Part One 9th Aug 2013
Here begins the real fun. We started riding our bicycles at 6:50 AM. All of us had great zeal to complete this task. We had to reach Pune on the same day by evening. We hardly completed 1 Km and it started raining heavily. Nandkishor asked us to take a halt. We took a halt so that we could put on our rain coats. And in next two to three minutes we again started cycling. I had put on my ear phones just to enjoy some music. We were at Palaspha Phata Panvel. We saw the mile stone, Pune 108 KMs. On highway, a rainy day, on bicycle, three friends, everything was simply irregular. I must say two of the bicycle was really in bad shape. If you look at the photographs of all three bicycles you would definitely admire our guts for taking them for such a long distance, or you would pity on our stupidity. We were just riding on and on and crossed several small villages at NH-4. It was raining, and super fast vehicles were overtaking us. Many a times heavy vehicles such as ST buses, container trucks passed by. Bit scary !!! We were surrounded by hills all green hills. It was looking very beautiful. I looked at a hill and asked Nardev to look at the hills and also told him that its looks like the hills which were shown in the Movie “Avatar”. While looking at them Nandkishor lost his focus and his bicycle fell into the roadside pothole. Nothing happened to him. All of us laughed aloud. We were just finding reasons to laugh as loud as we could. We had our water bottles. Drinking a lot of water kept us energized throughout. We saw several warehouses of OEMs like Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra etc. and that became topic of discussion as we all are from Auto Industry .Nardev has adjusted seat of Nandkishor’s bicycle as per his sitting comfort.
(Nandkishor posted in Facebook, I thought its just for now, and never knew that is so much involved in fb)
After cycling for almost three and half hours we reached Khopoli. We had covered 35 Kms by now. We were tired. We stopped in the city area. After asking a couple of guys about good place to eat we finally we made ourselves comfortable in Veg restaurant. The objective was only to have light breakfast. But nobody realized how much we ate. There was no way we could resist ourselves from eating that mouth-watering missal paav. We had tea and it gave us a nice kick. We had parked the bicycles on the opposite side of the restaurant. Nardev’s focus was more on the bicycles then in the breakfast. Those bicycles were his real treasures and meant a lot to him. Ultimately it was Nardev who came up with this idea, who took so much of trouble to arrange those bicycles and then he really worked hard to bring them in considerable shape. like welding, oiling, changing brakes etc etc.
(Nandkishor posted our break-fast on Facebook)
Now we have done with our breakfast and leaving from Khopoli. We again started riding with the same zeal. We appreciated the weather, had it been a hot sunny day then we would have been in more pain. We crossed Khopoli city area. We were facing a big hill. Climbing this Ghat or hill wasn't a joke. One of the biggest hurdles we had during the tour. We had to climb up on this hill to get close to Khandala and Lonavala. We could hardly cover 1 km and finally we had to get down from our bicycles and we started walking to climb up. We climbed for a while and after completing hardly 1 or 2 KMs we took a halt for chatting. We took photographs and again we started climbing up with our bicycles. Riding bicycle was not possible so we climbed up for next one hour or so and covered almost 5 to 6 KMs. It is more tiring now. We were completely broken down and couldn't climb up any more. We had to take a halt for some time. We sat and again started the same typical old Indian stuff ‘Antakshri'. We played ‘Antakshri' for a while, sang songs as loud as we can to energize ourselves. A stray dog came and joined us and staring at us and expecting that we would offer him something to eat.
It was around 2’0 clock then and we had only covered 40 KMs. We decided to move on. While climbing up Omkar crossed us. Omkar stopped and asked Nandkishor about this trip, and he moved on. We were climbing up towards Khandala Ghats with our bicycles. Almost at the same time Satyen replied on Nandkishor post and it was, "do wear helmets from next time." Yeah, we all agree to this, safety has to be first constraint. Finally we reached Khandala Ghat. We guys were starving and our hungry eyes started looking for something to eat. We had Corn and after some time weather compelled us to have tea. We climbed up and reached Kamat restaurant and had heavy launch of Butter Roti, Daal Tadka and Chicken Biryani. Stomach full, Aaah !!!! We again started riding our bicycles. On Khandala Ghats we could not stop ourselves from admiring nature’s beauty. It was incredibly beautiful. Green hills with uncountable waterfalls. We were on top of the hills and felt great as if we have won the world. It wasn't winning the world it was more of a win over ourselves. After crossing Khandala we got to Lonawala. A famous green valley, almost everybody in Maharashtra have heard of these two places Lonawala and Khandala and everybody aspires to go there to experience the breath taking beauty of it. You must go to breathe there once in life. And once you go there next time you would not need to plan or put efforts to go there. That’s what I felt. Lonavala seemed to be a place of rich and elite class of people. Like millionaires, those prefer to have a holiday home at countryside. We saw so many beautiful row houses and Bungalows (I aspired to have one as well :) ). We were cycling ahead and saw many signboards of Chikki shops, it seemed like people in Lonavala only eat Chikki. The most famous one was Maganlal. We crossed wax house of Lonavala, and headed towards Pune on highway.
It was around 2’0 clock then and we had only covered 40 KMs. We decided to move on. While climbing up Omkar crossed us. Omkar stopped and asked Nandkishor about this trip, and he moved on. We were climbing up towards Khandala Ghats with our bicycles. Almost at the same time Satyen replied on Nandkishor post and it was, "do wear helmets from next time." Yeah, we all agree to this, safety has to be first constraint. Finally we reached Khandala Ghat. We guys were starving and our hungry eyes started looking for something to eat. We had Corn and after some time weather compelled us to have tea. We climbed up and reached Kamat restaurant and had heavy launch of Butter Roti, Daal Tadka and Chicken Biryani. Stomach full, Aaah !!!! We again started riding our bicycles. On Khandala Ghats we could not stop ourselves from admiring nature’s beauty. It was incredibly beautiful. Green hills with uncountable waterfalls. We were on top of the hills and felt great as if we have won the world. It wasn't winning the world it was more of a win over ourselves. After crossing Khandala we got to Lonawala. A famous green valley, almost everybody in Maharashtra have heard of these two places Lonawala and Khandala and everybody aspires to go there to experience the breath taking beauty of it. You must go to breathe there once in life. And once you go there next time you would not need to plan or put efforts to go there. That’s what I felt. Lonavala seemed to be a place of rich and elite class of people. Like millionaires, those prefer to have a holiday home at countryside. We saw so many beautiful row houses and Bungalows (I aspired to have one as well :) ). We were cycling ahead and saw many signboards of Chikki shops, it seemed like people in Lonavala only eat Chikki. The most famous one was Maganlal. We crossed wax house of Lonavala, and headed towards Pune on highway.
No comments:
Post a Comment