Date:Jan 17,2009
Days of Marriage: 2 months 22 days
Odo at 3850 kms
One fine Friday evening Jeevendra (JS) a.k.a “SMAART BAOY” was sulking about his lost opportunity to join his gang for the next day’s Murud Janjeera trip bcos of his NCFM exam (ever heard of someone missing a trip bcos of NCFM???) on the same day. Well I personally didn’t want to go for any reason because it was not my gang and I knew no one there.
Our pal wrote the NCFM and came back winning and we had nothing to do on a Saturday evening. That’s when the idea of the trip was born and executed in the next half an hour and we were raring to go by 5.00 pm to Alibaug, stay overnight and get to Murud the next day.
So we started on my same old pune-mumbai highway (you have heard about it umpteen times now) and managed to reach Panvel by 18.30 Ish and it was getting dark. Didn’t want to drive much in the night because the highway from Pen to Alibaug is just two lane and there are no dividers too. But since the makzut was already decided we continued on our journey.
I couldn’t see a damned thing in the dark and my headlights were as effective as light house tower 20 kms away. To add to the grievance was the reflection of the vehicle behind me on my helmet courtesy my big rear view mirrors. We chugged along at a slow pace of 60 through the topsy turvy road and was quite uneventful except for Logan guy who overtook us real closely enuf that we almost went off the road.
We stopped at a Daba run by a sardarji midway and had kurkure and sprite to refresh the dimaag which had gone off to sleep while driving.
We were chugging along when we saw a thick strip of striped metal almost hanging across the road at a bike height. On getting close it was found out to be the side bar of a truck trying to take a U-turn. We braked hard and fairly managed to avoid any disaster.
Our pal was on the phone and inquiring where others where put up and much to our dismay it was found out that they were put up in Divee Aghar which was almost 150kms away from the place. :-( We stopped (30 kms before Alibaug) to find out what the heck was going on and it seems there was a different route they took from Pune to Divee Aghar and they would be joining us by boat in Murud the next day morning.
No hard feelings on this one and I started off my bike and set the gas to Alibaug . I suddenly got a call and didn’t pick up and continued my journey for another km or so when I got the next. Picked up the call and found that it was JS calling me. I just asked him whats the humor ur finding sitting behind me and calling me on my phone. Turned back to see that he was not there. For a moment I thought whether he had fallen off the bike and reversed and set off only to find him standing at the same spot from where I had left. It seems I had forgotten to pick him up J. The shopkeeper nearby was rolling on the floor laughing. :-) :-)
Finally after a bad patch of road and an amazing lil climb, the road was too good with reflectors beaming in the dark (made it look like we were driving in dubai) we reached Alibaug by 10.00. Found a motel and went for gulping some beers and some good sea food along with it in a nearby hotel. After 3 beers (JS saved one for the next day morning, yuck!) we decided to close the day and dozed off to oblivion.
Nxt day woke up early morning and checked out for Murud at 0630 hrs. Stopped in the midway at Kashid beach for some refreshing bread omlette and jumped in the sea with a rented football in hand. The sea was quite smooth and beach was good, but not much waves to my disappointment. Spent an hour dancing to the tune of the waves and relaxed for a while on those beach chairs when JS was gulping his saved GARAM beer! :-)
After a 20 minute ride we reached murud, parked our bikes and set off on the boat to the fort. We were joined by the other gang in another 5 minutes (not to mention the reception the SMAART BAOY got from the ladies) and set to roam around snapping.
After the time trial of 1 hour elapsed (that’s the time you get to see the fort) we parted ways and we got back to the jetty. Set off on the Bullet and zoomed off to pune uneventfully.
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