ROMANCE WITH MONSOON

RIDE ROUTE: BANGALORE - GOA - BANGALORE DATE: 29/JUNE/2012 - 7/JULY/2012 # OF RIDERS: 2 MACHINES: ROYAL ENFIELD ELECTRA TWINSPARK & HERO HONDA CBZ We (myself & Naveen)have been doing a lot of weekend rides over the years and had covered most part of southern India. The riding bug within us was restless to head beyond South and initiate the fist step towards living our dream of touring entire India on the BULL. Thus, we decided to do a monsoon ride, a perfect launchpad for our dream ride and will also test our skill as a long-distance rider. For monsoon ride nothing would have been more perfect than western ghats and thus we locked on GOA as our destination. When we shared our monsoon ride plan with few of our friends who share the same passion, we were discouraged to go ahead with the idea as it was a very risky proposition and were advised to drop the plan. But unfortunately, for us once decided it stays decided. As planned, we acquired all requisites for the ride. My wife, a great bike riding enthusiast and one of my biggest support and motivator behind all my rides, helped me pack my saddle and packed it immaculately with plastic covers so that the saddle remains dry during heavy rain. I joined Naveen on Bannerghatta road @ 5pm on 29-June-2012. We started our ride with our night halt destination as Hubli. We knew it was gonna be tough but wanted to give it a try. We took the following route from Bangalore to Goa- Bangalore - Tumkur - Davangere - Hubli - Ankola - Karwar - Margoa - Panjim - Anjuna We took our first break @ Tumkur for tea and a glance at our watch told us that we were behind schedule. We decided to give our best to reach Hubli and crash for the nite. The ride was amazing under the sparkling sky and through the cool breeze. While closing on Chitradurga we realized that the entier day's work had already started taking a toll on us and we were already starving. We took a dinner break at on of the roadside dhaba and post dinner we decided to crash at Davangere instead of Hubli.Till now we didnt have any rendezvous with the rain as expected but as we moved closer to Davangere, the rain god welcomed us with brief but strong shower and made riding extremely difficult on the highway but we carried on. We reached Davangere and found most the hotels full and finally checked into a decent hotel after a good search and crashed @ 1 am. Next day morning we were up by 7 am and departed from Davangere by 9 am after feasting on some delicious Benne Dosa. The morning looked bright and we wanted to make the most of it before having the next rendezvous with the showers. We rode on through the extremely windy freeway and reached Hubli by 11:30 am, where we topped up our fuel tanks and took a well deserved tea break.The skies had been kind till now and blessed us with bright sun at times playing hide & seek with the clouds. Post the tea break we decided to take a lunch break at Karwar and feast on some Fish Curry Meals. As we branched off the highway and took the ghat road to Karwar the scenic beauty got us mesmerized and we felt as if we got completely cut-out from the urban world and landed straight in the lap of mother-nature. The sky was no more bright and was painted all over with grey and black clouds which promised a tough but beautiful ride ahead. As we moved a lil further, the scenic beauty jus got better and better and within no time the rain god embraced us with open arms thereby justifying the ride's name "ROMANCE WITH MONSOON". The shower soon turned into a downpour thereby making our ride extremely exciting and all the stranded commuters whom we passed by seemed to have been struck by a common question "WHO ARE THESE FOOLS RIDING IN THIS DOWNPOUR?". The DUCKBACK rain-gears did a wonderful job of keeping us dry amidst the downpour. We were enjoying every bit of the ride and completely forgot to keep pace with time. After a good 90 mins ride through the ghats we stopped for some hot tea to pump up the body temperature and realized that we need to take a lunch break much before Karwar as we were behind schedule. We finished our tea and rode off through the pristine landscape and finally settled down for fish curry meals at a restaurant closer to Ankola. Re-energized with Fish meals we started on our journey amidst the rain. The lunch was kinda heavy but the showers kept us awake and helped us to enjoy the scenic splendor. As we got closer to Karwar the skies started clearing off as preparing for a perfect monsoon evening. A lil ahead of the foyer to Karwar we overlooked the ghats and got the glimpse of the aquatic. It was so very splendid that we were forced to halt our machine to capture the scenic beauty in our mechanical as well as physical lens. Surprisingly, the mighty aquatic was calm and resembled a beautiful lass who is drenched in rain and standing quietly at a corner. We brought back our machines to life and rode off towards our destination with a target to reach Anjuna by 7pm and relax for a while before getting ready for Satday nite @ Goa. We took couple more tea breaks before reaching Banyan Soul @ Anjuna where our accommodation was booked. During our ride from Karwar we were lashed by rains at Margoa and Panjim respectively but kept riding on and reached Anjuna by 8pm. Even though the accommodation didn’t meet the expectation set by the hyped reviews, we checked in and relaxed for a while before setting out to meet a few ol frens and live the night life @ GOA. Next few days @ Goa was bliss. It was a great feeling meeting up with few ol frens, partying all night long, makin some new & beautiful frens, getting high on spirits and laughing heart out. I wish we all live this life till we rest in peace but the irony is that this ecstatic life is short-lived and eventually we all need to return to reality where we seldom manage time to laugh our heart out. Well, that’s life and I am not complaining. This was the first time that we were in Goa during monsoon and believe me we have not seen Goa more beautiful ever before. So, next few days we rode around Goa, freaked out on sea food, got our spirits high and tried living every bit of this bliss. Anyone visiting Goa and willing to treat your taste buds with some delicious and luscious “Goan Seafood Cuisine” then please visit RITZ @ Panjim, believe us u will not repent the visit. On the evening of 3rd-July we got bitten by the riding bug and decided to make the most of this opportunity and planned to ride off to OM Beach and settle there for couple of days before riding back to Bangalore through the scenic stretch of Sirsi and pay a visit to JOG to witness its grandeur during monsoon. This was the perfect plan to conclude a monsoon ride. Our excitement to ride to OM woke us up early. The sky looked clear after the overnight downpour. We packed up and got ourselves ready for the ride. After feasting on some delicious continental breakfast @ Mango Tree (our usual hang out place near Vagator) we headed off to OM beach. Everything was goin as planned until we reach Panjim and my Electra stopped. A close scanning revealed the battery wire has melted off and thus I got that fixed myself and was happy that we can resume our journey but unfortunately that didn’t happen and I was forced to take the bike to the RE showroom at Panjim. In spite of the busy schedule Mr. Rafique(the mechanic) attended my Electra and found that a few wire from the wiring kit had snapped off. I realized my mistake of not changing the wiring kit in spite of having got closer to 40000 KM. I got the wiring replaced and that took us couple of hours. By the time my bike got ready it was already lunch time and we decided to feast on some fish curry meals @ RITZ before heading off to OM beach. After out lunch we got back our machines to life and I was happy to see my Electra roaring back to life. We headed off to Gokarna riding through the rain lashed ghat and reached OM by 7:30pm. Namaste Café has been our usual check-in place @ OM. We checked in and relaxed for a while before moving to the beach café for a drink. After the daylong rain the sky had cleared up and we could see a few stars peeping out from the partial cloud clad sky. We headed off to the beach and sat there hearing the sea roar while we sipped on our spirited beverage. “Magic” is the only word that could describe this moment. It was a sear bliss that we were experiencing and wished that it never concludes. Our next glance at our watch indicated that it was 2 am and we decided to take a slumber and rest our body. We relaxed @ OM till 6th-July evening and planned to set off to Bangalore on 7th-July early morning. As planned, we got ready to ride back to Bangalore on 7th morning and were greeted with heavy drizzle. We started off amidst the drizzle. We took quite a few breaks on the way and Naveen being an amateur photographer kept on capturing the mesmerizing scenic grandeur in his lens. We reached JOG and were spellbound witnessing its might and splendor. We moved on and enjoyed every bit of the ride in spite of bad roads in patches. From Sagara we decided to hit the highway again and thus headed off to Davangare. Monsoon kept us company till we were closing on Davangere. A little beyond Davangere the monsoon bid us adieu and almost after a week we got the feeling of dry landscape. We took few more breaks before taking the nice road and heading off to Hosur, the place we reside. After a day long ride we reached Hosur , we took a final halt, hugged each other and clasped our palms for successfully completing another ride and reminding each other of our next long ride to Madhya Pradesh in the winters of 2013 we headed off to our HOME SWEET HOME.