2 hrs office in what do???
pst convert to hindi and then read

first part.... photographs by Hyperion and Priyank and me

It was Sunday again and we had a small ride planned for ourselves. Hyperion and I planned to visit Shijavisagar Lake. And as usual we decided to avoid highways as much as possible. We chalked out 50% of the route and left the rest for exploring. The ride was posted but most of the Pune xBHPians couldn’t attend this due to some reason or other. So it was just us from pune xBhp. Hyperion called me up on Saturday and told me his friend Priyank will be coming with us… and then later Sandeep (Hyperions’s friend) also joined us. The ride itself started with uncertainty, we all had never ridden together and were completely unaware of each other’s riding style. I meet Priyank at Chandni Chowk at 0510 hrs and as decided we were supposed to meet Hyperion near Double barrel. Before leaving we called up Hyperion and he informed us that Sandeep would also be coming from Chandni Chowk. So we waited for him and he was there within 10 mins. Surprisingly a friend of his accompanied by a pillion had also tagged along. After a small intro we started off at around 0530 hrs.

Hyperion joined us and then we stopped at the refueling station near McD. The pump was not having power supply so we moved on to the next BP pump some 2 kms away. Hyperion and Sandeep re-fuelled their steeds, Hyperion also lubed his chain. We decided to stop for breakfast somewhere, and that somewhere had to be decided by Hyperion as he was leading us. So he stopped near “SMILE STONE” and we went in… took off all our riding gear only to discover that they will take at least another hour to serve us any kind of edible material . Without wasting any time we moved on and decided to stop at Satara for breakfast. Soon we experienced the first drizzles of our ride. but the rain faded away within a few kms. Hyper as usual was leading and Priyank and I were following him. Sandeep and Vinit (Sandeep’s friend accompanied by a pillon) were tailing us. Now we have become aware to the potholes in Khambatki, so it was fun, the traffic was thin thru the ghats. Soon after khambatki we stopped because we couldn’t spot the tailing group. We waited for about 10-15 mins and then we could spot them. We had to cover lots of unknown roads and so we had decided to cover up NH4 as quickly as possible. But Vinit was riding too slow, so we had a talk with him and he confirmed that he can cruise at speeds of 80-90 kmph. As decided we stopped at Satara and had pohe, vada pav and chai…..

Vinit refueled his bike and once again we were ready to move…. Now the actual ride was supposed to begin, we had to take a right from Atit and then head towards Pali road. We stopped at Atit, the GPS directions weren’t conclusive so we asked a local and he said “aage ja k right turn milega (go ahead and then take the right turn)” but only after a few hundred meters Hyperion again stopped and checked his GPS . The GPS was directing to the turn that we had left behind. We were unsure as on which road to take. But finally we decided to have faith in the GPS and move in the direction it showed us. So we took a U turn .

Once again we took the road which we weren’t certain of….. but we thought of carrying on with it… this road was a narrow one passing thru some village… soon we hit gravel road which extended for a few hundred meters. The gravel road gave way and then we hit a T. We were again confused as to which direction to choose. We decided that we will take the left handed road and if after a few kilometers we find if it’s the wrong one we will come back.. after all exploring was the theme of our ride. (Some of you might think “why do they get confused when they have a GPS?” but we actually use the GPS as the last resort…. Before taking its help we like to explore ourselves.) And it turned out to be true… soon we could see NH4 in front of us… Indicating that we had taken the wrong route. We once again took a U turn and headed back from where we had taken the left turn… this time we continued straight and we were contended thinking that at last we found the right road. We were greeted by greenery all around us and so we decided to take our first photo beak. Here are some of the snaps











Now we decided to move ahead and then the road took us through some villages. The villagers were shocked to see gear clad bikers going through that route and moreover the green NINJA was bound to draw attention. We were now heading for Patan. The roads on this part were not great, narrow roads within the villages with lots of pot holes. Soon we were again out onto the open greenery… after a few kilometers we had to take a left that would take us to Koynanagar via Patan. While we were on this road we could see some windmills in the distance and we could also see a winding road climbing up… but we didnt expect that we will be taking this road. Once we were ghats we could hardly move, the place was so picturesque with the vistas that we decided to take our next photo break, we could still see the windmills at a distance, the clouds were getting lower and lower and we could only see the lower half of the windmill, whereas the upper half was lost in the clouds. We were just wishing that this road should take us their but still we were uncertain about it. Some snaps of the second photo break:








We continued the ghat road; it was a desolate road with an occasional biker crossing us, thinking weird stuffs about us. As we continued the ghat roads we were being blasted by green stretches all the way. We had hardly covered 3-4 kms, when we decided to stop again for some clicks. I saw a lush green field on the right and couldn’t stop the lilliputian off-roader within me and headed there.. :d whereas others were busy clicking.



Now we decided that we won’t stop anytime soon because we had already taken 2 stops in the last 5 kms. So we moved ahead, but nature had other plans… we finally ended in the windmills and we could see a lush green meadow beside the road, actually it was naturally oversaturated green. We couldn’t help but stop there.. Hyperion spoke my heart out and told me to take my bike into the green part and I didn’t want to disappoint him. I hope these snaps make it clear what I meant.







A HDR by Hyperion:






rest of the log coming in the next 5 hours...

nice pics and writeup.. u got ur camera? i should start reading more logs..

part II.. Continued from part I

This was the highest point of the ghat area and we had reached Patan, the road was looking like a black strip zipping through the green landscape. We then started the descent but the panoramic view was limiting our speeds. After the descent we stopped for regrouping and then decided to take a road on right which looked promising. We decided to explore it, but after going in for 4-5 kms we thought of returning back and continuing with the normal route. We soon came to Koyna Nagar and from there we took a right turn and went to Shivsagar lake. And finally we reached Koyna dam. The tarmac till this point was smooth with smoothly turning corners. We parked our bikes and took the entry and parking tickets for Koyna dam , and then we were told that we cant take our cameras inside and surprisingly they had no lockers and were rejecting to keep our belongings. The guard suggested us to keep our belongings in our “gadi”, but somehow we explained that we were on bikes and then he allowed us in with our belongings with a promise that we won’t click anything. After going in and walking to the ‘dam view point’ we realized that there wasn’t anything worth clicking, the dam was yet to be half full. So without wasting time there we moved on… I was feeling hungry and desperately wanted something to eat, but all we could get was pohe. Our next destination was the waterfalls, but before that we thought of exploring each and every road there so we went to the boating point; this was the place where we got the first view of the mighty waterfall. After a small photo session we moved ahead, again after a few kms we saw a road on the right, and keeping the spirit alive we thought of exploring it, this time we were rewarded. We ended up in going close to the water, and the entire view was mesmerizing, we could see the waterfall on one side and cloud clad hills on the other end. This called for the lenses to be taken out. And after Hyperion was satisfied with his clicks we decided to make a move, here again I saw some scope of off-roading, and so went ahead. …














HDRs by Hyperion




Next we continued riding on the main road. on the way we passed through three humongous waterfalls, but we decided not to stop because they were somewhat crowded by tourists, hence we continued exploring the main road. Suddenly we saw that the road is blocked by a gate, we came to know that it’s a private road and we needed passes to pass thru it and wasn’t the road that could take us to our next destination, Chiplun, we again took a U turn and had to travel back on the same road we tool till Helvak, the point from we had taken a right turn for koyna about 15-20 kms back. On our way back, Priyank gave life to a Guard and I guess the pillion got shit scared.
We decide that our next stop will be Chiplun. But I was feeling very hungry and was having a headache because of it, so we thought that if we find any decent eatery we will stop. But soon my hunger was subsided with the joy of riding in the beauteous Khamberli ghat. The tarmac was smooth here and the corners were manageable. But before we could start enjoying them we were covered in fog reducing our visibility to less than 50 meters. It had also started raining by that time.Hyperion and I decided not to stop for foggy pics, because we had had lots of them in our last rides. So we moved on… but as soon as the fog cleared out we had no other option but to stop. So we obliged ourselves and stopped again for some snaps.









We now made a quick move through the ghats and then in no time we were on the outskirts of chipun. We then stopped at “HOTEL DELUXE” and had our lunch, While we were busy having lunch, it started to rain heavily, but before we could finish the clouds had decanted their stock completely. I tasted “solkadi” for the first time and it was awesome. Our chicken/paneer stuffed bodies got the next shock. Priyank’s read tyre was flattened. But luckily we found a puncture repair shop just opposite to the hotel, we wasted some precious moments there and hence decided to stick to NH17 till Mahad and then take varandha ghats and reach back to pune. And moreover being aware of the road conditions of varandha we wanted to cover it in daylight. As always NH17 was the most enjoyfully ripable road of our trip. Kashedi ghats make me fall in love with NH17 again and again. We started from Chiplun at around 1540 hrs and in the next 60 mins we had covered 74 kms including kashedi ghats. Hyperion, Priyank and I were in the leading group so we stopped for regrouping. We covered NH17 without any stops except two regrouping stops and some refueling stops for Vinit and Priyank. While we were waiting for Priyank, Hyperions Ninja grabbed a lot of attention and dragged in a lot of question. He is a conversation with an uncle:
He: kitna average deti hai? (whats the average u get?)
Hyperion: 20-25 kmpl
He: kyu mazak kar rahe ho? (wht are you joking)
We: uncle sach mein itna hi deti hai, (we are speaking the truth)
He : kaise?
I was moved by the innocence in his face, I jus realized that we are really lucky to get all that we need. So we decided to explain him,
We: uncle agar aap zada tez bhagte ho toh zada energy cahiyea hoti hai na? aur zada khana khana padhta hai, same iske sath hai, yeh 180 kmph tak jati hai isiliyea zada khana khati hai. (if u run fast u need more energy, consequently more food,same is the case here)
And he smiled back at us, we took this gesture as an indication that we could make him understand.
Then we started again and reached Mahad and took the right turn which would take us to the so-called-treacherous-roads of Varandha ghats. It was raining again and we were kind of enjoying it. Actually the roads are really in a very bad shape, with occasional smooth patches. Now Hyperion was running low on fuel, but we had no option till we crossed Varandha, so we continued. The view along the way was hypnotizing, we continued and then finally we came to a point where the view made us feel… ‘ we are ready to ride on roads 10 times worse than this road if we get to see this’… I ll let the pics do the talking. We could actually count 9 waterfalls infront of us standing at a single point.











Some HDRs







After an extensive photo session we decided to have a tea-break on a small tapri few meters ahead. While having tea we were being entertained by gymnastic monkeys. Now we were done with major part of our trip and we had no more destination, we just had to reach back home. We were again covered by fog, but that lasted for only a while and soon we were again able to get a clear view of the road and get distracted by the greenery. This time the roads were good and we were able to cover the ghats with decent speed. We stooped after the ghats for re-grouping and then again continued, by this time I was also low on fuel and so was Vinit. So we decided to stop on the first fuel station that we come across on the highway. But Vinit was able to spot a pump and filled us while we were waiting for him at Bhor. We waited for almost 15 mins and finally we decided that Priyank will wait for them and Hyperion, Sandeep and me would move ahead and re-fuel our bikes and wait for them. After refueling and regrouping we started again and we encountered heavy traffic on NH4. We steered our way thru the cages and finally reached our respective beds….

GPS link:
RTUES02E04

Great Log Surojit. The pics are also not bad.

nice Trip log & pics surojit!

riding after a long time so it felt soooo good esp the ghats were awesome on NH17 ( i forget the name of the ghat )..

As always Varandha ghat is too good to resist.

thats why we dnt entertain rookie photographers...
thanks man... and the ghat was KASHEDI ghat...
very truly said...

awesome pics....

if the pics r so awesome, i cant imagine what the real deal will feel like.