…This page hasbeen intentionally left blank, for… The journey never ends..
Funny incident yesterday that I forgot to mention.. went to drop my sister at the hospital, and got a tour there. Reached the ICU silent zone and got a call from a friend.. told him.. I’m in the ICU, can’t talk. Apparently he was wondering for the next few minutes what happened, till I called him back.. sorry dude !
Yesterday, we were playing around with the Bluetooth functionality of the in room ihome system, and I paid for that dearly this morning.
Before sleeping last night I finally found the switches to the curtains and whatever little light was getting into the room wasn’t there anymore. One of those nighgs where you think.. I’m not waking up early tomorrow .. slept in a really dark room, content.
Turns out we had set an alarm for 6am during all the fiddling with the device.. I hit the snooze button cos it was too dark in the room to find the kill switch..and it rang again in 3 minutes, snoozed again, and the shrill bitterness filled alarm sounded again.. pulled out the power, and it still rang.. stupid battery backup! ( I felt like Phoebe from friends where her fire alarm wouldn’t quit) ..cursing early morning, I had to switch on the lights – where I hit the master switch by mistake and the evil room was like a chandelier filled glittering light .. giving up on sleep, I finally woke up and switched off the alarm.. another early morning wasted ..Argh !
Went downstairs, finished my coffee and newspaper, and then headed out for my 3k morning walk target. Came back and petted little ‘chashma’, the second shift labrador who sniffs cars for weapons et al.. the poor little chap was so excited on being petted, he dropped all his work and refused to do his job anymore because he wanted to jump on me and get petted. Finally I was asked to leave and he went back to work again, all the while looking at me till I was in sight.. with absolutely no focus on his sniffing.. so in the interest of the security of the hotel, I vanished from there ?
I have absolutely no interest in sniffing for ammunition, i would rather get petted for a living
Spoke to the hotel guys to see if they could get my bike washed before I head out this afternoon, and they obliged. Will ride a shiny bike again !
Waited for little doctor to come join me for breakfast after her night shift at the ICU. Both of us spent A LOT of time relishing all the excellent food !
Time to head back leaving all the luxury behind… checked out loaded up the luggage and left for my next destination – karnala bird sanctuary – camping ground. Took the same couple of hours to leave Mumbai and arrived at the camping place shortly after that. Only 70kms in all today.
My expectation was a nice big camping ground full of trees and ruggedness, as part of a fenced area within the sanctuary. But this was something different altogether. A 45 acre farmhouse, with a big well tended garden, and a tent setup in the grass somewhere. Ha..! All the fun and looking forward to fizzled out big time.
For someone who lives in a super busy place like Mumbai, maybe this is enough of a getaway… Not for me though, having camped in the choiciest of places in the middle of the wilderness…But well I’m here, so might as well try and enjoy it.
Parked my bike, unloaded my luggage and carried it to the tent. A good but not so clean tent, and something that horrified me… Found a couple of cockroaches and spiders crawl out of the sleeping bag.. eeeeew .. I’m NOT sleeping in this tent.. I can stand wild insects etc. But cockroaches and spiders are just plain unhygienic. I loaded up my luggage, texted the host who hadnt arrived yet, and pushed off from there. Where next? Was already 5 pm, and I had decided on this ride that I will not ride after dark.
Made a few phone calls, and finally my sister arranged for a government tourism run MTDC hotel near Lonavla. And since that was supposed to be the route anyway for my next destination, I took off. Reached there by 6, it’s more than 100 acres here, with individual cottages and more than ample space and plenty of green to walk around, Fairly clean, picked up a standard room and settled there. Rode back to Lonavla for dinner, and had a super sumptuous local Maharashtrian Thali. Then back to the hotel 8kms away, watched some TV and slept..
Tomorrow – off to a home stay at the coastline..
First off, no bike ride today… And I, despite promising myself last night not to wake early, could manage to be asleep only until 6…. argh !
Headed downstairs, picked up a nice strong coffee, took a nice 3k walk downstairs, trying to plan what to do for the day..
Next was a saloon hunt, turned out to be close by, took a rickshaw.. everything is so cheap in Mumbai.. transport, food, haircut(!!!), you name it .. except of course the real estate here.
Walked back from the saloon after my infamous ‘near-bald chop chop’ – and added another 2k to my walk kitty. Played with the sniffer dog (golden retriever named Pepsi !) at the gate for sometime and then headed for breakfast. All was healthy so far, we were looking forward to eating like never been fed before.
Meanwhile, I made some calls to the places I’m scheduled to stay next, surprises again.. one of them said no sorry, you are the only camper so the hosts of the property may not travel down, so had to change that plan.. next days schedule is a similar problem (sorry we do not let solo bikers camp here.. ftw !!)
Made immediate plan changes for the next two days, and let’s see what next after that..
Lunch time – what junk do we eat next ? Headed to prithvi theatre (the play theater type, not a movie theatre) which attaches a cafe to it, awesome food, but no place to sit; so we kind of squeezed in to a seating platform below one of their in-restaurant trees – and nobody cares here anyhow, so it was good. Picked up some fancy stuff including their special Irish coffee ( not so Irish, but wasn’t bad), and headed back. Found a big crowd on one of the roads and it turns out, that’s where Amitabh bachhan stays. A whole crowd gathers there to see him every single day… Now that’s a following. He owns a couple of (whole) blocks there.. full of huge bungalow real estate.. emmmm well.. good for him ! Sour grapes et al 😉
Once back tol it was again planning for dinner. Now I have no idea if I’ll start getting withdrawal symptoms for this food when I get back, or I’ll just be happy not eating street food anymore.. Mumbai does that to you – and I mean that in the nicest possible way.
Watched some TV at the hotel, and headed out again.. this time in search for the best vada Pav’s in town. Found a place – conveniently forgetting the name now, ate giant vada Pav’s and carried a couple of them (just in case hunger strikes at night.. lol) .. no we didn’t come back after that, we went to the food street in Bandra again and hogged on kababs, chicken Momo’s, and then the famous ‘oh fudge’ ice cream – all this while carrying along the ‘just in case’ vada Pav’s lol !
As I write this, I give up on Vada pav, I cannot eat anymore, I cannot even think of food anymore as of this moment. We had to finally give away that ‘saved for a rainy day/time vada Pav’ because our gluttonous vada Pav greed got the better of us. But hey – tomorrow is a brand new day – which means all these bitter thoughts will go away once again, and as I sleep now, I hope I can start with the love of eating all over again, so with all my conciousness, guilt, no mental pressure and many other feelings I solemnly hope for forgiveness and withdraw my said statements about the food that is the Vada Pav, God’s gift to the human race -AMEN
Woke at 6 today, checked my sleep band – close to 3 hours of deep sleep of 7 total – much higher than it’s been in quite some time now. It’s a sign.. you lose sleep, go take a long ride, break your back, and you will start sleeping again !
Woke up super early today, rushed downstairs with my luggage and started mounting it on the bike with all the bungees et al.. There was no scope for any Delays today, the target was a huge 670 kms – before dark.
After what seems like a million years, it is time to burn some rubber and rip the tarmac, and get some payback on my Road Taxes ! All prepped, this time, no side boxes for stuff, removed those this morning. Inaugurated my Via-Terra Leh Saddle bag, (which btw – DOES NOT GET FULL). I have so far […]