From the desert to the beach. From the isolated stretches of broken mother earth to the smooth highways of NH-8, Ashish and me had decided to ride from the outskirts of the Rann, where we were staying, to Daman, the beach city, a distance of approximately 450kms today. Sunny would be riding a much less distance from Vadodra to Daman on his Fireblade, along with the backup pick-up. Yesterday’s ride plus the effort that went into taking out the Blaze from the jaws of the Rann had taken a toll on us and that made us wake up by eight only, a good hour late than we wanted to, and as a result we left Zainabad by ten after a good breakfast at the Desert Coursers. Things weren’t looking good with the Blaze’s front tyre, that was refusing to rotate at all, what with the clay type mud sticking to the inside of the front mudguard. As a result, within the first couple of kilometers, I could easily smell the burning rubber from the front tyre as Ashish overtook me. We had no option but to carry on till the next little village, where to our utter surprise we did find a pressure wash shop! It took a good hour but at the end of it, our bikes were sparklingly clean and after being wished and cheered by the local womenfolk and children, we set out on the little rural roads to Bypass Ahmedabad via Viramgam and Sarkhej, to join the NH-8 to Daman. The sun was out in full force and it’s quite surprising that in such environmental conditions, a single human being can easily gulp out two litres of water in less than an hour! We finally took a good break around 140kms short of Surat at the A1 Reliance restaurant where I discovered that my arms were getting tanned very fast and the color contrast between my the front half of the arms, which are exposed, to the covered part of the arms was becoming too much! Nevertheless, a small price to pay for a great ride like this, which shows me the contrasting nature of India’s landscape, people and culture.
KeyurBhagat and Kunal of Surat were in constant touch with me and really wanted us to drop in on way to Daman but the pathetic roads, due to the fury of the monsoon, and the 5-6km long traffic jams made sure Ashish and me could hit the outskirts of Surat as the sun was going down. Sunny was already with the Surat gang but the delay in time meant that the gang with Sunny came out to the main highway and met us on a dhaba, from where we proceeded ahead for our destination for the night.
Any rider never prefers riding in dark, and so was the case with us. More so as the Blaze’s headlamps weren’t working and so Sunny and me had to make sure that Ashish was kept alongside as we ripped past traffic at 100km/h towards Vapi, where we were to meet Manav Arya, who would be our host in Silvassa (slight change of plans...)
On the way, a M800 as well an Alto kept pace with us and cheered us when they turned and left the highway, as well as two guys on a TVS Stay City, who were brave and foolish (choose the adjective you feel like) enough to keep pace with us at close to a ton and zig zag through truck traffic, just to get glimpse of the Fireblade! We reached Vapi at around nine, where we met Manav, who showed us the way to Silvassa (capital of Dadar Nagra and Haveli) and took us to a quite serene resort for the stay. I could see Pine tress around and there was dew on the grass inside the resort where we would be putting up and this did bring its own excitement to the whole thing. Finally, we were very close to the beach!
The toll of riding more than 450kms through not too good riding conditions meant that Ashish and me were desperate to hit the bed and so did we after dinner, while Sunny was busy uploading pictures on the site and all. Manav too joined in for the night with us, but I had no clue as to when they slept! Its 16th morning today and most probably we leave for some great sightseeing in sometime!
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