The West Coast Roamance - The unplanned ride down the western coast from Mumbai to Mangalore - Part 1

Part 1 – 5 little pigs go to the beach

For part 2 - click here

For part 3 - click here

I have done my fair share of rides over the past few years – Ladakh, Spiti, Nepal, Rajasthan etc, but this ride has a special place in my heart because of the spontaneity –   it was like ... I don’t know how I got here....I just left for a weekend ride – it’s been ten days now, and I am in Mangalore!

So this Republic day weekend, I was sulking at home – I had planned to go to the Jaipur Literature fest with a friend, but the silly bugger had dumped me at the last minute.  There had been some intense shit at home too, so I was all set for a break. So when the Amigos decided to go for a weekend ride, I was like – sure man, let's do it.

The Amigos are me, Adi and Delzad – we have done Ladakh and Spiti together – just the three of us; and also we had two of the Wandering Soulz with us – Keta the cat lover (she has 2 cats – Trippy and Tipsy – and I think that says enough about her activities in life) , and Rishi the saas-bahu director (he is a director of weepy soaps, and he gets all defensive when we rib him about it).

‘Let’s go somewhere’ Adi said ‘But where?’

I looked at him through the bottom of my glass.

There was something wrong with my glass.

I thought about it and then I realised what the problem was. It was empty.

‘Let’s go to ...hic...Lonar!’ I said, refilling my glass. ‘There’s a huge meteor crater lake which I want to see. It was supposed to be the first ever ride I was supposed to do, but I chickened out because it was 500 kilometers. And I still haven’t done it yet.’

‘Ya ya ‘ Delzad the mad bawa said. He looks like Frankenstein with a Sathya Sai baba hair style if he lets his hair grow for a few days. Just take your eyes off his hair for a few minutes and foom! Its grown so much that he is struggling to get his helmet on. ‘Any place except NH17. We keep on going to NH17.’

‘Let’s go to Hampi!’ Rishi put in his two bits. With his shoulder length hair and French beard and sad eyes, he was looking like a prophet saddened by the state of the world. He had just come back from a 4000 km ride of South India, and he looked as if his ass was still hurting. He would shift his sitting posture every now and then.  When we asked him whether he enjoyed his south ride, his eyes got a hunted expression and his south part twitched a bit. He had gone with a crazy serd  - the serd had a brand new humongous 1600 cc Triumph thunderbird, and Rishi had to keep up him on his 500 cc. His eyes still twitched at the memory.  ‘I found a place called Sanapur, near Hampi and its a wonderful place!’

‘Ya. Ya.’ Bawa said. ‘Anything except NH17’  I looked at him. His hair seemed to have grown in those few seconds.

‘Let’s go to North East!’ Adi said suddenly. He looked like the abominable snowman – a gigantic being all covered in hair – long hair, beard – a general impression of shagginess. There was a moment of silence as we all looked at him. He got all hot and embarrassed. ‘er....not right now...I mean....lets go to the north East some time....um...’  Now he was looking like a confused St Bernard. 

St Bernard reminded  me – my glass was still empty. I refilled it.

‘So whats decided?’ I asked. ‘Where are we going? Lonar or Hampi? Not North East definitely.’

‘Ya ya.’ Bawa said. ‘anything except NH17’

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The next morning I was staring at the sea and smelling the salty tang of it – and also unfortunately the fishy stink of the jetty.

‘What exactly are we doing here?’ I asked Adi suspiciously. ‘Weren’t we supposed to go to Lonar crater?’

He slapped himself on the head. ‘Arre baba! You only insisted on this.’

‘I did?’ I wrinkled my brow.

‘You got all eloquent about visiting a place called Vijaydurg, and said that we must go there by coastal route. You said that it was an awesome coastal fort and that it was calling out to you and we must go there.’

‘I did?’ 

‘And you are late bugger!’

‘I am?’

He just shook his head and went off.  I shrugged my shoulders. What had I drank last night? Chalo, never mind...Lets ride!

We were at Bhaucha dhakka, a.k.a Ferry Wharf;  where there were ferries going to Alibag and Uran.  Inspite of having the world’s longest shoreline, we have the world’s worst ferry systems  - these two are remainders of the old British era ferry lines, and are the only places where you can transfer a bike on a boat from Bombay – unfortunately the port and the boats are British era too, and look and smell most untrustworthy. In the olden days, when the boats were the only way of going to Konkan and Goa, these places must have been buzzing with activity; but now that there are excellent roads and train, the long distance Konkan boats are only a memory and now only a skeleton ferry service remains.

I am always pissed when I see this – what a waste of our waterway potential. We should be having ferries all the way from the coast – from Nariman point to Manor, with stops at marine drive, Bandra Andheri, Marol etc.  Just see the ferries in all other Asian countries – Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc.  It should be a basic and essential part of our public transport.

(Note to NaMo, DeFa and NiGa – please institute a sensible marine transport system to take advantage of sea routes) 

We booked tickets for self and bikes and after some delay, started loading the bikes on the boats. The loading process was as basic as you can get. They put a narrow wooden plank between the pier and the boat and wheel the bikes over that.

Rishi and Keta quailed when they looked at it. The plank was very narrow indeed.

‘Dont worry re...’ I told them ‘This is the fourth time I have done this. They are all pros – at least they haven’t dropped my bike in the drink yet.’

‘Imagine the insurance claim you would have to fill in....’ Del mused as the guy took another bike and wheeled it across. ‘A whole new definition of water damage. Wonder what the surveyor will say.’

The loading guy came and looked at us with dislike. 5 Bullets! Bah! They are normally used to small plastic bikes, and get disgusted pushing these heavy  metal monsters.

Imagine what would happen if they saw the 1600 cc Triumph Thunderbird! Completely cheered by the mental image of Sherry arguing with the boatman, and the boatman tossing the bike into the water in disgust, and Sherry then tearing his beard out, and possibly the insurance agent also chucking himself into the sea on seeing the claim form, we completed the loading and sat in the boat.

The boat journey doesn’t save just time – it saves you from having to do  a disgusting stretch of highway and deposits you straight into the scenic Konkan coast.  The voyage is also quite scenic – you get to see a nice view of Bombay island city and harbour and the myriad small islands and navy/shipping installations in the harbour.

 The boat wala didn’t allow us to sit on the top deck till we crossed some invisible laxman rekha, as it was some rule by the navy...or police...or coast guard...somebody. ‘What is the point of this silly rule, re?’ I asked him – I can see outside from below as much as from top deck, only I am suffocating from your engine fumes below deck.’ He shrugged his shoulders and went off.  If the guy who made this rule is reading this –  screw you!

After an hour or so, we reached out destination – Rewas jetty and that was where the real action was awaiting us. It was low tide so the water had gone out, and the boat was at a lower level than the dock. For the passengers it was no big deal, as they (we) just exited from a lower level.

But what about the bikes?

Any normal logical person would have built two or three levels of dock so that they could just wheel out the bikes aaram se – but not these antediluvian geniuses who made these ports. They have only one level.  Me and Tanmay got screwed at Uran jetty once in high tide, where they quietly unloaded our bikes on the lower level, with no way of going up except by the stairs, we nearly had heart attacks getting our bikes up. But here there were more than 25 bikes – more than I had ever seen on this ferry, presumably because of the long weekend.  What would they do now?

The answer was that they would do exactly the same as they would do at high tide – wheel the bikes over a rickety wooden plank! Only they would add more muscle power – 4 people below to push and 4 people on top to pull the bikes. All the passengers watched in amazement and disbelief as the unloaders huffed and puffed and got all bikes off the boat. The smaller lighter bikes were no problem, the unloaders got them off without breaking sweat, and almost with a light laugh so to speak – but when they came to the Bullets, their visages grew grim and they all almost developed a common hernia as they gasped and clenched and got the bikes up. All of us were watching in fascination and horror, expecting at any moment a ‘SNAP’ of the rope, a loud ‘AAAAARRRGHHH’ and  SPLASH of the bike taking a swan dive in the Arabian sea. But no – ye of little faith, there was no problem – all the bikes were out and we were ready to roll.

‘No more ferries on the route, I suppose?’ Keta asked me nervously.

‘4 more.’ I replied, and Keta went pale. I could just see her imagining her bike at the bottom of the sea, and she trying to explain the situation to her incredulous husband. ‘But don’t worry – they are not like this – they are a normal roll on roll off type’.

She looked relieved, but I was not sure whether she believed me or not.

So once we were all geared up and ready, we set out on our coastal journey. We were planning a full coastal route, without touching the highway at any point at all. The intended route was  Rewas to Murud Janjira; then ferry to Dighi, then Dighi – Dive agar – Srivardhan – Harihareshwar; then ferry to Bankot, then  kelshi and then Anjarle. I was actually hoping to get to Murud Harnai, because I hadn’t seen the place for almost 18 years, and there was a sea fort there which I wanted to see. 

None of this route was new ground to Adi, Delzad and me – I had attempted doing full coastal route to Goa a couple of times before, but it’s a slow route, and time pressure always forced us to abandon the coastal route and hit the highway after Ratnagiri to keep to our schedule.  This time of course, it was only a weekend ride, so there was no Goa on the cards.

We passed through Revdanda and Korlai, and I told the guys about the Korlai lighthouse – me and Bharathi had gone there once, and it was a very cute place. We passed through lovely old villages and rolling hills and through the ancient walls of the Portuguese fort of Chaul, and the ancient Maratha fort of Korlai until we came to the amazing island fort of Murud Janjira.

Murud Janjira fort is a fascinating place, standing in an imposing position right at the mouth of the huge creek of Rajapuri, where it can overlook all sea and river traffic. It was a small local fortification called Medhekot, which was taken over by African Muslim raiders from Abyssinia – now in Ethiopia. They first ruled with the permission of the Nizam of Ahmednagar, as his agents, but after some time gave him the heave ho and claimed the whole area as their own. They built the impregnable stone fort in the 12^th century and ruled the area ever since. The Abyssinians  were called the ‘Habesha’ in their local language, which was known as ‘Habshi’ in Marathi, and now ‘habshi’ has become a catch all word for all black people in Marathi.  The rulers were called ‘Sidi’ in African and the fortress was called Murud – which is ‘island’ in Konkani, and ‘Jajeera’ – which is ‘island’ in Arabic. The word ‘jajeera’ became corrupted to ‘Janjira’ – so the name ‘Murud Janjia’ is essentially ‘Island Island’.  So when it is called the ‘island fortress of Murud Janjira’ – that is total overkill.  Island Island Island.

The Siddis of Janjira were never part of the Mughal empire, but as a loose confederation of muslims, they always supported the Mughals and the Deccan Sultanates against the Hindu kingdom of Shivaji and the Maratha empire. While they had some land holdings in Konkan, their real power was in the sea – they controlled the sea lanes and extorted taxes from all sea traffic, and were bitterly opposed to any competition – and they suddenly had a lot of it – the new expansionist European sea powers – Portugese, Dutch, French and English ships – and the newly formed Maratha Navy – as Shivaji was the only Indian monarch far sighted enough to see the importance of sea power.

They tried their best to hedge their bets by having a strong base in land – they were among the forces which attacked Shivajis forces in the famous battle of Panhala where Shivaji was able to escape only through a daring night-time sortie – but were soon pushed out by the wary local rulers.  Soon they were marginalised in land and under pressure at sea, but the fort of Murud Janjira was never defeated. Shivaji and his admiral Kanhoji Angre tried their best to root them out, Sambhaji built a island fort next to it to force them out, the British breathed hard on them, but the castle of Murud Janjira was never taken by force. It took the inexorable force of history to extinguish them – the new technology of ships and ammo made the fort irrelevant, and the giant scale of the British empire made them toothless. One day the population of the fort voluntarily left the fort, the nawab of Janjira built a splendid palace on the shore and moved there and now the fort is empty like all its brothers on the coast.

Now all there is to remember the only African influence in India is the fort, the palace, some tombs of Sidis and several Baobab trees which must have come as seeds in tummies of ancient cattle and horses. And of course the facial features of the locals showing the DNA of the descendants of the African invaders.

We stopped for lunch at the famous ‘Patil Khanawal’ – where the owner greeted us like old friends. I doubt whether he remembered us as individuals, but he was happy to see a bunch of bikers. Bikers always moved in large packs, ate like pigs and paid well, not to mention adding some glamour into his life. Most people are happy to see bikers – they live the adventure vicariously through them.

We enjoyed surmai thalis, and then enquired about dessert. ‘gulab Jamun’ the waiter replied and bawa almost jumped out of his seat.

‘Ya ya – bring it no- slurp slurp’

Adi looked at him suspiciously. ‘Weren’t you supposed to be on a diet?’

‘Just one man’

The waiter brought 5 cups of testiculate gulab jamuns and put them on the table with a smile. 

‘Complimentary sir’ he said.

Adi was khush! Complimentary! ‘Thank you,tha...’ he stopped abruptly. I looked at him in surprise.

‘Kya hua?’ I asked.

He pointed tremblingy at the cups. They were empty! Bawa had moved faster than the speed of light, and finished off 10 gulab jamuns before Adi could even say ‘thank you’!

‘What?’ Bawa said, as we all looked at him in disbelief. ‘They were tiny ones anyway.’

We exited from Murud and went  to Agardanda to catch the new ferry.  The last time I had come ,we had taken the old ferry from Rajapuri to Dighi. That is another disgusting old ferry where four people lift up the bike and load it on an ancient launch and lash it tightly to prevent it falling in the water, and you worry all through the trip about the rope coming loose and dropping your bike into  the drink. Now there is a modern drive-on drive-off ferry with much less complication and mental tension.

Or so we thought.

We reached there and saw that there was a full blown testosterone match on display. One big bus had parked on the wrong side of the road and was refusing to budge. There was a mini van parked on the right side of the road who was also unwilling to budge. There was a line of vehicles behind each of them, all of whom were unwilling to budge. The small gaps between them was filled by bikers. 

I scratched my head as I looked at them. They were occupying the whole road. The ferry was coming in. How were the vehicles in the ferry supposed to get off?

The issue did get resolved eventually after a lot of shouting and pleading and huffiness and general timewaste and attitude spewing. Somehow someone backed off enough to allow the vehicles to disembark, then the big guys loaded in and then we shouldered our way inside somehow until we were packed like sardines in the ferry.

We got off the ferry and carried on to Harihareshwar via Srivardhan and Dive agar. There used to be a golden statue of Ganpati at Dive, which was a very old statue which was supposed to have been washed up on the beach some time in antiquity.  I had passed by it several times and everytime I thought about stopping to see the temple, but as I had just gotten off the ferry I had been in no mood to stop again. Next time definitely, I would think and carry on.

Unfortunately, the golden statue was stolen on 25 March 2012 – the thieves murdered two watchmen and looted the statue. The thieves were caught eventually, but they had melted the statue by then and it was gone forever.

Srivardhan is also a historically interesting town. It is an old and venerable town, most famous as being the birthplace of the first Peshwa of the Maratha empire – Balaji Vishwanath. Shivaji created the Maratha empire, but after his death and the death of his son, Sambhaji – who was horrifically tortured and murdered by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb – the kingdom went through a firestorm of a civil war. There was a roaring battle between the supporters of Rajaram - the son of Shivaji’s second wife Soyrabai, and the supporters of Shahu – the son of Sambhaji; while at the same time the kingdom was under fierce attack from Aurangzeb, who was amazed that the Marathas still resisted after the death of their king, and the Deccan sultanates.  Amazingly, not only did the Maratha empire survive such a turbulent period, but went on to thrive and grow and go on to become the premier power in India, as they overthrew the Mughal empire. This was due to Shahu ceding power to his very able Prime Minister – called the ‘Peshwa’ in Marathi – who was this Balaji Vishwanath. Balaji Peshwa recreated the power of the empire, settled the civil war, agreed to serve as the prime minister and never aspire to be king, and created a new era in Indian history.  The Peshwa-ruled Maratha empire stretched from Tamil Nadu in the South to Afghanistan border in the North and Bengal border in the east. If not for the entrance of the British, it would have replaced the Mughal empire as the main empire of the India.

Harihareshwar is a Shiva temple of great antiquity, and is known as Kashi of the south – it became famous during this period as it was the ancestral temple of the Peshwas.

It was a very beautiful ride across the hills as we crossed Srivardhan and Harihareshwar till we got to the next ferry – from Harihareshwar to Bankot. To my relief, there were no testerostone and angst filled crowds at this ferry point, and we had a very pleasant ferry ride across the creek.

This was the last ferry and from here it was a very short run to Anjarle. But we Amigos were not relaxed yet, as we knew the biggest issue of the day.

The long weekend! That's when the whole of India seems to go out of town like a tsunami and wash out accommodations for miles around. Its like a natural disaster of epic proportions.

It was a long weekend, and we had no reservations, so we knew that it would be a real task to get accommodation.  

We had experienced the issue on our last ride, where we had ended up in Simla on the 15^th August weekend. 

It seemed that the whole of North India had decided that it would be a wonderful idea to visit Simla. It had become dark, we were soaked in the rain, cold and miserable, while we went from hotel to hotel to hotel to hotel to hotel to hotel looking for a room for the night. Finally we had got a place to sleep in a really shady looking drivers dormitory @ Rs 250 per head, which we had eagerly agreed to. No sooner had we changed out of our wet clothes, than the hotel manager came and told us to vacate the beds as his boss had promised the same to some army group!

We were stunned. ‘Where are we supposed to go at this time in the night?’ I demanded, but the hotel guy only shrugged.

‘Hum to sirf sorry bol sakte hain sir’ the hotel lady had only one thing to say.

At that time, bawa really came into his own. His saibaba hair seemed to curl and uncurl on its own as he fixed the hotel staff with a basilisk glare. ‘We are not going anywhere! What your boss has promised to someone else is your problem. Sorry!’ he growled in full bawa tashan, and the hotel guy wilted.

‘But sir...please...’ he begged

‘No please nothing! You have taken our money and written down our registration and thats it! We are not moving unless you make alternative arrangements’

Such was the power of bawa’s eye that the hotel fellow surrendered. Suddenly the lady had a brainwave – they had a shaadi hall upstairs – could we stay in that?

Sure – we replied – so long as you organise bedding. And that had actually turned out to be a much better solution than that smelly and congested dorm.

But that was a really bad memory, and I was sure that some stress like that was going to happen again.

‘But don’t worry re...’ I said ‘the patron saint of idiots always helps out. Just keep an eye out and keep asking the locals.’

We kept asking the locals, and one autowala recommended a hotel called Hotel Durvankur on Anjarle beach and gave us the hotels card. We went hunting for it.

‘Do you think that he will have room?’ Adi asked.

‘Probably not – but any fellow who is enterprising enough to hand out his cards to autowalas sounds like a guy who will help out.’

Sure enough, the hotel was full, but the hotel fellow had a sharp entrepreneurial streak.  He first took us to his grandmas house, but that was full. Then he took us to a more distant relatives house.

‘It’s a brand new house.’ He said ‘ and they have made a special room for guests. You can do whatever you want in that room.’

It turned out to be very clean little room, with an attached bath and western WC – also extremely clean. No furniture – but that was good, as all of us could sleep together in that room. And the price? 800 bucks a night.

We closed the deal with relief, and crashed in that room. After a change of clothes and a shower, we were all cheerful again. It was the best possible solution – we were staying in a homely house – which I much prefer to staying in a hotel – in a beautiful village – Rishi went crazy at the photo opportunities –

 and only a stone’s throw from the beach – and we walked there for a night time stroll before dinner. Dinner was a scrumptious surmai thali at Durvankur, where bawa went crazy – eating surmai after surmai until all supplies of the kitchen were over. The hotel employees came out to peek at who was this Bakasur finishing off all the fish.

The next morning Keta woke up as a mass of aches and pains. She was not used to long rides.

‘My ass is paining, my back is paining, my wrist is paining, my thighs are paining.....every part of me is paining.’ She was whining.

‘Why do we need to go anywhere? Can’t we chill here today?’

‘But....what about Vijaydurg?’ I whined in my turn  ‘I really want to see the place.’

But then she made a sad puppy face, and I sighed. OK OK, we will chill here only. Anyway, this beach is absolutely beautiful and deserves a longer look, and we can take a look at the Harnai fort.

In the meanwhile bawa was eating the householder out of  house and home – ek anda....aur ek anda....aur ek anda....aur ek anda....bread...more butter...sugar...more butter....more bread...ek aur anda...more bread....more butter...more sugar

Rishi was watching with his eyes popping out.

‘Does he always eat like this?’ he whispered to me.

‘Oh yeah.’ I replied. ‘It’s like feeding a python.’

After bawa was finally sated, and the kitchen was a nervous wreck, we set out to check out the fort. Bawa was rubbing his tummy and murmuring ‘I should have had one more for the road.’

I loved the location of Suvarana durg – it is actually a set of two forts – Suvarana durg (the golden fort) is the island fort, and Kanak durg (the ornament fort)  is the land fort. They are supposed to be connected by a secret underground passage, but that is lost and blocked up now. The whole idea of a sea fort with a secret undersea passage reminds me of Enid Blyton novels and drowns me in a sea of nostalgia. Nowadays, people look at me blankly when I mention my love for Enid Blyton, and I am really sorry about that. She was a great writer.

Suvarnadurg was an ancient fort, built by earlier kingdoms, and Shivaji, seeing its potential, promptly conquered it from the Adilshahis and made it into a key component of his coastal plans. His admiral, Kanhoji Angre, turned it into one of his important bases and ship building yards. Kanhoji ended up owning the entire coastline from Gujarat to Goa – with the notable exception of Janjira – and maintained his hold even in the face of experienced sea faring enemies like the arabs, the siddis, the Portuguese, the dutch and the British.

Kanhoji was fiercely loyal to Shivaji, and somewhat so to Sambhaji, but in the power vacuum after them and the civil war that followed, he decided to hang up his shingle as an independent ruler. After he died, there was a further mess with his legitimate children and illegitimate children fighting for the throne, the two factions of the Marathas fighting with him, the other chipping in – it must have been really messy.

It finally ended with Peshwa teaming up with the English to attack Tulaji Angre, and as always happens in such  a case – the English ended up with the whole pie and the Marathas gave up their naval forces completely.

Now the fort is empty and desolate – like all Maratha forts – and all that is left are ruins and berry trees. I picked a lot of berries and ate them all day long.

We got back to Anjarle beach in time for sunset, and bawa and adi decided to ride their bikes on the beach. Bawa was all over the beach like an excited puppy running in the water. Adi was also inspired to zip around the beach after him. It was like watching a Great Dane and a St Bernard running around on the beach.  On motorbikes.

 Seeing them, I also got excited and borrowed his bike and went riding in the water – its a great feeling to ride your bike in the waves and feel the water spraying all over  - the sand is firm and fun to ride on, and the water is warm and salty. Great fun.

‘Take my photo na...’ Bawa would plead

‘Arrey – I took photo, video everything,’ Rishi replied

‘No no no....just one more – in setting sun’ Bawa would say, and zoom off.

It was such a beautiful beach – inspite of it being 26 Jan weekend, there weren’t too many people on the beach. Beautiful white sand, broad expanse of sea and the setting sun made it a wonderful sight.

After thoroughly enjoying the sunset, we went back to our room for a shower and clean up, and back on the beach with a bottle of Buddha baba. We chilled till dinner time, and then went back to the hotel for dinner.

As soon as the hotel staff saw us, they rolled up their sleeves and girded their loins – they had made a special trip to the fish market that day and bought a whole shoal of fish for us. They had gotten over their initial shock by now, and were happy and proud to see someone scarf down their cooking so enthusiastically. 

They were particularly taken with Delzad – the human garbage disposal. ‘Just imagine – if we get a few more customers like him, we can retire’ I could imagine them thinking.

Rishi and Keta watched goggle eyed as he downed fish after fish. The cook was getting blisters keeping up with his demand.

He finally looked up to see us all staring at him.

‘What?’ he said ‘Fish is light re....you can have more.’

The next day after the mandatory early morning stroll on the beach, where bawa found fisherman and tried to eat the fish raw, just as a change, we were back at the room and thinking of packing. Bawa was thinking of breakfast.

‘So what is the plan now?’ Keta asked

‘Breakfast of course’ Bawa replied. ’14 eggs for me – and bread. And tell him not to do kanjoosi on the butter.’

‘No, I mean – what is the ride plan?’

‘We are going home  - by the highway this time.’ Adi replied

‘Oh god! NH 17 again! Better make it 16 eggs for me.’ Bawa groaned.

‘What shit!’ I objected. ‘What about Vijaydurg?’

‘No can do man – gotta get back on Monday’ Bawa replied.

I turned to Adi – ‘Adi, you bastard...you were going to come with me to Vijaydurg.’

Adi looked embarrassed, like a St Bernard caught doing something naughty. ‘Umm, no maan...gotta get back...’

‘I want see my pussies’ Keta announced. ‘Tipsy and Trippy need their mamma’

‘I am going to Goa guys.’ Rishi suddenly spoke up. ‘Anyone want to come along ?’

Everyone looked at him.

‘Arent you just back from a frigging long south trip?’ I asked him.

‘Yeah. So? I am a director, and I am sick of saas and bahoos.. I need a break. A long break. I want to go to Goa. You guys want to come along?’

‘No man.’ Adi replied. ‘Gotta get back to work.’

‘But this fatso will come.’ Bawa pointed at me. ‘He is completely mad.’

‘Hey!’ I objected. ‘I am  not completely mad. I am just somewhat free spirited.’

‘So ...what say? Coming to Goa?’

I thought about it.

‘Well...not to Goa, but let’s go till Vijaydurg together, and I will go back from there.’

‘Cool man’ Rishi said as we bumped fists. ‘It will be just the two of us then. Let these wimpy losers go back home.’

‘On to Vijaydurg!’

‘Tally ho!’

‘The two musketeers!’

‘Eh?.....doesn’t sound right somehow...’

‘It doesn’t?....Ok....the dynamic duo!’

‘That’s better.’

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Part 2 - 2 guys ride from Anjarle to Goa

part 3 - Solo ride from Goa to Mangalore

PS : You can read the travelogue of my first bike trip here http://ketanj.blogspot.in/2010/03/over-hills.html