Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Bikers

This was an year ago when I had read about a trip from Bangalore to goa by bike it was very interesting and hence I was dragged into it…since I love to go on long rides this thing had come into my mind a year a ago….well got executed during this new year vacation. We had 10days shutdown period holidays from office so I was suppose to go out on my bike, that was my plan. Initially I had planed to go to udupi and places in and around but 1 day before my cousin pavan asked me wats the plan for the long break. On listening to my plan even he got interested and told why not go to dandeli one of the best forests we have in Karnataka and from there to goa, Since I was alone and did not have any group I agreed to his idea there was no issue from my side in fact I wanted to visit goa on bike. Well we decided on the trip and planned for the route we need to take and stuffs with in a day and prepared our vehicles for the trip.

The D day Dec 25, 2006 both of us met near navrang a place near to my home.. and started for a wonderful trip after a brief talk…both of us had lied in our homes as we knew our parents wouldn’t allow to take such big risk. Any way I wanted to try it out once and feel it.. It was good but I don’t think I will make such a big trip again on bike.. might be because I don’t want to loose the value of such a wonderful trip.

Well a cool winter of Bangalore the highway was filled with fog and the visibility was very low hence we made a slow and steady start to our trip, till tumkur we went with a slow speed because of visibility and after tumkur it was pretty bright and also the roads looked very empty.. from here we could increase our speed a bit.

Our first break was for breakfast…near shira…after breakfast we stopped at chitradurga and went to pavan’s friends place to drop an album, we took a bit of rest and started towards Dandeli our destination for the day. It was around 2.45 when we reached hubli. Hubli is a place where I had spent around 1year of my childhood, I still remembered the house we stayed and the school I went to by walk I had everything in front of my eyes for a moment so I decided to have a look at the house and school I studied we had our lunch and went in search of our house after some time I remembered the road where we stayed and was able to locate my house, every thing over there had changed a lot. I closed my eyes for a moment and went to those days where in I played cricket in front of our gate with my father as a small kid, the place where I used to catch butterflies.. the place where I used to watch sun going down everyday from the balcony of my house…everything came in front of my eyes then I decided to go the school where I studied for a year… I just tried to follow my memories I took the same route I used to go to school and bingo without much effort I was at my school…it had changed a lot.. but my memories are still undisturbed.. At around 4 we started from hubli to dandeli via dharwad.

From Dharwad the geography changes all of a sudden from dry land to the land of forests all in a span of around 30kms…what a place.. it was my first visit to this place and this place impressed me a lot, the real forest..which brings the fear in you of your loneliness and helplessness…going on these roads with thick forest and the sun fast going down was fun…. We reached dandeli at around 7pm.. we were very tired and enquired about the places around and the place to stay for the night.

We started at around 7 am to a place called Ganeshgudi where the state government has jungle resort for tourists deep inside the woods a real feel of the forest what a place to stay.. we spent our time seeing the forest a bit and then we went on a walk to look at the beautiful Supa dam built against the black kali river…. I should tell about this river… this river as the name implicates looks very fearfull…the water is more of black or dark green in colour.. with bushes around its edges which gives a fear to get into water also this river is famous for snakes and crocodiles… this place looks like heaven for even king cobras…. What a magnificent place.. Exploring the jungle in its raw form is fun but lots of precaution has to be taken because you are in their home and the animals know their home lot better… we heard lots about the animals around …this place is home for lots of animals like tiger,cheetah and bear… the forest officer told us lots of stories about these animals around this place which in fact brought more fear about these place…..But the river has a majestic yet horrifying look…. With lots of mysteries inside it inviting u to give a dip and there by take u in for ever….swimming in this river is strict no as this river is filled with crocodiles…..

Here they have facility for rafting.. which is very famous and lots of people come over there for rafting even thought of it for a moment then since we did not have a good team decided not to go for rafting this time …but we went to the place where they start the rafting it was a cool place deep inside the woods…fun for us was going inside the woods in our bikes… gives you a raw feeling of someone is watching you from behind…

At around 4 we started from our camp for a small trek to a place from where we could see sunset… It was good trek deep inside the forest…you keep on climbing going deep and deep inside the forest listening to animal encounters our guide the forest officer had faced in this place…. A bit scary but was fun…. We came to know that bears are the most dangerous animals since they attack directly on your eyes…. Hmmm after around 30 min of hard climbing inside the deep forest it opened up all of a sudden we were on top of a mountain with only grass all around… amazing… all of sudden all those big trees are gone and you see only grass around you… This was an amazing place we are on top of the mountain and from here you can get a magnificent view of the great forest and the entire stretch of kali river what a view….very calm and mysterious…. Feel like living everything and staying there itself….i could see the sun going down every moment…just to end its duty….looked like everything is predefined and nothing is moving according to wish….even the sun cant wait for a minute he has to go after his duty… nothing can be changed? I kept taking lots of snaps…leaving my mind open to have fun on its wild thinking….sun a source of light…keep going down the dark side of the world starts to chase us….lots of mystery… well in simple a beautiful scene to look, the sun go down between the mountains between which the river kali flows…. We returned to our huts back in the dark and then sat in front of the camp fire… after few minutes we had a wonderful dinner and then went to rest. I could hear all the wonderful sound of the forest inside my hut…kept on thinking of venturing out in the night…but also knew its very scary and risky….might be some other time…and then closed my eyes and went into deep sleep….

We had planned of leaving to syteri rocks very early in the morning around 6. But the forest officer told its not safe to go in bikes so early as there is possibility of encountering wild animals around this time… so giving ear to his words we stayed back and then we started at around 9. The roads were amazing even at 9 it looked as if still its night it such thick forest…. Amazing I never thought still sooo much of forest was left… no trace of human beings around this region…. Good we have something left…we reached synteri rocks at around 10.30 . Again this place is like we have to go inside the woods around 2kms…again going inside in our bikes all alone was a bit scary… with no people around and only trees you tend get the fear creep on you…once we reached the spot what a beautiful place a big granite rock in the middle of the forest with the river flowing below the rocks there is also a small falls…..this place is very silent and a bit scary…. Lots of people have died getting down into water..looking at the place itself we can make out that this place is heaven for animals… after having some snaps here we started to move towards our next destination goa…via karwar…Also on the way in the deep woods pavan was ahead of me and there was a turn ahead and a skrew of the windglass of my helmet fell on the road and I had to stop my bike. Pavan went a bit ahead took the turn and stoped for me… I went around 100-200mts behind parking my bike to search for the screw one of the worst night mares of the trip happened here for me where in I heard few noices from the woods and in fear I turned back suddenly and to my horror my 20-30monkeys who got scared of my sudden reaction ran away…it was reflex action for both….even I got pissed off and ran towards my bike…forget about the screw and just drove away from there….

This stretch was one of the worst journey as the roads were very bad and since we were on bike we had to move very slowly as we couldn’t afford for any puncture.. we had taken a huge risk in these woods without any back up for puncture and stuff… I would say a bit of luck was with us…nothing happened to our bikes and we reached karwar around 3…From karwar goa is just around 10kms… we reached our first beach Pollem…It was a good beach not very high crowd of goa a bit calm beach I can say but we had lots of luggage on our backs and also we were very tired of the horrible roads till karwar…so we decided to take up a room in madgoan and then look at all the beaches. So we did not spend time but later realized tat this was one of the good beaches… any way we went to madgoan at around 6.30 and then booked a room for ourselves both of us were very tired we got freshened up and then moved to the near by Colva beach…nothing interesting over there…was just a bit tooooo overcrowded I felt….since both of us were very tired we went back to room and ended our day….

Next day we got up very early and planned to see lots of beaches and places around goa…. So noted down all the beaches we plan to visit and then started our journey….After breakfast at panji we went towards the Colangute beach and the best part was a small treck via the back waters joining the sea and a small mountain to anjuna beach….In anjuna beach we saw a small cafĂ© were in we could see lots of drugs being used….typical goa life I thought and people were dancing all around…. We had bath in the sea and then we relaxed on the hot sand a good experience to enjoy…..We went to the top of the mountain and from there it was an amazing view of the sea trying to meet the land….with lots of greenery on one end and only water to the limit I can see on the other…..we went back to colangute just to find it was filled with people in every corner…..ooooo god I had never seen soooooooooo many people on a sea shore….didnot like tat much and then after a few shots of sunset we departed to our rooms….that was the end of goa trip for us…..

From here on our return journey had started both of us were happy that we were safe till now and hope to reach home safely without any incidents as both of us had not informed in our homes about the trip.. We reached karwar and also we saw the beautiful defense installation of the Indian navy.. felt proud about the same…

Our next destination was Yana a very beautiful place around 25kms from kumta…on the way we also went to Gokarna…which is famous for the temple and the Om beach… We went to the Om beach its very beautiful view from the mountain top to see a sea below the mountain…that’s the specialty of Om beach…. After a small walk in om beach we started traveling towards yana…

The road was not bad until we found landmark telling to take a left and travel 16kms inside the woods to go to Yana…I should say that there is no road over here and going by two wheeler was asking for trouble….still we decided to go ahead…we traveled around 6-8kms when my bike got punctured as expected…. Both of us were like now what ….couldnot see anyone around to ask for help also…but then we thought ok first will see off Yana and then think of the problem ….my cousin had already started like no man will go back its not looking good….only 2 of us in this jungle….then I managed to boost him up and both of us started going on a single bike….my cousin was a very worried man because if his bike also gets punctured then both of us are in trouble….however we traveled around 14kms when I started singing a very famous kannada horror movie song…. “Tangali yalli nanu teeeeeeeeeli bande………….” With lots of other scary facts….both of us couldn’t avoid laughing…..and my cousin lost balance banged the bike to a rock and both were falling down….funny thing was rather than getting up both of us were looking at each other and laughing badly…..at the moment a localite came over there and was confused to see us down and laughing he was puzzled looking at us and true to his confusion he asked us do you want me to lift you up…listening to this I started laughing again….because my cousin was getting angry that these people are looking at us and not helping to lift us…..it was an issue which we laughed off…….then from them we came to know that we should travel another 2kms and a 1km walk listening to that both of us decided some other time as I also had to fix my bike….

From there I had to drive on my punctured bike for around 15kms on the bad roads…. With no hope for the tube to be in fit condition… after enquiring with the locals I could find a place where we can fix our bike and to our bad luck when we went there the shop was closed but since it was a small place we enquired about his house…went to his house and got him to repair our bike and to our luck we could find spare tube with him…. Well at last my bike was ready….and we started continuing our journey towards..Sirsi…at sirsi we thought we can travel a bit more and started moving towards sagar….On the way I saw the house in siddapur where I had stayed for an year….well there was a very funny incident over here I got down from my bike and took a snap of the house only to attract a locality who came towards me asking why did I take the snap of the house then I had to explain about the fact…..well we stopped for our journey at sagar….

Early morning we started from sagar…it was very cold and we did not even take a bath and started our journey…..it was very cold and I was not able to even hold the handle of my bike….as we were about to reach shimoga there was a road hump and pavan couldnot control his bike as a result of which he was about to bang an old man standing near the road even though he didnot hurt anyone he really scared the old man a lot..... i couldnot control my laughter listen to the reactions of the people standing over there and was making fun of pavan for almost 2-3 days later.....at shimoga we had breakfast and from there our journey parted away…

Pavan my cousin moved towards his hometown chitradurga and I was alone and started moving towards Bangalore…..i took one break on the way in tumkur to meet my friends….had a small chit chat with them and was in Bangalore at around 4 in the evening wat a journey….one great experience on bike a distance of around 1600kms in a span of 5 days was really a great journey on the woods…on the banks of river and on the costal side along a beach well these wordings are just to remind me of what I had experienced and nothing more….as it can only felt…..

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