TRACK THE RIDE

Odo reads 26353, diu

Its possible to sleep under the sun. The guys at the beach prove it, wake up at 8 and plead with the guys with rooms to use the toilet. They dont mind either, use the pretext to sleep till nine. The married couple are up early and ready and go for a leisurely breakfast at the ferry wharf and a stroll through the diu village market. Farida buys more bedsheets to burn.

The start is way too leisurely, Vinod and Gaurav busy sending pics and logs to dean for upload, Amol sorting out bike problems, rest of the guys hanging around waiting to go. Finally manage to kick out around 1 in the afternoon. First stop is the petrol pump, it takes almost three quarters of an hour to fill up 14 bikes from the lone dispenser.



The only ride of the day is about 115 km to Sasar Gir so its possible to see the fort, church and Nagoa beach before we hit the road.



The fort is very well maintained with a lot of different sections and can take the better part of the day to experience fully. Vinod etches out a huge 60 kph logo in the sand below so perfect, it looks possible only with some high tech wizardry, the geek (self confessed) he is. Some go up the fort, some hang around at the base, sip nimbu paani, build relationships.



Amol punches the head light of Teja's bike, then bangs the front wheel into a wall, only to correct (partially) the squint acquired in a fall the previous day. Tejas has a "ball in the mouth" kind of look on his face. More nimbu paani follows and Gaurav herds the guys onto a cross country track to the nearby cliff for the mandatory line up photo. Various angles are taken, corny lines initiated by, u guessed it, Mr. Histasp, fly thick in the air, somebody quipps, " take us from the back"... fortunately nobody laughs off the cliff.

The beach calls, so does the food, the church is skipped.

The beach is a small stretch of clean fine sand with clear sea, almost blue... the restaurant, a covered terrace on the first floor overlooking the bay, the fort and the cliff to our left to an array of lights spelling "DIU" to a low flying aircraft. The food is ok, the view great, the beer cheap.

Finally leave diu by 4 on a rough cracked road towards Sasan Gir. The road gets better after a few kms till we reach Kodinar town 40 km down. Kodinar is one of those places in India which is connected to the rest of the country by potholes rather than roads. Another 50 kms down we reach Talala town, which has earned its place in history by Amol having the first puncture in his bike's life there. We are about 18 kms from Sasan , its dark and the road is notorious for looting incidents. So the ride is in a close pack, with Kyle and Gaurav packed in a lil too close. Kyle's headlight not working. the ride though is excellent, smooth surface rising and dipping softly, the smell of foliage in the air and soothing sound of bulls syncronised in a moderate speed.

A stop for tea on the way to Talala turns out to be an amazing discovery. We are surrounded by onlookers as always, but this time it turns out to be people of African origin speaking Gujarati. We couldn't get the story of how they landed here but are informed that they number more than 10,000 in this area. Tea is excellent as it has always been ever since we have entered in Gujarat and Vinod has flipped over it so much he makes it a point to say it out. Others show their silent appreciation by drinking endless cups of the brew.



Finally reached Sasan village by 9-30 with the odo reading 26469. A reference led us to try booking us at the Taj Gir lodge foolishly, we had been promised to be helped out as much as possible. But at the Taj Gaurav was helped "out" politely.

That turned out be quite a blessing in disguise as we got a whole bungalow with a huge ground to ourselves for 2 nights and a day for only Rs. 100 per head. The food was Gujarati thali again much better this time. The conservator of forests we met to get to start before the official time the next day, turned out to b quite frustrated with class of tourists in a wildlife sanctuary. We did not get any concessions about the time. But he earned our respect as a genuine lover of wildlife than just a govt. officer doing his job.

We retired for the night. A few prefering to sleep outside on the charpais, only to know the next morning from the forest ranger that leopards frequent that area at night and are known to pick up their prey. Not that, that stopped them from repeating the act the next night. Maybe the forest rangers advised the leopards to stay away from Amol, Gaurav and Vinod.

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