 4 hour tour but was only available on weekdays when we went. But now it also available one all days of the week. (Do check the below link to see the latest schedule). This tour has lot of walking and give a good idea about the size and complexity of the Mammoth Cave System. Note the entire Domes and Dripstones tour is part of this tour. This tour gets filled very fast as only 2 tour is available per day. So book early if interested in this tour

Checkout the latest details about tours: Mammoth cave tour list


Camping in Mammoth Caves
We didn't book a camping site before reaching there. The camping sites were full when we reached, especially since it was a long weekend, but we were lucky to get one. So I would recommend to book a camping site online if planning to camp there. To get supplies or food, the nearest town is Bowling green which is 45- 60 min away. There is a store inside the National park but supplies and food options are limited. So I would suggest get all you need before reaching there or you will have to travel all the way to Bowling Green as we did! The restrooms were decent in Camping area.


Cumberland Falls

Cumberland falls, also called as Little Niagara or Niagara of South is in eastern Kentucky and in Eastern time zone. So travelling from Mammoth caves may take upto 4 hours (including 1 hour because of time zone). I would recommend staring early in morning. We did not do that and we found it hard to get a parking spot in late afternoon in Cumberland falls, especially since it was long weekend.

Once reaching there we traveled in two of the trails. The one on Eastern side of river is Moonbow trail that starts from visitor center. You can have good view of the falls after going probably half a mile from visitor center. Going further in trail, you can go to the Cumberland Falls beach area. This was place were families were having some good time. There were boat tours that will take you closer to falls but we didn't take that. This hike was easy.

On the other side of Cumberland river (west side), we took the Eagle falls trail. It was probably 1 to 1.5 mile one way and the hike was good (Moderate difficulty). After decent elevation drop, the trail takes us to Eagle falls. There are lot of rocks and boulders and we had fun climbing and jumping from one to another. Though these rocks are not very high from ground, it was bit challenging.

After being in wilderness for two days, we decided to head back to civilization i.e. Louisville which is 3 hours from here. That was weekend well spent and worth the long drive!