The Maiden Trip to Goa - Part 2

Part 2

We had a sound brief sleep and woke up by 7am. Refreshed ourselves, had breakfast and moved on to hit the beach. We were delighted to see the typical Goan Aunties with their cute daughters. The traffic was pretty smooth. The architecture of a Goan house were similar to the ones that we find in Kerala. I could feel the Portuguese culture in the air. We had to meet a Sailor, Nihal whom we knew from a community called the Fraud Mallus. Met him at Temptations, Vasco da Gama and it was the First Fraud Mallu Meet in Goa!

Raul was enjoying riding his babe and I did wonder why Raul should have all the fun riding his P180 in Goa. Damn! I missed my babe so much at that I hired my babes sista(A Black Avy) for the ride in Goa! We later went to the entrance of Calangute beach. The beach was crowded with lots of tourist from the west of the world and there were plenty of shacks around.
We relaxed at Cheers Shack and just didn't feel like moving out from there. We were delighted by the sight of the chicks in bikinis, waterbikes and paragliding. God! I could only wish we had some extra dough in our hand! With limited resource in hand, we decided to freak out the maximum. Raul ordered two cold Budweisers and I tasted it for the first time and God! I must confess it is the king of all beers! It was smooth and tasted too good.The babes around were awesome and we felt that we were in some kind of paradise. The chicks in bikinis were sheer pleasure to watch. Man oh Man what abs they had! Babes were abundant and that happiness could be seen on our face. We were literally drooling there as if we have never seen chicks before! We discussed seriously, why should we spend a fortune to go to the Miami beach when we can find such a place which fits our bill. We could see the tourist queing up for a ride on the waterbike and God! it was so tempting that we decided to blow up our limited resource but luckily the waterbike ride costed us INR 200/- per head. Raul took the ride first and he was going so fast that he definitely beat the snail! I was under the impression that there was some technical fault with the waterbike. I realised later when I was on the waterbike that it has a clutch kind of thing which acts like the accelerator. I could feel my adrenaline rush up when this Yamaha waterbabe was flying on the sea. Oh Man! I did feel like owning a waterbike for myself! The ride was one of a kind and it was breathtaking. I just didn't want to come back to the shore. Damn! I felt like a sea cowboy when I had that ride on the Yamaha waterbabe! The paragliding was also tempting but we had to restrain ourselves from being bankrupt and beg at the streets of Goa!

Amidst all this fun, something was creeping up in our mind and we wanted to see the location where Dil Chahte Hai was shot. I don't remember how we managed to get back to our senses from the maya world and we moved on to the Chapora fort. We reached the spot and it was like we had to climb up. It was fun walking up all the way to the fort. As we climb up, the scenary around gets beautiful and amazing. As we walked inside the fort, we saw some couple having fun and the lady was in state of nirvana. That place was too cool. We were bowled over by the beautiful scenery. We could see the beautiful Arabian Sea and the Lagoon. We had good photo session. We were happy and proud of ourselves. Sang songs from Dil Chahte Hai and ran around like kids.

It was about 4pm and it was getting too late for us and it was high time we started moving back to Bangalore. I had to give the bike back and so we decided to do so and leave Goa. I was in a hurry to give back the bike and I was happily cruising around the roads of Goa. Raul was ahead of me and I was following him. I got held up in the traffic and had some problem starting the bike. Just before I could start off to my ride, A bear chest foreigner in a rented Honda Activa stops right in front of me blocking my way. I thought I was in trouble and this chap is here to fleece money out of me. I was quickly trying to recall where I messed up with this chap and trying to correlate why me! He started asking me questions as if he was some cop and I was reluctant in giving away any information to him. He asked me whether I have a mobile and I was cautious thinking that he was a over smart tourist and wants to make a ISD call from my mobile! lol. He asked me "Do you have a mobile" I said, "Yes!" What mobile do you have? I said Sony Ericsson, then he asked me whether its a camera phone, I said yes and then asked him a question as to why on earth is he asking me all these questions and then explains that he found a mobile phone on the road and saw that falling off from my jacket! I was stunned and I had no words to thank him. I did feel so dumb and felt embarrassed of thinking otherwise about this gem of a gentleman! Some how I managed to thank him and appreciate his gesture. I thanked good God that there still exists such good men. I should admit that I was in a hurry as time was ticking by and all I wanted to do was to give back the bike to its owner and in this process I did not even realise that my Sony Ericsson K550i fell off my denim jack!

I then caught up with Raul who was waiting for me ahead and we moved on to give the rented bike back to its owner. I told Raul about this incident and he was asking me to be careful with my mobile and suggested me to keep it in the bag we were carrying. We then were charting out on the route we had to take back to Bangalore and wanted to check the road map which was in the bag. We were just about to realise the biggest blunder we ever did in this trip. We lost the bag while taking the snaps in the fort! The bike papers were in the bag and we were clueless as to where we kept the bag. Damn! We rushed back to the fort and we were keeping our fingers crossed to get the bag back and I was praying to God for another gentleman to appear and give us our bag. We checked every place around the fort and all those places where we took the snaps. We realised we were in deep shit with no bike papers and so we decided to register a FIR at the Anjuna police station. We lost our cool and we searched around for a police station and circling around the same area over and over again. Finally we found the Police station and after an hour and a half of waiting in the police station, we got the FIR copy which stated that we lost the Bike documents and the that the investigation is going on. I was fretting and fuming with anger. This incident irritated me to the core and spoiled my fun of being in Goa. Raul was calm and composed and probably he was bitten by "Chill Maadi" bug, staying in Bangalore for a while. We had lost a lot of our valuable time and energy running behind this unseen hindrance.

Time was running out and our plans were in a complete mess. According to the actual plan we were supposed to be half way down on the Golden Quadrilateral Road. We had to re-plan and most of all I had to control my anger and calm down. Went to the most popular shack and thought we would chill there by gazing some hot chicks but unfortunately, the restaurant just opened up and we were the first customers there. Raul could sense me feeling irritated and we decided to move out from there. We had skipped the lunch and fatigue was showing upon us. We had dinner at some typical Goan restaurant. Then we did little bit of shopping and purchased a Goan dress for mom and a scarf for covering my face.

We hit the highway and we took a new route. We had to go through a forest again and we had to cross a hilly region. This stretch of road is something which we both wouldn't forget in our entire life time. The temperature started dipping and we could feel the warmth we had in us going away slowly and steadily. I Was enjoying the ride as the road we chose had sharp turns. I was controlling myself from the cold when after some time I just couldn't handle the cold blowing wind that was making my spine shiver. It was foggy and I was not accustomed riding on a P180 with its dim light. I could not see any pothole ahead and was wondering how Raul goes for night rides on her. I switched over and chose to be the pillion rider for this stretch of road because of poor visibility. We were not able to go at a good pace because of the fog, dust, potholes and the sharp turns. Luckily a tipper truck passed by us which was setting the pace for us. We followed this tipper which was going at a good speed. We could feel a bit warmer by following the tipper. Wonder whether it was the tipper lorry's warm engine or the exhaust. We covered a good distance with the help of this tipper. We stopped after overtaking the truckers at a dark place, we were shivering and I could feel my bones chilled. Raul's feet was numb despite wearing on a Woodlands. We realised that once we halt to warm up, it becomes very difficult for us to cope up with the cold weather that follows on! We exchanged the jackets and gloves as Raul is known as Polar Bear and he boasts of withstanding cold weather.

Little did I realise that fatigue had caught up on me and I was dozing off as a pillion rider. Told Raul to have some tea or something warm at the next available tea shop and after a long chilling ride we found a tea shop and had tea. This hot tea was a life giver, at that point of time my elixir of life! Damn! I could feel the tea go right inside my stomach. We just didn't like time running ahead of us. Our only concern was to catch the earliest bus/train to Chennai in order to be with Dad on his B'day. After each tea break I couldn't tolerate the cold at all and I felt as I were in the Arctic Circle. One might understand my plight as I was used and comfortable with the Chennai heat unlike Raul who is used to Bangalore's cool weather. I tried riding the bike, but my elbow was aching and so was my shoulder. This was the result of riding Raul's P180 which I'm not accustomed with. Got so used to riding my Avenger that other bikes could just not suit my riding. Despite wearing a Studd Bikers leather gloves, my fingers went numb and I could hardly fold my fingers to change the gear. I did put myself to the extreme limit and I could feel the point where I could not carry forward. I was torturing myself by continuing to ride. I was in no position to take on the cold wind directly on me. I decided not to ride until the sun sets in. We had major argument to end the ride and take up a room and start in the morning. Raul would not give in and confidently said that he would ride as much as he can in the night and cover as much distance as possible. Luckily for me, on the way we came across a town where we had some coffee. Raul lost his Polaroid Fastrack Shades at the push cart coffee shop. The coffee was of no help to me. I was literally frozen. On the way, I saw a man burning up an old tyre and I forced Raul to stop there, the warmth from this tyre pyre was so cozy, felt as if I were in front of a bonfire in the Himalayas. I just didn't want to come from there. But as and when I see my watch, I felt the urge to reach home as soon as possible. We were close by to the Quadrilateral and Raul assured me of the warmth we could get from the highway road. I made up my mind and felt not to think about the chillness. We were one determined lot. We pepped ourselves up and charged our brains up. POSITIVE THINKING!


We reached the Quadrilateral and I thought now I could feel better but to my dismay, I could not feel any better. I decided to take it on until dawn. The dawn was nearing and I could sense some pride that I survived that harsh weather. I was controlling myself from sleeping and asked Raul to halt at the nearest Dhaba. It was almost 5.10am when we halted on the highway for some tea. There happened to be plenty of charpoy and we thought of taking rest. We ordered for some tea and it was so relaxing that I kept ordering it for more than an hour. Raul was stiff and he could hardly bend his knee. He crashed on the charpoy and it was pretty funny to see Raul sleeping as if he is still riding the bike! I had to massage his leg as he caught cramp. Raul had pushed himself to the core, his eyes were red and he definitely required sleep. I don't like to smoke and hate smokers but the thought of puffing in warm hot air, made me have more than one pack of cigarettes! I was stunned by the amount of cigarettes and tea I was having. Raul was tired and he fell off to a short nap. I could not sleep as I was completely frozen. To defrost I had ordered 12 tea and 15 cigarettes and also tried doing some push ups and sit ups! Kept puffing the cigarette and the tea and kept walking to and fro inside the dhaba.

I could feel myself re-energised and we moved on to reach Bangalore. We decided not to stop anywhere and kept moving. I thought its going to be easy from now on but worst of all I had my brother behind me dozing off and slipping off the bike. I had to be very careful especially when I overtake. The quadrilateral was beautiful and when the sun was bright and shinning I felt as if I were superman who gets revitalised with the power of the sun's rays! We reached Bangalore by 12pm but the traffic in the city was so horrible that we felt so difficult to inch ahead. Our hope was to take the last train which leaves to Chennai in the morning but to reach the station after reaching Raul's room was highly impractical and so we could not reach Chennai as decided. We took it easy and knew how tired we were. We relaxed at Raul's room and we took a ride on Raul's friend's Yezdi.

Our friends who heard our small adventure trip were envying us and they told us that they would love to join us for the ride when we go next time and so they accompanied us each time we make a plan and this was the beginning of the BIKERS FRATERNITY!

The Maiden Trip to Goa!

Part 1


One of the most memorable trip we did was to Goa. I reached Bangalore from Palaghat on 27th January 2008. I reached there a couple of days early so that I could make a short trip to the nearby places in and around Bangalore. Bangalore is known as the Bikers Mecca as there are many beautiful places in and around Bangalore at a proximity of 200-350km.

We(Raul and I) wanted to go to Goa for a very long time but never had an opportunity to go. Impulsive that we were, we decided to hit the road to Goa. We were very excited about the very thought of this trip and we could hear the beats of the Goan music at the back of our minds. Our mission was clear and that was to reach Goa as early as possible and to head back to Chennai before 30th Jan 2008 as it was our Dads B'day so we planned to leave Bangalore early morning and reach Goa by evening, relax, enjoy and by next day afternoon leave goa and reach chennai by night and catch a train back to Chennai in the morning.

Earlier, we planned to leave on 27th night itself but as our bike was Tamilnadu registered, we would find the Karnataka Cops harassing us for documents. So we decided to get a photocopy of our vehicle papers and get it attested by the gazetted officer in the morning and leave by 10am. Unfortunately we couldn't find a gazetted officer in time as we were new to the city. We went to the Court to get the photocopy attested by a public notary. This process of getting it attested took away our precious time of riding and reaching Goa by evening.

Things weren't going according to our plan and our decision to take precautions on the bike papers cost us a lot of precious time. We started from Bangalore by 12pm and on our way we had our brunch and also filled up the One Eyed Jack(Raul's P180). I was taken aback by the fuel capacity of Raul's sweetheart. She drank 19 litres of petrol to be full tank as compared to my honey whose maximum intake is 14 litres! We put petrol for roughly 900 bucks and spend about 50-60 INR for brunch. We had 3 plates Idli and Sambar each. We then rode our way and just din't want to stop until we reach Goa. We had to go through the Golden Quadrilateral road which is breath taking and of international standards. As I rode Raul's babe, I recalled the roads on which I used to travel along with my father in his car. The national highways those days were smaller and we had to face on-coming traffic too. But now, there is no on-coming traffic and and the entire width of the highway has been expanded six folds. Should say thanks to the awesome leader who initiated the Golden Quadrilateral. On the way we saw so many wind mills spread across horizon. We saw a all new landscape. We could see the difference of the new emerging India. We were happy, proud and excited.

After riding continuously for three-four hours were feeling hungry and I wanted to have some awesome Punjabi food from an Asli(Pure) Punjabi Dhaba. We imagined the Dhaba to be where there would be lots of charpoys and lots of truck drivers around but we were amazed to find out that there were absolutely no Punjabi Dhaba at all for a brief stretch of well laid road. It was only after 80 km from Chitradurga that we finally found a Punjabi Dhabha and by the time we reached there it was 4.30pm. I was so happy that we finally found out a Asli Punjabi Dhaba. The only difference was that there was no charpoy and the original Dhaba look was missing. It was a modernised version of the highway Dhaba. Anyway, the food was delicious and it was tasty. We had Butter Chicken and Naan with Thumps Up. Damn! That did fill our hungry stomach and it cost us less than INR 200/-

We then decided not to halt anywhere and head straight to Goa! The time was 5.30pm and it was getting dark. The Dhaba owner advised us, not to proceed beyond Karwar once its dark. He was speaking to me in Punjabi as if my mother tongue was Punjabi! All I said was Satsriakal Praji! Goa jana rasta ki hai? and replied to me back in shudh(pure) Punjabi and I pretended as if I knew to speak Punjabi very well! Raul asked me "What did he say?" to which I replied that the road isn't that good and there could be scoundrels who could trouble us. We thanked him for his valuable advice and were wondering as to whom he was referring to as "scoundrels". Being typical Men from Mars, we decided to take on the lousy scoundrels and teach them a task if they trouble us. We were in no mood to halt in any other place other than Goa. That being our mission we reached Haveri wherein we had to take a diversion and take left to reach Karwar. We were advised by all those to whom we asked the direction that the road ahead isn't that good and it is advisable to go in daylight rather than risk your life in the dark and that there are Dacoits who would block the road and harm you and loot you including your bike! It then occurred to the me what the Sardarji at the Dhaba warned us and could relate the scoundrels to the Dacoits. I cautioned Raul and told him the situation. We didn't have that extra money and didn't have sufficient time to pull over at a hotel either. We decided to carry on and face the challenge and see at things when it occurs.

It was pitch dark and P180's headlight isn't that powerful as Bajaj Avenger's headlight. The road were narrowing and it had lots of potholes. Our excitement was on a all time high as we were expecting some high action drama with the Dacoits[:p]. On the way we came through a 'Y' junction wherein we saw one road was pretty errie, dark and isolated. We could see no soul on that road. We wanted to take that road not taken but our intuitions kept us away from taking that road. That road could have been a perfect ambush laid by the Daciots. We were confused as to which road we were supposed to take and so we went back and asked some on going drivers as to how to reach Goa and they asked us to go through the haunted road. We almost took their word and was about to take the road not taken when the high beam of our P180 hit on some couple of people(villagers) who were actually waiting for some mode of transportation to take them to their village and the way they were staring at us like zombies. Damn! This scene did remind both of us of the infamous Zee Horror Show! I asked Raul to reverse back and get back to the nearby village where there were lots of lorries stationed and we went half way and asked the drivers to guide us to west coast road which was the straight road that we had to take instead of taking a right one. After this incident, the warning given by the Sardarji and the locals who guided us the way kept haunting us and we were gauging on the risk we were taking. Just to buck up the our mind, we took the Swiss knife attached to the bike key and kept it ready for any unforeseen encounter with some tribal instinct Daciots. We had full faith in our small Swiss made pen knife that would take care of our basic defense. We had prepared ourselves mentally for a clash with the Dacoits and damn, all we could think was Viru and Jay of Sholay fame[:D]. We cautiously followed trucks which were heading to the west coast road. I must confess, this experience was one of a kind for both of us.

The road was swirling with lots of hair pin curves and it was dense forest that surrounded us. We realised that we were suddenly catching up with some altitude and we could feel ourselves shivering as we didn't expect the temperatures to dip so low. It was very cold and no one expected the weather to change so drastically. We thank Global Warming for this sudden change in weather. The jackets we were wearing was not that effective at all as I was wearing my favorite worn off wrangler jean jack with the Harley Davidson logo. Damn! I love my jean jack but it was definitely not helping me shield the cold wind which was shivering me up so badly. To get the warmth we followed the trucks but it was a bit boring and moreover the road was dusty and so we went at our comfortable pace and crossed many trucks. There were moments when there were no trucks in the near vicinity and all in that road was this P180 and two biker brothers in between the dense forest and beautiful starry starry night. We could breath easy with no pollution in the air at all. We switched off the headlights for couple of seconds to feel and admire the pitch darkness and the bright starry night in the middle of dense forest. God! it was so beautiful. We were feeling as if we were astronauts gazing at the billions of stars up above the sky. It is advisable that you don't try this on the highway and get yourself injured and then blame us for your misadventure!

We reached the West Coast Road and I was thrilled by looking over the huge dark sea. We reached Karwar, which was bustling with activities. There was a fair going on. I then thought that we reached Goa but was disappointed when I saw advertisement hoardings written in Kannada! We were very hungry and our bike almost ran out of fuel. We found out from the petrol bunk that Goa is an hours or so ride from there. The time was almost 10.30pm and we were running out of our own battery. Had to charge ourselves up at some restaurant but the thought of having dinner at Goa, kept our spirits alive! We could hear the Goan Music calling us from the distant. Our pace drastically slowed down and we just couldn't go more than 60kmph, solely because we were almost frozen. Everything seemed to me like a slow motion picture. We couldn't see any distance information signboard for a long time. Fatigue and tiredness were taking a toll on both the mortals who felt like immortals when they're on a ride! After covering a long distance we finally saw the signboard which mentioned "thank you and visit again". We reached the toll gate. We were cautious as we approached the toll gate and the cops didn't bother us. We reached the no mans land and crossed the borders of Karnataka.

Yes, we did it. We reached GOA without a hitch at 11.45pm. A part of the Mission ACCOMPLISHED! We were so happy and glee that we thought its party time and we were dreaming of Goan chicks at the beach side dancing in front of the bonfire and singing Goan music. Damn! We just didn't know from where we got this new found energy! Unfortunately, it was all short lived! Just when I was imagining that I would take off my Jean Jack once I'm in Goa and enjoy the pleasant weather, hell froze over and out of the blue, I felt that I was sitting inside a refrigerator, the Weather God was so cruel that I was almost frozen. This situation reminded me of Tom getting thrown out by Jerry during winter when its snowing badly and Tom turns out to be pale and then gets frozen. I was literally in that condition. When we first saw a resto-bar kind of place, by the looks of it I thought, nay no ways but then when the locals there said that all restaurants would be closed by 11pm! We had no other choice. We did regret that we were 45 minutes late but could not help it. We made up our mind and had what ever was available in that resto bar. At first, the bar owner said that there was no food available and after looking at our plight, he managed to give us the last two plates of typical Goan food! To fight cold and to get warm I thought of having some rum, so had couple of pegs. There were couple of young lads who were around who inquired our details from us. We told them about the rides Raul and I have done separately. They got excited and wanted to join us for the forth coming rides. I said sure and made new friends on the spot and asked them to lend me a cigarette shamelessly as the bar owner didn't have any stocks left of the brand I wanted and these young lads were so sweet that they obliged. We told them about the Avenger Biking Club and told them that we belong to the Bikers Fraternity. Considering the cold that I had to bear, I got myself half bottle of Rum and paid the resto-bar owner INR 400.

I was in no condition to ride but sat quietly behind as a pillion rider and took a sip when ever I felt cold. We crossed a check post where the cops were asking us to stop but by their gesture we thought that they asked us to move on so we didn't stop at the first check post. After a long chilly ride we came across another check post and there too the cops did the same action but shouted. we stopped and replied the cops and showed them the documents. The cops felt that we were running away from them but later after checking the documents they seemed satisfied and guided us to the way to go to the nearest hotel. Finally we reached Madgaon at 3am and took a room in hotel. I was like a zombie then and all I cared was to hit the sack at the earliest and snore myself to glory. We then made plans where to go in the morning and by what time we should leave and whom to meet.