With yet another
weekend coming up, I made no pretensions of letting this go by idle especially since I had the KTM now. I started a
search for some of the beaches that Pune accords access to, and after some
consultation zeroed in on Diveagar. That’s actually Dive Agar, but any way you
look at it, phonetically it ends up sounding Diveagar.
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| Near Mulshi Dam |
The small
village is 160 km from Pune and my friend Parthav provided me good info on the
route to be taken. After a small discussion, my room mate also decided to join
in with his Pulsar 150 as did a colleague with his Unicorn. The date was 4th
of January, a Saturday and this was supposed to be a comeback sort of thing for
the new year’s eve wasted on a Tuesday!
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| Tamhini ghat |
I knew that the
11 litre tank on the 390 wouldn’t give me enough range to come back to Pune
without a refuel and I didn’t want to do a tankful at obscure petrol pumps
either. So I asked Subrat, the guy with the Unicorn to fill his tank to the
brim with unleaded fuel from Shell. I did the same too the evening prior to the
trip. We hit our beds relatively early in the hope of waking up early on a
chilly, lazy Saturday morning – a daunting task indeed! But wake up we did, at
around 630 AM, and I went downstairs to the parking lot to check on my baby. I
cleaned it up, checked oil and coolant levels, tyres, lubed up the chain with
Motul chain lube and my baby was up and ready. I had a quick shower and we
started the trip at a crisp 0830 hours. Subrat was already waiting for us at
Pashan circle and we caught up with him. Sanjeev fuelled up at a nearby petrol
station and after arming ourselves with cash, we were gunning towards Mulshi
lake.
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| The Mulshi Lake |
The roads were
nevertheless packed with commuters even on the weekend, more so with the
occasional biker on a weekend trip like us. We were not able to break the 50
kmph barrier for quite some time and only after the Pirangute cross road were
we able to open our throttles. I found it difficult to keep pace with the
pulsar and the unicorn. Hang on! It’s supposed to mean the other way round,
meaning I had a difficult time trying to stick to around 60kmph when the sixth
gear on my 390 needs a minimum of 72-73 kmph to avoid knocking. Then I decided
to hit it anyway, telling the guys that I would be moving forward a bit and
waiting for them whenever there is a turn to be taken. Turns out my joy was
short lived. The road is crappy at times, with occasional patched of smooth
tarmac. And that helped the other two keep pace with me. The KTM’s suspension
is hard and bad roads give a great knock up of the rider. Plus I was really
worried about some stupid, sharp stone wreaking havoc on my Metzelers. The KTM
needs smooth tarmac to get the maximum out of it. Not that it cannot handle
alternate terrain, I am just worried about the super-expensive Metzeler
sportecs.
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| Tamhini |
At Mulshi we stopped
for breakfast at Paradise Café. This place offers a scenic view of Mulshi Lake
and has a good menu to boot as well. Turns out to be quite a popular place. A
busload was leaving when we arrived and no sooner had we settled into our
chairs, another two busload came piling up. Good thing we managed to gobble up
our breakfast and hit the road again. Only to be unsettled by the bad roads.
What a pain! The only relief to me was the stares that the 390 unfailingly got
me from each and every quarter!!
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| At the Paradise Cafe |
Once we crossed
Tamhini, there was this climb into the ghat sections and some places provided
awesome views of the terrain. High cliffs and equally deep gorges dot the place
and gives a feeling of being in some pre-historic place. The downhill ride from
the ghats finally gave me some excellent tarmac to let the monster loose! The
road was smooth and I was doing something around 80-90 kmph on the sections. My
solace was in the ABS monitored brakes that did kick in at some points. The 390
is quick to change directions and I must tell you I have never executed turns
at such speeds ever on my P200. No disrespect to my old baby, she has been
bloody loyal to me, never giving up on me. But the KTM is a different beast
altogether. The pull from the engine past 3000 rpm is unrelenting, in all
gears. I had done only about 1300 km in total till then and I refrained from revving it
beyond 6500 rpm, even though the new shifts redline is at 7500 rpm after the
first service. I didn’t feel the need to really. At most the highest rpm I did for
a gear shift was at 6500 rpm and that was enough. Probably in an outright drag
race the higher reserve rpms will prove to be a boon but I would rather not do
anything like that before 2k km on the odo.
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| Tamhini Ghats |
The next section
of road towards Nizampur also turned out to be alternate patches of good and
bad roads, with the bad roads forcing me to a crawl in 2nd gear, 3rd
at most. But whenever I came across good tarmac I simply had to gun my baby and
90 kmph would come up on the speedo in no time. I didn’t dare do anything more
than that since the road wasn’t exactly a four lane expressway and there were
other people, stray cattle on the road. ABS or no ABS, such momentum would
require a fixed stopping distance after all. All I remember on this stretch was
the number of times we had to ask for directions for Diveagar. There are
multiple forks on the road and few signs on them, but localites are more than
happy to help one out, and in some cases, a lift to the next stop is all they
ask in return. I had carried a young fella from Nizampur to the next settlement
and by the way he was grabbing at my bag I am sure he must have had a ‘good’
time on the pillion seat!!
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| Deep Gorges and High Cliffs in Tamhini Ghats |
It was close to
1300 hours and we were still on the road, thanks to the numerous stops and
photo shoots on the way. But no complaints on that part. We did receive a call
from the home where we were supposed to put up for the night and we assured him
that were on our way and about to reach Diveagar. Diveagar came in out of
nowhere after a short while around 1400 hours. I noticed it from the Ganesh
Temple that I had heard about of. This temple supposedly had a solid gold idol
that had been found locked in a bronze trunk. Although the trunk is there we
couldn’t see any gold statue. We went straight to the home stay after getting
astray in the maze of small interlinking village roads. After finding our way
into the home stay we got fresh and asked Gaurav, the really helpful and warm
guy from the home stay , about the places we could go tramping after lunch. He
suggested the Janjira Fort some 15km away before hitting the beach in the
evening. So we went to his recommended place for lunch – Patil Khanawal- had
some surmai thalis and after a sumptuous home cooked meal, hopped onto our
bikes and headed for Dighi. I must that that Patil Khanawal is a popular eatery
and the 390 parked there did turn heads without a miss. My orange attire helped garner attention
too!!
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| Slaking our hunger at Patil Khanawal |
Dighi is a
measely 15km from Diveagar, but the roads make is a 40 min ride!!The hard
suspension on the KTM makes it a chore. That’s one of the trade-offs you get
for hyper handling prowess. We reached the port, more of a dock, just about
when the last ferry to the fort was about to leave. We parked our bikes at the
dock and hopped onto the ferry. To be honest I was sceptical about parking my
bike there and during the entire two and half hours my mind was on the safety
of the bike. As it is it was getting a lot of attention and it was parked at a
public place with no one to give a look-see in between.
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| On the way to Dighi |
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| Snail catching |
Janjira Fort is
bang in the middle of the sea, probably some 6-7 km from the coast (its hard to
make out distances at sea!!) The sea was misty and there was no sign of the
fort 20 minutes into the ferry ride. Only after some time we could make out the
ominous outline of the fort in the misty distance. It was low tide and the
ferry had to be anchored at a distance from the fort, and there are sailboats
taking the passengers further up to the steps of the fort. There is only one
entrance to the fort and my mind started forming jargons like “bottleneck”,
“logistics nightmare” et all! There is another secret exit from the fort in
case of emergencies and another subsea tunnel to the Rajpuria coastline. I have
no idea whether the tunnel is still operational or not. There are plenty of
guides available and we latched onto a particular group of children led by one
guide fond of ‘shayaris’. The fort itself is in ruins, remnants of its past
glory, yet holds the distinction of being the only fort not being conquered by
Shivaji. I can quite get exactly why. I don’t get much idea on why anyone would like to be
stranded in the middle of the sea, supply lines being at the mercy of marauders
and probable fresh water issues, cannons running out of gunpowder, rations
thinning out and what not and it’s not like one can just go fish in the ocean.
But whatever strategic reasons the fort was built for, I must admit it is one
helluva structure that supposedly took 22 years to build. Stories say that
during high tides internal works were carried out and during low tides, the
outside work was being carried out.
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| The Dighi dockyard |
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| Janjira looming up on the distance |
The fort itself
is dirty inside, with little evidence for maintenance efforts. The pools are
filled with empty plastic bottles et all. It was heartening to hear one
particular guide say “Both good and bad people visit the fort every day. The
good ones respect this fort and its history. The bad ones litter the place.”
Some two hours into the fort and it was time for us to leave for the familiar
Dighi dock. The ferry leaves at 1800 hours and around 1745 hours we made it to
the entrance of the fort. The tide was lower still and we had to cross across
the slippery stones to another part of the exposed rocky base of the fort. Our
sailboat/skiff was waiting for us to transfer us into the ferry and after some
painful steps at the rocky sea bed we finally boarded the ferry. All this time
my mind was on the KTM. I was worried whether it was safe all alone at the
dock, unguarded and vulnerable. The ride back seemed to take forever, but I
also enjoyed the rocking and the salt spray on my face. The settling dusk,
lights at the far end and the blinking lights of the buoys did help to allay
some of my worries.
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| Inside Janjira Fort |
As soon as the
ferry berthed on the dock, I headed straight for the KTM and heaved a sigh of relief
only when I put in the key and checked if the baby was turned on, no pun
intended! Sanjeev smoked a light and Subrat helped himself to a bottle of
water. The moment I started my KTM there was this murmur from the
schoolchildren that had accompanied us in the ferry. The schoolteacher’s vocal
volume went up on the roll call (KTM does issue a warning to respect the
silence of the surroundings!!) at the start of the KTM putter putter. But I
wasn’t going to indulge in niceties at that point of time and sacrifice my
ritual of letting oil circulate for about a minute before slotting into gear!! It
was pitch dark by the time we started, close to 1900 hours and the horrible road wasn’t going to make
the drive any more pleasant. It was just 15 km to Diveagar, but the road made
us literally inch our way towards the home stay.
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| Leaving Janjira |
It took us a good 45 minutes
to finally reach our room and no sooner had we reached we prepared to head for
the beach for a night stroll. We scouted the area for beer shops only to
realise that Diveagar doesn’t have any. Gaurav, the home stay owner, offered to
arrange a guy to get it for us from nearby. The guy charged us 150 bucks a
bottle of beer, a premium we weren’t bothered much with since we were not too
keen to go out looking for beer shops at unknown towns late night. 4 bottles of
chilled beer were delivered to us in no time and we put them in our bags and
headed straight for the beach. The beach was a short distance away and it
reminded me of my KREC/NITK days where we had to cross the NH to get to the
beach. Here also we had to cross one village road to get access to the beach
and soon we were tramping on the shoreline, the night almost pitch black save
for the faint moonlight. We started sipping on our beer and walking on the
beach, the waves crashes providing a soothing backing track. The beach was
desolate with only a few weekend revellers from Mumbai partying at the beach
with music blaring from the car stereos. Yes, the beach is surprisingly firm
enough to allow even cars like the Beat to zip around, forget SUVs. We finally
sat down on the beach to finish our beers and some bakar started on what work
we do and what we actually want to do – the usual philosphical whims after
downing some pegs of alcohol.
Around 2230
hours we got a call from Gaurav that dinner with our preferred crab masala and
surmai thalis were ready. We retraced our steps towards the home stay and after
freshening up we sat down on the big front lawn of Gaurav’s ancentral home for
dinner. Dinner was prepared by Gaurav’s mother and was piping hot and the fish
never tasted better! We were particularly hooked on the crab masala and asked
for another one promptly, with Subrat even pre-ordering crab masala for next
day’s lunch. I checked on my baby in the parking lot before calling it a night.
Sleep came in sweetly and swiftly, our stomachs heavy with home made meals.
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| My baby resting for the night |
The next morning
didn’t see any one of us waking up early to catch the sunrise, or a visit to
the early morning fish market. We woke up lazily at 0830 hours and after
getting fresh we headed towards the MTDC beach resort – Exotica, for breakfast.
Exotica beach retreat is nicely maintained (for once I was glad that something
is well maintained by the Maharashtra Govt!!) and the breakfast spread cost us 150
bucks each- a real steal considering the huge assortment on offer. Here also
the KTM made heads turn on entry and exit, the muted racket of the engine
idling at 1500 rpm making little children and adult take a second look at it.
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| MTDC Exotica Beach Retreat |
Thereafter we
headed to the fabled Ganesh Temple and offered our prayers. Nice temple, no
commercial antics, no queues, no VIP lines, no hecklers that are so synonymous
with our temples in India today. After the temple visit we headed straight to
the beach again to catch on some water sports in offer. Joy rides are aplenty
there – you get camel rides, horse carriages, ATVs, parasailing, banana boat
rides, jet skis and even beach cricket. I was keen on the jet ski - a Yamaha Waverunner to be precise. The guy
was asking for 300 bucks per head, but we settled for 250 each. I was the last
to take the ride, and the moment we were out into the sea I took control of the
jet. The Yamaha gives the same rush in the sea as the KTM does on land!! The
skywards jump it takes while taking on a wave head on gives a premium rush!!
Too bad the ride doesn’t last too long, maybe around 5-6 mins maximum. Too
short I would say, way too short.
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| Supertramp at the beach |
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| The Yamaha Waveruner |
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| Sports at the Diveagar beach |
After the joy
rides we just lingered on towards the quieter end of the beach, well not
exactly the end, but towards scantily populated parts of the beach. Sanjeev
took his time to click some shots while I just walked and walked. Around 1300
hours we decided to head back for lunch and our return journey. We were
dreading the bad patches of the road we had encountered on the way and also the
numerous turns we had to take while coming and I wanted to do it before dusk.
Our hunger was satiated by rice and prawns curry – pure konkan style- and our
newly found crave for crab masala, throats pre-wet by 500 ml of chilled beer.
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| Wanderlustin' |
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| A walk on the beach |
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| Waiting hungrily for our lunch |
We didn’t waste
much time after lunch and around 1430 hours we hopped onto our bikes. I was
looking for some means to transfer fuel from Subrat’s Unicron into mine, but
unfortunately his fuel control knob is the covered type unlike pulsars and that
leaves no access to the fuel lines. So I decided to find a mechanic in the
nearest town on the way and transfer it there. I still had the gauge reading
half way , so it wasn’t exactly a panic situation. Some 10 km later we came
across a small town and after some hunting we came across one repair shop. I
got the 3.75 litre of fuel transferred into my bike while Sanjeev had the side
stand of his bike repaired. The horrible roads and Sanjeev’s spirited riding
had flung the side stand spring out of its place the night before!! Now armed
with fresh supply of fuel, I gunned my bike the moment I hit good tarmac. The
alternate high speed runs on smooth tarmac and crawls on broken roads continued
unabated, sometimes the crawl getting onto my nerves. Worse is when a Duster
honked from behind when I was at this very bad patch of road and in my 2nd
cog. There was enough room for the driver of the Duster to overtake me, but
turns out he was also driving slow on the bad patches and there was absolutely
no reason for him to honk. To tell him I wasn’t exactly having a picnic on the
rough road, I twisted the throttle when the road became good and the Duster
disappeared from my rear view mirror in 20 seconds flat.
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| Zips through Tamhini ghats |
Dusk came up
pretty soon and we had to turn on our lights. Our breaks were limited to small
stops for photos and a chai break near Pirangute. I filled up my tank as we
entered Pune and noted the quantity too. After bidding goodbye to Subrat, I
took the turn towards my apartment and reached home around 1900 hours. The tripmeter
read 382 km. And since so many people ask me on the fuel efficiency figures, I
did some math and I got a 30.6 kmpl on this trip. The digital console on the
KTM also returned similar figures of 29.5 kmpl for the last 100 km stretch. I
bet the figure would be close to the 32-34kmpl range had it not been for almost
bad stretches that ate up 40% of the total distance.
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| Some of the better roads |
Now that I have
initiated the first of the hopefully many trips on the KTM, I am waiting for
the day I can join my long time buddies Kenny, Gyan, Nishant, Vihans for that
cherished dream of a RE-KTM-Honda trip to the hills!!! The turbine like whine
of the Honda, the sub sonic thumps of the RE and the snarling growl of the KTM
beckons!!!
