Road Trip to Harihareshwar 5th - 7th April 2013

It was me who had been given an opportunity to bike a lot ;-) Hell Lot !!!  Calculated roughly - 800kms to bike !!

Since I had opted to ride on my R15, I had to bike to Pune (approximately 200km) on Friday night and had to bike the next day too, along to Harihareshwar with my biker buddy Anupam and his avenger. Though I was super excited thinking about the biking and all, the very thought of getting tired was always behind my mind.

Anyways with all high spirits of another great biking trip I left from office early on Friday (5th Apr) at around 8pm. As per the plan, I had to pick Abinash from his office too. So I picked him up from Andheri (near Mumbai Int'l Airport) and we zoomed our way to Pune. We relished our lovely Mac D dinner on our way. Since it was pretty late, I preferred a speed of  approx 70-80kmph and chit chatted with Abinash all the way to Pune. We enjoyed some breaks at Lonavla, had tea and biscuits watched the train pass by us. After around 4hrs we reached the first destination of the trip i.e. Pune, time was 1am. First things first, I called up my parents to inform them that I reached safely. That is what most of us do quite often :)

Everyone joined in by 2am. By everyone I mean my gang, KB3 as we call ourselves, We were busy sharing jokes and other discussions about tomorrow. We were about to take a cab and two bikes. Me and Anupam were the so called sole bikers and we were suggested to take a good nap before taking the brunt of 4hrs of biking in the hot summer the other day ;)

Next day 6:30am, everyone was ready to leave. The cab had reached as per the time and we were all set to leave for Harihareshwar. We left off Wakad,Pune at 7am with all the checks. Refuelled our bikes and biked our way to SH60. We soon found ourselves riding on the patchy Paud road. While those in the cab enjoyed chocolates , beer , ac and the deluxe comfort, me and Anupam were sweating it out on our bikes ;)

Bright and sunny day

 No complaints, we were the ones loving the cool breeze , lovely hills we were biking besides and we were having our own share of fun. Soon the roads expanded and we were surrounded by crops , hills at some distance and other vehicles whizzing past us.

My R15 with Tamhini Ghats at backdrop

Trip to Harihareshwar - Prologue

Its been days since we ever had a bike trip !!!! :(  Thats what i pinged my dearest friend Anupam on our official chat application - sametime. We always wanted to have a road trip, a harcore road trip !!! Well not exxagerating on that. We all started off on a light discussion regarding the trip, and we hardly cared until it was Thursday. Till then we felt as if the plan is almost called off until Sunil pinged us on watsapp "Guys this weekend trip is on and we are going". It was all part of Sunil's so called bachelors trip and since i wouldnt make it to his marriage, I was keen on having atleast a small gettogether.

I have hardly been able to meet my gang at Pune because of my office work. Finally we all decided to visit Harihareshwar. Harihareshwar is a town in Raigad district)., in Maharashtra, India.

We were planning to go via SH60, so our route was Paud Road -> Mulshi Road -> Tamhini ghat -> Nizampur -> Mangaon -> Harihareshwar. It was around 173 kms far from Wakad where we had to stay on Friday night @ Sunil's place.

source : google

Sachin - The God hasnt left

Sachin....my namez similar to HIS
Though a cricketer he is titled The God
The elegance in batting still untouched
the legend walks away saying the word

Lots said, commented and felt
Memories of his still unfazed
The master blaster, was the best we knew
the only one having skills which kept us amazed

Piling up the runs, doing with an excellence
The God had kept many bowlers at bay
Some had nightmares of Sachin
some saluted Sachin,their own way

Mumbai Dairies - Juhu Beach

Hello readers, its been a few years since I am staying here at Mumbai. Suddenly thought of Blogging about the local places I've visited. Starting off with the "Mumbai Dairies" series, the first article is all about my outing to Juhu beach. Read on.......

 It was a fine, sunny Sunday afternoon when we, as usual prepared plans of going to Juhu beach.

Since we had to drop one of our friends to airport, we started off to International Airport and left her happily for Bangalore. Walking our way towards the Western Express Highway we prepared our Juhu beach plan. A few of us opted out coz of some work.Left with me were 4 others.

We walked towards the nearby taxi stand and got a taxi to Juhu beach. The first thing after getting down was having some food to satisfy our Hunger Gods :P :P  hehe .....Anyways what could be better than Mac Donalds burger. I guess all of you would agree that the best n fav fast food for most of us is Mc D. Anyways some burger, coke and french fries were in and now we could concentrate on having fun. 

Again took another taxi finally to Juhu beach and got down to witness cool wind, sun ray , porsche cars n tall hotels and yes the Juhu beach.

For those unaware, Juhu beach is spread across a stretch of approx 6 kms up north in Juhu-Vile Parle area of western suburbs in Mumbai. I had been to Juhu beach thrice i guess and the only thing i hated was its dreggy water but a good crowd. But it’s a good place to visit, especially evenings. We walked through the pathway entering the stretch of Juhu beach. 

The special day :)

Here comes the day yea yea
the day bringing happiness all d way
feels so special,sighhhh feels so good
wish d day never goes away, this day

Smiles n cheers .....wishes n beers
partying all along...never realised
never realised had so many besides me
so many lovely souls all besides me....

Somewhere feels strange....somewhere i feel alone
:P dont know the happiness....if i really own
forgetting everything apart from smiles
njoying n day passing like miles

Oh God,cant you please freeze this day
and keep the problems far far away, i pray
to njoy the special day till the day end ....
njoy it the till the very last second...

Trip to Malshej Ghat

28th Friday Mumbai 11am morning:  The weekend plan seemed to work out and i finally succeeded in grabbing a few guys in for our unplanned trip for the weekend. Had been a lot of time since I had hanged out with my friends and actually, visited a cool place.

Friday night....one by one, all my friends came at our get-together spot, my home and all of us started pressurizing our brains for any unique destination. The plan was initially to have a biking trip to Lonavla.....considering we were all biking fans ;)

Next, it was Friday late night 3am and we 4 guys started to freeze a spot for Sat trip. We were in a hell of a confusion.When we stopped thinking about the spot, we started thinking whether or not to have a bike trip or take a cab. Huh....in came suggestions for Malshej, Divyanagar, Lonavla, Bhimshankar and lots more. We seem to have filtered all Mumbai :)

After 3 hours of brain crushing planning and several arguments, bypass ideas....(urghh dnt mind my grammar)finally the lucky spot chosen by us was Malshej (that's what we call it when we select a place randomly ;)  )

So satisfied with Malshej, we slept off....n woke up @ 8:30am when i heard Anupam shout......should i call the cab ??????

I guess he yelled twice or thrice on us when we finally confirmed to call the cab @ 11:30am. Had to wake up and had to freshen up. All excited we all got ready in time.....joking n discussing something or other. Had bread omelet for breakfast or brunch u can say.

11:30am Saturday  -  we 6 guys were ready to start our trip. But in came the first headache.The innova could take only 6 while we were 7. We had to pickup Sumit on our way :P  oh shit!!!   anyways again our active brains started thinking and we planned to have our pillows and newspapers to prepare a makeshift seat !!!  It was really amazing what we did and yipppee we had 7 in a six seater. What fun before the trip could actually start.

We started off from powai, towards nashik road.

The Route: Powai --> Nashik Road --> Thane - bhiwandi bypass --> vadpe --> shahapur
--> kalyan road --> dombivali --> durgamaata circle --> anupam nagar --> bhawani chowk --> Malshej ghats.

We were having lighter moments.......time was passing like years as the winds blew against my face.Felt as if time should freeze right-away....felt great...such times take you away to some other world.

Anyways back to our trip.....we were having a bumpy ride through Anupam nagar.....as we searched for an atm.....The cab driver was zooming through the humid air and crowded streets. It was a long time after which we were off for a trip and we missed our bikes. We were in the cab with the ac on,
while we wanted to go out and feel the wind.

Once we were out of the crowds, Mother nature greeted us with the serene, calm and greeenery. The cab took pace.....and we all were loving it. We all started singing old songs "bahaaron phool barsao mera mehboob aaya hai" . We were half n hour away from Malshej and we were already loving it. To those new to Malshej, Malshej Ghat is a mountain pass in the Western Ghats range in Pune, Maharashtra, India.  Its all surrounded by hills and greenery.

Back to our trip, the super smooth curvy lanes were awesome, We watched and were all lost in the hills, trying to capture anything and everything we can with our Canon SLR.

It was almost 3pm and the air was all cool. We got off at a curve trying to take snaps of the silver lining of clouds. There were some distant waterfalls which looked like white threads from the distance.

 

Finally making our way through curves and hilly roads, we reached a tunnel with a lovely spot on the other end. This spot almost at the center spot of Malshej had a thumb like stone in the middle and hills all around.As we stopped, we were surrounded by monkeys. A few other groups were busy with their poses and snaps. The place was beautiful as if it was in the lap of the Malshej ghats.
The next hour was one of the awesome moments of the day.

We enjoyed taking snaps, while other time I watched the flowers , hills , the sunset and was mesmerized. Anyways it was already around 4:30pm , so we headed to the other spot which seemed to be the apex and best of the best spot.

Reaching there in about 15mins or so, we enquired the other visitors if there were any other spots ahead just to cover up all the spots before sunset and we were happy to know that this spot was the only one left.Happily, we got off the cab and walked towards the large stretch of grassland
from where all of Malshej was visible.

The clouds seemed to be at their best making different structures while on the other end the hills looked like portrait. We continued our photo sessions while we had coca cola. Some cool snaps with the moon as well.   At one point we could see the setting sun on our left while on the other end we could see the moon as well.Sounds amazing isnt it?

Trust me, its more amazing when you view it live !!

Malshej was now added to my "to bike list" of places. We had some unforgettable moments and some never before views. All in all it was a great trip. Finally the day came to an end with the sunset and we walked our way to the cab.

We drove our way back to pune in around 3 to 4hrs with the memories fresh in our minds and hearts forever.

Thanks to some of my friends   Sumit , Vivek , Anupam , Sunil  , Debasree, Neha. Specially to the guys for their excellent camera work without which this article wouldn't have been possible.


Guys do visit Malshej and get a chance to come closer to nature.Meet you soon with next trip.