TRACK THE RIDE

7.30 picked up Farida and Satish from the station and left Satish's bike for service at Ketan's garage.



9.00 superb aloo poha for breakfast. Thanks to a large heart and house of Amol's father, Mr. Jyoti Shukla, we had a good rest, food and our dose of spirit. Other bikes go for service, takes up better part of the day.



4.00 finally ready to leave after an hour's effort of fitting the world on the back of our bikes. odo reads - 25894 km. guys dispute the accuracy. I am open to negotiate. Out of Ahmedabad we cruise on a fantastic 4 lane highway amidst endless green fields, towards Kandla port, the smell of grass hangs thick in the air. Gaurav is happy he's finally got the guys to ride in formation. Amol stakes claim to the success.

5.45 reached Lothal, archaelogical remains of a 4000yr old port city of the Harappan era. Kyle doubts... 20 and already cynical? Odo- 25975. Thunderbird reads 78km fm Ahmedabad....

6.45 leave Lothal. its around 6km off the Badogra road. Two parties go in search of food and stay. the rest wait at the junction watching the stars.



8.15 Gaurav uses his charm to arrange both food and stay at Dhingda village 3 km away with a villager. Large house with a courtyard, bikes elegantly parked next to a ferrari red tractor. Two rooms, a huge verandah, and a pond attached to the village.. absolutely fantastic. Our host confesses we looked like devil's henchmen on the bikes and it scares their simple minds. The lone bulb goes off, power failure, and we plunge into a pure darkness. Gaurav screams with ecstacy as he plunges and asks me to log it. The lions come to us before we reach Gir, in the form of 'sinh' (lion) brand tobacco in a clay pipe. There is a change in the route, instead of heading to Amreli, we would be going south west to the Velavadhar Blackbuck Sanctuary.



Hot rotis, potato sabzi, mildly sweet dal, rice, butter milk, a meal so fulfilling, we were lucky. But Bhagwanbhai, our host, insisted he was fortunate to have us as guests. That by the way is his full time work now in his retirement.




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