This is Part 1 of Four Mornings on the Classic 350, a five-part motorcycle journey through South Karnataka that was supposed to last four days, but became five.

I didn’t sleep particularly well the night before the ride.

Thunderstorms kept waking me up, and each time I heard the rain I started wondering about the trip. How waterproof was my kit really? Would everything packed on the motorcycle stay dry?

I’d packed my waterproof jacket and trousers in the pannier the previous evening. By five in the morning, it was obvious there wasn’t much point leaving them there. I put them on inside the house.

Everything else had been packed the night before. All that remained was to go downstairs, attach the luggage to the Classic 350 and leave.

At exactly 6:30, I set off.

It was raining.

The route took me through Brigade Road, Bannerghatta Road and JP Nagar before joining Kanakapura Road. Getting out of Bengaluru took almost ninety minutes.

Kanakapura Road wasn’t particularly welcoming either. There were potholes and rough sections, and the first part of the ride was more about getting out of the city than enjoying motorcycling.

Near the Art of Living junction I stopped for breakfast at MTR. I wanted something light, so I ordered a plain dosa.

It arrived looking suspiciously like a masala dosa from which somebody had simply forgotten the masala. There was far too much ghee. It was heavy and rather disappointing.

Not quite the elegant touring breakfast I had imagined.

There was another problem.

I hadn’t put in my earplugs when I left home. Bengaluru’s traffic, engines and incessant honking were beginning to irritate me, so a few kilometres after breakfast I stopped and put them in. I started listening to Ilaiyaraaja.

But I hadn’t worn my balaclava.

I had only a small cap beneath the helmet, and the earphones wouldn’t stay properly seated. They didn’t fall completely because they were attached to a neckband, but they kept loosening inside the helmet.

So I had the worst of both worlds: outside noise and very faint music.

After about half an hour, I’d had enough.

Then I realised something ridiculously simple.

The balaclava would hold the earphones in place.

I stopped again, put it on, and suddenly everything worked.

By then the rain had stopped as well, so the waterproof jacket and trousers came off.

And almost as if the ride had been waiting for all these little irritations to disappear, the road became beautiful.

Somewhere around the Malavalli side came a short stretch of greenery and winding road. It probably lasted only five or ten minutes.

But it was the first moment of the trip when everything clicked.

The motorcycle, the road, the countryside, the music.

For the first time that morning I thought:

Yes. Going on this ride was the right decision.

About ten kilometres before Mysore, the fuel warning began flashing. I stopped at a Nayara pump, filled up and continued.

Then Mysore appeared almost suddenly.

After taking an hour and a half simply to escape Bengaluru, there was something wonderfully calm about riding into Mysore at around half past eleven. There wasn’t much traffic on the route to my hotel.

It reminded me of old Bangalore.

My hotel, Serene, turned out to be an excellent choice. It seemed quite new, was close to the palace area, cost about ₹3,000 and, importantly, had secure underground parking for the motorcycle.

I also had work to do.

There was something important for which I needed to be online by one, and the hotel’s Wi-Fi turned out to be superb. I worked for a couple of hours, eating vegetable pulao and rotis while I did so, took a half-hour nap and then worked again.

This wasn’t a holiday completely detached from normal life. Somehow the motorcycle trip and work were coexisting.

That evening my friend Harsha, who lives in Mysore, came over at around seven. I carried my helmet, got onto his motorcycle and we went to Oyster Bay.

We sat outside, had a light dinner and talked for a long time.

After the thunderstorms, rain gear, Bengaluru traffic, potholes, disappointing dosa and troublesome earphones, Day One ended quietly over dinner with an old friend.

The trip had begun.