Married to the bullet:Part-11: Ajanta and Ellora

Date: 17 Apr 2009
Days of Marriage: 6 months 22 days
Odo at 10282
Prologue:
The "Dancer" had this fantasy of visiting Bibi-ka-makbara for long. Guess he intends to build one though the recent travails of his love life seemed to be going in a different direction. Roped in the “Biker Dude” a.k.a Tenneti who had missed a couple of trips due to his UK trip and wanted to do some hard biking. So the “Limping Dancer”, “BikerDude” and the “NightHawk” brainstormed for the right itinerary to unlock the code of Aurangabad in two days.
Thus the Aurangabad trip was born and the distance was 360 kms and the plan was to drive till Aurangabad (240) (the “Dancer” was extremely vocal that we should hit all the way to Ajanta on Friday evening!!), early morning ride to Ajanta (120), afternoon drive back to Aurangabad and nxt day visit the places in Aurangabad and zoom back to Pune in the afternoon on Sunday.
Action
So we decided to fix e-square at 1630 hours as the venue for departure and went to office on a Friday morning with a makzut in life. Unfortunately I had a meeting and the trip got postponed by 45 minutes and we started to roll by 5.15. The traffic was dense in Pune at that time and by the time we got off the city lines and Nagar road, it was getting dark. Hit the high way hard as if these were the last moments of the life (making max use of day light) and managed to get to Shirur before the sun really went to sleep. Had a small pitstop for a chai to refresh and to prepare for the drive in the night.
The drive from Shirur was good for sometime. As usual the regular nightmares were the vehicles coming from the opposite direction (inspite of a divider in between) in high beams bcos of which you can’t see a damned thing. But this experience was even more horrendous. We couldn’t see the road and due to some construction work the four lanes were merged into two with vehicles from opposite direction coming on your same side :-(. And to add to the confusion was that sometimes it happened on one side of the divider and other times at the other side. These mergers happened at least four five times and there was no signboards or warnings to show where one side of the road ends and we where all riding like “hens in the moonlight”, couldn’t see where a damned thing even the road, couldn’t see where the road ends and when to shift the lanes. There was a drastic reduction in speed and we all followed the tail lights of the cages (four wheelers) in front.
Nightstay:
Managed to reach Ahmednagar by 2100 hours and the vocals of the “Dancer” had gone for a walk and he was a meek lamb about hitting Ajanta on the same night. Thus we chose to stay at Ahmed Nagar in the night than take any more risks on the highway. Tried out “Yash Residency” and “Paradise” but both of them were booked due to some big shot marriage in Ahmednagar. Finally we chose “Vaibhav” and checked in and had our dinner and a few pegs at hotel “Rajayog”. Hit the bed dead.

Early Morning roll:
In the morning we were ready to roll by 0630 hours to Ajanta. The drive was lifeless on this. Only company was the cattle which crossed the road and all those animals who were forced to donate their bodies to become a part of the highway by zooming vehicles :-(. The ride was good and touched a high of 103 on my bike and reached Aurangabad (110kms) by 0830 hours. Got some well deserved fuel for our bodies and bikes.
The next part to Ajanta was slow because of the two lane road and the traffic was dense. Finally after a 20 minute drive we were able to break free the shackles and get going. The hot wind was blowing right on our bodies and we where driving straight into the wind. Taking the curves were a lil risky as at the turns there was no wind resistance and the bike seemed to develop a spurt in acceleration when taking the corners. Could see a couple of gruesome accidents on the way and one worth mentioning was a full head-on collision between two trucks. Nuthing much was left of both trucks and the police were all over the place. TC’s inquiry as to “Koi bacha kya??” to a policeman yielded the reply that “Sab bach gaye!!”. That was some great miracle considering the plight of the trucks.
Soon we stopped to have some lassi at a place (40kms from Aurangabad) and were muching on it when these two tankers with humongous cylinders on them arrived but unable to go further bcos of low lying electric lines. The cleaner promptly got down with a 10m stick, pushed up the wires and the tankers rolled on. Was quite amazed at the level of preparation ppl put into their trips :-). The lassi was awesome with ice-cream and Kaju dropped on it and we all had a couple.

Ajanta
In another two hours of drive (by 11.30), the best part of it came up and down the Ghats near Ajanta where I could shift by bum on the bike atlast!!, we reached Ajanta. We parked our bikes, got into the connecting bus and reached the foot of the mountain. A small climb up the mountain awaited us and made hard due to the sun bearing down @42 degrees. The caves were cut on one side of the mountain and most of them are highly protected and even AC cooled. Photography is permitted but without flash. Some of the painting had disappeared off the walls and the govt has done a good job to protect the remaining ones. All of them are Buddhas and his different forms and we went through each and everyone though we understood little. The final cave is incomplete and we were resting when this monkey with a long tailed appeared. Oh boy, he was really photogenic and was posing for the cameras all along. Had a spicy Biriyani at the MTDC restaurant and was ready to roll back by 1600 hrs.
The drive back was monotonous (yes, except for the small ghat) and we stopped for the lassi again at the same place. The “Juice” guy gave us some juicy tips on where to go in Aurangabad (esp Mahismal) and we changed our itinerary to accommodate it. We zoomed on and reached XXXX and to our amusement and goodluck found that Ellora, Daultabad, Grushneswar and MaeshMal were all in the same direction and within 15 kms. So we again changed our itinerary to stay near Daulatabad in the nite and drove fast to catch Mahismal in the sunset . The road in between was newly laid and was an awesome drive. We were zooming in front of a speedy sumo and trying to overtake a van when we saw a pup running in from the edge of the road. TC braked hard and managed to avoid it, me too braked and nearly bumped into TC and avoided the pup only to see it go under the sumo :-(.

Mahismal
We reached Mahismal 15 minutes late and just missed the sunset but the view was simply awesome. If you go to Aurangabad never ever miss this place . Parag a.ka. "Lawyer's" suggestestion was to “Trek down Mahismal on the rock face to the cave below. It’s a small trek and takes about an hour each way, but at one point is quite treacherous where you need to walk sideways on a narrow ledge clutching a rock face. JK – it’s something like the last rock patch at Rajgad, though definitely not that long”.

Nightstay at Ellora
We tried to find an accommodation nearby and found a stingy room with bumpy beds and sought for a better alternative. Inquiries to an auto driver prompted some ridiculous questions and an FBI treatment from him.
Are u a Hindu?? Are all of you Hindus??? Where are you from??. I was a lil taken aback by the question and nodded in the affirmative and said “Pune”. He said there is a place called Bhakti sagar “jo sirf apne logon ke liye hota hai”. He even got out of the Auto to check our number plates!!.
Well on further analysis we decided not to go for this and decided to go for ellora to find a place. No business for narrow minded people!!. We saw a place called Kailash and found it to be a semi-urban hotel with an awesome lawn and greenery to do some star gazing and a sweet spot to down a couple of drinks while enjoying the breeze. We checked into a cottage, freshened ourselves, spend a goodpart of the night on the lawn and enjoyed the “Royal Challenge”. The discussion was on the “soup for your soul” and covered a lot of ground. The 330kms of drive also took the toll and hit the bed dead.

Grushnewar and Ellora
Sunday morning was ready by sharp 7.30 (Look at how time have changed, up by 7.00 am on Sunday!!!) The morning beckoned us and we were off to Grushneshwar temple, one of the 12 shivlingas in India, and Ellora nearby. Ellora caves were only sculptures and no paintings. Most of them were based on Buddha but had a couple of them on Shiva too. One fascinating thing was a three storied building called “Teen Tal” made of pure rock. It was getting dull after a while and we decided to skip the rest (limper’s limp was getting real bad).

Daulatabad Fort
Returned back to our hotel, picked up our bags to Daultabad. The fort was 15 kms away from Ellora and we reached by 1030 hours. Dancer kept track of the bags while we took a guide and went up. The defense of the fort was awesome and and the testimony to this fact is that it has never been captured through straight means (other than insider bribing). The fort has a strong gate and if the enemy manages to crack it he gets a narrow corridor where death waits for him in different means. The actual fort is separated by water (filled with crocodiles, now no more) from the entrance and if he makes it to this he has to pass thru a small corridor with an opening on top from where the insiders poured hot water on him. The corridor gets pitch dark (u cant see ur own skin) with an opening on the wall which makes you end up 20 ft down in the crocodile filled water below. The defense is simply amazing since it has been made without any technology. Also don’t miss the Chand Minar and the Bharatmata temple.

Bibi-ka-makbara
We walked at 1200 hours back to see a rather red-faced Dancer who seemd to be waiting for too long. We had a couple of glasses of “Ghanna” and rolled towards Bibi-ka-makbara another 15 kms away. After driving thru some traffic we reached there. It looks exactly like the Taj Mahal but the opulence was really missing. More of a poor man’s Taj Mahal.

Last ride
We were really short of time (already 13.30) and rushed our bags to get on the bikes and decided to take the next stop at Ahmednagar for Lunch. We were driving at 90+ till my bike went to reserve and stopped for petrol. TC wanted to swap the bikes and me took over the Unicorn. Its really smooth unlike mine and was driving at 100 and wanted to go further. Touched 105 and ran into a gush of wind which brought me back to 90. Accelerated again, with me flat on the petrol tank and touched the magical figure of 110. TC also managed to touch the three figure mark on the bike. One thing that Unicorn missed was the sheer confidence that the Bullet gave when overtaking. TC enjoyed the same on my bike but disliked the wind resistance and the vibrations.
After a pit stop for Lunch near Ahmed Nagar we blasted our way to Pune at constant speeds of 90+ and reached Pune just after dusk.

Married to the bullet:Part-10:Matheran Trip

Date: April 12, 2009

Days of Marriage: 6 months 17 days

Odo at 9850 kms

The last weekend I went nowhere thanx to the "camera drop" and the amount I had to shell out to get it fixed. This weekend I was not willing to sit at home and rot my ass, so when my flatmate sent out a mail asking for the nearest destinations that we could visit, along with his brother who would pop in from goa, I was really excited about burning my tyre on the asphalt. Finally after a couple of days with mails going here and there we decided to fix the destination as Aurangabad. Did my R & D (I always do) on the place and send the final mail stating that the road was smooth like a carom board and its going to be a 720 km round trip if the Ajanta caves are to be covered. The sissy in concern, chickened out hearing the distance and I was left sitting at home on Saturday sulking about the lost opportunity.

In the evening the other roadie Kapil a.k.a “Dancer” returned from his usual MG road eye candy visit and he suggested to have a short trip to matheran. Well me being really pissed off at that point jumped in to say, “Voila-we leave tomorrow morning” for the short 250 km round trip. I thought of roping in my friend from college days Deen a.k.a “Doley Deen” , the proud owner of a brand new machismo 500, to help him get his machine run-in to 500 kms. The lazy bugger didn’t want to wake up by 0600 hrs so we postponed the time to 0700 hrs for him.
So the riders along with their machines were
The Man: Deen (DD) a.k.a "Doley Deen" . Known for his eye-popping biceps and for his verbal assaults

The Machine: Machismo 500

The Man: Kapil (KK) a.k.a the "Dancer". Due to the way he dances both on and off his bike

TheMachine: Passion 100 (Dont be fooled! He rides over the top speed of the bike and is always bang on the money)

The Man: Jayanth (JK) a.k.a "NightHawk" -for being the nocturnal animal that he is

The Machine: Electra 350

Finally after a couple of hours sleep in the night, the next day dawned and we were ready to zoom. We met at my place in Aundh, filled up petrol, took the Baner route and entered the highway. The itch was there to zoom past 100 as usual but then DD couldn’t exceed 60 before his first service. So we strolled on the highway for some time and then zoomed off in the last 20 kms and reached Lonavala in 70 minutes.

Had chai and vadapav at our usual tapori on the descend just after the Aamby valley turning and waited for DD to catch up. He caught up in around 10 minutes and we had another round of steaming chai.

Then murphy’s law struck. The Machismo 500 simply would not start. Here the kick was not a good option because it was simply not moving even after we were standing on it. Seems the 500 needs a bigger kick than a 350. After a couple of inquiries, found out a mechanic very nearby in the Kumar Resorts “Galli” and convinced him to look at the bike. That’s when I get the phone call from KK that DD’s bike has started and they are on the way. My fuse (which is short ) was blown and the "assaulter" was getting assaulted and asked them to get back. The words had the impact and they returned only from the same direction (seems they had gone in search of me). The mechanic just inspected the vehicle and said that the problem was bcos of the float valve getting stuck and hence was no problem. "Just give it a tonk using a spanner and the float will float gain". We thanked him, dropped him back and set off for matheran.

Now the lonavala ghats were like usual stuff for me and we drove up and down fast to reach "Chowk" from where we took the right to matheran. The road was bad in patches but we were still going at 70s and managed to reach there in around an half hour. Me and KK took the left climb to matheran and the drive up was just orgasmic. I was literally roaring my bike up the hill and was going in 40s and 50s except at certain parts. We reached up in half an hour and was surprised to see the number of vehicles on the dusty hill top.

It seemed to us as if the whole of Maharashtra was on the small hill top -all omni taxis and lots of other vehicles. We managed to park our vehicles and waited for DD to catch up. The wait turned out to be a full one hour as our pal had missed the left turn for the climb up (which duly had a big sign board in front) and gone a further 20 kms ahead. Now the "assaulter" was back to his level best of verbal barrage for us not stopping at the turn.

We took the entry tickets. The best thing about the tickets here is that they all have a map behind it for your reference. So much unindian that is!. We started walking a lil bit and realized that the chickens in our tummies were crying out and we walked a couple of kilos to bazzar peth to feed them out.

We found out a bar looking restaurant called “Divadkars” and seemed to be a pretty nice one with a good ambience. We decided to have food on the tarmac just outside and was duly informed that there is no better way for the monkeys to feed on you and was duly dispatched inside . We downed only a lil bit of eggs and the chickens that gave them and a breezer (its a baby drink) so that we could continue our exploration further after lunch.

It was already 1400 hrs and we decided that we would cover three points, the Maldunga, the Monkey and the Hart points in a couple of hours. The transport modes available are the horses, the cartpullers, your good old legs and the ambulance. We gave the horses a miss and relieved the cart pullers so as not to break their legs to save ours.

The legs were set in motion and we were off to maldunga. The maldunga is a detour from the main route and its much denser than the other routes and after much walking, climbing trees and running down we reached the point. It was an awesome sight and the view was good. We took pictures and DD was into his adventurous ways of trying to pose for snaps that could have led to a full insurance claim, if he slipped.

We then started to the monkey point and the machismo was as usual behind and whining all the way. After another “ded” kms we reached there and surprised to see only a single monkey on the monkey point. Was wondering why they didn’t name it “the” monkey point???. It seemed to me that all the other monkeys were on their annual mandatory leave on NASA space shuttles to the moon :-). This place also had a small tapori rightly called the “Monkey chai point”. The view was very similar to the Maldunga point though with a different offset. We had a chai that too a steaming hot and refreshing one just made for us. There came a couple, with a couple of kids in tandem. and they were throwing biscuits to the monkey. Out of the blue one more monkey appeared and both of them were beating "Yuvraj singh at point" in their catching skills :-)

We then inquired abt the Hart point and found that the view was again similar with an offset and our machismo this time again wouldn’t start. Even after a lot of coaxing and cajoling he refused to start. So we decided to call it quits and return back to the main entrance.

DD suggested us to take a different route (he simply didn’t want to walk) and we took the route and couldn’t find anyone on the same. That’s when we saw this tree in the shape of a channel [V] logo and a rock in between and asked the dancer to pose for his photo in the [V] The dancer was more aggressive and waltzed his way onto the tree and stood on top of the [V] with his legs wide apart. We took the snap and he theatrically jumped from the tree and landed his feet on a small stone and hurt his ankle. Now I needed to take care of a "whiner" and a "limper". Finally to our relief after a km or so we found the semblance of human civilization and soon joined the gate
A couple of bottles of chilled water on the mouth and head to refresh ourselves and we were back on our machines and zoomed down hill. The omnis drive pretty fast so I just followed one of them going in the 60s and was promptly downhill in 15-20 mins. DD went up to fill petrol as we waited for KK to join us. This time we gave the chowk route a miss and chose directly to go to Khoppoli.

We were trying to ride at around 80 and the wind was blowing into us laterally. It seemed to me that my front tyre was going in one direction and the back tyre in another. I thot my back tyre had got punctured and stopped to check and found nothing. That’s when I realized that its bcos of the wind. Wind riding at high speeds is extremely risky and the bike can sometimes shake bcos of the wind. So we slowed a lil bit and then took the turn to khoppoli. We found a straight road with an ascend and DD was in a mood to race his machine. We stood side by side slotted the gears and accelerated hard up the ascend and to only find that there was a steep pot-holed descend after that. I saw DD trying to hold on to his bike while he was going downhill @ 70. I promptly shut my accelerator and strolled down. So much for the drag race :-(

That’s when I saw this sporty looking scorpio going at full speed probably half a km ahead and spirit of racing to catch up with him revved. Began to drive full throttle and since the corners are easy to take on the bike caught up with him in no time and whizzed past him and found that have reached the pune highway. Waited for the others to catch up while I enjoyed a good refreshing “NIRA”.

Soon the guys caught up and had a NIRA and were off to Lonavala. Waited for them at the turn into Lonavala and KK caught up in no time but DD was no where to be seen. Finally after 5 minutes he caught up after a minor fall on the ascend. Nuthing much happened- the bike just dropped from his hands at zero speed and the damages seemed to be minor. The handle had a minor dislocation and the foot rest was a lil torn and the indicator joiner was broken. Not a scratch on the chrome though. We took out his spanners fixed the handle and swapped our machines. DD promptly zoomed off on mine and I was left strolling the bike at 60.

There were a lot of differences I noticed with the Machismo 500. Firstly, the seating position is more elevated than mine and it looks as if you are really sitting on top of the bike. It is also easier to uppen your gears with the back heel on this one than mine. The acceleration of this bike is awesome. It aceelerates from 0-60 in no time and it doesn’t even feel like you are drving at 60, its more of a stroll. One problem I found out though, at 70, the vibrations are a lil too much compared with my bike and the worst thing is that you can feel it on your balls.

Finally caught up with both of them at Dehu Road and KK and myself went to Aundh and DD to Koregaon Park.