25th October : Goa-Mangalore

24th October: Goa – Mangalore



Somehow I feel that we didn’t do justice to Goa - we could only cover a part of old Goa, Diwar Island and a couple of beaches, but Goa is about so much more, isn’t it? To make it up, to an extent, Sunil left for the beach before sunrise and captured some breaktaking shots of the sun tearing outta the horizon. Sunny too joined him in and Ashish too went swimming in the morning, which meant that I was alone, sleeping away to glory in the room! The Goan Xbhp guys joined us in the resort, to see off us and ride with us till the border. We all had a lazy breakfast and drooled over the pictures taken in the morning. Feeling a bit embarrassed, I too set out on the beach with the camera, only to return with some boring shots!

Packing loads of stuff does take time, specially when the sun is blazing and your skin is burning because of riding under the sun for the last 10 days! While filling the Fireblade with Speed 97 from the pick-up truck, I saw a firang couple on two Enfields and told them about our road-trip. Seeing the Blaze and the Jupiter, they did boast about their Enfields and asked why the hell we were using ‘scooters’! At first they couldn’t believe we went up and down Leh-Ladakh on ‘scooters’ but only when I showed them the pictures did they realize the true potential of the Kinetic Blazes and then politely shut their mouths and carried on to their next destination.

It was well past noon when we finally left the resort. The roads weren’t too good initially but soon opened up into lovely long curves and even with Venkatesh sitting behind me on the Blaze, I didn’t slow down and went on to teach the accompanying Honda Deos a thing or two (those being ridden by Xbhpians half my weight!) Things slowed down when we hit the Goa-Karnatake border and the officials were in no mood to let us and the back-up vehicle to go lest we showed them all the documents and then explained the purpose of the ride! It was almost 3pm by the time we made a move from their and the Goa guys returned back. It had been a pleasure to have them around and the GIR team owes them a lot for all their help and support in the last two days.

I had been to Mangalore through this route twice before and had sweet memories of the roads and scenery. The roads over the time have deteriorated but the scenery remains the same. Roads after Karwar, climb onto a hill, from where you can see the sea shore and one can easily loose concentration on stretches like these! And then the narrow roads, with little traffic, passing through lush green fields and the pine trees. Riding on roads like these, on two-wheels does make a lot of sense and with the sun hiding away and the temperature coming down, we all rode together to cover as much distance as possible before dark and reach Udipi, where members would be riding with us to Manipal and then to Mangalore. The joy of riding on good roads was short lived, as, first it became dark and then, the horrible (an under-statement) roads to Udipi. Damm! We just couldn’t believe this was a national highway. Manipal and Mangalore members had warned us about these and average speeds fell to as low as 15km/h. It wasn’t tough only for the Fireblade, but for all the machines to negotiate crater like pot-holes, which never seemed to end at all. If such roads persist on each day of the GIR, by the time we are back in Delhi, all of us would have well-built arms and shoulders! Five minutes of riding on these roads is equivalent to an hour on good roads. And then those inter-city buses, which race with each other continuously, kicking up dust and stones and literally blinding other traffic on the road.

We managed to reach the Udipi junction quite late but soon members were there, escorting us to the sweet little city of Manipal. It seemed to me as a smaller version of Pune, with majority of people being students there, what with tens of educational institutions around. The GIR team was taken to Food Court for dinner and it was great interacting with members whom we had only known online. We were to take the long way round to Mangalore as the normal highway was more or less equivalent to a war-hit zone! CJ rode with us, and at Karakal, the Mangalore gang was patiently waiting for us for hours! It was almost mid-night and these chaps had arranged food and accommodation for us already and had been calling up again and again to know our whereabouts. Knowing that you do have such dedicated and caring members all over the country leaves you emotional. We had never met them, or spoken to them, and here they were, to escort us to Mangalore in the middle of the night. Biking brotherhood at its best.

We rode through quite a dark and isolated area but the road were perfect to keep good speeds. Once on the outskirts of Mangalore, one of the riders went out of fuel. At this point, I was ahead of everyone and didn’t notice that the group had stopped. When no one came for a while, I started to worry if I took some wrong road. Imagine, being all alone in the middle of a small forest like area, with monsoon insects all over, their sounds making you shiver and the silence killing you slowly. With no street light or moon’s light (lot of clouds), I couldn’t even see my other hand without using the Blaze’s lights. I had no choice but to ride on and only when I saw the pick-up waiting for all of us did some life come back into me. Soon, the group joined in and in the next 15 minutes, we were in the city with Meghan (kwokfist) pulling standing wheelies on his RX! Reaching the hotel was quite fast as the roads were all deserted and crashing into the bed was next as the whole day and night had been very tiring for us. Meghan and CJ decided to stay with us for the night, while I started refreshing the good old memories I had of this little town of Mangalore. We rode almost 425kms today from Goa and had it been not for the Manipal and Mangalore gang, we wudnt have reached here so easily and safely. Tomorrow we head to Bangalore, another major biking hub but we have been told that the roads are in a real mess! Will the bikes make it through the 400km ride tomorrow?