My Grand Roadtrip

Manas and I started early morning Friday at 4.30 which is a very commendable task, given our lazy habits. It was fun driving in the cold, warming up the bike and adjusting the baggage to the most comfortable position. The drive lasted for about 3 hours, the early morning cold on the Western Ghats nearly froze us. We stopped for breakfast at Pune (180 km) our first pit stop. We met M who I picked up from her apartment and was kind enough to skip yoga to have breaker with us. Some hot breakfast and coffee later we restarted our drive. The road between Mumbai to Solapur, NH 9 is brilliant; it’s just a long straight road you can see stretching out flat and straight. Here we passed a convoy of about 40 Army trunks belonging to the Bison brigade. We pulled parallel to the lead car and asked where they were heading to. This was not taken kindly as a fellow travelers interest in destination and road conditions but as an inquisitive poke in matters that did not concern us. We drove on and stopping for lunch at a Rajasthani Dhaba about 30 km from Solapur (340 km). Here we ordered some dal and bajra roti and dozed of to sleep on the really comfortable charpoys. We woke up to see the army trucks we passed thundering past us, we wrapped up lunch and started on. Soon we exited Maharshtra and entered Karnataka where the road was equally good. By now we were hitting 100-110 kmh on the highways and stopped at a Kamath for snacks, the food/service sucked major. After wasting half an hour there we realized that we still had a lot of night driving left, and trust me a bike is not the best thing to go about driving on highways with big and mean trucks. I felt really sad when I found the part of  NH9 in AP was the worst, and for a few kilometers there was no existing road. The road became decent for a stretch and as we approached Hyderabad (700 km) it went back to its useless self. I dropped Manas off at home and went over to Amit’s house for dinner.

A nice long weekend and I was set to leave on Monday to Madanapalli (1200) with Avi to meet my parents and also visit Horsley Hills which is a hill station of some repute. The first mechanical problem, a stuck petrol tank lid hit us at Avi’s place and this delayed our trip by a few hours this pushed back our schedule. The NH7 was simply superb, even now there is a lot of work going on the road and it will be simply awesome when the construction work is complete. We truly opened up the bike and most times we were cruising over 100km. I am sure 2 guys dressed up like astronauts and thundering along must have been a spectacle to watch as everyone on the road were turning their heads when we whipped past. Thanks to some wrong directions we erroraneously estimated the distances and were still stuck in the middle of nowhere with the sun went down. From then on it was driving on blind into the night with a few sudden breaks at railway crossings with no tracks. (Dad later told me that the tracks were removed for upgrading to broad gauge). It was hell driving in the hills in the night, the cold just bit into us, chilling the inner most soul. We reached home by about 10 in the night where mom and dad gave us the best reception possible, hot water for a shower and some warm clothes and some really yummy biryani. Diwali was lazing about and gorging on the entire food mom cooked.

Wednesday early morning we took off to Bangalore (1400) to see some horses Avi  owns. Blondie who was there in Bangalore came along too, who would let by a chance to see horses. We got to pat the Derby winner Arabian Night as it was in the same stable as my friend’s horses.
After late lunch with Chakkanna and his flatmate we took of to Chikballapur (1450).

There we spent the night at Avi’s cousin’s place. We started late morning to Mangalore (1800) and took the shortcut through the countryside which was not a good idea as though the road was very scenic the potholes and cattle cut into our speed. Our luck with good roads ran out some time after we passed Hassan we had entered the Western Ghats and the sun had set.

The road suddenly vanished and we were left with a dirt track that wound in and out of the ghats. Avi nearly skidded of the road and I had to take over as he could barely see with his tinted visor. It was a ride through hell that never seemed to get over. I am just dreading how bad this road would be in the monsoons. We stopped over for the night at some inn near Mangalore where we had the worst ‘Mangalore Style Fish Curry’ ever(it tastes a lot better in Mumbai). Next day we started to Goa on the NH17. The road is definitely the most scenic with it being sandwiched between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats and all you need to do is take a left and you will end up on some beautiful desolate beach. We passed the famous city of Udipi where we looked around for Udipi restaurants and to our extreme surprise we actually didn’t manage to find. We stopped at the famous Malpe beach and took some snaps.
This part of Karnataka is as beautiful as Goa or the gods own country. The only problem is the connectivity and the lack of development. We then made the biggest mistake ever, instead of taking the right at Honnavar we took the earlier left that got us to travel for about 80 km in the hills on non-existent roads. Our backs and arms sore, we reached Jog Falls with no enthusiasm to go down the 4 hr climb up and down we took some pics and started back on the road to Honnavar where we stopped for the night.

The next day morn we set out to Goa and got there by about 12 in the afternoon, a proper breakfast at one of the shacks on the Palolem beach we were all set for a small nap after which we went kayaking in the sea. 

After racking our backs for an hour, we still could not figure out how to ride the wave. We looked at some surfer for some guidance finding none we packed the plan and got to Sunset Shack to see the sun go down, but we were too late and the sun was already down. We had met some Brit girls who pointed us to the Smugglers Inn which is a hell of a place, we watched football and this totally reminded me of the pub in London where Avi and me watched England vs. Israel.

We made some more friends (Dave, Matt and D) there who pointed us some more places to hang out when the Inn closed. We went to the famous Café Del Mar on the beach and found the place dead, we jumped ship and took off to Sun and Moon to meet our new friends. After some interesting conversations later we called it a night and headed back to our shack. Next day we had an idyllic ride through Goa heading north to the Baga/Calangute. We went straight to the place I always crash when we go to Goa. NV Guesthouse and were lucky enough to get a room there. Till then Avi never had a true shackside dinner. We took a quick nap and headed out to Baga and to my total surprise ran into PD, Ankur and the other mecchies who were there partying. We headed straight to Zanzibar and ordered my fav. Fillet of King Fish cooked with masala. Avi fell in love with the food and the ambiance. Following tradition we went to Titos and gorged on the desserts. All our senses sated we had the best sleep ever. Next day morning we woke up and went looking for someone to fix an oil seal on the bullet and luckily we found Manoj who fixed it up for good. Avi here broke the journey and caught the flight to Hyd and I plodded on back to Mumbai. It was about 12.30 when I left the shop in Calangute and headed north on NH17. I rode hard and fast only stopping for fuel and water. The circuitous route and the ghats killed the average. At sunset I met a few riders who were riding to Mumbai I hailed them and asked whether I could join the pack. To my surprise I was flatly refused. Super angry I just rode on into the night. It was about 8 and hungry and tired I needed a break, spotting a few excellent bullets in the parking before a Kamat. I drove in hoping to find some more riders heading to Mumbai, here I met a few interesting Israelis (Avi, Daniel, S) and an Aussie(Jameson). They were a set of lost travelers trying to get to Goa and had got hopelessly lost and were still planning to plod on into the night. I gave them directions and tips on road conditions to help them on. By now it was totally dark and in the night everyone on the road bullies each other. The huge mack trucks bully the small ones and they in turn bully the cars and everything on the road that moves bully the poor bikers. You tend to realize that no one dims their lights when you pass. It’s ok to be in a car and get flashed but in a bike with no idea how the road getting flashed is super dangerous. You need to memorize the road well in advance that if you get flashed then you have a chance to survive. This is the one stretch of my drive I am not really proud of, I broke all my commandments. I was driving tired and sleepy in the night when the roads were bad and I was driving at speeds that were way faster than I had ever driven before. I managed to cover the next 175 km in about 150 min.

This was the end to my grand road trip, tiring but totally worth it.