It’s my life, its now or never…..



Oh my god, it has been three weeks since I updated my blog. So I guess an obligatory excuse is mandatory.

Excuse No: 1 – I was busy with my midterm exams (Hey but why was I busy, it was not like I slogged day in and day out for the exam) So let me try to come up with a better one.

Excuse No: 2 – Well I twisted my ankle while playing basketball and was bedridden (Nah I was not bedridden, it was just a sprain and when did a twisted ankle stop anyone from writing)

Excuse No: 3- Our ISP provider has blocked blogger for the past couple of days (so what was i doing before then?) So here goes for one last time

Excuse No: 4 – Well I was tagged by The_Girl_From_Ipanema to write an article about weird things about me. So whenever some interesting topic came to mind to write I was stopped by this blogging etiquette that I complete the tagged article first and believe me, my mind stops working when I am forced to think in one direction. So after a pathetic three weeks I still haven’t completed that article and I finally got scared that blogger might delete my account if I don’t come up with something soon. So The_Girl-From_Ipanema, if you are reading this let me assure you that before the year is out I will finish that article :).

So the last time I wrote on this blog was about my biking trip to Mt Abu and how my butt hurt like hell. So what could be worse, you wonder? Imagine this, a traffic signal in Ahmedabad, 3 bikes are standing in a line one after the other waiting for the green light. But the interesting thing is all the six riders are not sitting on the bikes but standing. It is not as if the bike engines are off, also we are getting odd looks from others waiting for the signal but we don’t care. Yes six of us were standing with the bikes under us because for once it was really painful to sit down anywhere. Well what more could you expect after another biking trip but this time it was bigger and better. Yes, I went on another biking trip!!!

Objective: Ghat roads and the surrounding places of Saputara in the Dang district by the Mahrashtra border.
Distance covered: 897 kms
Total time of trip: 51 hours
Comments: The pain was worth it!!!!

So after the midterms got over on Friday, we planned to take off to this famed land whose surrounding places are scenic as well as virgin. Only the tribals inhabit some of these places and if you are not careful in your behaviour with them you could get lynched. There were 12 of us who planned to go on this trip. But we left in groups of six as one of the group had exams till Friday evening while the other group got off by Friday afternoon. Also managing a group of 12 would have been a little difficult and we thought 3 bikes in a group made sense. So I was part of the first group that left. Like the last time I will give nicknames for all of them but this time I will give the reasoning too, since last time most of my few readers (most of my few??? See my uncontrollable mind is at it again) did not find the nick names interesting.

So we had

General saab
General ka chamcha
Lance Naik 1
Lance Naik 2
Sipai
Yours truly --> Kaptaan

Well how did we get the nicknames? The story goes like this, we took a break for the night, after covering 270 kilometres. In the hotel, two of the six took out a map and were plotting the route to take the next morning. So obviously they became the General saab and General ka chamcha because to us their planning went something like this.

General Saab: “Oye generak ka chamche I think this route makes sense and we can catch them unaware”
General ka Chamcha: “ Ji Saab what an excellent idea”
General saab: “But wait, this route looks interesting too, we can mingle with the crowd unsuspected and attack the saputara hill from its left side”
General ka Chamcha: “Saab, who would have thought of that? You are a genius.”


You get the general drift na. So there you had General saab and general ka chamcha. Now next came Lance Naik 1 and Lance Naik 2. Their responsibilities included carrying stuff like nail cutter, maps, ear buds, bedsheets etc etc for the group (Hello, haven’t you guys ever been on a bike trip, you are supposed to travel light. But I must give it to them, ear buds and nail cutter for a biking trip, now who would have thought of that???)

Then you had sipai, while all this argument and decisions were being taken about which route to take our good old Sipai was fast asleep, not a care in this world. He knew very well that he would get his orders in the morning and there was no point losing sleep over such important decisions. (Well I envy him, that night I slept for three hours and he slept for 6 hours)

Finally you had me ie Kaptaan. Well I did not contribute to any of the decisions made but I was awake all night as if without me, the group would not be able to make a decision. Well it is not as if I did not contribute but NOBODY listened to me :)

Five of the six: L to R Kaptaan aka me, General ka Chamcha, General Saab, Sipai, Lance Naik 2

Some interesting snippets from the journey.

We leave our college and 10 kilometres later when we hit the highway we find that one of the bikes would not go over 60 km/hr. So two of us went back and exchanged that bike for another one of our friend’s. If we had continued on that bike I would have missed two days of classes and you would have been reading this a couple of days later.

We left Ahmedabad at 3:30 pm and at around 6:30 pm we get a call from our friends in college asking us to turn back since there was a riot going on in Surat. After a few tense moments and calling up people we know in Surat and general saab along with general ka chamcha taking out the maps, we decide that we can bypass surat and continue with our journey.

We enter Dang district at 8:00 in the morning the next day and it was a beautiful sight, good roads, greenery and a cup of mast chai and a packet of Parle-G biscuits at a roadside teashop awakened us to fact that life is not all about handling pressure and making decisions, it is about enjoying small things.

-----------------------------------------------The roadside chai waala--------------------------------

At about 10:00, we find this lonely spot hidden from the road, ideal for camping, with a river flowing and green grass patches and a railway bridge nearby

--------------------------------------------------Isnt that a beautiful pic?? --------------------------------

General saab, who is a movie buff contends that this is an ideal movie location and rambles on with his imaginary story --> The heroine runs off with the hero and comes to this location to stay for the night. They light up a campfire and stay in the old structure nearby, music plays and they break into a romantic song. Then next day the hero wakes up and finds that the heroine is gone. The hero gets frantic and starts searching in vain. At this moment the clear water breaks and the heroine emerges, she is taking her morning bath. Sounds clichéd eh?? Well that is what you call bollywood ka superhit formula.

------------------------------------- Same location as above, a diff angle--------------------------------------

After spending an hour or so there, we moved on to the ghat road section and came to the Gira falls which was at its mighty best after the recent heavy rainfall. There was no way we could get underneath the falls as there was too much current. So we had to contend ourselves with bathing at a spot where a big boulder blocked the flow.

---------------------------------------------------Lost in thought----------------------------------------

Hey we drank tender coconut water here to go with the natural surroundings and I was drifting back on dreamland to my childhood days in Kerala, where tender coconuts and the greenery used to be a daily routine.

------------------------------------------------- Ohh those beautiful days!!!!-----------------------------------

We moved on and the ghat drive was really beautiful and it seemed as if we were transported to some foreign land. Man, it was so picturesque.

--------------------------------------------------Gee, we are speechless!!!!---------------------------

Sometime atop the saputara hill, the winds got so rough and mighty that it was tough to ride a bike and all your strength went in to make sure that you are not blown off the road.

----------------------------------------The wind in my hair, heaven at my feet--------------------

And hey there was this foto I clicked

If you see, the bike in front is doing a 60 degree bank and if you see properly you find that the foto is tilted too. Well that is cos my bike was at a 30 degree angle then. Hmmm do I see a prospective career for me?? (ha ha my uncontrollable mind again)


Well I could go on and on but the post is getting too long. So how do I compare this trip with my last trip, well almost double the distance, double the fun and ya double the pillows required to sit on after the trip (c I am using two pillows instead of one).

So that ends my trip log and as a parting adivce this last photo sums its all, at the end of the day you might get scared of being hit by a truck but then it also provides you with moments like these :D.