Two punctures... two accidents.... One Destination!

The monsoons in Maharashtra are a treat, especially for the ones who love what Mother Nature has to offer. With the ample mountainous ranges in the state, the whole landscape has a green cover which can be best enjoyed during the rainy season. And what better way to enjoy these natural beautiful sights, than to ride your bike through the long highways passing villages, green pastures, scenic mountains, and sometimes waterfalls besides the highways.

My group of biker friends decided to make a trip to Bhandardara, 160KM from Bombay ahead of Igatpuri in the month of July. Since it’s become a ritual amongst us to make a bike trip once every month. This was the first trip we were going to make during the monsoons, and the danger element kept staring at us ever since we decided to make this rainy trip, cause a bike, a far away destination, unpredictability of rains & slippery wet roads all adds up to one hell of a risky ride. But then no bike ride is complete without the element of danger. That’s what pushes us I guess!!!

So we decided to leave for Bhandardara at 7:30AM on Saturday, 17th July 2010, and as usual we got delayed due to unforeseen circumstances. We were five guys leaving from various places in Bombay and our meeting point was Mulund (West) toll-naka on the Eastern Express highway. My friend leaving from Goregaon, gets a puncture and has to get his tyre fixed, another friend leaving from Juhu meets with a minor accident, which damages his gear lever, which adds up to the delay. Since I had to tank up my bike and fill air, I go to the local tyre-puncture guy and to my surprise even I had a puncture in my rear tyre. Another half hour added to the delay. The four of us finally meet up at the toll-naka at 9.15AM and we head towards our destination. We pick up the fifth guy from Thane and we begin our journey with excited emotions.

On our way we get a few light showers, but nothing to slow us down. The atmosphere was cool with a light drizzle, enjoying the scenic landscapes all around us. We had our smoke breaks, breakfast stop, pee stops and we were within touching distance of our destination. We got further delayed when we realized we overshot the turn to Bhandardara by 30Kms. But we didn’t care since the roads were so mesmerizing that we stopped looking at road signs.

After taking a right at Ghoti, on the narrow road to Bhandardara we got a moderate shower and the roads got wet and we had our last accident of the trip. My friend lost control of his bike due to the wet mud on the road and broke his left rear-view mirror. Now that’s a souvenir for his bike trip. Lucky for him there was no major injury to him. We had to slow down for quite a while since the wet mud made the road quite slippery, therefore we were moving ahead with caution.

We finally reached Bhandardara at 4PM after a grueling six hours and since we didn’t have any accommodation in place it was another hour till we finally parked our stone cold asses and rested our tired, aching bodies at Yash resort. All of us decided we explore the place the next day, since there wasn’t much light to enjoy the surroundings. The next morning we were supposed to wake up early but then knowing us guys that didn’t happen. We finally got out exploring the place at around 11AM.

Bhandardara has many well known & unwanted crowded spots, especially the Wilson or Bhandardara dam as it’s popularly known as. Apart from that there is a lake which was a little empty probably cause of less rain in the area. But the lake was beautiful and was a very large one which was miles long. We decided to chill next to the banks but since it was quite sunny we decided not to. We decided to head towards the waterfall and we ended up taking a long ride, with the roads ziggin & zagging, the clouds hugging the mountains and the sun shining in all its glory.

This was the disappointing moment of our trip, while we were at Bhandardara, we didn’t get a hint of rain, not even a drop, so we just kept roaming around till we found the Randha waterfalls. From a distance we could see hoards of semi-naked guys/picknickers taking a shower under the waterfalls and also a few local women washing clothes in the same area. That did it… we decided to move on and look for a quieter place. We came back to the dam and decided to chill out for sometime.

After a relaxing smoke by the bank, we decided to head back home at around 4PM, since we wanted to avoid riding in the night. We quickly checked out from the hotel and were on our way back home. As soon as we exited Bhandardara and came on the NH-3 the clouds started roaring and it started pouring cats & dogs. The pouring rain was so much that we had to slow down to a speed of 40Kmph from 70-80Kmph. Due to the heavy pour there was zero visibility & with our headlights & indicator lights on we were moving like tortoises coming out of the water. The weather was just too awesome, though we had our rain gear on, we still got wet and I mean drenching wet. We rode for an hour covering almost 50Km when we came across a dry spell, but then as we moved further the rain gods were showering their blessings on us yet again.

It was bliss, the experience of riding in the rains is just too awesome. A memorable experience which will never be forgotten in a long time. The ride back home in the rains compensated for the disappointing weather at Bhandardara. We were fortunate we didn’t have any major mishap, or bike breakdowns, the rain gods took care of us each mile of our long journey.

Looking forward to our next trip in August. Hope it’s filled with loads of fun, coming close to Mother Nature yet again.