Hello everyone, I am new to this
world and am still learning its maneuvers and honking and gliding between the
traffic and many more such adventure tricks. My life started a month ago with
this cool kinda guy. He never rode me anywhere else apart from home to office
and back until the day I got some numbers on my bum. The next day, he rode me
all through the city painting his face like a clown. It looked like everyone on
the street was in same mood flying colours through the air, but he made sure I was safe from all those colourful
hazards. "I like him!"
That day I heard him say to
someone that we were going on a bike trip to Daman and may be Rann of
Kutch if everything goes well. I don't know much about those places, but this
should be fun, and I was excited - "Yay, my first road trip!" What
more can a bike dream of! Servicing - check, shiny teflon coating on my
body - check, petrol tank full - check - "Yup, I am ready to roll!" The
next morning, Rocky came wearing bandana, helmet, goggles, jacket, gloves,
boots and what not. “Man, I envy him. So many accessories for the trip and just
a fancy key chain for me!”
He started my engine and we
started our trip but wait . . . “Hey, hey, hey! Mumbai is on the opposite direction!
Where are we going? I think he might have to buy something for the journey.” We
have been on the highway for last 2 hours and I don’t think he is going to turn
towards Mumbai ever. “Am I stuck with an idiot or something?” Although I am enjoying
the wind on my shield and my tires burning on the highway, it does not feel
like a fun trip. I am in complete blind for what our destination is. We are
just driving endlessly on the Pune-Bangalore highway. “Maybe we are going to
Bangalore!” My realization of the destination was short lived when we took a
sudden right turn from Karad. “You just can’t have any expectations from this
guy!”
Now we have left the highway and are
going through narrow roads in remote villages. He was not slowing down even on
those kachcha-pakka roads. I was having butterflies in my engine on those
sudden twists and turns with chicken and dogs running loose aimlessly on the
road. Suddenly, I came to a halt. “OMG, there is no road ahead!” He checked for
an alternate route on the map but there was none. He felt sorry for me but
started to go ahead. “Hey mister, I am not going on this disastrous, broken
path full of rocks and stones . . . Ouch Ouch ouch OUCH!!!” Well, that continued for a
long 2-3 kilometers. Let me tell you all something – he might have travelled on
far worse paths while travelling to Hyderabad, but this was no fun for me
either. I felt pity for that old pulsar of his. I can’t imagine what that poor
old thing might have felt with two of the mankind riding over it for 70 long
torturous kilometers. After riding for an hour or two through those villages,
we finally hit the main road again. I think I know where we are heading as we
are riding on the Kolhapur-Ratnagiri highway.
The sun is on our heads now but
moving in the shade of tall trees on both sides of the road protected us for
quite a long time. A little while later, ghat section started and I had some
beautiful views of the villages from the top. “I am loving it. This trip is
going great!” An hour later, we finally reached Ratnagiri and had a little rest
in our hotel. In the evening, we went to the Gateway of Ratnagiri on the Mandavi
beach. He spent an hour on the beach and another half exploring the main market
which was on the way to our hotel. Finally, we called it a day and retired. “Hey!
Where are you going, leaving me unlocked? I just can’t believe how careless
this person is!”
I could not sleep for the whole
night, worried dead of what might happen if someone else comes to know that I
am unlocked. He realized his mistake in the morning but fortunately, I had been
safe. My only solace was the police jeep parked next to me who kept telling me
to keep calm and not to worry due to its presence. We started off with no
destination in mind. Rocky just wanted to see the harbor and we rode wherever
the paths led us. We reached the harbor soon and turned towards a narrow trail
with sea on one side and coconut trees on the other for as far as I could see.
It was a lovely path to ride on until we reached some village and started to
get nasty stares. We thought it was time to turn back. Next, we went to the
Ratnadurg fort. The view of sea from the heights of the fort was cool when
Rocky spotted a harbor he had to go at any cost. “This person is obsessed with
things I understand very little.”
This harbor of his might be a new
one as it was not showing on the maps. Rocky was driving based on his intuition
and with the proximity to the fort. We drove through some fishermen’s village
and we both had to stop our breaths for a while. He was able to find the harbor
within some time. “Yaay, here we come. O O not again, there is no road ahead. You
can go alone if you want to. Please please please, I don’t want to go!” None of
my pleads were heard this time too and we reached his deserted harbor. Though
the view was beautiful, the solitude rather desertion of the place did not
appeal to my taste. Then, we returned to our hotel and rested for a while. In
the evening we went to Bhatye beach and he enjoyed the beach, the crowd and
sea-side delicacies. It was time to retire as tomorrow was a big day.
The next morning, we rode to
Ganpatipule. The weather was pleasant and the roads empty. The ghats had a
lovely view and Rocky stopped at a couple of points from the top of ghats to
take my photo with the sea in the background. “I have started to like this guy.
He has been taking only my photos during the whole journey.” Rocky visited the
Ganpatipule temple and did quad-biking on the sea-shore. It was quite a clean
and calm beach. For our return journey, Rocky had already made a mental note of
couple of points where we could ride till the shore. We rode till the sea side
at Aare view point. At Aare Ware beach, he went for a walk along the shore.
This was a very long empty beach with crystal clear water. Finally, he decided
to return but, on the way, saw a hoarding of Harsha Scuba Diving and I was turned
towards the diving site. “This guy is very impulsive for adventure.”
He left me in the sun for doing
scuba diving and I decided to make the most of it. I stretched my tires and had
a great sun bath, lying on the shore, waiting for my idiot companion to return
from having a fun dive. I later realized it was a good decision on his part
that he didn’t take me for diving as god knows what might have happened if
water went inside my lungs, sorry engine. I take my words back. He might not be
that idiot after all. We returned to our hotel in the evening. “This trip is going
great. I am loving it!”
Next morning, we started off
before dawn bidding goodbye to Ratnagiri. For an hour, the decision felt like a
wrong one as the dense fog made visibility low and difficult to ride. With the
sun, we came back to the highway on our way to Bangalore. The long endless
stretch of highway, the wind on my face, light sun, vast fields on both sides
of the road – all of these felt like a dream run. It felt awesome till noon
when the sun started to compete and my whole viewpoint changed. It started to
look like long endless stretch of road, large barren lands on both sides, sun
glaring at its peak and no dhabas or petrol pumps on the highway making it boring
and tiresome.
On the way, we were stopped by few
people in white dress in some fancy vehicle with a red siren for speeding.
Rocky initially tried to convince them otherwise but gave up after a little
while. They were asking for some fine from him, but Rocky told he did not want
any red mark on my character yet as I was a new bike. “I think I am falling in love
with this guy!” One uncle with a big belly sitting inside the red siren vehicle
laughed and let us go. By the evening, I covered 750 long kilometers to
Bangalore and I was exhausted. We somehow reached Rocky’s brother’s place after
lots of mis-directions by Google aunty. “Ab aur koi adventure nahi chahiye
babaji. Boring bana do ji iss trip ko!” I was famished to my core to even think
of anything. All of us decided to rest and make further plans after that. I had
just one thought before I went into the land of dreams –
Together we ride,
together we rise
Together we conquer the whole highway . .
.
P.S. I am not sharing my pics from the trip here coz I
don’t want any human interference in my private life. I have shared them on
RoadBook (like your FaceBook) with my bike friends. I think I am taking after
Rocky, ie, I am not getting the right feeling and mood to write the rest of the
trip. May be someday! “Tab tak ke liye main aapse vida chahunga deviyon aur
sajjano. Aap log padhte rahiye ye adbhut blog jiska naam hai rakeshmoody.blogspot.com.
aadab, shabba khair, shubh ratri . . . “
