Another One!!

It was not the first time we were going on a trip. We are now a grade above the amature riders as this was our 5th bike trip (Previous ones were Murud-Janzira, Lonavala, Mahabaleshwar-Panchgani & Ganpatipule). Still we were as excited as a 4 year old kid when he is about to get the toy for which he longed for 3 months!

Yes i never experienced such desparation for the rains. Blame it on high humidity content of Mumbai or my excitement to go on a trip in monsoons, i was just too excited. Destination this time? Regarding this Anurag wrote in his curtain raiser.... "The destination yet again is immaterial. Its the fun of riding again ...that has kept me and rathore on the edge of our seats all this week..." This says it all...But for the matter of fact, it was the waters of Kashid, a beautiful beach between Alibagh and Murud. Pretty clean with minimum decibel levels.

As always, we hit the bed late on saturday night with a resolution to get up in the mid-night at 5:30am. As always, both of us ignored the alarm for an extended sleep and for a change, this time it was Anurag who was kicking my ass to get up at 6:10am. It was totally overcast and the clouds were too heavy with the weight of water and ready to pour at anytime. We were out of my flat at 6:30 and it was the time to burn some rubber again (not exactly, weather was too cool for that! ;-) )

Rain gods were not too excited with our idea of this adventure ride in monsoons as if we were challenging their superemacy! They took it as a challenge ..so do we ;-). Barely 3 kms after the start, the downpour started. We were not even wearing out windcheaters! The rain lasted for 3 minutes to be precise. As soon as we covered ourselves,it stopped and we were drenched (Ok.That was an exaggeration..but we were wet) This 3 minute rain ensured that we will remain wet throughout our onward journey although we will not encounter rains anywhere else.

This 3 minute rain didnt hamper our progress. We were zooming on the road in full flow, above us the clouds were making different patterns and below, it was the wet clean road with occassional dry patches. The weather was something which was best when felt.

Just before we reached Pen (58 kms from Vashi) I was feeling the hunger.We didnt have our customary tea before rolling on the road and without tea i am like a piece of flesh without life. We decided to fuel our tanks at Pen. 4 cup tea, 4 vada pav and a plate of bhajiya later we were on road again. Now near Pen, you will encounter strange kind of speed breakers which the sign boards prefer to call as "Rumbling Strips ahead" Believe me, the sign boards should read as "Pain in the ass ahead" You must have the ass of Suniel Shetty to survive that torture. and there are planty of such strips there...dont know what purpose do they serve apart from causing..yeah...exactly..pain in the ass!

Now we have the habit of forgetting one thing or the other. In one trip i forgot my spects somewhere ( since then i am without them! ) on another trip it was the turn of Anurag's gogs and this time we forgot to buy the camera roll. Half of the trip was already over (Kashid is just 120 kms from Mumbai) when we realised that we have to buy a roll. I dont remember the place but fortunately we got the roll from a shop and there itself anurag posed on his bike insisting me to take his snap. I obliged. This was the second time we were traversing this route (first one was during our Murud-Janzira trip) and we made it a point to click the snaps where we took during our first visit. Like one narrow "kaccha road" with coconut trees all around...an off road sea shore...although mud prevented us to reach the exact spot still we managed to click the snaps somehow...

On the road it was total fun...We were enjoying the weather thoroughly and were doing all kinds of tantrum on road. Like this one..He clicked one of my snap in which i am sitting in the middle of the road and when his turn came i clicked when he was literally lying down on the road (Dont think we are mad caps..it was pure fun). We managed to reach Kashid at around 9:30am.

One of our common friend of our engg. days, Abhay, was supposed to be in Kashid during that day as a part of his companys tour. He mailed me the name of the resort along with its website in which he was staying and i comfortably managed to erase the name of that resort from my memory. Remember there was no reliance coverage in that part of india so the mobiles were mere toys. From there on our search of Abhay started. Imagine..no idea about the place where he is staying, no contact number and no mobiles!

PS: Abhi abhi max kaam aa gaya hai and i have to finish it before leaving office...will write the second post soon....Till then enjoy this one...