The West Coast Roamance - The unplanned ride down the western coast from Mumbai to Mangalore - Part 2

Check out part 1 here

Check out part 3 here

Part 2 – Forts Ferries and Beaches - 2 guys ride from Anjarle to Goa

So the three less adventurous wimpy people hit the homeward route, while the two rugged adventurous and incredibly handsome people went ahead on the coastal road towards Vijaydurg.

Immediately after  Anjarle, we came to the next ferry – Dabhol to Anjanwel.  Anjanwel is the home village of our good friend, and co-founder of Konkan Moto tours and Ridetillidie.com  - Pratish Ambekar. And while he constantly boasts of being from here, he has been very careful not to invite any of us over to his village. He probably doesn’t want to lower his prestige in the village by showing what kind of people he hangs out with in the city.

Anjanwel also has a fort, which Pratish had taken us to earlier – apparently some haraami fellow has squatted on the fort and is laying claim to the whole fort! He claims that he has planted some crops and trees inside the fort area, so the fort now belongs to him! The state machinery has not got around to evicting him as yet – hope they do so soon.

Dabhol is also the venue of one of the most controversial power projects of all time – the Enron Dabhol Power Company.  It was such a sleepy little backwater before Rebecca Mark and her chums decided on it as a venue for the power plant, and now there is a humongous plant and machinery out there. I have no idea whether it is on or off, after all the politicians of Maharashtra got their greedy claws into it.

From there we went on to Guhagar, which apart from having a reasonably nice beach, is famous for having the Shiva temple of Vyadeshwar, which is our family deity. I think Vyadeshwar is the family deity of a lot of Kokanastha Brahmins, and it is a very nice little temple. Like most Maharashtrian temples, it is quiet, clean, generally not crowded and unobtrusive. It is not full of pandas and dirt and thieves and lurid bright paint like North Indian temples, nor is it exclusivist and ‘take your shirt off’ kind of pointless traditionalist like South Indian temples. I walked over the whole temple in full biker garb – Riding jacket, Riding Trousers and Camel back – and no one gave me a second glance.

 Maharashtrian temples are the way temples should be – an oasis of quiet and devotion, where you can commune with the almighty – without unnecessary sho-sha and breast beating.

Before I got a bike, I had been to Vyadeshwar a total of 2 times – since I got the bike, I have been there so many times, I know every chappa chappa of the place. After all, like Shiva, I too ride a Bull now! Maybe that’s why he likes me so much that he calls me over again and again ;).

From Guhagar, we rode on and we were riding, I saw a sign pointing to MTDC resort Velneshwar. What is Velneshwar, I wondered. I have heard the name, but I didn’t know that there was an MTDC resort there. I remember it being another Shiva temple, which is world famous in Konkan – that is to say – most KoBras know about it, but not too many other people.

Generally we were always in a hurry, and so we rode past it – but not this time. I took a right, and the surprised Rishi was right behind me. We saw the temple, and went on to the beach.  The beach was quite nice- white sand, not much crowd – if we were on that fantasy no-end-date tour of Konkan that I keep on dreaming about, I might have stayed there for the night.

We met a couple of bikers there, who had come all the way from Hyderabad. They were planning to hit NH4 and stay in Karad for the night and do an all day ride to Hyd the next day; but they were also seduced by the beach and were thinking of staying there overnight.

We had a quick lunch there at a beach side hotel, and then the Hyd boys came to me and said ‘Can we have a peg with you?’

I was quite surprised.  I had heard that gultis are fond of their liquor – but this was in the middle of the day, that too with a complete stranger.

‘Well....it’s the middle of the day....and the ride is on....so drinking might not be the best idea...’ I mumbled at him, and was surprised as he stared at me quite astounded. Both of us stared at each other.

Then he repeated himself – ‘Can we have a PIC with you? A PIC?’ and he waggled his camera at me to make his intentions clear, even to a moron like me.

‘Oh....a photo!’ I was very relieved. ‘Sure, of course. Let’s take a photo. As many as you like.’

From Velneshwar, we went back to the coastal route and carried on. We passed Hedavi, which has a very famous Ganpati temple, and came to the fourth ferry on the route – the Tavsal – Jaigad Ferry.

I had been on this ferry a few times before, but this time since I was on a discovery mode, I wondered where exactly was Jaigad. Was there a fort called Jaigad? Where was it? What did it look like? Was there a Gabbar Singh there, shouting ‘Jaigad ke vaasiyon...’ ?

So when we got off the ferry, I asked the first cop for directions and we made our way to Jaigad fort. It turned out to be a cute little sea fort just a couple of kilometres from the ferry landing.  Under the benign neglect of the ASI, all it had was its usual threatening placard, threatening to imprison, impale, draw and quarter anybody found desecrating the designated monument, but had no information whatsoever about the fort itself – what was its provenance, history, story, significance etc. So all we could see was the walls of the fort, but got no sense of history beyond it. 

The other problem was that it was dwarfed by the gigantic steel plant of JSW steel right behind it, which apart from looking simply awful, just ruined the look of the fort and the coastline behind it.

But it was a nice fort by itself, and I was really happy to see it.

We carried on after Jaigad, and crossed Malgund (one thing that fascinated me was seeing the villages which I knew only as names – Malgundkar from Malgund, Parandekar from Parande, Malvankar from Malvan etc) where the sea face was so beautiful, that we stopped to appreciate the beauty for a few minutes, commune with nature and take a few photos.

The next point was  Ganpatipule – another famous beach destination. The Ganpatipule temple is quite famous – and the beach is also quite nice; and the government has also developed it as a tourist destination with MTDC and adventure activities etc. The net result is that the place has become a huge mess, and all I wanted to do was to avoid it and get out of there as soon as possible. It was quite late already, and we would have to hustle to hit Vijaydurg before dark.

Unfortunately, I took a wrong turn after Ganpatipule and ended up on the inland road instead of the coastal road, and we lost about 45 minutes in that, as we had to retrace our route back to the coast. To add to the confusion, people kept confusing Vijaydurg with Sindhudurg and kept pointing us in the wrong direction. Luckily I knew the area somewhat, and kept rechecking with Google maps to stay on course, and not be swayed by the most passionate of the wrong direction givers.

Rishi suggested that we stay in Ratnagiri – Bhataye beach was a nice place that he had stayed in once. I was OK with it – going to Ratnagiri was a good idea, as we could reload our wallets from the ATM and we would definitely find acco in the town.  Bhataye beach turned out to be an ugly chaupatty type of an affair, complete with bhelwalas, nariyalwalas and Chinese stalls, and the only hotels were expensive resort type affairs. So we carried on the next town – Pawas.

Pawas has attained fame as being the home town and ashram town of a famous godman – Swaroopanandji; but as far as I am concerned, it will become famous as being the origin village of the most important person in the world – myself! Pawas is the home village of the Joshis, but I don’t know anybody there. I don’t even know the remnant of the Joshis who have remained there and are presumably farming on the land that belongs to me. Anyway, how does it matter ? Country roads – take me home – to the place I belong!

When we reached Pawas it was dark, and I didn’t want to spend time and energy horsing around, so we went to the first hotel I saw – a lodge off the main road. Luckily, it turned out to be quite a nice place, with a nice double room for Rs 700, which due to sheer habit, I bargained down to 600.

There was a hotel right below – which was one of the reasons of choosing the place – and we went down for a nice dinner – a surmai thali. The proprietor turned out to be  a chatty guy, and told us about how this was a rented premise, and he was planning to move into his own place at Poornagad.

Poornagad? Whats that? I asked. Is it actually a gadh – a fort?

Yes, he replied.

Yippee ! a new fort to explore tomorrow!                                                     

I  made a most unfortunate discovery that night.

Rishi snored!

He snored like bloody Krakatoa!

He would roll over to my side of the bed, put his face in my ear and go KHAARNNMKANNN ....KHHAARRR KHAAARRRRRR....ARKHHHH and wake me up with a start!  The first time it happened, it  woke me up with a fright! How could a gentle mild mannered person make a noise like that? It was like Bruce Bannister turning into the incredible Hulk.

I looked at him in wonder. He didn’t smoke or drink, and he wasn’t in the least overweight – where did all that snoring come from?

I gave up the struggle to sleep by 6 AM and went down to look for a cup of tea, and luckily found an early riser of a hotel.

The good thing about a small group is that you can get an early start and get more things done. We got ready and left early morning to check out the Swaroopanand ashram. I was quite impressed by the size and scale of the place. Much bigger than I expected.  Not exactly a tourist destination, but quite a big place.

there, we went hunting for Poornagad. We saw a sign on the highway and turned off towards Poornagad village. Rishi was right behind me – he was a real sport. ‘Just lead the way dude,’ he said ‘I am willing to go wherever you want.’

The road went down to the sea level, and then went up to the mountainside. After some time, the tar vanished, and we were on a kaccha road. The road went on and on, and finally the road itself vanished!  I looked around, puzzled. Where were we? Where was the bally fort? There was no road – not even a dirt track.

When in doubt – Google! I took out my phone, and luckily there was a bit of signal, and even more luckily – someone had dropped a pin on Google maps showing the fort. Encouraged, we went on – and lo and behold – there it was in front of us – a secret fort!

It just couldn’t be seen from the road – hell, It couldn’t be seen a  100 feet away! If not for the conversation with the hotel guy, we would definitely not have made it here. Talk about Serendipity.

It was a magical little fort – high up on an escarpment, with beautiful views of the sea. And the walls and battlements were in surprisingly good repair, and the fort was very clean – with hardly any garbage. And it was empty! Not a soul to be seen. There was a village close by, but there was no one about for some reason.

I was so happy! It was like our private little fort. We explored the whole fort and drank in the views. This would be a fantastic place to camp overnight – and a lot of ash circles showed that  various people had had the same idea before.

I just hope that the people who visit it in future show the place the same respect that the people before had shown it, and leave the place as clean as – or even cleaner than – the way they found it.

Three cheers for Poornagad, I said, and we carried on to Vijaydurg.

Vijaydurg was quite close – about 70 km from there, and we rolled into the place by noon.

What a wonderful fort! Amazing!

From the first sight itself, I was entranced. It was sea fort, in excellent condition.  The dark black stone, the imposing design, the location right on the sea shore – the whole package was excellent.  I was so happy that I stuck to my guns and insisted on coming here.

As they say – you will always regret the things you didn’t do, rather than the things you did.

We parked our bikes and went up to the fort, where we met a guide – Damaji Patil. He was an excellent guide – knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and articulate. You could see that he really liked the job, liked the fort and was a history and Shivaji and Maratha empire buff.

There is nothing quite like a good guide when you visit a fort or historical site – I try and get one whenever they are available. It supports the local people and the local economy, and also adds hugely to your enjoyment of the place.

He started by saying ‘In order to get the full benefit of the tour, you have to use your imagination! Think of yourself as being the mavlas of the fort, think of this as your fort, imagine yourself being in the fifteenth century!’

Things can only be good, when you have a start like that.

He explained the durg shastra – the science and logic of building the fort. He started by explaining that the entrance to the fort was Gomukhi – or cow shaped. Eh? I went – how does a cow come into this? Like a cow with her head turned away, towards her back.  Curved. To prevent enemy forces from building up momentum, to prevent use of battering rams or battering elephants or camels, and have a convenient place to shoot arrows, stones and hot oil on invaders.

In that vein, he explained the various defences of the fort, the planning that went behind it – how it was first built by King Bhoj of MP in the middle ages, then expanded tenfold by Shivaji, who saw its potential. It was Kanhoji Angre’s capital while he lived, and there is a temple to the great Admiral out there.  

The fort was so powerful, that the British called it the eastern Gibraltar, after the impregnable fort of the Mediterranean. It had all kinds of cool features – a dummy fort on the other side of the creek to draw off invaders, an undersea wall to rip the bottom out of enemy ships which had deeper hulls than the shallow hulled Maratha ships, a naval dock carved out of the living rock, etc.

Unfortunately, after Shivaji and Kanhoji, the tenor of the Maratha empire changed. The Bhonsale dynasty became sidelined, and the Peshwas became the default rulers of the empire. Unfortunately this led to a most regrettable ego trouble between the scions of the  Angres and the Peshwas. Tulaji Angre was capable and efficient, but also arrogant and hot headed. He refused to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Peshwas, and maintained that they were equals in service of the Maharaja. Even more unfortunately,  Nanasaheb Peshwa was a narrow minded and visionless fellow, and couldn’t stomach the arrogance of the Angres. So he took the help of the only other major naval power – the English – to attack the Angres. In a spectacular show of cutting off your nose to spite your face, the Peshwa armies supported the English navy in destroying the forces of the Angres, and in the process completely destroyed the Maratha navy. Shivaji was destined to be the first and last Indian monarch to understand the power of the sea, and develop a strong navy. Unfortunately his descendants did not have his foresight and eventually became the slaves of the invaders who came by sea.

The guide, as I said earlier, was an enthu and articulate guy, and so I mentioned to Rishi that he should cast him in some historical soap of his.

Rishi thought about it and asked  ‘But can he overact and  roll his eyes and shout ‘NAHIIIIIIIIIII’?’ 

.

So after thoroughly enjoying Vijaydurg, when we were cooling off with a cold drink, Rishi asked me ‘Now what? Are you going back to Mumbai? Why don’t you come with me to Goa?’

Umm. Errr.  I thought about it.

Why not? I had been trying to do the coastal route from Mumbai to Goa for so long, and had never been able to complete it due to some issue or the other. This was a great opportunity to finish it off. Goa was hardly a 200  km run from here.

Let’s go for it!

‘OK man, let’s do it. Let’s go to Goa.’ I agreed and Rishi high-fived me.

“Great! Let’s go to Tarkarli.’

‘Tarkarli! Why Tarkarli?’

‘I don’t know man – ever since I saw some photos of the place, I have wanting to see Tarkarli. What is there to see inTarkarli?”

‘Well – there is the famous sea fort – Sindhudurg. And Malvan city. And MTDC. And water sports. And hordes and hordes of tourists. Tarkarli is Ok for  family groups and tourists, but not the place for you and me. But if you are so eager, we can swing by it and you take a call.’

So we set out towards Goa, following the coast. This was all new territory for me now, as I had always swung inwards to the highway from Ratnagiri in the past.

We passed by  towns with fascinating names like Padel (Padel means ‘will fall’ in Marathi. Why should a town be named that it will fall?), Jamsande (sounds like a tasty dessert –Jam Sundae), Mithbav (another name mystery solved – have people called Mithbavkar) and stopped at the temple of Kunkeshwar.

It’s another famous Shiva temple (world famous in Malwan), which I don’t know much about – I first  thought the name is ‘Kan ‘– keshwar (Kan meaning grain – of sand perhaps, so maybe it’s about god being even in a grain of sand), but then I saw that its pronounced as  ‘Koon’ keshwar – about which I know zilch. The story on Wikipedia is quite weird

‘HISTORY OF KUNKESHWAR

The temple of Kunkeshwar was built many years back. According to legend, a sailor travelling in the sea for trade came near the beach of Kunkeshwar. Suddenly a havoc appeared in sea. The sailor was a Muslim. The ship seemed to sink in the sea. He saw a lamp on that beach. He prayed to that lamp "I don't know who you are. But if you will help me and stop the havoc I will build a temple for you". And his ship came to the seashore of Kunkeshwar without any problem. He built the temple as promised. The Lingam was already there. As the Sailor was a non-Hindu, he thought that his religion will not accept him. Therefore he committed suicide from the top of temple.’

Talk about a downer story.

Whatever the case may be, we had a really nice darshan there – when we to the lingagarbha, there was no one there – it was like a private viewing. Rishi was deeply affected, he lay there with his hand on the linga for a long time, and didn’t speak for some time afterwards.He seemed to have had a deeply spiritual moment there. People were looking at us curiously – 2 dudes dressed in full biker gear prostrated in front of the lingam.

The beach was quite nice too.

After the temple, we hit the road again and were planning to hit Tarkarli or Malwan for the night. We had just passed Mithbav, when I saw a sign saying ‘Achare beach – 6 km’. On an impulse I took the turn and zoomed off towards the beach, with Rishi dutifully following behind.

The theme of this ride was to see unexplored places, after all – I knew people called Acharekar, so I should be able to tell them what their beach looks like.

Achare beach was AWESOME. I was so happy at having discovered it. Lovely white sand, clear sea and not crowded at all. It wasn’t totally deserted either – it had a few chai nashta stalls and some lodges very near the beach.

Much elated, we got off the bike and ordered chai pakoda – and Rishi went inside to hunt for a charging point for his iphone (a continual labour. An iphone man travels with phone in one hand and charger in the other. Chutia phone. Rishi’s eyes bugged out when I just swapped the dead battery in my Samsung for another fully charged battery and smirked at him. HAHAHA. Suck that iPhone! )

We found another fellow traveler there, whom we had been seeing on the ferries in our journey. He turned out to be a graphic artist from Mumbai, with roots in Malwan. He was carrying a Canon 5D, which endeared him to Rishi immediately, who had kept moaning about the fact that he had not brought his camera for the Konkan ride and missed so many photo opportunities. He had carried all his gear all through his South India ride, but Sherry the serd on his Triumph Thunderbird had hurried him so much that he hardly had time to take out his camera. Luckily he had not carried his camera on this trip, else he would have spent so much time on shooting that it would have driven me mad.

We had just decided that we would stay here for the night and were congratulating ourselves on a lovely fortuitous discovery, when there was an asthmatic wheezing sound and an ST bus rolled up and vomited out a busload of rowdy college students. Within no time at all, the beach was bedlam as the kids were letting out their pent up energy by running around the beach and shouting and screaming and throwing garbage around.

‘Oh no.’ We said. ‘Can’t stay here – let’s find another place.’

‘Try out Devbag beach.’ Our new friend said ‘it used to be a lovely place.’

So we hit the road again, and within a few minutes, saw another intriguing sign saying that Vayangani beach was a few kilometres off the road, and so off we went to investigate that. The road went on and on, and then strangely it vanished – in the middle of a jungle. We stood there looking at each other. I tried to check out Google maps, but there was no reception out there.

After some time, some locals arrived, and told us that while there was a beach there, there was no road to the beach. We would have to park our bikes here and trek for a kilometre through the jungle to hit the beach.

Ah well. It was dark already – no time to be trekking through jungles. We headed back to the main road and said – no more distractions! Focus on hitting Malwan/ Tarkarli for the night!

And sure enough the next sign came along – ‘X’ beach. (X because it is such a nice beach  that I don’t want to talk about it and commercialise it) and all our good intentions went out of the window and we went off to check it out.

The road was completely dark by then, and we had no idea where we were going. We might have turned back, if we had not met a guy in a Maruti Van,  who guided  us to a hotel. ‘Sai something hotel – lovely place – all facilities. You will love it.’

 We landed up there, and the place was awesome! Right on the beach, and seemed to be the only hotel there. It was like a little bit of paradise. We bargained a bit for the rooms and settled there for the night. It was yet another fantastic fortuitous discovery. Once we had freshened up and changed and put a bit of cold beer inside me, we went for a walk on the beach. The beach was completely deserted, and it was fantastic to walk there between the surf and the stars.

We had  a nice dinner – Surmai thali again! The konkan coast really struggles with cuisine variety. The food is delicious, but eating the same thing again and again for days on end would pall even nectar and ambrosia. Basically, these guys struggle with sophistication. The same guy in Goa or Ladakh would have done it up with much better taste and class and at least tried to get more cuisine options. But the locals are slow to learn, and suffer from ‘we know best’ syndrome. Chalo – at least better to have honest local cuisine than some fraud bastardised conti stuff I suppose.

The next morning was even better – the empty deserted coast called to us, and we went for a long long walk – almost all the way to the Vayangani beach we were unable to reach yesterday. After the walk and a nice breakfast, we vegetated in the lovely hammocks and wondered whether to spend an additional day here. It was a real wrench to get out of there.

Vishwanath Gaitonde of Wandering Soulz called up and was burning with jealousy when Rishi told him what a lovely beach it was, and what a fantastic ride we were having.

‘You lucky lucky bastard! You lucky sonovabitch!’ he snarled at me.

‘Hahahahahahaha’ I assuaged his feeling by laughing loudly at him. ‘Who told you not to come? You had called and said that you will be coming, and then you chickened out.’

‘Everyone is not like you, you fucker! Some of us have to work for a living!’

Finally we dragged ourselves out of there and made tracks for Goa. What a wonderful place that was.

Just to assuage Rishi’s desire to see Tarkarli and my curiosity about Devbag beach, we went to check out the place. It turned out to be a fucked up place – hotels everywhere, and too much development. What a good thing that we didn’t try to come there last night. Also, the CM was supposed to visit the area to inaugurate some awful tourist trap, so the whole place was crawling with cops. We had lunch there (Surmai thali again!!!!) and made tracks for Goa.

We crossed more fun sounding towns – Wak (Wak means bend in Marathi, so the village that bends over?), Chipi (fuck knows what that means, but sounds weird) and then Parule (Hey, I know a lot of Parulekars as well). The next big town was Vengurle and Shiroda and suddenly we were in Tiracol!

Which meant that were in GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

After checking out the Tiracol fort, we caught the Tiracol ferry and took the bikes across.

I WAS SO HAPPY!! I HAD FINALLY DONE IT! The complete Bombay to Goa coastal route and had done ALL SIX FERRIES! The elusive Tiracol ferry had also been conquered!

YIPPEEEEEE!!

We made our way to Arambol beach and checked into a shack on the beach, which Rishi’s friend had already booked for us.

Rishi took off his gear, and threw his bike key away!

‘I am done with riding now. I have arrived and here is where I will stay for the next  fifteen days!’

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For part 1 of the travelogue click here

for part 3 - click here

For my first bike travelogue click here

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.’

-----------------
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