Rainy Ride to Karpewadi

It was Monsoon. And in Maharashtra.

We had planned for a drizzly ride to the coast from Pune. And my friends, who were planning to join for that year’s ladakh ride, had signed up for this ride as well.

And there were a bunch of new riders who also signed up. The plan was to ride for breakfast and be back home by afternoon. Or that’s what I thought.

It had been raining heavily the day before. Still, we were positive that the drizzly ride won’t be hampered. The next day, at 4:30pm, no rain & clear skies. It was like the scene from Everest where on the summit day, there were clear skies. And that the gods above had mercy on us.

 Although it took some time for everyone to assemble. But by 5:15, we were ready to roll.

170-200kms ahead.  First two hours were so beautiful. I can never describe in words how scenic it was. You can understand only if you have seen Sahyadri in monsoon. If you haven’t, then that should be your next bucket list item.

After we hit midway, few of the riders turned back to Pune, as they wanted to ride for a short distance. Fifteen became ten now. And now is when the ride got interesting. It started raining. And oh dear god, it wasn’t a drizzle. And we hadn’t reached port yet. We had to ride back to pune as well. The very same day.

Somewhere along the road, we had a flat tire. I sent other riders ahead. I stayed back to fix the bike. No bike breaks down as often as Royal Enfield man. Pathetic

Crazy Rain, group split in two, heading unknown. Oh, did I mention, Karpewadi was an offbeat destination. And as usual, we were mapping the route on our own.

It was afternoon. We reached the destination, which was supposed to be a beach resort, fully drenched and hungry.

What was the point of this ride? Oh that’s right. We were training for Ladakh Ride. The scenario was perfect.

We had a meagre meal and started riding back again. The rain hadn’t stopped even for a minute. High tide, so no beach. Rain, so no outdoorsy fun at resort. All we could do was to squeeze the dresses we were wearing hoping to dry it a little.

We were numb from the constant pricking sensation of the rain.  I had tea, after years. It was essential to generate heat. 

When will this ride end… Khandala. A breather. The rain finally stopped.

We could finally take pictures on road. 400 kms in one day, in heavy rains.  Back to Pune, with zero incidents!

It was one of the rides that trained me by inflicting physical harm on myself. And the funny thing was, I convinced other riders that this was the best ride there ever can be. That’s when I knew I was born to blabber crap and convince people to go with it.

Back door to Bhutan

Our first cross country ride. Suhas and I were very excited about the ride. We had our passports with us and the rented motorcycles.

And we are going to enter the backdoor of Bhutan! Through Deothang.

Just a 100kms. Probably a 3 hours drive.

The countryside of Assam was so beautiful, we never realised we were cruising through Bodoland, one of the volatile areas in India.

And after three and a half hours, we saw the Big Back door of Bhutan. Samdrup Jongkar.

Soon after we entered, we were stopped by Bhutanese police. Apparently, they don’t let tourists through the backdoor anymore. Huge Walls, big gate, heavy patrols, now I see why Trump wants to build a wall. It is really effective.

We wanted to request immigration to consider a special case and help us enter Bhutan legally. Nada. Apparently, there are already too many Indians stinking up Bhutan so bad, they didn’t want the back door to be blocked by Indian stinkers. So they plugged it.

We were allowed to ride to the nearest village called Deothang which was few kms down the rear road. They had warned us that there will be patrolling everywhere and if we try to sneak past, we will be shot or arrested.

A sound warning. This time, I wasn’t in Gujarat or Ladakh. This is alien land and I’m new here. But my dirty mind kept telling me to violate.

After riding few more kms, we hit the highly monitored check post of Deothang. As expected, we couldn’t ride past that place.

We rode back to Samdrup hoping to stay the night. Apparently we need permission from the Immigration to stay in Bhutan even for a night and even in the border village.

Staying in Bodoland wasn’t safe. Who knows whether we’d be robbed or killed during the night.

By the time we started back from Samdrup, it was past 7pm. And in the east, it gets dark at 5pm. Need daylight savings fellas. They ain’t gonna split away from the country. Chill out..

We rode hard and fast. And within 2 hours, we were back in Guwahati!

Phew. That was a close one..

In my experience, Bhutan is the worst country to travel to. And believe me, I have visited it more than three times. Spend your money elsewhere!

Arunachal and Sikkim are way better than the Pee country!

Abusive Violation in Dhordo

Now that you probably figured, we are the authority in Rann of Kutch Area.

I have been taking my friends from Chennai inside White Rann area for 5 years now. This time, I was riding with the Titanic Passengers (separate story). We were 4 of us and another friend joined us from Mumbai. This time we rented BMW. Fuck yea!

The ride till Bhuj was normal and as usual. The thrill began once we reached gorewali. Now the rann area was just stone throw away. But BSF has increased the security near the entrance point and now they weren’t allowing Riders to enter and ride in white rann area. But that’s only for newbies right?

We grew up on this turf to be riders. Ain’t gonna back down now. There is a secret passageway that leads inside the rann area. If you are a tourist, you ain’t getting in. and we ain’t taking you in.

In this situation, there was a friend, Arshu who followed rules and regulations. But rules on a trip? There are no rules..

I showed the way in and saw nobody follow me. What the hell..

The rules following biker,… no.. now he made others follow too,… Glad network was there in the desert area. All it took was one phone call and a bunch of abuses to get them in. Have it hard or don’t have anything at all.,

Every tourist followed suit after seeing us. There were cars inside the marsh land. What the jhit.. how man. Use brains.

Or did we..? It is amazing to see crowd following one anarchist.

Although we violated the unwritten code of Rann, We had fun, enjoyed sunset and rode home. With ease.

We would be reprimanded by BSF on our third tour the same year. But not yet, not now… hell eya

The Wrong Karaundi

As a part of the stunt to cover all four corners of the country, I added the centre of the country to the list as well.

Well, I wasn’t sure as to where the centre was, coz I hadn’t done enough research on it.

Apparently, there are two. One for the undivided Indian Subcontinent. The other for the Country of India.

I am definitely sure you must have heard of “Zero Mile” in Nagpur.

Well, finding the centre of the divided land wasn’t an easy task. It was the year 2015, and many had not ventured to that path yet. I did my research and found out that it was located somewhere close to Jabalpur, MP. Well, a known land for me.

By this time, my Hindi wasn’t as proficient as it is now. It had been just one and a half years since I started my basic conversations in the language. And, understanding village dialect was all the more difficult. I could survive with my Hindi. But can I venture out bravely?

Pondering over that doubt, I completed my visit to Nagpur’s Zero Mile with the help of a close friend Aditi.

Now the difficult part. Time to find a place that doesn’t exist in Google or Google Maps.

The research indicated that there was a small village called Podhi. And there is a much smaller hamlet called karondi next to it, with no roads leading to the place. People at the bus stop were clueless as to where the village was located. I used a GPS device to identify the nearest bus stop.

And at 10am, away I was. Elated to tick one more place of my bucket list. Or so I thought.

Skipped breakfast as usual. Coz visiting the place was more important than food. And breakfast in north india? Please,.. Starving is better…

I got down at Podhi. And I had to walk a good 5kms to the village. I heard that there is a pillar constructed by the Indian Government that denotes the centre of the country. More like landmark for fellow explorers.

I reached the village of Karondi. And to my dismay, there was no pillar anywhere. I asked around whether they know that their village is the centre of the country. They were pleasantly shocked to hear that. The entire village gathered around me to know more about their village being the centre.

Okay… Now, I’m puzzled. I asked the villagers whether there is any other village called karondi nearby. They replied that there are two more karondis in a 40km radius. I immediately knew that this karondi wasn’t the centre.

The time was already 2pm. I had a train back to Chennai on the same night. I can’t afford to miss it.

I came back to the original bus stop and started hunting for bus in the right direction. By now, I learnt the name of the place. It was called “Kendra Bindhu”. Meaning the Centre Point.

More on the story about right karaundi in Part-2.