So I came back from Chandigarh on the 11th. Raghav's wedding was a blast it was 7 days of party it was great.
So i get back to Mumbai and get ready to get back to the grind. Nitin was still here doing his internship in town. So we hung out as much as we could partied one night and all that..
Ok now what happened while i was in chandigarh is that i resigned from my job in L'Officiel. Why you may ask? i mean i just started with them and it was a good place to work is a good magazine and all that... well here is your answer.. Autocar magazine offered me a job and now how the hell could i say no to Autocar. I mean its like a dream job for a nut like me to work in an magazine that deals with cars and bikes so that is the reason why i quit..
So i was supposed to start the job on the 15th and i got a call on the eve of the 14th that they wanted me to come to office on the 19th which was a monday. So now that gave me some time to kill. Now Amrita's movie had finished and she was free as well..! So whats the use of both of us sitting around at home for the weekend when both of us had some time off together. we decided to go for a holiday so out came the outlook traveller 52 holiday destinations around mumbai and the preperation began. It had to be a beach as I would consider my self to be a beach bum it had to fit the budget and well it had to be close enough to ride too because come on we had to ride there (Amrita has never been on a ride with me). So we pondered over the book and fught about places to see and then one place we agreed about GOA !!!!
630 odd kms from Mumbai a very long ride. Specially since we would leave friday and come back sunday and only have one day there .. but for Stella's, the cold beer and the beach where everyone know you what the hay.. The plan was made. I got out my Cramster's we packed them up and we were ready ..
16th morning 4:00 we were up and by 5:00 we were dressed had bid Nitin adieu (he was leaving for delhi that day on the 11:00 flight and then to chandigarh on the evening shatabdi) threw the Cramster's on the bike strapped on our helmets and our jackets and we were off.
It took us an hour to get out of Mumbai to Panvel and when we took the right to the Goa Road (NH - 17) we hit a traffic jam of mostly trucks (5:45 in the fucking morning only in mumbai) so i navigated thru and came to the front of the pack where there were people talking to some cops and that was the reason i thought the traffic was held up. So i gunned the bike and we were off once again.. Now i have travelled by this road before with Angat and Amber (when we travelled from Chandigarh to Goa in 2005 in a Maruti 800) so when i hit some fog on the road i was prepared for it. Now the fog started getting thicker and Amrita said something smelt funny well you know if you ride a bike you come across lots of funny smelling things when you are riding. So paying no heed to it i told her it was nothing and we carried on into the thick fog. The fog got thicker to the degree i could bearly see my front wheel and the smell(which was like a toxic smell) got to me and I could hear Amrita like coughing and wheezing and I felt like I wanted to throw up. This was also the same time i realised we were the only vehicle going that way all the traffic seemed to be going back toward Mumbai. So i decided to turn around becuase it was just weird. So we get to a dhaba and We need to stop becuase we were coughing and we needed a drink. We sipped our tea and wondered what the hell kind of fog we hit and I was thiniking is this the end of the holiday?
So we start off again and get back to where we had encountered the Jam. I speak to the cop there and he tells me that a chemical tanker had overturned on the road and it was impossible to go down that road at least for another 6 - 8 hours. But he gave me another route to follow to get to Goa.. So off we were again the two of us to Goa.
It is a great road a bit boring at times at least when you are riding in a straight line for hours on an end. The painfull part is you cant speak to the person who is riding becuase of the wind and thru the helmets it is virtually impossible.
Now what is virtually impossible is sleeping on a bike. Well not if you are Amrita!! At one point i feel the wheight of the bike shift to the right and feel Amrita start sliding to the right suddenly i realise she has fallen asleep. So put my hand back to hold her and jam the breaks and she come straight into my helmet with hers which must have woken her up real good. After a nice monolog from me on why she should stay awake and not sleep on the bike we were off again..We stopped for breakfast and then lunch in the ghats(which was pretty good). At some point Amrita has managed to put her head down and positioned her self in such a way that she slept for at least an hour. God knows how she did it and god knows how i was riding because i had no clue that she was asleep just thought she had her head down..
Anyway 4 in the evening we got into Goa at 5:00 we were at Stella's. Who on seeing us commented on how mad we were to ride down for a day and then gave us our keys and told us the beer was ready at the shack. So we cleaned up had baths got all the crap off us and went down to the beach to watch the sun set and drink some beer and eat some food.
After a few beers and a bite to eat we thought why not go back to the room and nap and then at like 9:30 we can get up and go to eat dinner and grab a drink in Baga yea like that was going to happen! Our nap turned out to be from 7:00 in the evening to 8:00 the next morning.
So the day we were in goa we spent true beach bum style started with breakfast on the beach, lunch on the beach and lots of beers in-between. Ingos night baazar in the evening and then dinner back on the beach.
Sunday we started our trip back at 6:00 in the morning the trip was much the same not much crazy stuff happening. Except i got Amrita to sing and stay awake all the way back. We stopped fewer time and I rode faster and for longer stretches. We made it back home by 4:00 all black, tired and real kicked with our trip.
I am sitting here over a week later peeling becuase I got so badly sunburnt in that one day. We did 1200 odd kms in 3 days not bad for my first ride alone with Amrita in a place where I knew no one to come for backup. The whole trip was worth it.. We may have missed Roger Waters show in Mumbai. But we learnt how to fly for sure...
we have a few pics of the trip mostly of me becuase they were taken from amrita's phone (since both of us lost our cameras).
The road is now calling and I think the next trip may be Bangalore in March for the Iron Maiden concert but with the Inddiethumpers...
Dinner time ..
