when i took life for a ride!!!

Pune-Bangalore 1600kms Solo bike ride!!

2009-12-28T08:20:00.000-08:00

Hi Guys, friends, ladies and gentlemen,

Hope this email finds you all in the best of spirit for countdown for the New Year=2010. I am just back from the longest bike ride which I have ever done and incidentally this one was a solo one too. The ride was from Pune to Bangalore a.k.a Bengaluru totaling 1600kms, something I can brag about a little at least J Another highlight of the ride was that I did Pune to Bangalore in a single day without any overnight halt (I started at 1am in the morning = for some people night and reached at 20:00hrs at night or evening) which took around 18 hrs and came back also in the same fashion in a single day after spending 3 days at Bangalore.

Am typing a trip log after a long time, so sit back and enjoy the ride with me as I re-live this once in a lifetime ride again in words through memories.
How it all began:
This year =2009 , I did not do much of biking and trekking, but this Diwali before I went home to Nagpur, I got my Yamaha RXZ redone – meaning some painting, some parts changed, new tires etc and hence wanted to ride like old days again and was also looking for some ROI = return on investment for the money I spent on my beloved bike refurbishing it like a girl before her wedding J and just as a newlywed bride usually wears red at least in India, co-incidentally my bike is also reddish-maroon in color just like the bride !!
It just so happened that one of my very old school buddies from Goa( where I spent a few fantastic schooling years) , told me that he was getting married( I guessed at Goa), but to my disappointment , he said at Cochin. Well I asked him why not Goa? Gopi (his name is Gopidas), replied calmly, that’s because the girl is from Cochin. I congratulated him but I surely was not going to Cochin. A few days later I happened to see the scanned e-card Gopi sent, which was an invite for his wedding off course, but as I scrolled, something caught my eye. The card said, wedding at Cochin, but the reception was at Bangalore and from then on my mind began chasing the thought of biking down for my first maiden visit to Bangalore from Pune for good old Gopi’s wedding reception.

But prior to biking down straight to Bangalore, I decided to go in a for a short test ride to a spot or two in the Konkan and eventually took the familiar Tamini ghat route and did the beaten path of Murud-zanzira(island sea fort), then bikes were put in a boat and we crossed over the creek and then spent the night having beer and chicken at Diveagar beach. I had Mustabin Khan who was another fellow rider with me for this trip. Next day we went to Harihareshwar and luck was on our side, I saw dolphins for the third time in Konkan but was my first sighting of these wonderful creatures at Harihareshwar during my third trip there. Here we did 420 odd kms which included ghats, curves , basically good, bad and no roads and hence I got more convinced that I could do the 800km stretch of Bangalore easily as I had heard that the NH4 or Pune-Bang highway is really good and had earlier done about 150kms on NH4 , so had seen for myself that the road is a good four laner one and conducive for such a long ride.

I told a few guys that I plan to do this ride alone and as usual nobody was impressed except for my friend Mandar, who again happens to be an old pal from my schooling days at Goa. Mandar was now based at Bangalore, and he really convinced and backed me to bike down those 800kms and said that it would be a good once in a lifetime experience. The guts were totally mine, but the supporting driving force was from Mandar. One of my buddies –Pritam said that if I do more than 500kms in a day then he would enter my name in the Limca book of records J and boy did I surprise him and make him eat his words leading to heavy indigestion .I just googled for Pune- Bangalore roadmap and came across some sites where people had posted their experiences of driving down from Mumbai or Pune to Bangalore. However all these were car trips and were done with an overnight halt and they did not interest me as I did not find a single biking experience. But one fellow had done Mumbai to Bangalore in a day in his car and his post attracted me, he said that he had started from Mumbai at 1am and reached Yeshwantpur station in Bangalore at 16:00pm on the same day. After going through his account I decided that I could start at 1am from Pune and reach Bangalore the same day by at least 20:00pm or 21:00pm latest. God was kind and my bike was great and exactly this happened.

Plans frozen- time for actual run:
Gopi’s wedding reception was on 13th Dec , I decided to start on Friday the 11th of December at 1am(dawn or early early morning or night-whatever you would prefer) and reach on Friday itself by night. I went to office on Thursday, took some printout of Maps and attended for little over half a day and came back home by afternoon i.e. around 15:00hrs. The plan was to pick up some stuff = basically Bhakawadis for Mandar and my Nissan project team mates at Infy Bangalore, but Chitale’s shop was shut till 4pm, so I decided to fill up petrol and air first and then visit Chitale’s. After this was done I bought two cans of 2T oil or side oil used in old 2 strokes bikes like mine and also luckily the mechanic detected that some screw in the engine was a little loose , hence the engine oil was also leaking . So after emptying a can of engine oil and 2T oil, my bike was all set to burn some rubber.

I also bought some guavas, bananas and peanuts to eat when ever and where ever I stopped during the course of my journey.
It was around 5.30pm, I got a little delayed at the mechanic’s place but it was worth it. Then I decided to sleep till 10-11pm, so that will be fresh when I start at 1am. Somehow I could not really sleep like a baby and one of my aunt’s calls woke me up at 7.30pm, I told her about my plan and she advised me to start at 5am instead of 1am and be careful etc. I decided then to get out of bed and pack my bag. Clothes, water, guavas, peanuts, extra 2T oil can , goggles, camera, bhakarwadis, mango burfi, toothbrush , mobile charger etc, they all went in and fitted neatly in my bag. I kept aside the rope which I had bought to tie my bag on the pillion seat and also thought of additionally tying a chain with a lock to my bag (normally used to tie the luggage in trains ), as this would ensure that the bag would remain fixed to the bike even if the rope get untied. The gloves which I had newly bought keeping this ride in mind were also kept prominently aside. Call it being a little superstitious or whatever, I decided to wear the same set of clothes which I had worn during the last ride (washed off courseJ) as I had no trouble then and the trip went off smoothly.
The packing took an hour and I again decided to sleep for an hour or two. Finally I locked the house at 12.40am (Friday), and proceeded for one of the most important job which was to tie the bag securely on the pillion seat and left Kothrud @ Pune at around 12.50am and touched NH4 in a few minutes flat as it just 3kms from my place.
As I rode on the highway, it did not take me long to realize that I would have to be careful of the blinding lights from vehicles coming in the opposite direction (this despite the fact that it was a 4 lane highway). I had to open the visor of the helmet as the tinted glass had some scratches and reflected light (courtesy vehicles from opposite side) in all directions which made it difficult to see objects/vehicles, cows, dogs etc on the road ahead but after this dust started entering my browny eyes ,as if they were a dustbin did that did not help either. I finally stopped around 35kms from Pune as the, dust was too much to handle for my eyes and I felt like scratching them again and again and removed my shades. I had bought them during my work trip in Australia and discovered on coming to India that they could be used for night driving as they cut a big percentage of light from the opposite side in the city atleast. One might be tempted to ask as to why did this bright spark not hit me earlier as I am no novice to biking and night rides, well, it’s because the stick of the shades rubs against the earlobes with the helmet put on, this causes irritation to the skin of the ear, so was just trying to avoid this situation as far as possible. Now I again proceeded with the glares on and helmet visor open, and it was much better, the dust problem was solved and I could see where I was heading. It was already cold, very breezy and getting colder by the minute; I was doing a speed of around 50-70kmph. Again it did not take long to realize that I was the only 2 wheeler on the bike at that godforsaken hour of the day/night , the rest were all trucks, buses, tempos, suv’s and cars. The car’s and suv’s were zipping at around 100kmph followed by the buses. I was glad that at least the trucks were not zipping and I had them for company as I overtook several trucks on the way. Slowly I discovered that the goggles were also not helping cent percent as the intensity of blinding light from the vehicles on the opposite site was enough to generate solar power to light up the entire highway, but at least my eyes were dust free. That’s when I decided to do something, I began following any truck which was right in front of me, this way the blinding light was avoided as I had an elephant of a truck ahead of me to block it and I could safely accelerate behind the truck as I knew nothing else was in between me and the truck, this strategy worked beautifully for me during the night drive. If a truck was going too slow for my liking I would overtake it and continue till I found another one ahead of me which was like finding Sachin tendulkar’s fans in indiaJ. The trucks usually went at around 60-70kmph and I following them was also around the same speed, so I would call that a safe speed for night driving. The road was pretty straight and all I had to do was keep my forehands fixed to the handle. I took a few 5-10mins halts every one and half or two hours to empty my body’s water tank and stretch a little. Oh yes, I thing I would definitely like to specially mention, I was worried that my back and shoulders joints would need replacement after this ride, but to my surprise I was going great guns, and this I immediately discovered was due the fact of the bag which acted as a back rest on the pillion seat. I crossed Satara which is about 100-120kms from Pune in 2 hours and I decided to next halt directly at Kolhapur. As I went along, I encountered several toll booths which were the only patches which were brightly lit on the highway at that ungodly hour so that the toll booth money collectors see the color of money correctlyJ. I used to halt for 2 minutes sometimes at these booths for some stretching and then again hunt for another truck in whose shadow I could follow. After I crossed Satara , my speed also reduced a little, the trucks were also not moving too fast, I overtook many and finally decided to follow a truck which was going pretty fast , I touched speeds of 80kmph and it was bloody cold and windy , but I was determined to be with this trucky guy and it was courtesy him that I began to gain on lost time. During this time it was pitch dark and was around 3am and I was keeping a distance of around 25metres from this trucky guy and then some strange things began to happen. I thought I was seeing apparitions or ghosts or spirits in the 25 meter space which was between me and this truck. I guess those images or figures were caused as a result of the mixing of mist, dust and light from my vehicle’s headlamp, but whatever it was, it was pretty distracting as I braked on several occasions thinking something was ahead of me, but in fact there was nothing. At times I thought I saw some animal ahead of me, but again there was nothing, this was a pretty novel experience for me. Finally I reached Kolhapur which is about 220 odd kms from Pune around roughly 4.30-5am. I was glad at my progress, I thought at this rate I will reach Bangalore by four in the afternoon as the road was good and it would soon be daylight and I can zip at more than 80kmph; however I was mistaken and did not have a clue of what lay ahead. I kept riding and soon by 6am was in Karnataka state which I was entering for the first time in my life. I hoped the sun would rise soon as I was now tired of the cold breeze and night driving for five and a half hours-6 hours. But I was happy about the fact that I had covered around 280-300kms in those five and a half to six hours of night driving and that was a substantial distance and the key to reach in a single day covering 800kms in total. I again stopped at 6.30am and the sun rose at 6.45am while I was having a guava. There was sand and dirt in and on my mouth as the helmet visor was open during the night, I could feel the dust being grinded in between my teeth, as I ate the guava. I just took it as a reward of my hard work. Finally I began to see people and two wheelers on the road as the sun god rose from its sleep and I again got on my bike. The road as I entered Karnataka was awesome, much better than Maharashtra and I was now zipping at 80+kmph with no dust entering in and on my mouth as the helmet visor was now closed. There were nice farms all around with the highway passing between them; I stopped to fill fuel and air at some place after Nipani as I was worried that I would be stranded as there was no chance of tanking up at night as all pumps were closed even though there was enough fuel—I accept I do tend to get worried about running out of fuel. The petrol pump guy and the one who filled air spoke Marathi which was understandable but was laced a bit with kannada probably as this place was close to the Maharashtra-karnataka border. Soon, I crossed Nipani, Bagewadi, then Dharwad and Hubli and was zipping quite comfortably and happily as the road was ‘ekdum makkhan’ meaning smooth like the skin of those Baywatch babes shown on the beaches of California. Now at times I began to feel a little sleepy after almost eight hours of non-stop driving, but I would regain control of myself immediately. Two things I would like to mention here, the wind was blowing furiously, my bike would almost get swayed by the wind if I accelerated beyond 70-80kmph, it was like the wind was playfully nudging me aside, and also on the way, I saw dozens of stray dogs killed and lying on the road after some vehicle hit. When I passed each dog, I just said one sentence, may your soul RIP. It was not a nice sight, but that’s life. Soon at Dharwad, I saw the TATA Motors plant on the highway and I remembered my old days where I spent 2 years in the TATA Motors plant at Pune where all I ever saw was trucks and bald old men and am pretty sure that it would have not been any different inside those huge gates bearing the TATA logo. Sometime later I do not recollect exactly, the four lane highway soon turned into a two lane road, this led to obvious reduction in speed and later to add to the horror, the road was dug up and there were diversions and potholes and it got really bad. Fortunately I was doing this patch during the day as during the night this would have been a disaster. The day progressed but my speed did not due to the un-anticipated extended bad patch of road. I still thought I could reach by 6- 6.30pm i.e. before the sun sets in Bangalore city.

I kept riding along the long patch of highway road full of diversions and still under construction and slowly the village traffic comprising tractors, bullock carts on the highway also increased along with the intensity of the sun and finally I entered a small city called Ranibennur. The highway again gets converted into a 2 laner piece of road and the heavy traffic made progress slow. Here I noticed that the traffic cops of Karnataka wear cowboy type caps, it’s quite a sight. When I entered Ranibennur, I got a little confused if I am on the correct track or not, as the city patch was around a 4-5kms one and I thought I may have skipped a diversion , so I stopped and checked my map, and was glad that I was on the correct path. All along my journey, be it at night at the toll booths or during day along the villages or in a small city like Ranibennur, people were quite amused to see a biker with a black jacket adorned with F1 car sponsor logos, gloves, a big bag tied onto the pillion seat and happily accelerating J.
It would not be wrong to call Ranibennur a cross between a village and a city and it was refreshing to see the small city colleges and school and reminded me of the ones I always see when I bike down to the konkan coast of Maharashtra. TheNH-4 highway usually excellent but at times really bad on the Karnataka side, but it sure was scenic throughout with farms, dams, small hills, sun kissed barren land , small rivulets, rivers, sunflower plantations , small village huts alternating and adorning almost the entire 800km patch. To add to all the above lovely sights, was when I reached Chitradurga. Here there are hundreds of huge windmills which even a blind man cannot miss. The road was terrible in this part of the word, but seeing the windmills all around with their blades rotating was almost like a hundred Katrina kaif’s coming out of nowhere and waving at youJ. I initially thought of taking out my camera here and taking a few shots, but I have almost climbed a windmill in Satara district of Maharashtra where again there are thousands of windmills, so it was nothing new to me, but the size of the windmills at Chitradurga was massive, to give an example would be like saying, that if the windmills at Satara were like Sachin Tendulkar height wise, then the windmills at Chitradurga were like Amitabh Bachhan J.
Around 80 -100kms of the road is a two laner and bad with diversions and under construction on the Karnataka side
Hence I just moved on admiring the lovely sight and fortunately the road got much better after Chitradurga, here again it got converted into a nice 4 laner and I could zip fast touching 80-90kmph easily and it was like my bike was talking to the wind. If I remember correctly Bangalore was 220-250kms from Chitradurga and I was happy that the road was good and I was almost there, so I decided to stop only after driving 100-150kms for another few minutes break. There was no problem in this and now on the way after about 80odd kms, I saw lots of young men sitting with a bunch of coconuts, and I was quite tempted to stop and sip on some naiyal pani( coconut water), but my grip on the accelerator was set at 80kmph as the road was really nice and somehow I did not feel like letting go off it except for a stop for refueling as I did not want to take any chances of running dry . So after crossing Hiriyur which took about an hour and half I decided to take a pit stop at Sira which was about 100kms from Bangalore. Here I saw a decent petrol pump which also had boards of a toilet, wash room, air and stopped there for a refuel , washed my weather battered face nicely, finished off my two remaining bananas and one of the petrol pump’s attendant came to check out my bike. He saw that it bore an MH- Maharashtra number plate and was amused to know that I had driven down all the way, I asked him how much more time before I reached Bengaluru and he told me that’s its 100kms away and maybe an hour and half or two hours max. I saw the time, it was around 4.30-4.45pm, and I began wondering if I could make it before the sun set as I sat down and the Yamaha engine again roared like not one but two tigers in unison. I just left the pump and went ahead a few hundred meters when I saw a nice milestone saying that Bengaluru is 100kms away, and I again stopped to finally take my first picture after having driven 700kms. Though there were some lovely early morning breath taking sights as I have mentioned earlier along the highway , I never stopped to take pictures as I did not see something drastically different to pull over and take a shot, however I was quite tempted to take a shot of myself along with the bike with a milestone mentioning the distance to Bengaluru as proof and accomplishment of my solo ride, but somehow never stopped during the early morning, afternoon but finally did so the evening when I was 100kms away. There was no one to take a shot for me of the trio- myself, my Yamaha and the milestone, so I thought of placing my camera on timer to take a shot, however the positioning was difficult to achieve even after 10mins of serious effort. But I guess , God wanted me to capture my share of glory in the form of a picture, and suddenly out of nowhere 2-3 young village lads appeared and were throwing glances at my bike, similar to ones guys do to the best chick in class during college days. I smiled at them and fortunately for me they spoke Hindi, so telling them to take a photo and explaining how to handle my camera was easy, else I wonder how would I have done this in Kannada J. One of the boys was very enthusiastic and I told him that I will sit on the milestone, and to capture me, the milestone and my bike and we ended up taking some great shots which I will forever cherish. In the shots- half of my face appears bright and the other and the other half appears in the sun’s shadow and to me that signifies the day and night driving which I had done.

To my surprise the lad who clicked the pictures, asked me if I want to sell my bike and he got an instant answer—‘no way mate’ as I thanked them and left for the last leg of my journey. I guess the photo exercise consumed about 20mins which meant I would see the sun set in Bengaluru city and would be still somewhere on the outskirts. I went as fast as I could but lost the race against time as the sun god said goodnight Parikshit and set. Now I had driven almost 17hours in that day and was so near yet not there from my destination and for the second time during the course of the day I had to resort to night driving, and for the first time, my enthusiasm meter dipped a little and I just wanted to reach as quickly as possible, but then there was again heavy traffic and dust and blinding lights. I however continued and finally reached Yashwantpur station at 8pm—yippee after battling the crazy , idiotic traffic of Bangalore—and there was the following placard in my brain—Parikshit arrived at Bangalore in a single day riding his Yamaha , solo starting at 1am in the morning on Friday and reaching on Friday night at 8pm. I made a call home and then to my friend and finally set off to find my friends place, soon the cowboy traffic cops of Karnataka welcomed me to Bengaluru by stopping me for MH vehicle and saying my bike’s lights were off(guessed I switched them off when I made a called at Yashwantpur station and forgot to switch them on again), I was in no mood to argue and just paid them off. See what wonderful things money does, when I initially spoke to them, they spoke only in Kannada , but as soon as I dished out some cash, their tongue began wagging in Hindi J, everyone loves the color of money.
Finally after asking people for directions only to realize that they do not realize Hindi, I somehow reached Mandar’s place.
I spent 3 days at Bangalore, which can be summarized in 3 sentences, the first day I was only on a liquid diet of Beer J, after all I needed to make up for those lost calories of the ride, second day I was on a solid diet-it was gopi’s reception and third day, I did not each much and sleep for a major part of the day sleeping as I again rode back to Pune in the same fashion in a single day starting at 1am and reching at 7.30pm. It was great to catch up with old school buddies whom I had not met for over a decade as we played carom, chatted and had beer deep into the night. Mandar and his wife Shamin were very gracious hosts. Before the reception day , I called Gopi telling him that I have biked down for his reception and the pooe fello was shocked—he justkept saying—Parik( that’s what my Goa buddies call me), are you crazy, are you crazy ? . He said this at least half a dozen times and I just kept quiet as I realized that he is already married and his father’s protective, caring instincts have woken up after 27yrs J
I left on 15th Dec i.e. Tuesday at 1am again after meeting my mama and his family, my mama is I guess the only other person in my family circle after my maternal grandfather (ajoba)who has blue eyes . I lost my way initially, but soon was back on NH4 with no traffic for a change in Bangalore city and drove back in the same fashion as I came and was back at Kothrud in my house at 7.30pm on Tuesday J

Everybody, my mother, mama, mami, Mandar were all relieved that I was back safe and sound.
All in all it was one helluva 1600kms solo bike ride, —would just end with saying as usual , a biker and trekker never dies, he just fades away on the road or in the hills.
Regards,
Parikshit Vaidya
parivaidya@gmail.com,
http://www.parivaidya.blogspot.com/
9822474756-Pune

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pariandhiswanderlust/

p.s: People feel worried if I tell them I am biking somewhere (now quite a few can digest it as well after reading or listening to many of my previous escapades)—main source of worry is that I might die courtesy an accident—but I feel the chances of an accident in Pune city itself are as high as compared to the skyscrapers of New York rather than the road running in between the rustic setting of villages , mountains and oceans. I read a while back in the papers that Charles Darwin had said that though the Neandrathral man is extinct—some of his genes and characteristics are still present in some humans in this century also. Well if Mr Darvin was alive, Mr Vaidya would have definitely fixed an appointment with him…..

Dolphin Spotting in Konkan!!

2008-04-07T01:24:00.000-07:00

Dolphin Spotting in Konkan
Hi guys,
Well I am back from another fabulous road trip to the konkan coast (this time to the central part of it). To cut a long story short—I saw dolphins and some fabulous sights, and beaches which have been captured as photographs. So here goes my trip log day wise!!

Day 0: (Preparation day before the trip commences and how it all began)
One of my best buddies from engineering college (now a businessman) Mr. Pritam Sengupta called me belatedly to wish me on my birthday. I don’t have the answer to your question if you are wondering how come one of my best friends forgot my birthday,, hehe! So during our telephonic conversation I asked him if he was game to ride to the konkan coast with me double seat on my beloved Yamaha Rxz bike. Actually I asked a lot of people for this trip, almost everyone agreed but, in the end everyone had some commitment or the other. But to my pleasant surprise Pritam agreed instantly like two minute maggi noodles. For your information, this buddy of mine was flying from Kolkata to and fro for this bike trip, so you can get an idea about kya dosti hai hamari (the poor guy needed a break as well, business is taxing especially if its your own ,,he he). So we freezed our plan from the 3rd to the 6th of April, but eventually we had to cut down a day because Pritam had to return on the 6th back to Kolkata. So now our revised trip plan was only 3 days from the 3rd to 5th April. Pritam arrives in Pune on the 3rd of April (Thursday) at 1.30 in the night, luckily he got down at E-square multiplex which is like five minutes from my place and I go pick him. We manage a few hours sleep and wake up at 5 am and get ready. I put in 2 shirts, socks, Vaseline, my driving license, helmet lock, cap, a bottle of water, shorts, wallet , road map in my bag and put this bag into the bag Pritam had got( it was huge) but since I put my bag also in his bag, it became quite heavy.

Day 1: Journey commences Just before we leave, Pritam asks me for a helmet, I have only one helmet for my single head unlike Ravana from Ramayana is what I tell pritam. But pritam insisted for a helmet, so we call up his relative in Pune who fortunately had a spare helmet which we pick up from CC (chandani chowk in Pune parlance). We finally left at 6.30 am and I decided to take the Tamhini ghat route once again. It was a smooth ride as always, we first stop about 70kms from chandani chowk for a leak, clicked some pics of the Mulshi Lake and further up of the surrounding mountains which guard the road like its baby. I have not uploaded these as I have dozens of them now (having taken this route many times).
I told Pritam to cover this route sometime during the monsoon during which he will see waterfalls all around the majestic Sahayadri mountain range. He spotted the marks of dried up falls originating from the hills. Now without wasting time we quickly reached national highway -17(Mumbai- Goa road), Pritam wanted a halt now for some tea, but since I was riding, the brake was in my control and I was in no mood to stop. My original plan was to go to Sindudurg sea fort which is just short of Goa, via internal konkan roads. On the Mumbai-goa highway slightly ahead of Mangaon I stopped, and called a friend (Praveen Sathaye), he told me to ask for ‘Toll phata’ and just carry on straight and head for Dapoli village. Well I did exactly that and to be dead sure also asked a few auto rickshaw guys at the ‘phata’ itself.
From here on Pritam began riding the bike and I was pillion, we had covered about 100kms and were as per schedule of reaching Guhaghar beach town by crossing the creek at Dabhol after putting my bike in the jetty and spending the night at Guhaghar beach.

Now as we took this internal road, out jaws dropped, a river called ‘Veer’ runs almost parallel along the road for quite a distance and the scenery is gorgeous. We spotted a few stairs leading to the river while riding and again stopped for some photography. I again spoke to Pravin from here and while talking slipped and maybe in one of the pics you see the bruises on my elbow, luckily the jacket did not tear despite the rocky terrain and my phone even though it plummeted quite a distance was fine (Nokia phones are sturdy). Do not miss the Veer river shots we took, later on as we hopped on the bike again, we automatically had to stop , a gorgeous view of the river surrounded by farms downhill , a small piece of land jutting into the river and trees all around is what we saw from uphill. So again we had a ball of a time taking pics!! Do not miss these shots, they are taken at a village called Dabhol (not to be confused with the Enron-dabhol project, in the konkan there are villages and beaches with identical names. We truly enjoyed our photography session here. Later on as we proceeded we saw some construction going on the river bank. The internal road was calm and peaceful surrounded by hills and there is a presence of quite a dense forest on these hills. Along the way we saw temples of all sizes, village ladies carrying loads of hay or pots of water, or piles of wood on their heads and the same was the scenario for every small village we spotted every 10kms or so. We decided to have lunch at Dapoli and from there go to Dabhol as mentioned earlier. On the way we again stopped for a cold drink and bought some sweets to prevent our throat from getting parched.

Day1: CONTINUED;;;;;The fun begins@ HarnePort: We go in the deep sea and spot 3 dolphins, attend a fish auction worth crores!!and the bike starts giving some trouble!!!
We soon reach the tiny but picturesque town of Dapoli, the milestones on the way are of a big help to determine if one is heading exactly in the right direction. At Dapoli we begin hunting for some good Malvani restaurants and soon decide to halt at one on the way to Harne port. I forget the name of this restaurant, but we had beer and chicken here, we relished every bit of food and drink, after all we had been riding double seat with a heavy bag pack for more than 5 hours and covered almost 200kms. After we paid our bill and were about to leave, the waiter told us that we could see dolphins at Harne port. I said ‘wow’, dolphins, just about 225 kms from Pune, yeah, I wanted to always see those intelligent mammals jump in front of my eyes, ( till now have just seen them on discovery and national geographic channel). The same waiter gave us two telephone numbers (apparently these were of the guy who takes people in the sea for dolphin spotting). I called up the number but it turned out to be a wrong number. We decided to go anyways.

As I said, its 99% of the time a straight single road in the konkan which takes you places, so finding your way is not an issue at all, and besides I am a Maharashtrian, so that makes it all the more easy to communicate with the local village folk who are nice and simple. So off we went and on the way asked people about where we could spot dolphins, many of those guys said, you can spot them at Murud( now this is not to be confused with Murud-Janzira, which lies to the north of Dapoli almost 100kms away), as I have mentioned earlier, another beach with the same name. So now off we go to Murud, as you go straight you hit a T-junction ahead , one road takes you to Harne port and the other to Murud. As we reached Murud , I told my friend that we are along the coast now and we spotted beautiful bungalows with boards in Marathi saying” gharghuti rahanyachi soy”—which in English means you can live in our house for the night). Now I was hoping that I find such boards at Guhaghar beach where I had decided to halt at night. Pritam said coast ka “C” bhi nahi dikh raha and that’s when I stopped the bike. But I was dead sure we were along the coast (I have lived my formative childhood years in Mumbai and Goa and those were 13 long years, hence I can smell the sea and beaches). I then got off the bike and ran a few steps to what was a perfectly hidden beautiful beach which I discovered amidst tall coconut trees with the sound of the sea greeting me in an absolutely orchestrated manner. I was indeed correct, our first beach halt, I yelled with delight to pritam that we are indeed along the coast buddy and he should head to towards me for proof. The beach was fabulous, clean and no people around, just as I like it. We also spotted a Kamat resort on the beach. It was about 3.30 in the afternoon, in the distance one can spot the Suvarnadurg fort at harne port from Murud beach and it is indeed a lovely sight. Look for the pic of murud beach in the snaps link I sent. We just clicked a few shots of each other at Murud beach and decided to proceed towards toward Harne which is about 10-12 kms away. On the way back to my bike I asked the lady at kamat resort if the dolphin spotting thing we heard was true , she said it was , but the boatmen take people only early in the morning at 7 am to spot dolphins. We just said bad luck and left as it was 4pm then, but fortune favors the brave and the sea god was kind to us at Harne port. Soon we were at Harne port, there are portions here where on one side are small hills, adjacent to them is the narrow road on which you are driving and adjacent to your vehicle the beach and the ocean for company, how do you like that!! We straightaway headed to Harne bunder (as the boards say or harne port for those who do not know what a ‘bunder’ means, it also means port, the other meaning off course being ‘monkey’. I parked the bike and soon got talking to two local koli guys (now koli means fishermen), well they spoke Marathi and I asked them about dolphins!! They said you see a lot of them during the mornings (7am-9am), and at that time it was 4.30-4.45 pm or so. I was a little dejected when I heard the timings, and maybe the koli guys sensed it in my voice and body language and he said , if you are really lucky you may spot some in the evening also. He said that during the morning the water is cool, hence chances of dolphin spotting rate is high and sometimes there is a whole group of 40-50 of them jumping in and out as seen on national geographic and discovery channel. He continued his short speech as he sensed he was the expert in the matter and said that in the evenings ‘dolphin macchi la hurkayala lagata aani mag distat’ which means you have to keep going deep, deep into the sea to spot them during evenings. I enquired if we can spot them by throwing ‘chum’, now chum is dead tuna fish in blood ( I keep an interest in sharks and this is a way of spotting the great white shark used by boatmen in South Africa and off the coast of California. But in my enthusiasm to spot dolphins I forgot that these gentle mammals are not as savage as sharks. Then suddenly the two fishermen who were in discussion with us pointed to a boat in the sea and said that looks like some dolphins have been spotted and that’s why the boat is at that one spot in the sea. Our eyes lit up, the koli guys said that before us just 10 min ago, another group of people had gone dolphin spotting and it appeared they had spotted them, so we negotiated with them the money to take us also. They demanded 600bucks, (mostly I guess due to the fact that they thought I was a foreigner, but they liked my Marathi), he said he would show us around the Suvarnadurg island fort also, but we negotiated for Rs 300 and decided to skip the Suvarnadurg island fort as I had already seen the majestic Janzira fort twice before and we were short on time. So off Pritam and me went deep, deep into the Arabian Sea along with one fisherman to spot dolphins. We were just 10 mins into the sea when my mom called and spoke to me for about half an hour (there is connectivity I guess because Suvanadurg has a lighthouse and they have a tower there) and no dolphins appeared and we were starting to curse our luck, but just then, it was a moment of pure magic, a about 5 foot or so dolphin rose up to say hi to us and jumped back in. We were so glad, we began to look in all directions for more and it happened two times more, this time the dolphin took a full leap as shown in the channels and we got a super side view of the dolphins. Yees,,yeh,, wow,,fantastic,,,were the words in mind(as we spotted 3 dolphin jumps), I told my mom who was still on phone that I will hang up as our boat was really rocking in the sea, the fisherman said that this was due to lack of weight balance in the boat as we were only 3 guys. Pritam was shit scared and just held on to the mast in the boat with an iron grip and saw the dolphins and took pics, I being the more adventurous guy and a Indian naval officer’s son went to the front corner of the boat where it was really being rocked by the waves and sea water splashing on my face every second. Well I know how to swim and plus there were dolphins around to save me right!! Well that’s just how I am, I tried to click the dolphins also, but they were camera shy I guess, to tell you how difficult that is, is like anticipating when a batsman in cricket would hit a six and clicking a pic of his shot, so now you know how difficult it is to click a pic of a dolphin, anyway next time I will go dolphin spotting in the morning!! Our boatman was also relieved that we spotted dolphins, as after the initial half hour in the deep sea when we did not spot any, I could see the guilt on his face. Now all three of us were happy, he said they weigh around 500 kilos each and are about 5-6 feet or more in length. He asked us to click a few snaps of himself which I did and then we headed back to the port when we spotted several boats with colorful flags heading back to Harne’s shore and our koli boatman told us that a fish auction is going to start, where fish worth 1.5 crores and more are sold everyday. My god, I should take up fishing, it’s a risky life, but a different life, I said to myself. So more pics of the colorful boats followed, he told us that the boat in which we went costs 80 thousand and the bigger fishing trawlers cost 30 lacks, wow!!! So we were dropped back to shore and I thanked the sea-god profusely that we saw dolphins!! And headed to the harne beach to watch my first fish auction, it was a colorful sight, just like a village fair, the local villagers even had got bullock carts and I saw bulls knee deep in the sea, lugging back fish. Harne beach is not a tourist’s idea of a beach, but you get to see dolphins and fish auctions, what more can you ask for!! There were all kinds of fish, but then there were all kinds of smells also (remember I said it’s a huge fish auction), so after a few pics we left Harne bunder. Now some good news, in the pics if you see the second or third pic where I stand like Hercules (he he), well that’s the right side of Harne port and the beach there is quite clean. There is also a small fort wall, and it resembles the Dil chahta hai movie scene where the three friends sit and talk on a similar structure facing the sea (infact it is almost identical). The sight is heavenly, you don’t think that you are in India, believe me and after seeing the pics I am sure that you all will agree. We climbed up the wall and another photo session followed, it is a mind-blowing sight, of rocks jutting out into the deep blue sea from the beach and surrounded by lush green hills in the distance. Soon we were on our way back and crossed Dapoli; there is a lovely college of agriculture which you can see on the road as you go ahead. We asked a traffic cop to ascertain our direction for Dabhol port; he said it was about 26kms from Dapoli. It was about 6.15 pm and I wanted to cover maximum distance by 7 pm as after that it gets dark.
It soon began getting dark and had done around 275 kms, double seat on a Yamaha Rxz with a 20kg bag pack and our butts were beginning to hurt, but Dabhol was no where in sight, it soon began getting dark, but the road was full of twists, desolate and never-ending. We just kept going and were now riding in the dark, with more twists and turns on a downhill. Its here that some sound started emanating from the chain of my bike and this was a premonition for a bike breakdown, but at that point of time we were too tired to think about it. All we wanted to do was reach Dabhol, put my bike in the ferry and cross the creek and find a place to stay at Guhaghar for the night. We reached Dabhol port and luck continued to favor us, a huge ferry boat was already lined up at the harbor and I zoomed my bike in the ferry and we crossed the creek in about 10mins, it is said that Dabhol also has a pretty beach, but we had to skip this one. Soon we got off on the other side of Dabhol port and continued our journey to Guhaghar after asking for directions. Well let me mention here that the road is bad and it is an acclivity and pitch dark, to give you the gravity of the work ‘pitch dark’ which I use here, let me tell you It was so dark that you could not even see your own arm, I hope you get the clue now. The sky was brilliant with billions of stars; you do not see this scene in the city. Thank god that there was no traffic at night, and my headlight was functioning properly else it was impossible to go even a step ahead. The unpleasant noise from my bike was increasing, but we ignored it as we were on a lonely, desolate pitch dark road in the middle of a forest. We hit the highway finally and after going some distance saw the infamous Enron project, it has now been renamed as Ratnagiri gas and power project and is huge with pillars and lights which can be seen from outside. We were in Ratnagiri district of Konkan now. We kept going straight and finally were closing in on Guhaghar (I figured this as we saw some civilization now, people walking and small huts, small buildings etc) and were getting tired with every increasing kilometer. I kept asking local people for Guhaghar beach and they said it was just a little distance away, so we kept going. Finally I saw a board which said “gharghuti rahanyachi sooy” as I had seen at Murud beach earlier and I jumped from the bike and asked the house owner if we could stay for the night at his place. The house owners name was Mr. Khare and he called us in we spoke for about half and hour (all usual questions like from where have you come, from where are you etc etc followed and Pritam was getting really bored as we were conversing in Marathi and he could not make much sense out of our discussion), he gave us his first floor room and we were off to the beach, the beach was on the rear side of his bungalow (sounds good right). Mr. Khare told us about a restaurant called ‘Blue lagoon” where we could get booze and good sea food. We were at ‘Blue Lagoon ‘in minutes, Guhaghar is also a lovely small coastal town like Dapoli. We first decided to eat and then have beer on the beach, Pritam ordered his favorite prawns curry and rice and I ordered my favourite-malvani chicken and rotis. The food and quantity was good, and halfway into praising our meal I remembered that this is Konkan, so we should order Sol-kadhi (a speciality appetizer drink of the entire Konkan coast region), the guy got us a huge glass (almost a beer mug) of sol kadhi and our appetite to have beer went for a six as we had already over eaten. Soon it was time to say goodnight after a long eventful day, I took extra time to sleep as Pritam snores like a truck .Oh yes, I forgot to mention that I wanted to see the sunset at Guhaghar beach, but we arrived there after 9 pm, but we still had our day two in hand, but man proposes and god disposes and something similar happens, read on!!

Day 2: Meditation @ Guhaghar beach and bike breaks down 30kms from Ganpatipule!!

We wake up at 6am on day 2 (let me make it clear, I wake up at 6am and wake up Pritam else am sure he would have slept till noon). We got to the toilet built amidst the coconut and betel nut orchards owned by Mr. Khare. Also there I also spotted a jackfruit tree; normally I cannot identify a jackfruit tree, so how did I spot this one? Well it had about 8-10 monster jackfruits at about shoulder height hanging from its trunk. I saw this sight after almost a decade.

We then head to the beach which was like 20 steps away. It was a wonderful morning with only the sand, coconut trees, Pritam, me, the cool morning sea breeze and the deep blue sea present for each of us. We then did some ‘pranayam’ with the sea watching in amusement I guess or maybe we exhaled so hard that the waves rose each time our lungs pumped air out in that pure setting( what imagination on my part). In between our pranayam breaths, we caught crabs of small to medium sizes scurrying in the sand. Now it was time for a blue water blast. We just had a ball in the sea, and clicked snaps of each other having a blast. Some pics were dummy shots of pranayam, some running along the beach, in the water etc etc and every shot has come out, hmmm, I just got one word,, super!!The shots truly depict what a whale of a time we had in the sea that day. After a while we went a little into the sea as it was time to accept the call of the waves. I wish I had a surfboard that day, the waves were of decent height, speed, force for surfing was my firm belief, we used to go towards the forming giant wave and then get pushed to the shore with all its force, it was fantastic, both of us immersed all our sorrows for those two hours in the sea and enjoyed every bit of our blue water blast. Oh yes, I also jogged a bit and did some bare-chested push-ups along the sea to work on that ‘tan’ as most of the girls keep asking me the secret of my pink complexion 
Then was time to head back and I decided to head to Ganpatipule and also visit Velneshwar and Hedvi (all these places have temples and lovely beaches, actually the temples are right along the beaches). So we have a nice hot water bath and ask Mr. Khare for directions and distances, Mr. Khare was a really nice guy, he told us that Ganpatipule is 90 kms from Guhaghar and Hedvi and Velneshwar are about 26kms from the same. He drew a map for us along with distances and we decide to see Ganpatipule and be back at Guhaghar to have a blast on the beach again and view the sunset. I still have that map drawn on a rough piece of paper. We decided to skip Sindudurg which I had in mind originally when I started as Mr. Khare told me that it was a further 300kms from guhaghar and that would leave us with no time to enjoy what konkan has to offer bikers and hitch hikers like us. It was time for some heavy breakfast before we shared butt space on the bike again. We had some lovely poha, vada, upma, tea and ladoos. The poha and upma was sprinkled with coconut as expected, this is almost a custom in the Konkan region (sprinkling of a majority of foodstuff with grated coconut). Just before we proceeded we showed the bike to a mechanic at Guhaghar(remember the noise I was talking about ), that idiot told us that the chain was loose and I would need to get a new one put, if only he had diagnosed the problem correctly our day 2 trip log would have been a different one.
The unpleasant noise kept on increasing, and Pritam said that we should abort the ride to Ganpatipule and get the bike fixed first, but I was not impressed by the first mechanic we showed the bike to at guhaghar and this impression sub-consciously got applied to other mechanics also in the villages we passed. Along the way at Shrungartali we saw a couple of better garages but Pritam was driving and did not stop and I too did not insist and am sure he did not here me telling him my sighting of these auto-shops as he was wearing his helmet and my voice was not forceful. Mr. Khare had given us an internal road map for Ganpatipule lined with villages and forests on the way, similar to route we took to come to Dapoli and then to Guhaghar. We took a right turn after about 10kms as indicated and then we just had to carry on straight, the noise kept on increasing and it was loud enough to be heard in helmets at speeds of 50-60kmph, the internal road was pretty good, on the way we went past several villages, all similar to the ones we saw in the previous day. The sun was slowly but surely showing its ability to get ferocious and we soon we passed Ambaloli village about 25kms from Guhaghar (the reason I remember this name so vividly will soon be out) and we passed a signboard which says ‘Chandika mandir to the left”, we decided to give it a skip. Pritam was riding and I was glad we had left our heavy bag at Mr. Khare’s house and just had two cameras to carry, this made pillion riding so much simpler. I was not enjoying the noise from the chain area of the bike, and felt like my bike was trying hard to communicate its problem to both of us and suddenly a really loud noise emerges and silences both of us. The chain had come out loose from the sprocket. I liked Pritam’s attitude here, he was ice cool and I got a little tense out the guilt I was feeling for having ruined his day. We were 30kms from Ganpatipule and 60kms from Guhaghar (our base). Pritam coolly asks me for a “paana”(spanner to loosen the screws covering the chain cover) and I replied back equally coolly that I did not have any of those and began pulling back the bike to the road which led back to Guhaghar in the hot sun. Pritam says ‘kya hai yeh-aise hi 700-750kms ki trip ko nikal gaya without paana? (which meant how come I left to undertake a 700-750km trip without a repair kit?) . I did not answer him and was prepared to pull the bike back to Guhaghar or Shrungartali where I saw the decent garages as mentioned earlier, it was about 11.30am then and I estimated that we should be there by 7-8pm. Pritam meanwhile clicked a snap of yours truly lugging the bike and then when I turned around said” arre bhai yeh bhi photo hona chaiye”(meaning one must have this shot also) I smiled and felt good that my buddy was pretty cheerful and not cursing me in public at least 

We saw 2-3 jeeps passing by and they stared at us in that brief duration in which they crossed us looking at us like aliens. We then saw a simple guy in his forties riding a hero Honda and Pritam waved his hand and requested him to stop, which he did. We explained the situation to him and fortunately he had spanners (pana) and we opened the chain cover and fortunately discovered that the chain had not got dismembered, but only had come of loose from the sprocket. We then put it back on and got our hands full of grease, meanwhile another guy on a bajaj stopped and joined the discussion with us in the middle of a forest under the scorching sun. His expert advice was that the chain has got loose and we need to cut a link or move a point and so on, he tried with his spanner to move it by a point, but the spanner was not large enough. Finally we decided to ride back to Ambaloli village where these guy said a mechanic could fix up the bike, I enquired if he was decent enough and not the mechanic at guhaghar. We did not put the chain cover of the bike as I did not have any spanner to open the cover in case the chain came off again. We hopped on, but the noise from the bike did not reduce and we hardly went a few kilometers when the chain came off again. We now realized that this was going to happen again and again and we need to find a bike doctor at the earliest, but we were still about 20kms away from the nearest one and that too in the middle of a forest on a desolate road. Pritam again came to the rescue with his cool head, he stopped a small Piaggio tempo and the guy stopped, I must say that these village folk are really simple and helpful. Now it was my turn to do the talking with the driver since I knew the language he spoke i.e. Marathi, thankfully for us, his tempo was empty and I convinced him of carting my bike till Ambaloli village with the two of us holding the bike. So we lifted my 150 kg Yamaha and put it in carefully, it was a perfect fit in a diagonal fashion, not an inch more or less and we were on the opposite site of the diagonal which my bike formed. It was a terrific joyride for 20kms with the tempo and my bike bouncing up and down along the minor ghat road and the twisties. Finally after about 40 minutes we were at Ambaloli village and in front of Suraj garage as suggested to us by the kind man who stopped and lent us his spanner to open the chain cover of my bike. It was 13:00 Pm by then and the mechanic guy also owned a small shop selling biscuits and those sweets which you now a days only get in villages for 25 paisa each. The mechanic had two sub-mechanics working for him and they had gone for lunch, so we waited for their arrival and tried to rid are hands of the grease coating which covered them while putting on the chain. Prtiam was quite hungry and began to go chomp-chomp on the biscuits available at the small shop, our plans of having a feast of sea-food and chicken at Ganpatipule had gone for a toss. But both Pritam and I shared a common thought, i.e. now are trip was complete with this adventure and we were quite cheerful. It was past an hour now, but still there was no sign of the mechanics at Suraj garage after their lunch, the garage owner’s son was managing the shop and we asked him to call up the mechanics (now a days everybody has cell phones), but his local coin box booth was down and we did not have any connectivity at Ambaloli village (for the record I have an Idea connection and Pritam a Vodaphone from Kolkata). So we had no choice but wait, and chat up with a local school teacher who was also in line for a check up of his bike. He was from a village near Hedvi which we were to visit next morning provided the bike got fixed today. The mechanic said that the bearing attached to the rear wheel of the bike has conked off and a new one was needed. He was removing the old bearing from the tyre and it was going to take some time so we decided to explore the village, it was a market day at Ambaloli on the 4th of April that day and we were lucky to see the sight. There were tents put up on a piece of barren land with vendors selling clothes, utensils, vegetables, spices, hardware like nuts, bolts, screws, plastic items like buckets etc and everything around seemed colorful with nice pretty birds also flying around. We had a ice-cream shake from a vendor present there and also spotted a man selling 2-3 day old cute cute chicks (young one’s of a hen), his rate was for Rs 10 you get 3 and for Rs 20 you get 8. A young girl of about 5 yrs bought one chick in front of us and the chick seller was persuading us also to buy some. The village ladies told us that some people raise the chicks as pets and some feed them and then cook them when their size seems fit for doing so. We then returned to our bike –doctor’s shop and were relieved when he said that he has a stock of bearings and would put in a new one, but unfortunately our joy was short lived as he did not keep bearings which fit into a Yamaha. We would now have to go to Shringartali village town 15 kms away in hope of finding a bearing and if we did not get it there too , then head for Chiplun(the biggest city in that vicinity), but Chiplun was 60 kms from our garage at Ambaloli. We were praying that we get the bearing at Shringartali. Now our ride till Shringartali is another adventure. We asked the garage guy and villagers as to how could we reach Shrungartali, and the reply we got was via the government bus or local tempos. We had to get there fast as it was already 4pm, we saw a Trax jeep guy and asked him if he would go to Shrungartali and he replied in affirmative, but said he would go only once his Trax jeep is full. After 5 minutes we hopped in his jeep as village folk began to creep in and am not kidding, he stuffed 20 humans in his jeep, I did not have space to even move my fingers and the guy kept stopping as villagers wanted to get down and others wanted to get in. To add to our delay drama, some plywood boards which were tied atop the jeep roof flew off due to the wind force and we had to wait till he collected them and tied them again. Finally we reached Shrungartali and there were automobile shops on the main road itself where we got down and thankfully we got the bearing which fitted into the chain sprocket of my bike, (I forgot to mention, the mechanic at Ambaloli village had thoughtfully given us the entire chain sprocket as he said that, ‘get the bearing fixed at Shrungartali itself so that there is no mismatch of size once we get it back to Ambaloli. We headed back to the village by bus as no tempos were willing to go back, my wish of seeing the sun set at Guhaghar beach went again for a toss and Pritam was teasing me that I could see the sun set in the hills from the bus on our way back to Ambaloli village. We reached Ambaloli by 7pm and finally our bike got fixed by 7.45, meanwhile we were talking to the head mechanic and he asked us our purpose of visiting the place and all, he concluded that we were on ‘konkan darshan’ , he said that I speak really good Marathi and was surprised when I told him that I am a Maharashtrian myself , again the same statement which I have got used to now “ you=me=Parikshit look like a foreigner and not an Indian and not a Maharashtrian for sure”, well just my genes . Finally after the bike was done we filled petrol at the village itself and headed back for Guhaghar, again it was pitch dark with billions of stars in the sky. We did not fix the chain cover as it was making noise and the mechanic told me to chain my chain kit once I got back to Pune.
We reach Guhaghar by 9 pm and head for dinner at ‘Annapurna’ restaurant at Guhaghar, but I liked the food at Blue lagoon better. We decide to take a beer for myself and vodka for Pritam and relax at the beach after dinner; Pritam said he does not like the idea, as at night he found the noise from the sea scary. But I love it, I feel that the ocean is growling with delight after a sunny day, we discuss where our life is heading, the day’s events, get nostalgic and then crash off after our eventful day.

Day 3: The picture perfect Velneshwar beach and arrive back to pune!!

We wake up at 6 am, get ready, pay Mr. Khare Rs 300 for our 2 day stay at his place (75 bucks per head) and he again drew the map for us to go Velneshwar and Hedvi which were 25 kms from Guhaghar, we got the chain cover put back at Shrungartali again and I emptied a 2T oil Castrol can into my bike and then we turned back and headed for Velneshwar beach first. The road was similar like the other places till now, good and narrow surrounded by patches of forests and farms. After about half an hour of driving we saw the most amazing sight in the world, the first pic in my photographs pics link, let me try describing it to you since you have
to be there to experience what we felt!! The road was uphill and finally at a point where it was beginning to descend we saw the sea shaking hands with the beach sand and the sand greeting tall coconut trees lined up in almost a symmetric pattern. Also for company was a small hut in between the trees, a small green hillock and rocks jutting out into the sea. It was just the kind of lovely picture we see in magazines and wonder as to where that place is? and Velneshwar is one such place. We stopped, we had to stop for pictures, I rate these pictures as the best of my trip and they could easily win some photography award also. It just does not feel like India, you feel as though you are in the Bahamas or Florida or Hawaii. We then go downhill and finally arrive at Velneshwar beach. Here we park the bike almost on the beach and enjoy the sight, the beach is a narrow one, and we saw a person taking his German Shepard dog for a walk, some guys having a ball in the sea, and plenty of colorful fishing boats close to the shore and rocks jutting out into the sea. There was a small shack on the beach and we had a very tasty ‘missal paav’ and asked the lad who owned the shop to click some snaps. Velneshwar was so beautiful that we decided to give Hedvi a skip and head to Pune after a few hours at Velneshwar.

We headed to the extreme left end of the beach where I saw rocks jutting out into the sea and on our way there, two local fisherman who had small huts and their boats on the beach forced us to click a snap of themselves, they were not satisfied with two snaps and wanted us to click more snaps with a different angle. We told them we will come back later, just before heading for the rocks jutting into the sea, we saw some local kids and they were thrilled to be photographed, check out the young girls posing in the pic wit me. Pritam did not enter the water and onto the rocks as he was wearing shoes, however I did as I was in slippers. Finally I jogged back to the place we had kept the bike; we had a cold drink, then visited the lovely Shiv mandir just behind the beach and decided to leave.
We took the Chiplun- Karad road,-Pune-Bangalore highway on our way back and finally after stoppages for sugar cane juice, some rest, a late lunch at a dhaba, reached Pune at 8pm.

It was a great road trip, actually quite amazing with sun-sand-sea-road-pure air-simple people with no tension-temples-forests for memories. I thank Miss Supriya for giving me her Sony digital camera which I have not yet returned and Mr. Sathe for suggesting the initial route, and my buddy pritam for taking some good pics featuring me( he should also thank me for I also took good pics of him). I have over 100 pics in the camera, uploaded only 40. Thanks for reading; this was a long trip log!! Will sign off with my usual line ‘’ Bikers and Trekkers never die, they just fade in the distance on the road or in the hills.”’
Regards
Parikshit Vaidya
9822474756
Pune
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pariandhiswanderlust/
www.pariviadya.blogspot.com

Rajmachi bike offroading and trekking ~~Parikshit Vaidya

2007-09-16T03:46:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,
Well this time I decided to put my write up regarding my mind-blowing bike ride and hike to Rajmachi fort on my blog and mail you the link along with the snaps link (we got awesome shots, am sure they would be a treat to watch). The pictures are on link

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pariandhiswanderlust/

Well as it’s said the reward of being patient is always sweet, I found this out last Friday. I wanted to go trekking to Rajmachi since last December and due to some odd reason it never happened. But finally after eight and a half months my wish came true as I went along with my sister (cousin who also needed a break).
Just a week prior to my trip I had gone off- roading (just riding on stone for 30kms) in heavy rain on my bike and it was a fabulous experience. We decided to go on Friday (I took a days’ sandwiched leave) as Thursday (was a regular company holiday) and Saturday (Ganesh chaturthi) was a public holiday. But on Thursday it rained heavily and a signal was sent to my brain that, “no” biking in the rain with my sister and we should go by train and then start trekking. Hence we altered our timing plans and it was decided to leave by 7 am. I called up my sister at 6.30 am as I was all set to leave and that I discovered that my call to her was her wake up call and she said she would get ready in another half hour!! There, we were already behind schedule!! Meanwhile I was gazing into the sky and it seemed clear but my 3 yrs of living experience in Pune city says that never believe the Pune weather in the monsoons (the sky changes color faster than a chameleon!! And besides it rains in September also), however I felt the rain god whispering into my ear and telling me that he would hold on for today (14th September) so that I could go biking!!! I called up my sister again and told her to stay put at her residence and I would come to pick her up and we cruise on the roads courtesy my Yamaha (one of my sweet hearts!!)
I decided to take the regular highway (old Mumbai-Pune) to Lonavala and then start our 3 hr trek from there. But things always don’t go as per plans and we were not even at the outskirts of Pune when my bike started coughing (what I mean to say is it was going forward and then stopping), we sensed trouble and decided to head back and board the train. This had never happened before, I have done miles of riding now on all sorts of roads as well(good, bad, no-roads) and that’s why I was a little shocked, I took it as my bike telling me that she needed rest as just last week I rode in heavy rain, mist and stone!!. We turned back and suddenly my bike stopped coughing and I on impulse turned full 360 degrees to resume the journey (I did not want to cancel my trip under any circumstance now as I had waited 8.5 months for it). We were going smooth but again after about 7-8 kilometers the coughing resumed. We halted and I guessed there was some dirt in the carburetor of the bike which to be cleaned. Luckily we were still in the midst of civilization and it was 8.30am then. I asked for a mechanic and the locals told me that he would open at 9am and as luck would have it we were parked right outside his shop. I was just hoping that my sister is not cursing me for ruining her day when from nowhere the mechanic guy appeared and opened his dingy shop shutter. After a few prayers he had a look at my bike and I explained the “coughing phenomenon” to him. He got a screw driver and loosened a screw from the carburetor and allowed some fuel to leak, then screwed it back and asked me have a test ride. Well as I had expected there was some water in the carburetor (courtesy my last week’s off-roading in the rain). We were back again on track and I did speeds of 100-105 kmph with my sister on pillion. But I had full control of the bike and it was not a wild acceleration of adrenaline and the machine. The clouds and the mountains watching us as we negotiated the roads was a delight. We soon were at Lonavala (about 50-55 kilometers from Pune), from where we planned to start trekking. I did not stop for the customary tea or breakfast break as we were running or should I say biking behind schedule!! I asked directions for Tungarli village from where the actual would start and headed in that direction. We arrived at Tungarli in no time and the local villagers instructed us to carry on going straight. But my god the road was terrible (I mean just rocks,,, stone, stone and more stone, see the pictures for proof) and they told me to ride and not walk promising that the road ahead was much better. My sister got down and I skillfully with all the strength of my gym pumped forearms rode through those rocks (I have never done something like this before). See the snaps in the link and then you will get an idea to what I mean!!!
Well this road did not seem to end, but I carried on and finally it got a shade better (only the size of the stone reduced). My sister hopped on again and we were trekking on my bike!!! The surroundings were just fabulous! A lonely path mixed with gravel, stone and soil surrounded by mist covered mountains. We stopped and took a few pictures at the Tungarli Lake where some village urchins were happily fishing in the lake. As we descended, the lonely path introduced us to new friends of his which were wide open spaces and fields and streams. The mountains were always there for company. It was a breathtaking sight and this was just the beginning as there was more in store for our eyes to feast on. Some more photographs were an absolute must here. Here we met the local who told us that I could take my bike right up to the base of the fort. He was on bicycle. Well we decided to take it to a point till I got a signal from my bike’s tyres that they had now had enough of stone-soil-stream kissing. We encountered some pretty decent streams which were about a more than a foot deep and my bike just sailed through them like a boat. Wow that felt really nice. I had never before done or remotely attempted this kind of off-roading. Both of us were thoroughly enjoying. As we progressed the lonely path introduced us to another of his friend which was a lush green dense forest. Boy now I was riding through a forest. We encountered a lot of streams in this jungle and stopped and filled up my bottle from this running water which was so cool and refreshing. Rajmachi is a popular among trekkers but as it was a weekday, there was not a soul in sight for miles. Finally at one spot in the forest where the road seemed really bad for biking we decided to park my bike and trek now on foot instead of the bike!! After all we were there for trekking right!! We were enjoying our trek along the forest surrounded by mountains. Soon we spotted two huge waterfalls and halted for memorable pictures. Initially my sister did not seem as enthusiastic as myself about clicking pictures. But when I told her about my ideas she lapped it all up and knew that these were not those regular birthday party photographs. The waterfall was from a mountain miles from the hill we were on, and there was a huge valley in between. I told my sister that I would pose as though I was drinking water right from the waterfall on the opposite hill and asked her for the placement of my mouth and head for the perfect shot!! We thoroughly enjoyed every bit of our photography as well. We scaled down the valley as much as possible for that vantage view and super shots. I think we score 10/10 on both. Have a look at the waterfall pictures and am sure you all would agree on the 10/10 score. The scenery around is truly a photographer’s delight. There was mist, mountains, valleys, waterfalls, a jungle, open spaces, what else can you ask for. I was relishing every breath of pure air which my lungs inhaled. As we hiked up further, after about an hour we got hungry. I had heard about a village at the base of the fort but it seemed no where in sight. However as we encountered lots of cattle pugmarks and their droppings, I was sure of some village ahead where we could eat mouthwatering village cuisine. We saw a few truck tyre marks and they had created huge depressions in the soil due to heavy rains and I avoided walking through the mud and took the route along the edge where ever possible. My sister walked though the truck tyre depression and her shoe got stuck in the mud!! It was hilarious. When she went to remove her shoe, I clicked again. It was a memorable shot! Soon we were almost below the fort, I mean we were still far but as though right below the cliff where the fort was situated. We were in awe of the majestic sight!! Actually Rajmachi has two forts named Srivardhan and Manoranjan. Both are twin forts located opposite each other and first we saw Srivardhan fort. Some more pictures as my sister posed like a cheer leader with out her pom- pom at the base of the cliff. We had spotted this cliff during our initial bike ride and never imagined that the route would be so circuitous. Once again we lifted ourselves to find the elusive village, Suddenly out of nowhere we came across a nice bungalow which had a name plate which said ‘Hotel-Atul’ and I spotted a few girls getting wet under the tap water to clean themselves and they did not seem like village belles!!. In the next second I realized that they were part of a family which had come trekking like us except they walked the entire 3 hours and we rode halfway and walked the rest. This pretty bungalow was neighbored by rustic village houses. We chatted with the family and asked the owner of the house for some lunch to energize our batteries. Soon it started raining torrentially and my sister loved this as she wanted rains and I did not want rains as good photography is not possible then , and besides it gets slippery on the rocks to climb the fort. It was about 30minutes before we were served lunch and meanwhile I tried to unsuccessfully chase a few hens which were present. I ate rice bhakri for the first time here, it was like a huge white pizza bread and the color was white as it was made from rice. We were served bhakris, usal (beans) mixed with potatoes along with papad, pickle, onion and buttermilk. By the time we finished eating the rain gods also calmed down and we decided to conquer our last destination for which we had come and I made my bike sail and fly over rocks and water.
As I mentioned there are two twin forts at Rajmachi and due to lack of time we decided to see on the village folks recommendation Srivardhan fort which they said was a shade better than its twin counterpart. We went a few steps back from the place where we had lunch and then were directed to a small path which was leading to the top of the fort. A huge tree trunk has presently fallen due to the heavy rain I guess en-route to the fort. As we went further I stopped at what seemed like a secret way to the top of both forts and yelled at my sister to show off my discovery, but as we reached the opening, I was disappointed to find it blocked. My guess is it has been purposely blocked as these secret routes are usually treacherous to negotiate and were made for secret safe movement of the king in case of a deadly attack by the enemy. It now started to rain and we were trekking in the rain amidst lush green vegetation just as my sister had desired, even I loved it but I just hoped that the rain gods would relent so that more photography was possible. To our luck we came across two huge caves cemented with stone on the left of our track and halted there and also checked out the caves. They seemed a good option for a night stay; unfortunately people had written some names on the stone walls and spoilt their original beauty. The caves were pitch dark and a little water had also accumulated on one of the cave’s floor. As we moved on we encountered some lovely ruins and could see the twin forts on either side as we were in the middle of the valley. It was a lovely sight. There was a small temple which again offered us shelter from the rains as we clicked some more snaps of the mist covered mountain forts present on either side. Again we started ascending and now the stone used to build the fort ramparts was absolutely clear to us. More photographs on the way and as we zeroed in on the fort there was tall elephant grass everywhere sounded by slippery black rocks. Since I wanted a great shot I climber on the edge of one of the forts wall and was hanging from the stone with the valley below me, I am happy my sister took a great shot. There is nothing much on the fort except tall grass which you can see in the pictures however the outer ramparts remain intact. We explored the edges of the fort and got a bird’s eye view of the valley below, the twin fort opposite us and the neighboring mist covered mountains. On top of this fort at a higher altitude is another fort like structure and I suppose this architecture of having a fort within a fort at a higher altitude is called ‘ballekilla’. This seemed to me as a last resort of defense in case of a formidable enemy attack. The view from this ‘ballekilla’ was simply breathtaking; as we were trampled on the grass to head higher we were literally amongst the clouds. It was fully misty with the clouds playing hide and seek with the mountains. For a moment the valley and mountains would be visible and next moment there would be a cloud cover with a gush a wind. It was just fascinating, we relaxed and enjoyed the cloud dance (various changing patterns of clouds) and the view in all directions. The camera battery also conked off which made our descend definitely faster than the ascend as no more snap taking was possible. Reluctantly after a while we started descending as we had to reach my trace my bike in the jungle in time and try and reach Lonavala while there was still light. We reached the base of the village at around 4 pm and my sister wanted to have tea at the base but I was reluctant as was worried about my bike in the jungle!! . As we walked back we remember all the spots where we had stopped to click pictures and saw a lot of village folk returning on the way with cattle and groceries and the Ganesh idols as next day was Ganesh Chaturthi (a big Hindu festival in India). I asked one of the villagers about my bike and he said that it was still there safe and sound. Boy those were sweet words. We even managed to pin point the spot where my sister’s shoe got stuck, her shoe imprint was still there in the mud. My sister was wondering how the cattle droppings were green in color and she accidentally stepped on the green cake which she could later scoop and analyze when we reached back! We drank water from the streams as we headed back. My old pair of shoes which have loyally served me for a lot of treks in the monsoons finally opened their jaw (the stitching opened at the toe), I have to yet take them to the mochi (a cobbler). We reached my bike in about 1.5 hrs and then began the ride back. This time I would have to negotiate with the treacherous terrain on an uphill with a steep cliff on one side. Fortunately there were no people of trucks and as I had the whole rocky terrain to myself I adjusted and kept switching between first and second gear. My sister said I did a good job!!! . We made it back in half hour flat (much before I had anticipated). There was plenty of sunlight still and we drove around casually at Lonavala and then finally bought some chikkis (for which Lonavala is famous) and had some pakodas and tea and a beer there before heading back to Pune. A secret (my sister came pillion with me on the bike but her father and in-laws do no know this and we had to hide this fact as her going biking was unacceptable to them.) Bye-bye Rajmachi, I hope to come again!!
A special thanks to Ms Latika Singh for lending her sleek, sexy Sony point and shoot digital camera to me without which our ride and trek would have been absolutely incomplete, after all those magic moments must be captured!!
A trekker and a biker never die, they only fades away in the mountains and on the road!!
Regards,
Parikshit Vaidya
parivaidya@gmail.com
9822474756
Pune

Ride to Raigad!! Salute to the greatest Maratha Warrior!

2007-05-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

RIDE-TREK to FORT RAIGAD

Hi friends,
Well this write-up of mine is a long one, so if your scared to read it, just browse through my pictures , I got some fabulous shots

The link is http://www.flickr.com/photos/pariandhiswanderlust/ (album titled, raigad ride)

Well friends, my bike cylinders were silent for the whole month of April after my last fabulous trip to the KONKAN coast of India. So it was time to fill it, shut and go dhoom and vroom!!! Boy I love the sound of my Yamaha engine on a lonely road!! After my biking trip to Murud-janjira-harihareshwar in march I quickly had a look for our next public working holiday in the tatamotors. Well it was 1st may!! And fortunately for me 1st of may is a holiday for all in India, so a month in advance I set up this biking cum hiking trip to fort RAIGAD with another colleague of mine from Tatas named Mr. A Basu , he agreed instantly & lapped up my offer.
We decided to leave at 4.30 am and reach raigad which to our knowledge was 150kms from pune, it turned out to be 170kms from my place of accommodation, so I can correct that on the internet I believe. Eventually we left at 5am, I was leading, it as dark and cold. Believe me even if its summer where it goes to 41 degrees in pune , at nights it gets cold especially if you are biking. “As all wise people do” to whomever we told about our trip plans gave us lotsa unwanted suggestions like carry water , glucose, I just heard them out patiently. Cmon I am not a kid , besides this is my 3rd biking trip all in summer months and I have done lotsa high quality treks say like just a few months prior to this one in the sahayadris. Anyway I appreciated their advice as a concerned friend and ,we did carry lotsa water and customary nuts and wafers and chikki!! As I said I am an experienced rider now I knew it would be cold early morning and I carried a light jacket, Mr. basu however was lacking in this department and felt the heat or the “cold” I must say in this case!! Haha!! Next time am sure he will carry his jacket too.
We dint take any major halts, just a one odd leak halt and one halt for clicking about 2-3 pics. I must say the weather was fantastic till about 9am, we felt as though it would rain, cloudy and misty in the moutians and we were riding the road in the valley below!! This is what I live for. However it dint rain, but the ride in the early morning mist from 6-7 am was breathtaking.
Oh I almost forgot the bike odometer reading was 29890 when we started from my room. The ride was fantastic in the ghats and on the Mumbai-goa highway too!! I did sped upto 120kmph and broke my earlier high on 110kmph on my bike. So that’s a new achievement for me. Now we turned left on the Mumbai – goa highway near a village called Mahad to go to raigad, you wont miss it as there is a big poster of king shivaji and two lions which have been mounted on pillars to greet visitors!! Once you are here one is about 22kms away from raigad fort, again we were going smoothy, the road was bad in patches and ok and good in other patches, but I am now thoroughly confident that my bike can weather all sorts of “good, bad and no road conditions”. Here an interesting incident occurred, as with almost all villages in konkan the road is just narrow for one big to go at a time, a state transport bus was in front of me and I was looking for an opportunity to overtake it ,else I would have been saddled to the slow pace of the bus and we wanted to reach early and start trekking. Hence I was looking for an opportunity to overtake the bus which I did find and suddenly a big mahindra jeep out of nowhere appeared in front of me, my god it was like a film stunt sequence straight out of Mission Impossible, imagine a narrow road with a bus going along like an elephant and occupying the entire road, you try to over take like a tiger and find a rhino in front of you ,with no space to move , what do you do? Luckily I managed to maneuver with a surgeon’s precision just a few centimeters which were available at 60-70kmph and the jeep guy maneuvered skillfully too and all of us were safe and sound.the entire thing happened in a fraction of a second. The jeep contained a family of villagers, they stopped to see if I am fine, I was fine, however I stopped too, we cursed in unison the narrow road and advised each other to go slow!! This was once again “death kissing me and leaving” perhaps aware that I have come with a clean heart as of the local villagers who live in the village to trek fort raigad!!
We had some tea at the base of the fort where I left my helmet with the shopkeeper as I forgot my helmet lock this time. We first clicked a couple of pics of fort raigad’s first view for which I have no words to describe, see it for yourself in my album titled Raigad ride for which I am sending the link. Now some trivia about raigad which I will keep mentioning time and again as and when needed. Raigad was the capital of ,I would call and all would agree with me “ the greatest maratha warrior” so it is a must see for all maharashtrians atleast. It is a special fort and was selected to be the capital by the king over several other forts which he had captured or built. We started climbing the steps one by one with each step giving us the false impression that our legs were 100kgs each, this was mainly due to the sun’s fury at its best and our bags filled with 4 litres of water. Our ascend was slow initially under the excuse of getting some, I would call fantastic shots of riagad from all angles. The shots were every bit worth the halt, but they also provided us a breather. In one shot where I am bare-chested halfway up the fort I see a lady climbing from below, this was now not a new sight for me now as refer to my line where I call myself experienced I know that the villagers(old-young men and women and children of al ages) climb effortlessly with children, water , their stuff to sell for trekkers like me on top the fort. And as fate would have it this lady named RANJANA GORE became our official tour guide across the 100acres of raigad. She was a basically a seller of buttermilk and grapes. She lived in the village below called “pachad”. She on the way kept on forcing us to drink her buttermilk which was similar to having a chilled beer after a long day at office. However I dint like it much but my friend Mr basu lapped up every drop like a puppy dog. I had read about various spots to visit like the Samadhi of shivaji maharaj, the rani mahal, the hathi tank(elephant tank for drinking water), takmaktok, bazaarpeth( the malls at that time), the simhasan(throne of the king), nagarkhana and the main palace itself. I decided to test her knowledge by asking what all she would show us? She mentioned all the above spots and many more, so she was true( normally 99% of times the villagers never cheat you is my experience). They just live with harmony with nature. Again our photosession was going on and she would also stop wherever she saw tourists and try and sell her buttermilk and grapes(karwand is the name in marathi, I guess they are grapes, if not grapes they were something similar). Oh I forgot to mention , this fort has lots of ramparts and I rate it second only to the janzira fort which is fully fortified even now though it was built 950 yrs ago. Raigad was built about 450 yrs ago, it would have been fully fortified now also had it not been for the british and the mughals who usually destroyed everything wherever they went. As I climbed up a big stone wall to get a view of the valley below , the jagged stones made a nice accurate “L” shaped cut in my pant, I will have to go to the tailor also soon! but yet this mark will be indelible evidence of what a great day I had at raigad. I was most interested in visiting the HIRKANI buruj ( or secret way) to the fort as I love secret ways, all guides skip this as the fort is 100 acres and this secret way lies in one extreme corner of the cliff on atop which the fort was built. Now some interesting trivia again shivaji maharaj selected raigad as his capital because the fort is surrounded by steep, absolutely suicidal cliffs on three sides so that it would be almost impossible for any enemy to ascend via these sides besides the Maha darwaja or the main entrance to the fort which would be off course guarded by his troops. The architect of the fort after his completion which took 14yrs also made a bold statement to the king himself that “only water can trickle down and air can rise up on raigad without the kings permission” but boy a daring daredevil lady called HIRKANI proved him wrong and shook the kings impression of the fort being impossible to climb from any other route. Here is how is goes….in those days all the entrances to the fort used to get shut at 5 pm no matter what. These were orders strictly to be followed and it was a rule engraved in stone. Those who were in the fort had to stay there and those were outside had to stay outside when the gates closed at 5pm.Hirkani was a milkmaid who came on the fort to deliver milk from the village below. One day it so happened that she was late to leave the fort and the gates as usual shut at 5pm. No amount of pleading to the guards helped her cause. It was told to her that she could leave only next morning when the gates opened. But she was worried about her baby back in the village below, so this lady , this brave lady found a way down playing hide and seek with treacherous cliffs. Next morning when the guards went to tell her that the gates have been opened , she was not to be found on the fort!! Where is hirkani?in order to found an answer to this question a massive hunt was launched for her and she was found in her village below with her baby. Everyone was shocked….how did she decend? Its impossible!! Soon this news reached the king’s (shivaji maharaj’s) ears himself and he too was dumbfounded, his notions about only air rising and water trickling down without his permission had been shattered. Hirkani was summoned to the palace, she thought she would be punished and thrown of a spot called “takmaktok” on the fort from where the prisoners and criminals were thrown off into the valley. She told the shivaji maharaj that if she was going to be thrown off the cliff it should be with her child. But shivaji maharaj is not called the greatest maratha warrior for nothing, this lady was not to be killed but honoured with gifts,gold coins and dresses for opening the kings eyes about his false notions about the fort. Hirkani showed shivaji maharaj the way she got down the steep cliff. Immediately the architect was hauled up and ordered to construct a steep stone wall which would make it impossible to scale down from the top and vice versa for enemies. We went to this spot, carefully , each step was a measured one depite havinf my woodland trekking shoes and hands free. Hirkani was barefoot and had her milk utensils. We saw the wall which was constructed later and given her name and called “hirkani buruj” and the cliff , I salute the brave lady called HIRKANI, it is just not steep, it is infinitely steep. But this is shows how much a mother loves her young one for which she risks her own life. See the pics in the link titled view from hirkani buruj, my eyes started to feel giddy, it gives a feeling of death flirting and you. There is a small stone carving of lord hanuman( who is renowed for his valour under all circumstances in hindu mythology ) on this wall which was constructed. We paid our respects to the lord and hirkani herself. Meanwhile our guide who showed us the way to this secret passage but did not accompany us was getting worried, as we began to return she was seen searching for us. When she saw us she heaved a sigh of relief , she thought we have slipped and fallen!! Her description was accurate, she did say that you feel giddy while looking down from this particular stop down below, she was right, I looked down from other parts of the fort across the cliff and on other mountain treks too, and it was always a pleasant feeling, but from hirkani buruj it was as I said as it death staring in your eyes waiting for you to fall.
After hirkani buruj which I was so satisfied enjoying in completion, we headed to the other “spots or points” as is guide parlance in the fort to visit. We saw the elephant tanks, the lady told me that the elephants were taken on top of the fort as babies and raised there, this cleared my doubt as it was impossible for elephants to climb the mountain. The queens palaces were also seen. Shivaji had 8 queens, 6 of them lived on raigad and the remaining two on other forts which he had captured or built. The lady said the multiple wives were mostly the daughters of his generals or (sardars) as they were called in those times. The marriage of the general’s(sardars) daughter to the king ensured their loyalty to the king and healthy relations as well which dint lead to a coup against the king. I don’t know if they fought as their palaces were side by side, 6 of them!! Haha!!
There are mtdc (maharashtra tourism development corporations) shaks on the fort which was surprising to us, it’s a good initiative taken by the government of maharashtra. Many people spend the night at these small rooms on the forts. Raigad if it has to be explored throughtly takes 2 days and I believe this statement totally. We were shown the Dharamshala , which was a place where the visitors( I guess mostly royal and important ones ) lived. Then we saw the dungeon where the prisoners were kept, it is similar to a small well (except being dry off course) damp and dark, then afterwards these people were thrown off the Takmaktok as I mentioned earlier. We then saw the kings court and the place where his throne was kept . I happened to sit on that place and have my picture taken which dint go well with other tourists!! They conveyed their displeasure from 200metres away and I heard every word of it, how? Here is how… opposite the thrown 200metres away is the nagarkhana or the place where the sirens and bugles I guess( basically I mean all musical instruments which used to be played). The area which resembles a football field is so desgined acoustically that even a lighting of a match can be heard clearly 200m away in the kings court.
We also visited the bazaarpeth or the shoping malls of those time on the fort ( there were 44 of them is I remember right) … the pics are there in my album for your reference.here our guide Ranjana Gore decided it was time for her to go home, we paid her Rs 200 for her services and interesting bits of information, she gladly accepted the money without any fuss and happiness in her eyes . From there we went to the Samadhi of shivaji maharaj, also we found a dog’s Samadhi, a closer look tells you that this is the Samadhi of king shivaji’s loyal dog whose name was “waghya” which means tiger in marathi. Legend has it that he jumped into the pyre of shivaji when he saw that nobody was doing anything and his masters body was burning, waghya jumped in order to save him and died himself. Such is a dog’s love they only know how to give love and never expect anything in return. We rested a little near the Samadhi as we found there was a stone covering over
stone bench. Meanwhile the guides came in with other tourists and I was listening with eyes closed to what they had to say, all of them who came said the same things, I will repeat one, a poet who had come from uttar Pradesh had written a few lines about the king which said that “if shivaji maharaj would not have been born in maharashtra, everybody would have been a muslim in India” this seems true to me as I am fiercely a hindu patriot and I am not for forced conversions which the muslim rulers carried out wherever they went. He told lots of other stories also which seem true. We then went to takmaktok, my god the view was fabulous, it’s not necessary that criminals need to be thrown off takmaktok, if the purpose is wanting to kill them. This can be achieved by throwing them off any point from the fort, however I guess the approach to takmaktok makes you jittery, it’s a narrow piece of cliff land projecting in one direction, just narrow enough for a one bus to pass at a time!! Haha! Interesting trivia again, the wind here is fierce, I am not joking , a slightly thin individual could be blown off the the piece of jutting land right into the valley below, if you don’t believe me have a look at my takmaktok pics, I removed my vest and its absolutely horizontal ,parallel and at shoulers height to the ground due to the wind force( I am not magician and that is not any special effect pic. We thoroughly enjoyed the cool breeze even though it was about 3.30 pm in the afternoon and fiercely hot. Now the govt has fitted the passage to takmaktok with steel bars so that people can hold them and progress towards the end and are not blown of by the ferocity of the wind. The view of fort raigad is absolutely stunning from takmaktok, we got some great shots believe!! I dint want to leave takmaktok as I was enjoying the breeze fully, but we had to leave. While leaving we saw tourists like us eating at the houses of locals who now live on top, again not new for me, I have seen that on earlier treks also. There were lotsa men, women and kids selling nimbu pani( lemonade) due to the heat and everyone used to ask us to have a drink at his/her kiosk!! We then visited the temple jagdireshwar temple while leaving, another interesting piece of trivia, this temple was deliberately built to look like a mosque from the outside in case the mughals attack as their tendency was to destroy all temples I believe. However in the inside there is nice shiv pindi. We paid our respects and left. Me sitting at the place of shivaji maharaj’s throne occurred while leaving. So I left raigad by sitting at the place where the king’s throne was placed. Am sure the king would not mind even though the fat ladies who told me to get up did mind. It takes guts to sit and get your picture clicked sitting on the very spot where the king’s throne was placed, irreverence was not at all in my mind, just capturing happy moments was my aim.
We came to the base by the RAIGAD ROPEWAY. This is a ropeway which takes people who are lazy to trek up and down, we trekked up and wanted to have an experience as to how it feels in the ropeway, hence took that to come down. It takes 4 mins to reach the top by ropeway and one hour to climb!!
The ropeway base was about 2kms from the place where we had parked our bikes, hence we walked those 2 kms and we got some great shots of the the cliff hanger fort again. We saw the HIRKANI BURUJ again from below, see the snaps in the album, I salute this brave woman again and again. Like they say “its not in the body , but its in the heart which separates the strong like shivaji maharaj and hirkani from the faint hearted” . We had lunch at about 4.15 at the base from where we began ascending the fort. Again I could not keep my eyes off this magnificent fort called RAIGAD , as shivaji had hoped this fort was not to be captured in his presence , it was never captured while he was king, it was sadly captured after his death. I will truly remember this fort as long as I live for the king’s vision, his valor, his vision and offcourse hirkani!!! Ya my death kiss (remember the bus incident is also etched in my mind) !! 
We had a fast and furious night drive back to pune with the odometer reading 30230kms. 340kms of pure fun filled with history, every inch of it. I will go again to pay my respects to the king again and explore the remaining parts of this huge 100acre cliffhanger fort, however in the winter or monsoon now! My special thanks to Ms Supriya for lending her Sony camera for our wonderful photo session during the entire ride and I thank my Yamaha RXZ bike too for not faltering the entire 340kms as usual.
Regards,
Parikshit Vaidya, ph no:9822474756, Pune

windmill- and thosegar water fall ride!!

2007-02-09T01:05:00.000-08:00

hi guys,
well after my last biking trip which was a little more than 450kms to murud-janzira-diveagar-srivardhan-harihareshwar-pune(coatal belt of maharashtra lined with coconuts beaches and the arabain sea), this thursday i set off to the thoesegar winmill farms and thosegar waterfalls in satara district.
I have joined a biking community on the net , and mind you this is not like the biking communites which are exclusively for the same make bikes for eg.. all bullets or all bajaj bikes, in the biking community i have joined its a biking democracy, its open for all kinds of bikes. so in this group i found captain chitnis with whom i have been in touch for a while, he knows i have a thursday weekly off and he asked if i am ready to ride on thursday the 1st of feb to see the windmills and falls at satara . I lapped up his offer almost instantly . Captain chinis is 56 yrs old, and i was in awe of his enthusiasm.
so on thursday morning we met as agreed at the chandni chowk chai tapri( roadside tea stall) and after some instructions from him about the roads , traffic etc we set off. Captain chitnis was leading , i was following him, the road i tell you people was absolutely stunning, it is the pune-bangalore highway and is lovely, i mean the pune roads are so bad that you find even village roads better, but let me tell you the pue-bangalore highway is terrific. I was enjoying the wind blowing across my face and my eyes were admiring the farms and hills all around me as we kept driving. I was taking this route for the first time and was very impressed by the high quality ride i was getting, an amazing well lit 500meters tunnel lies on the way which you have to cross, really fantastic,i was amazed by the engineering work!!! you cut a moutain,then build a tunnel and then a road below, then light it up fully as though it was daytime!! I could have driven faster but since i was following captain chitnis i had to curb my natural instints of a wild horse in an open vast field!!( me along with my yamaha the horse and the roads the fields)
Soon after about an hour or so , i dont remember exactly , we halted for some breakfast. I had bhaji and captain had bhaji and vada pav( guess he was really hungry). We chit chatted for a while getting to know each other better as we were face to face for the first time.
Soon our butts were on the bikes again and we were again riding. As we entered satara city we kept on asking for directions to thosegar, a middle aged gentlemen almost acted like a verbal "tourist map" providing me with all details around places to visit in satara. A 10 min lecture, i heard him patiently and we decided to head towards Sajjangad and then proceed to the windmill farms. The road was again perfect for biking!!! it went on twisting and turning as if a snake was crawling. I enjoyed every bit of it. we took the diversion to sajjangad( a place perched on the mountains) , the climb was superb, a narrow , twisty road heading towards the base of sajjangad, the view from top was amazing, each turn took us higher and closer to sajjangad and we could view the road below while riding on the bike itself which we had just finished, simply breathtaking.
Sajjangad is the place where the samadhi(remains) of shri ramdas swami( guru of the great marathi warrior shivaji maharaj lie) . There are lots of dharamshalas on top of the mountain. Infact on the mountain top a whole city is being constructed, there are temples, schools, and many more buildings are being built, there are phone connections, water,,everything, i expected a barren piece of land and found a whole small city on top of the mountain. At sajjangad captain chitnis dint come along with me on top as he has a knee problem, i went running and hopping and was back in about half and hour. Initially i thought sajjangad was a fort as there are entrances which if viewed from the bottom decieve you to belive that a fort lies at the peak, but instead you find a lot of temples and a small city under construction.
Soon we left sajjangad and left for the windmill farms. The road was again the highlight, amazing twists and turns through the mountains. We could now see the windmills in sight, there were tens,,, wait no hundreds,,, no i was wrong again,,, thousands of them,,, yes friends, more than two thousand windmillls . It was an amazing sight, we were driving right through the windmills, soon we stopped and took time off for a photosession !! We tried different poses and got some great shots.
we arranged the bikes, our caps, our baggage, and the placed ourselves in such a fashion so that the main model(one windmill offcourse) would hog the limelight in the photograph. A smaller transformer was connected to each windmill the electricity gemerated was further transferred to an mseb(maharashtra state electricity board) sub station. I had never seen such gigantic and thousands of windmills together.Lots of fresh wind everywhere and my lungs tried to swallow as much fresh oxegen as they could before they have towork on pune city's polluted air :(
We learnt that many schools, colleges come to see the windmills also, if we would have gone further, the road would have taken us to koyna dam, but we decided to head back to pune.
But and not "BUTT" wait, i almost forgot about the waterfall, i had heard about it before , but it was february now and i dint expect any water due to the heat thats why i had forgotten about it, but captain remembered and i said why not , lets have a look and i said to myself " if there is no water, just pee down the mountain and create a fall" but that was not required, the fall was on, even in feburary the water level was one which had to be appreaciated, i can imagine in the monsoons it must be ferocious. Captain on seeing the water was really exited, he almost said with child like exuberence "mai toh nahaunga" = i will take a bath, i was disinterested, i just took off my shift and drank water from along the edge of the falls, captain bathed away merrily, he said its much better than a jacuzzi, i took a few shots and i myself entered the "jacuzzi" on captain's insistence and boy i thank him dearly, once i entered the water i dint feel like coming out. we werent the only ones at the falls, there were two other couples from satara who were enjoying some private moments and our arrival screwed their happines. we were like the "kabab main haddi" , but we did not care, we were enjoying under the water and i felt like the king of the world once again.
well i guess being a thursday the thosegar falls was deserted thats why we saw two young college couples there , well reminded me of my colege days, well my parents assumed i was in college but i was at some movie, but sadly for me i canont say that i was with some gal :(
We soon got dressed and headed back to pune, on the highway about 90kms from pune we stopped for a late lunch, the thali was really good, nice and whole some with some good , fresh sugarcane juice. I was feeling lazy to drive, i was again following captain , but then after about 10kms the wind energised me and i overtook captain, he overtook me again later, then again i overtook him and assumed he would catch up and not be far away, i rode non stop to pune , about 30kms i was at 100kmph . Here i commited a mistake, i went solo, i assumed captain would keep pace with me, and eventually this did not happen. We went together , but on our way back arrived seperately. I got a deserved firing from captain later for abandoning his partner and going solo, i have learned my lesson, this wont happen again. I am happy that later captain pardoned me and am sending the pics of my 300km to and from journey courtesy the captain's camera!!
I hope you can imagine the fun i had as pictures speak louder than words!!

memoirs of my trip to the konkan coast....janriza..murud..harihareshwar....diveagar

2007-01-28T23:35:00.000-08:00

Hi guys,

well am writing this as i feel i should write on my recent 2 day experience along the konkan coast,.well as you know or may not know thats why i willmention that i am currently posted in Tatamotors at Pune. Being amanufacturing unit they got only a Thursday as a weekly off, which kills me as earlier in the IT Park we had a sat-sun off and i went for some amazingtreks in the sahayadris. This time we got 2 consecutive days of holidays(25th and 26th,,being a Thursday and a Friday (republic day). I asked several of my friends if they were game for going to Murud- Janzira on25th-26th Jan, initially some agreed, but due to some commitments , theycould not make it is what they told me. But i was determined to make the most of these two days. So here goes how i made the most of 25th and26th jan 2007 I got up around 7.30 and by 9 i had already filled petrol ( 10 litres) andbought a few bananas, picked up my shorts, a jacket and my lovely woodland trekking shoes and nuts and set off to mulshi to go via tamini ghat routetowards kolad and roha. The odometer reading when i started was27300km.Iwas all alone with just my Yamaha RZX for companion's sake.The road wasdeserted, so i could do speeds upto 70-80 and maintain them, i dint speed upfurther as i wanted to enjoy the scenic, virgin beauty all around me, Itook my first break just before tamini ghat where there is a hoarding which says , one road to lonavala and the other to kolad, the break was for a leakand some banana popping. Later the tamini ghat began, and as always being adown slope I shut off the bike engine and just controlled with the help of the two bike breaks, believe me the tamini ghat is around 7-9 km long fullof twists and turns, a bikers delight, the good road was an icing on thecake. next stop near roha where from the one rupee coinbox i rang up a friend in pune and told him about my adventure so far, he said " kya aadmihai tu, akele nikal gaya, i had covered 135 kms till then" now my confidencewas fully boosted, i was talking with the wind courtesy my bike, i kept riding, after crossing roha i came across a check post which showed tworoads going towards murud, i took the left one, went for about 10kmsnegotiating the dusty road on the mountain and stopped when i came across a young lad, asked him for directions, he suggested to take the other road( wehad a long conversation actually), finally i reverted back, came to theearlier spot, there was also a police check post there , and i asked about the places which lay ahead, two middle aged policemen provided instantdirections and told me about the places where i should stop over, i headedstraight then, as usual i ended up giving a lift to a scruffy young man as i thought he could help me with places to visit, he worked in the Birla templewhich i came across while driving, i stopped there , visited the temple, itsreally nice, a lovely break after riding non stop on the parched bumpy roads.Next stop a brief one was at Alibag bridge, i parked my bike, and went tosit on the rocks jutting out of the sea, had some peanuts there like amonkey. then headed on, and boy was the road amazing, one side the farms or barren land, adjacent to it the road and adjacent to the road the "arabiansea" i felt like i was the king of the world then. This patch of the "land,road, sea" continues for about 5 kms of which i savored every moment before i soon arrived to the kashid beach. The sand on this beach is nice andwhite, but being brought up in mumbai and goa, beaches dont fascinate meunless there are "bikini clad ladies" ;), i love the sea though! so after a 10 min stop at kashid, i headed to murud which was gettingcloser, well i was a bit nervous about my fuel level, so i stopped at theonly petrol pump in murud district, and asked the nepali guy to fill petrol worth 100rs, what he said astonished me, he said, i can fill only 2 litreswhich works out to 98rs, not 100!!! he had that old time pump if you guysremember when we were about 10-15 yrs younger. Again after a few metres a middle aged smiling muslim guy asked me for a lift( how i made out he was amuslim? well simple he had that unkept muslim beard and i guess from what isaw, 70% of the population was muslim in murud), i asked him how do i get to the janzira which is on an island about 5kms from shore. he guided meaccordingly, was surprised that ventured 200kms all alone and in 10 minsafter he got off , i was on murud beach, here i stopped over for some nariel pani=coconut water, and met two French tourists, i really loved the lady'seyes, they were deep blue, however they were a middle aged couple soautomatically ideas in my mind stopped trickling in ;), I spoke some French with them, i had learnt french for about 4 months, "jai obliye boucoup"which means i have forgotten a lot of what i had learnt, but i still made abig impression with my "petit=little" french on them. The french guy liked my bike a lot. Soon i headed on and now i could the "kasa fort,. which imistook to be the janjira fort " well guys a bit of history, janzira was afort which the great Maratha warrior king Shivaji could never capture, so thats why his son built a fort on an island close to janzira in order tocapture janzira, but it never happened. finally I saw janzira , majesticallystanding in the Arabian sea as it has been for the past 950 yrs, oh and on the way to janzira, first comes the nizam's palace called "hathi mahal", butunfortunately is was not open to public. finally i was at murud beachadmiring the janzira fort from the shore , the boatman said unless there are about 20 people he wont take me to the island, we were 10 then, me and avillage family, so began waiting for others , in the meanwhile i became thefamily 's official free photographer and clicked some snaps which i hope come out good else they would end up cursing me! ! very soon a horde of 20guys all from pune like me arrived, so all of us were in the boat and wewere sailing smoothy towards janira fort in the middle of the sea!! guys an amazing piece of information for you " the fort is built in such a way thattill you get to about 100-200 meters close to it, you just cant see the hugeentrance to the fort" it was awesome, i tried it while going and when we came back, on the boat i met two other guys from pune and they told me wewould ferry our bikes and sail to dighi on a launch and go to diveagar andhariharshwar from there!! i loved the idea, but first some trivia about janzira, well its huge, 20 acres fully fortified, i have never seen acomplete fort ever on all my earlier treks in the sahayadris, inside thefort amazingly there are two huge sweet water lakes, we drank water from a deep, deep well and it was crystal clear ,, folks nature's miracle, saltywater all around and sweet water in the island!! we explored the fort,thestones which have been used to build the fort have taken some battering over hundreds of decades, but the joints used to connect these stones arestill as they were. The fort is huge , you can get lost, no jokes, anotherinteresting trivia, the nizam built an underwater tunnel right to his palace on the shore from the fort, we ventured inside the secret tunnel but it wastoo dark, next time i will take a powerful torch and try going deeper. thenizam was named siddhi and he came from africa and captured this fort and later nobody could take it from him, well as janzira means "impregnable" itrealy is impregnable!!finally i was back on murud shore, luckily for us the sea was calm, thenimmediately got my bike and with the other two guys , the bikes and the three of us were on the motorised launch to dighi. we saw some amazing birdsflying so close to our boats, they would dive into the sea and come out withfish. soon we were at dighi, we alighted and headed straight for diveagar as we dint want to miss the sunset. the road is really nice, soon at diveagarwe managed to enjoy the sunset after biking along the beach also. we thenwent hunting for a place to stay overnite, i could have actually slept on the beach listening to the ocean waves!, but we were lucky and found a nicebunglow to stay in, the owner had cocunut, betelbut orchards , amazingorchards . we dumped our luggage and head for the beach again where we got some chicken , beer and came back late. slept till 7.30am, headed for thebeach again where we spent 2 hrs sunbathing, i decided sun tan would looknice as i was tired of all the girls asking me " how come i am so pink and they wanted to know the secret", later took a bath , went to the famousgolden ganpati temple, and then headed for srivardhan, srivardhan was againa nice , sleepy town like diveagar, but diveagar is better, huge old time bunglows and so many coconut trees. after some time at srivardhan beach, weheaded to our last destination which was harihareshwar, being 26thjan(national holiday), we encountered a lot of sumos , jeeps, rickshaws, buses which were also headed towards harihareshwar . after some nimbupani="limewater" we visited the diety and decided to check out the place, itsamazing, the diety is on a mountain and if you go to the rear side of the mountain, you come face to face with the sea and only the rocks there togive you company. i enjoyed the scene totally sat down , was completely asease admiring the battle between the rocks and the sea , the waves lashing and the rocks sustaning. soon we decided to head home, well interesting parthere is i came across acros all sorts of roads, namely, good roads, badroads and no roads!!sometimes my ride was like a desert safari when the roads were bad, other times i was cruising along the sea. i was home comfortably by evening 6 in pune, the bike's odometer readingwas 27756, so more than 450kms spread over 30 hrs. amazing!! i plannedmurud-janzira but ended going to diveagar, srivardhan and harihareshwar as well!!http://www.flickr.com/photos/pariandhiswanderlust/The above is a link to the konakn coast biking trip, view the album titled janzira trip.i plan to go again!parikshit9822474756