Bike RoadTrip Story : Mumbai to Alibaug

Back from a great ride & carrying on with my regular stuff, now it’s time for me to put down the brief description about our RoadTrip to Alibaug (11 Oct 2008 (Sat) – 12 Oct 2008 (Sun)) & make it memorable forever.

Alibaug is around 120kms away from Mumbai. A worth watching small sea side town. So hence here I go from the very first hour of our journey.

We had decided to meet up at our regular place(i.e. KCC carom club) at morning around 6. We all where 8 of us & Five bikes where decided to be taken i.e. My : Karizma, Nitin: Avenger, Amit Bhai: Avenger, Ajay : Unicorn & Adhir : Discover. All where damn curious & excited for this day to come, as it was going to be the first ever long ride for most of us. Finally the day came & I had a huge responsibility of waking up first & buzzing Jayesh, Nitin & Adhir to inform them that its morning.

I left home to the meeting place & saw bobs at the shop & picked him up & headed towards the spot. Surprisingly or expectedly we both where the first one to show up, then the other members followed. The last where Nitin & Anil & hence they had the right to remain silent, which they could not. Atleast they did a job of getting the coconut to break before commencing our trip. It was really wonderful to see everyone well dressed up with nice outfits, jackets, glares, etc. That makes an impression people.!! All bikes where in a row (was a real beautiful scene..missed the pic) & I broke the coconut to begin the journey. It was a great feeling & bikes where given an ignition & the journey started. We had to stop initially on a local tea shop for tea. People where staring at us looking at biker gang as we passed by. After having tea, we started & decided to stop at Airoli Petrol Pump for filling up the fuel. We filled in 10 litres for every bike, check the air pressures & started. Next halt was suppose to be directly at Panvel. Our Team Lead was Amit Bhai as he has huge lot of experiences in this kind of biking & is very well known with various places & most importantly the routes. All where riding together, but we needed to drive bit faster than expected since we left late & had to complete more distance in a less time. Ajay being a starter & a novice was driving at a very basic speed, others where irritated but also understanding his situation. Every time one bike use to accompany him to make sure he’s safe, afterall we all have seen this days sometime on our early days of biking.. Still we didn’t had the feeling of driving a long route, since we all where still in the city & no much different then our daily commuting. All where damn hungry am sure, & we spotted a good & cheap dhaba kind of a hotel where everyone could do their breakfasts. Halted their & had misals/dosas in bulk. Had tea, snacks, (chevda for bobs) & headed to Alibaug. I don’t think we stopped anywhere for a long time, about 2hours , may be for a minute of two (for nature call) & reached Alibaug. The journey was truly awesome, riding bikes from those typical National Highway, village roads, small ghats. Vow..!! cannot explain in words. There where so beautiful roads at times, trees from both the sides welcoming us, sunrays trying to penetrate through the leaves, just beautiful. I was going crazy taking those turns on the amazing curves of roads. Am sure each of us enjoyed riding at their level best. Though it was a long journey none where tired, due to our high spirits of biking. Most of us had pillion riders for a company, I had Jayesh, Nitin had his bro BOBS, Adhir with Anil, Ajay & Amit Bhai where all alone enjoying their riding solely. All where driving so decently, safely & carefully. I didn’t thought it may be easy but surprisingly all where like a real nice riders.

One thing I forgot to mention, we had already booked a big room(full floor) at alibaug, called as Kaivalya Farms (courtesy: Amit Bhai). Pix can be found in our album. After reaching to alibaug, all we had to do was finding the place & rest our ass. It wasn’t so easy to find the place, as it was fairly on a complicated place. But somehow we manage to do it with good navigation brains of my fellow friends.

We met the owner of the Farm House, Mr. Joshi. Was good & descent fellow but fond of chewing brains. Am sure no one will ever forget in their life which he told us, his Daughter is a play back singer in some god forsaken movie. Am sure there will b smile on my friends faces by now. But trust me people, the room was just awesome. Really very clean, good bedrooms, huge hall space, clean toilets with all needed amenities. It was worth staying & coming so far. Alright then, we rested for sometime, somebody had playing cards. This was the time to earn money now, all sat for playing. We played around for 30-40 minutes & some lost, some won(including me J). Oh yeah, I remembered one thing, Jayesh suddenly came out of the room wearing a Hat.. Gosh.!! What was it..!! find it in the album, somewhere even I wearing it..!! We had nice fun & then left again to venture good places.

First, we headed towards Kashid Beach. This is around 25kms away from the farmhouse. The road wasn’t good at all I must say. We all where crazy hungry by now & suddenly spotted a normal hotel with a wine shop sticking to it. Man..!! This was our pit stop.. Without a second thought just barged into it sat in the hotel, the sequence of ordering beer started. First sip of it was kind of holy water having it after ages. Felt so good.. After a long ride, tired, relaxed, hungry for food & hot sun.. Just imagine you find in beer in this situation.. Will surely Die Another Day..!! Its mouth watering, isn’t it.!? So we had beer, with fish & chicken dishes which we didn’t had variety. Rushed to Kashid Beach then. On the way we say a massive industry Vikram ISPAT (Birla Groups). That was truly mind boggling. On the way we saw the sea, passing by it. Bikes on a side & sea on the other side.. This is so awesome.. Reached beach, we waited in a small sea-side hut. Looking at the beach, we all had just one word VOW..!! Such a nice, clean sea with real white colored sand. It being not much crowded, we could see an amazing view of the beach. We thought of taking our bikes on the beach. Amit bhai took a bit inside, suspecting something returned back. Me & Nitin where crazy to take it on the beach. Movement we got down on the beach, the bike lost its grip, had a real touch time moving the wheels. Still we struggled & managed to get some nice shots, of our bikes on the beach (pix in the album). We did burn-outs, actually they where not intentioned but happened due to no grip & tyre sinking in the sand. All where waiting to dive into the water. We just threw our bags, got out cloths off (ofcourse not all) & ran towards the shore. After a real long time getting in & tasting the sea was a great joy. Played a lot in the water, making sand balls & throwing at each other was so much fun. Had turned back kids while playing in such a way. Jayesh & Nitin decided to burry me in sand, which I willingly accepted (find pix in album). We found a fish lying on the shore, which me & nitin picked up & got a snap of gulping it (inspired from the movie DCH). While playing so rudely with no mercy on each other, we didn’t realize our breaking bones. The bones had started aching badly. We stepped out of the water, found a small stream of river where we can take bath & clean ourselves. Everybody got rid of the sand over their body in this stream & where fresh like never drunken before & ready to rock n roll back on the wheels. We manage to get real nice snaps on the beach & our gang (courtesy: Jayesh). The snaps are truly speaking for themselves for the splendid scenes of beautiful sunset. A must watch (pix in the album).

Next we decided to visit Birla Temple. This was around 15-20 kms away from Kashid. We reached there at the time when the day had just started becoming dark. The road were sick, extremely bad & don’t even dare to expect a street light. After reaching only me, nitin, amit bhai & jayesh decided to go in the temple, as rest had some problem (ask them for more details). The temple was a clear demonstration of latest architecture totally built in marble on a hill. To reach this heaven you need to come from the hell (the worst road).

Now we where done for the day & needed to end our day with a freshening drink & comfort sleep.

We headed back to our home (farmhouse), on the way we collected a box of beer & two full bottles of whisky along with food. Finding good food was a real problem as we where staying around 10-15kms away from core Alibaug. But somehow we managed to get home made dinner of chicken & picked up the parcel. Wasn’t much tasty but good to survive with. Reached home, we all got fresh with a quick bath & by around 10.30 - 11 pm we opened the corks of bottles. It was so relaxing, having drinks with those chicken pieces. Discussions on various topics had started, but the main topic which took over everybody’s attention was of Ghost (courtesy: Amit Bhai). All where scared but acting to be No Feared except for jayesh. Basically had a good time, enjoyed & I guess perhaps by 4am most of them threw themselves on the bed.

Had a really very good sleep, just because of the comfortable room of Mr. Joshi. Waked by 9-10 am, a nice morning with a little sadness of returning back home & starting with our regular work. Me & Anil willingly decided of going away in the town & getting some breakfast. Had the breakfast, everybody got freshened up, ready & all set to roll the wheels. We clicked couple of snaps of the farmhouse & us in the various poses with different glares..

OK then, all where back on their respective machines, ready to be back home. Started from there, we reached proper alibaug & Nitin suggested us to visit my relatives in Alibaug & just retrieve our old memories. So we decided to visit them after a long time. Just reached their house, & man all where so happy. We all where kind of foreigners, bunch of people staring at us. Going on bikes, looks so much adventurous, was an amazing feel. Now left from there for Mumbai. We decided not to stop & cover as much as distance possible. After a long distance we stopped once at the local gavdevi mandir for a moment, taking our time to pray the god & resumed. Non-stop drive until Karnala, Amit Bhai, me & Nitin were leading with a huge distance. After a constant drive of almost 2 hours we reached Panvel after spotting out a Hotel/Dhaaba.

We were again thirsty & this was a pit stop, so thought of refilling with some beers. Ordered some nice sea-food, chicken. First taste just took our breathe away, the taste just so marvelous. So far never came across such ravishing mouth watering food. Even now while writing this my mouth is watering. Taste it to believe it man. Now this taste we treat as a benchmark anywhere we go. Still never found any taste above it. We regret, that none of us remember the name of that hotel. Spent around 2-3 hours at that place & again started directly for Mumbai. Now without any stop on a fairly good driving for around another 1.5 – 2 hrs we reached our spot from where we had left. What a feeling of relief was it… Phew!!

So people with all your permission would like to end this. Hopefully I have put down a useful explanation of our journey out here which will help us to remember & cherish this moment. Lets wait for the next Road Trip, & I will be back again with some more exciting visualization of our road trips in words.

Happy Biking….

Rachit K