Day 3 - Jan 1, 2005
I guess it was the New year's first day :-) (but if you think I was watching a calendar and should be more sure. hmm... I wasn't). We finished loading Dhanno and Titli by 7 AM. Sanju settled the bills and I called the folks back home to wish them a happy new year and my friend in Sinnar to excuse us from the social visit to see his biwi bacche as we were off immediately. Now you might ask where was the fire. Well the fire was this. We were supposed to catch up with Gaurav and Nicky at around 2 PM at Valsad along with Mandeep. I was pretty excited to meet the Gatekeeper. That was the days major milestone.

We started riding towards Nasik and inside the city kept asking for directions for Saputara. Did breakfast at a place called Kamath dreaming that the food will be like Kamath Upachar (a nice food chain in Karnataka and elsewhere) which it wasn't - neither the quality nor the price. Soon we were out of the city and riding remote village roads, close to the Gujarat border. Few jeeps being used as public transport for local commuting was the only traffic around. I also saw a Toyota Qualis with many hands waving from the back windows. Hmm... We had overtaken the same Qualis some time back as well and the same hands were waving then too. What's up with those dudes and that waving?

This time my question was answered; the driver drove parallel to me and indicated to stop. We did... and a gentleman jumps out from the back door to shake hands and greet me in Kannada... Oops... My Jayanagar RTO registration no (Jayanagar is the name of a nice part of Bangalore city) had got the guy all excited, it seems. But he was so warm. Shucks man... meeting unknown people on the road with the number plate, the only link :-) Isn't that what riding is partly about? I felt good.

The High continued coz we were in the midst of another aspect which makes Biking so special - Picturesque places - the scene around us was so nice that we stopped often. Once to click 3 village kids who were picking up rags near a big lake. While we were mere passerby's for them, they were just motographs for us. That feeble link really blew my mind! Their innocence touched me deeply and I tried to capture their expressionless faces in my cam. The other scenes were also quite interesting with groups of people in a steady sprint headed towards an unclear destination - looked to me they were on a pilgrimage which needs bare feet walking to. Their way of Romancing the Gods using the road :-) We Bulleteers Romance the Road directly :-) for which I am glad. I... was... becoming comfortably numb again...

We had started the climb to Saputara hill station and I spotted manna from heaven. No No it wasn't Gaurav guys, it was a Booze shop. It seemed to be a well frequented place for the Gujjus who must be crossing the border to get high! Booze buying was on our agenda as we had no plans to stay dry in Gujju-land. But we didn't drink just then - DD (drunken driving) is absolutely prohibited for us! We did however stop to have tea and pack a booze parcel and proceeded to cross into Gujarat.

On the Border, we met India. I mean a toll keeper who wanted 5 bucks from each of us. Was this the toll or his upar ki kamaai? I was curious. But couldn't find out because a Policemen was watching us. And he eyed the toll keeper meaningfully (which means it was in fact upar ki kamaai) and then his gaze shifted to our fatigues and then to our bullets which resulted in him waving to the toll keeper "Army wale hain jaane do"... (which means it wasn't the toll after all) Cool! Jai Jawan, Jai Bullet. Mera Bharat Mahaan!

Tourists had flocked to pretty Saputara but we didn't linger around to explore the hill station and rode towards Valsad. Guys, the ride from there on was zimbly mind blowing! Green, green forests, hills in the background... Just the kind of place my soul seeks. A stream quietly flowed by. I just had to stop when I saw somebody sitting on a rock at the bank engrossed in his own private world. Sanju motographed the moment and I eyed a family who stopped their car to check out fully loaded Titli and Dhanno. Smiling, we started rolling again.

Now this is a nugget of information for the 60kph gang who haven't ridden with Sanju. He's the kind of guy who seems to either patiently but solidly ignore irritating drivers as a whole or go singularly mad at one of them. This time the latter happened; Sanju was mighty pissed off with a Qualis driver. The annoying driver would neither go on his way nor give us right of way. This stupidity continued for some stretch till Sanju baba screeched to a halt. "Usko jaane dete hain re. Parishaan kar rahan hain saalaa". I just fell in line with that instruction. Didn't want to add my two bits to further annoy my buddy. We waited till there was enough distance between the Qualis and us and took a left which led us to Valsad and the highway. Tinkle stop and we got the news that Gaurav and Nicky hadn't started from Mumbai because their bikes were down. Shucks... So we did the next thing on the agenda - Inform Mandeep - our torch from Valsad - of our positions.

The Dangs stretch started here. It seemed to be a place I'd been to before, given the amount it had been written about by all of the 60kph'ers when the Kutch virus invaded the mails. Yes, guys I agree. Dang is something which I wish, I could do again and again (In fact would want to do it everyday to work, provided I didn't have to drive 3 days TO it!).

Titli hiccuped for the first time as I was grinning at my own silly joke. I glanced and signalled Sanju. "Main Hoon Na" gesture followed from him which meant that he had enough fuel to lead me out of the remote and isolated Dangs if Titli got crankier. That was good news too as the entire stretch had hardly any human habitation close by, forget a gas station. But there was a tea shop, and we sure stopped! Got free dhoklas from the tea shop owner, how nice :-).

Tea break over, we headed towards Valsad in search of Mandeep and a gas station and promptly missed the first one. I was distracted I guess. Saw 2 guys on a Karizma just as we were heading into Valsad. I had this strange feeling that it was Mandeep but was expecting him on Epicenter so ignored my gut and overtook. Again the same feeling invaded as I was overtaking. Checked my rear view mirror and saw Sanju stopping parallel to them and chatting. Wow! my gut was bang on. He was in fact, our man, Mandeep. I guess that's bullet brotherhood. Sanju drove to me and said "Mandeep hain". I replied "arre bullet kahan hain?". He replied back "laya nahin". Sanju is obviously more clued in to the Brotherhood than I am. That kind of cluing-in makes him a good co-traveller guys! Glad he was with me. Here's cheers to Sanju baba.

I signalled Mandeep for a fuel requirement, he indicated that a place ahead, so all of us reached the Express highway and headed towards Satnam Dhaba. In case you missed it, Mandeep was the first 60kph'er we met. In fact the first person whose name was familiar on the road to Kutch. So naturally, we were feeling soft for him but he also brought news that Gaurav and Nicky had started late from Mumbai and we were to continue ahead :-( that was sad!

Meanwhile Titli had HAD it with my day dreaming and was FED UP of riding on an empty tummy. So she jerked and stopped. I could see Satnam Dhaba on the left and the gas station a little ahead. Mandeep gave me a hand to push Titli to Satnam Dhaba. I could feel my fever creeping back. Food, Food, I needed comfort food. Mandeep was good company and took over Titli, he bought fuel in a bottle so I dint have to push her to the gas station after we finished lunch. That was a blessing! We wanted to rest so we ordered for food. We bid Mandeep farewell after our hogging. I don't remember how many rotis Sanju and me ate between us and it wasn't a good idea to hog like that (our staple road diet of dal and rice was better)

Was it hunger or my fever or our disappointment at not meeting Gaurav which led us to overeat. I don't know. Maybe a mixture. My take is that when on the road one gets used to watching milestones. Similarly on a long ride, familiar human sightings are also milestones which become really important. Gaurav at that point of time was the only real-time reminder that we were headed towards Kutch. And the news that we weren't going to meet him anytime soon bogged us down a bit (at least me).

To top it all, the road was a real nightmare from hell. To me it seemed like Sanju and me were the heroes in an obstacle racing video game. Not romantic, nope, not at all. We Just somehow managed to reach the outskirts of Surat after skirting Trucks, trucks and more trucks. Diversions, diversions and more diversions; and stopped for breath and tea.

We were feeling a bit unsocial, or at least I was, so ignored a Maruti driver whom I could see was fascinated enough to start a conversation, he had stopped and sat strategically close trying to catch our eye. For sure, we both looked the 'Strong and Silent types' (little did he know that I was feeling so weak and feverish that wanted to sink in my hot tea... hahah!). Real brave fellow though. He ignored our sullen looks and broke the ice anyway to ask where we were headed. I am quite glad he did that as we got to know that he was a fellow Bulleteer. Not only did he own a Thunderbird, he had done K2K with few of his friends. Wow! We were happy to see him as much as he was happy to see us. And there we parted.

My E.N.T. situation was getting -ve and fever was getting +ve so Sanju (the mother hen part of him) insisted we stay back at Surat. But instead of checking into one of the Highway motels, we made the mistake of entering the Surat city. It was maddening and it didn't require an Einstein to figure out why the Plague hit this city in the 90's. We found a hotel where we were interrogated as if it was the India-Pakistan border. I was too pooped so Sanju (the rambo part of him) handled the answers with alacrity and checked us in. Just then we saw an SMS saying that Nicky and Gaurav were at Valsad and planning to stay at Surat. Oh Gawd! Nothing is going right today - we had told them that we would continue till Baroda or if possible Ahmedabad. We tried to undo the error by calling them to say we were hanging around in Surat for the night but failed.

All I needed at that point was a hot bath. Which I had. Vodka was next, then the medicines and Food. I was feeling better. Gaurav, bless that guy... called which led both of us to grin in relief. Whereabouts were exchanged and we found out that he was clever enough to check into a hotel on the highway. We decided that we would reach them and meet at day break near the circle on the Ahmedabad Highway. Our Riding milestones would be waiting for us at a Road milestone at 5.30 am in the morning!

The gloom lifted after this date was fixed ...
The date brought with it the reality that we were headed to Kutch...
That reality brought back with it the wonder of this venture...
The wonder led me to calculate how far we'd come from home...
The distance statistics brought a smile...
And...
All this useless analysing led to fatigue...
Which led me to the sack for the day.

Next...
Opened eyes on Day 4 and a happy feeling took over. Early morning date with Gaurav and Nicky... yippee! (read on)

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