Ride 2 Guhagar N Back !!

The weekend plans were made. My ‘Bikers’ group’ was riding to Guhagar, a silent coastal hamlet on the western coast of Maharashtra. Incidentally I also had some of my ancestoral roots pointing to this village and had my family deity, lord Vyadeshwar’s temple over there. Work and some emergency made me miss out on the start of the ride early morning on Saturday the 2nd of February, but somewhere around afternoon I finished off whatever was to be done and took off. Passing through Mulshi and Tamhini was an effortless task especially since afternoon was the time when all the tourists and weekend picnickers had already gone home and the roads were quite desolate. While passing through Mulshi I came across a couple of huge boards warning people not to climb into the lake as there were dangerous reptiles there. Reptiles!!?? Dino’s, Primeval, Super-Croc?? MAN !!. Looks like Pune is soon to get its taste of Jurassic Park.

A short break at Tamhini top after covering approximately 60 Kms, and fuelling up with Chai was sufficient to look forward to the next stretch of the road. Tamhini otherwise is a great site but the afternoon sun coupled with the tons of dust that some trucks had blown all over and the desolate landscape had just stripped the place of its beauty.

The descent downhill from Tamhini was bad as the curves and twisties were amazing but the road surface had deteriorated and hence scraping foot pegs on uneven surfaces was a potential risk. By the time I reached Velha, a lot of bones seemed to have been re-arranged inside. Onwards to Mangaon was an absolute dream with freshly tempered roads. The tarmac had smoothened out and there was hardly anyone else on the road barring the occasional villager or another tourist vehicle. Good speeds on the smooth and long curves made the ride a breeze. The whole forest alongside was lit with the blazing Flame of the Forest – The Palash tree signifying the arrival of spring and the passing of winter.

Mangaon onwards civilization brought its problems, TRAFFIC and POLLUTION. I hit the NH 17 and that was the end of it. It was quite difficult to maintain good speeds yet avoid recklessly driven vehicles who all seemed to be in a mad rush for GOLD!!..And out to have your blood.

After reaching Mahad, I decided to drop off the highway and take the lesser traveled road. After asking a few villagers I decided to take a smaller but still smooth enough road to Dapoli and then onwards to Dabhol. From Dabhol I had heard there would be a ferry which could take me across the creek to Guhagar. This was quite a tempting plan and I decided to take the detour towards a village called Latvan. After traveling from Mahad to Latvan I realized that on these desolate village roads with no fuelling station in sight it would be quite difficult to maintain speed as petrol was precious.

Its quite amazing how on all kinds of roads the fuel consumption figure difference due to changing riding styles can be astonishing. These roads although well constructed were designed just for plain connectivity and not taken into consideration high speed or high volume traffic. There were trucks ahead of my blowing massive coulds of dust and tempos racing amongst themselces each 16 seater carrying at least what 40 odd villagers; each having a bewildered look on their face, with the daredevil driver deep in thought and concentration as if he was on a critical NASA mission.

Once I reached Dapoli, I took a breather and fuelled up again. Dapoli also marked the evening/afternoon snack time and I gobbled down some stuff to prepare me for the last mile run to Guhagar. From Dapoli it was a short run of about 30 odd kms to Dabhol Harbour. What accompanied me all the way from Dapoli to Dabhol was the Natural Gas pipeline, work on which had caused tons of dust gravel and mud to accumulate on the roads thus making each twisty more tricky. It was fun to see the sides of my tyre go all red with the mud which the Konkan coast so much boasts of and is the trademark of that region.

The first sight of the Dabhol creek was immediately at the end of the small ghat section through a clearing in the trees. I saw the wide creek shining under the sunlight. I stopped for a breather. This was the first sight of the good ol sea which i was so hastingly headed towards. The shimmering waters, reaching out into the horizon indicated the vastness of this magnificnet water body we all call the Arabian Sea.

As i descended into Dabhol, the smell of the fisherman's cove greeted me and i knew i was in Konkan Heartland. I saw small fishing boats slowly rolling into the harbour. I saw Huge barges carrying tons of iron Ore and other heavy stuff. I head the oh so omnipresent clang clang of workers hammerring away at metal hulls crafting the marine vessels.

Once I reached Dabhol i was greeted by the sight of a Fort like structure. This i presume must have been one of the major ports during the maratha regime and must have controlled the seafront. I moved around the small fishing village as the ferry had some time for departing.

Fisherwomen were selling their wares, screaming at the top of their voices. Children were playing on the streetd. Dogs sat lazily blowing flies off their noses. Cats waited patiently next to the fisherwomen eyeing the scraps. I also noticed that the ferry which operated between Dabhol and Dhopave no the other side had a systematic rate card for ferrying stuff. There were separate rates for Bicycle, Motorcycle (Rider goes free with Motorcycle), Hens, dogs, fishes and even BULLS – (Not the Metal Monsters, the REAL ones!!).

I loaded my bike onto the ferry, actually rode on and then reached the other side. As i stood on the deck and watched the waters move as currents and splashing on the shores, the sight of the village with its antique tiled houses, the tall coconut trees and the simple lifetyle really gave me a refreshing feeling. This was so pleasant despite the presence of so many people around. Cmoparing the same to an overpacked mall in a acity the experiance would have been maddenning.

Ths sun was slowly setting and created a unique feeling all over. Light bounced off the waves scattering into golden sunbeams creating giving this place an El-Dorado look. I also noticed hige chimneys of the erstwhile Dabhol Power Corp, ENRON as many would know it. The same company which came to India to promise dreams to be fulfilled and then hastily beat a retreat without even letting us know what went wrong. Or is it so?

By the time I crossed it was already dark and the sun was going down. I climbed into Dhopave and moved towards Guhagar. Enroute i saw the sun playing hide and seek with me over the edge of the hills in the distance.

I sped up FAAAST to make sure I reached the Beach before the sun actually slipped down the horizon but then as luck would have had it. I couldn’t be there in time but still managed to get some real good snaps of the fading twilight. The sun had already gone below the horizon but the whole sky was still blazing with the residual light.

I had put in some good 250 plus Kms on the odo still it was a slightly shorter route than the conventional highway run. After spending some time on the beach, unwinding and breathing in the fresh air I realized I had stayed over too long for the fatigue to kick in and I had to call it a day. I was slightly saddened to realize that somewhere I had blown out a pilot lamp and that was also quite depressing. (YES I am that freaky idiot who gets worried if things like tail lamp, speedo lamp, brake light etc don’t work. I am also very fussy about alignment of rear view mirrors. LOL).

I decided to check in at a relative’s place to stay over. Obviously I would have to eat elsewhere and perhaps shell put some moolah for the room and hot water too but then staying at someone’s house was anytime better than a hotel. I called up my other friends who had by that time already proceeded to Velneshwar and had camped there for the night. I decided to pay them a visit and rushed off to meet them. The talk sessions at the BN meet were obviously charged up with NOS, and high spirits. A lot of plans and future rides were discussed and basically was one helluva good time. I stayed over for some time but as fatigue had started kicking in I returned back to Guhagar, had a light dinner and slept off.

Next day morning I got up and moved straight to the Beach. The morning breeze coupled with a walk on the soft fresh sands made my day. The beach a huge vast expanse of over 7 Kms of soft golden sands was absolutely PRIVATE. A Sunday, and a Beach so pristine and so vacant. I couldn't have had better treatment for me anywhere else.

A brisk walk down the beach leading to the main chowk of the village, had me charged up for the day. The subsequent breakfast of missal pav and kande pohe made my day. One thing unique about Guhagar is that perhaps it is one of the few villages on the Konkan coast which is not a fishing village. Next door Dabhol is a big fishing village, while there is some fishing carried out at Hedavi also which is the next village down the coast, guess somewhere because of the extensive sandy shore and the reverence attached to the deity, the people of Guhagar rather preferred to use the sea as a means of recreation rather than a source of livelihood.

After breakfast and a visit to the temple, I called up my fellow bikers, only to come to know that they would be delayed and might as well stop for breakfast at Velneshwar and meet me at Guhagar just to start off for Pune – Mumbai. The temple is centuries old and still retains the architecture and peace and calm. Some enthusiastic trustee had however painted the stones with a good quality sad looking GREY emulsion thus spoiling it nevertheless.

I proceeded to meet me fellow bikers at a junction called Modka Agaar. Since i was the closest to this place, i reached first and waited till they started trickling one by one, the 220 and Arpan in lead followed by adventurer Hrishi on his Red devil, these two guys you could say were the master minds behind this trip.

We assembled one by one at this junction, each one riding over and then arranged ourselves for quick photo session. Some more pleasantries were exchanged and after tanking up we took off towards Dabhol. A short group wanted to ride the long way round..3 sprinters took off towards Satara…while the 2 dudes form Mumbai also went off on NH 17. I stuck with the group which decided to take the winding road through interiors of the Konkan area. So off we were; the SPRINT group to Pune with Vibhu on ZMA, Nalin on CBZ and Nav on RTR. The CRUISE group to Mumbai with Arpan on the 220 and Hrishi on the 180, while the EXPLORE group took off towards the Ferry at Dabhol, Me on 180, Sayan on 150, Chinmaya on 220, Nehal on RX100, MV on ZMA, Kunal on FX and Sravanth on Avenger.

We moved out of Guhagar and reached Enron’s dead site and form there took a wrong turn and got lost somewhere. Luckily after 3 – 4 Kms we realized the correct road and then descended down into Dhopave for the Ferry. It was here that I came across a FOX trotting across the road. I even wanted to stop and give chase on foot but time constraints permitted me only with a zoomed in picture. I had seen a similar creature last night also while riding from Velneshwar. Looked like Foxes were at the top of the food chain in the wilderness in these areas.

We reached the Ferry jetty and assembled the Bikes.The sight of all the bikes rolling slowly into the Ferry was one helluva one and everyone was way too curious to see such a large group of Bikers wanting to traverse the countryside.

We relaxed and shared some more jokes on the short Ferry ride about the way each one of us had enjoyed the ride to Guhagar and the stay on the
beach.

Video of the Bikers getting on and getting off :

The other people on the ferry just gathered around our Bikes and kept murmuring something about our adventure. What was seemingly so mundane for we BikeNomads definitely sounded like one helluva crazy thing for most of the gentry there.

Once off the Ferry we stopped to get a couple of things fixed, Sravanth’s helmet strap, and Kunal’s Crocodile mouth boots. Etc etc. Dabhol to Dapoli was one helluva ride with each of us taking the dirt track with grace. Lazily we reached Dapoli and decided to take a Lunch break. After a lavish lunch and some lazing around we decided to move off and discovered that MV had a flat tyre. We spent some time in getting that fixed, tried out each other’s bikes at Dapoli. I demonstrated to Nehal how to ride an RX 100, the RX 100 way. I too had the RX about 4 years back and loved every moment spent on the peppy “2-stroker”. Finally we moved off from Dapoli towards Mandangarh, and Ambet. I tried my hand at taking a Biker’s video on this stretch and got some decent results.

Video of the Riders on the Road !!



It was here that the heavy lunch had started showing us the colours. Taking curves was getting slightly difficult as our speeds dropped and some of us started getting off course. Somehow we decided to let the slow riders move ahead in a smaller group and the others stopped for a tea break. After the tea break and a frenzied discussion on how to get rid of the chicken stripes that appear on the tyres of most of our bikes we zoomed off towards Goregaon.

Just before the Ghats towards Goregaon, we took a right turn towards Toll village, then across the bridge on the river Kal to Toll Phata and came out on NH 17 at Veer. After Veer it was a crazy mad rush again towards Mangaon on the NH 17.

We managed to reach Mangaon just as the sun was nearing the horizon and after the usual "find me - I am lost" confusion and teaming up we decided to move via Tamhini ghats back to Pune. We had to make good speed as light was fast fading and it was very difficult to concentrate on the road. We bid Bye to MV who moved off towards Mumbai and we took the detour to Tamhini via Velha. By this time our top speed had gone down to about 60 Kmph and there were some crucial turns where even maintaining a decent 45 Kmph for some of us was getting difficult.

Fatigue coupled with dropping visibility and conventional headlights made life miserable. Finally by the time we reached Tamhini top, it was PITCH DARK. We again started riding slowly negotiating the now bad patches of un-laid roads, rolling over stones and gravel with utmost care, our legs and arms shivering in the mountain cold winds, fatigue creeping and making us worn out. A feeling throbbing up the jugular. I looked down at my speedo..The digits never cross 18 KMPH. Gosh! What was happening to us??

We stopped for a chai break and I changed horses with Sravanth. I sat on the Avvy and he took over the Pulsar. The Avenger is definitely a relaxed cruiser and has brilliant lights but I have always used my shoulders to control my turning and here it was getting difficult as the arms were completely relaxed and pressure was building up on the back. Although slower to response than the Pulsar, the Avenger is one mean machine and did gulp the Paud ghats with ease. Finally we managed to reach Mulshi and after than had decent speeds all the way till we reached the legendary Shell petrol Pump at Paud. After tanking up we moved off towards Chandni chowk and from there after the good byes dispersed towards home. We had been riding a good 11 hours plus and this was one helluva time taken to cover a measly distance of under 300 kms giving us an average speed of just 28Kmph..WHAT !!!!!!!! Were we WALKING !!!!..I covered the same damn distance a day earlier in under 5 hours.

@%$@#@&*&^%@$#$! (Choicest of words!!)

Anyways. All said and done it was definitely an amazing ride; enjoyable and thrilling.

Until next time...Keep Riding:

To see the entire pics of the ride click here