The conductor handed me back 250
bucks and a receipt that said 178 rupees for one article, three pieces of
luggage. I looked at the receipt and then at him, he’d kept a 72 rupee tip for
himself and I was in no mood to argue so I let it be. Thanks, I said. Keep the
receipt safe, he replied, walking away. The cycle was safe in the hold of the
bus, underneath the seats. We were pulling out of Panjim and I’d be back in
Bangalore tomorrow morning.
leaving home. day1. 1:05 am. 0 k |
altitudinal profile of the route |
The way out was pretty straightforward, get
onto the Tumkur highway at Yeshvantpur and stick to it. After the initial bit
that has metro construction crap, the highway is broad and smooth and characteristically
undulating (characteristic of roads around Bangalore). I stopped outside a big
flood-lit petrol pump and took a breather. It was 3:15am and I guessed form how
far Tumkur was and from matching the uphill that I’d been climbing to the
altitudinal profile that I had that I’d come about 40 k. The base of my nape,
around the left trapezius, close to the vertebrae was beginning to throb with a
dull ache. This ache, a constant companion through the next four days of
riding, starting mildly at 40 k into the ride I thought wasn’t all that bad.
This had first come up on the
Nandi hill ride that I did four days back, a test ride to see if I and the bike
- after being serviced - were in any shape to ride long distance. The Nandi
hill ride is roughly 50k, 41 undulating ks to the base and than a 9k
unrelenting uphill. I managed the up in 3:45 and then was back home in good
time with just a tiny puncture that I could just pump up and ride before
replacing the tube in the shade of a parking lot back home. But the afternoon
heat had scared me on that ride and then the pain had started on the last
stretch. For that one afternoon, the prospects for the Goa ride had seemed dim,
but that was only until I was rested and bathed and then I figured that it just
had to be done.Think of how you'd feel having done this, Divya had said.
The only other preparation for
the ride was a 4k run the week before and a ride to Bannergatta. Sounds
foolhardy I guess, but then I workout regularly and that involves a lot of
cardio too so I kind of convinced myself that I’d be ok. And I’ve done long
rides before; though this was my first solo long ride; after the solo Nandi
ride that is. Fact is, I’d always wanted to do a long ride over a few days and
now suddenly the plan of a family holiday in Goa was the perfect excuse/
incentive to ride there. So the ride plan caught me unawares about 10 days
before the day I actually left and I didn’t really have much time at hand. I
like cycling. I’m going to Goa. Why not ride to Goa? On the long rides I’d
often had the feeling that I could go on like this forever, pedaling away on my
beloved bicycle. Well, now was the time to test that notion.
So I stretched a bit, shook my
arms and legs and sat down for a bit. The slightly tangy real mixed fruit juice
tasted really nice. I consulted the alt profile and it was more or less
downhill from here all the way to Gubbi, another 40k away. The highway is quite
well lit right up to the Tumkur bypass where you get off NH 48, skirt around
the town and join NH 73. This is where you get off the golden quadrangle. I had
the headlamp on throughout and now it came in real handy. On the bypass there
was very little traffic and though the road wasn’t as good as the highway, it
wasn’t bad. But then at one point I completely missed a narrow groove in the
road and took a hard bump with the chain coming off. Being paranoid I quickly
checked to make sure the tires were ok, but the hero hawk is a sturdy bike and
gave me very little trouble over the four days.
refueling stop. the best cold packed subway sandwich ever. near gubbi. day1. 5:10am. 80 k |
It was 5:10am when I stopped and
I’d come about 80k. the passing vehicles were slowing down to check me out but
I felt strangely safe throughout the trip, though people, both back home and
those that I met on the road, often warned me to be careful since I was
travelling alone. It felt slightly cold after the break, but steady pedaling
soon warmed me up. After Gubbi was a nice steady uphill that I climbed to a
quickly brightening sky. At the end of the long up I stopped and was pleasantly
surprised to see the sun coming up behind me. A few ks and another shorter
uphill later it was already hot and I was sweating away. So out came the
sun-glasses and a custom made head-band cut out from an old t-shirt. These were
invaluable accessories whose value I’d realized from other long hot rides. Nothing
tires you like squinting in the hot afternoon sun and constantly wiping the
sweat off your brows to keep it from running into your eyes. Your brows keep
the sweat out of your eyes initially, but after hours of riding with the head
tilted slightly forward, the sweat begins to drip from the sides straight into
your eyes and it’s a pain to keep wiping it out.
random break to see the sunrise and recover from tiring uphill.
day1. 6:30am. 100 k |
There were the usual guys sipping
chai and reading the papers, chatting to the owner who was making the steaming
hot idlis. It’s obvious that they are intrigued by the stranger but they’re
slow to start asking the questions. But once they start, they come fast and
quick. I’m going to Goa. Coming from Bangalore. Yes, on the cycle. Yes, cycling
all the way. No, I’m actually from Punjab. Yes, I’m Indian. Yes, I know of
Yuvraj Singh. Yes I speak a bit of Kannada (this often surprises me, for this
question always comes much later in these shaky conversations and the
interrogators often seem to overlook the fact that we’ve been talking in
Kannada – though broken, on my side - so far). No, the cycle’s not very
expensive. I started really early this morning. No! Touch madalla. Don’t touch
that please. Then someone new would arrive, ask similar questions of the people
already there before turning to me and we’d go through it all over again. The
owner was nice and smiling. I refilled the water, said my goodbyes, and was on
my way again.
The original plan had been to get
beyond Arsikere, 160k from Bangalore, before I stopped for the night. That’s
because I wanted to get to Sagara (340k) by the second night and crash with
Suji, a good friend. I’d visited Suji before in Sagara and having at least one
stop pre-planned was a source of great comfort. But since I’d been riding well and the cycle
had been behaving so well, the plan at this point was to get to Arsikere before
it got unbearably hot and then take a short break, sit the afternoon out, and
ride as far as I could in the evening.
arsikere, 160k |
uprooted trees and no place to sit, beyond arsikere |
one
of the many stops in the afternoon when it got really hot.
this is an
early one at a culvert/ bus-stop near this
place called shettyhalli. day1. 11:30am. 170 k
|
The next stop was at a culvert under a large raintree that doubled as a bus-stop. There were some cows grazing around and at this old woman who wanted them to move in a particular direction, but I couldn’t really figure out which. Then she gave up and started chatting to some other folks sitting under a tree in the field nearby. An ox-cart passed me by here with a pair of sturdy-looking oxen pulling in front while 3 people sat in the back with some bundled up stuff. Since they were moving so slowly, I got nice long stares before being asked to take photos of them. No camera, I lied. They moved on. Then I figured I best just keep moving on slowly since I couldn’t really take a nap anyway. So I just poured water over my head and moved on myself.
At 11:30 I stopped at another
culvert-under-a-raintree bus-stop. This one was near this place called
Shettyhalli and was more used. There were people waiting for buses. So I lay
down at one end and after the initial lull while I finished an appy, the
questions started. There was a nice guy from nearby who got dropped off by a
motorbike. He answered my questions in turn. He was going to town. He lived in
shettyhalli, about 2k from there. He was indeed waiting for a bus (one asks
obvious questions to make small-talk). Then this grumpy old guy came with a
younger man. No, I’m not on a tour of the country. I’ve been cycling for two
days (they didn’t believe me anymore if I said I’d come from Bangalore in a
day) No, I don’t have coupons to eat at hotels. No, the government doesn’t pay
me for every k I cycle. I’m just doing this because… Well, time to move on.
So I just kept pouring water over
my head and slowly pedalling on. Soon I needed to refill the bottles and
luckily I saw this large nursery kind of place with women with their heads
covered by hats and cloths over their napes watering saplings in pots. As I
stopped and walked the cycle to the gate they looked extremely wary and this
young guy shouted back a no almost before I could finish my neer sikta? Can I
get some water? But then they registered what I was saying and said yes. I
passed by this little shed that had a few bottles kept under coconut fronds,
but I obviously didn’t want to eat into their cache. The young guy unscrewed
the shower head off his hose and I filled out my bottles. Kudiyuve neeru?
Drinking water? I asked half-heartedly and believed him when he said yes. Then
I quickly left as they looked skeptical still. By now I’d had a lot of water
and my stomach felt full, but I needed to eat something so I asked someone
where I could get something to eat and found a little chai place again. This
was tiny, a little hole in the wall. The fellow seemed sly from the outset.
Told me he could make food, dosas, when all he had were omlettes. And not even
bread, just omlettes. One double omlettes for 8 he said and then charged me 18
for two of them. Some people are kind in whatever capacity they can be, and
some are just cunning, as mean as they can possibly be.
There were women sitting around
with lots of light-weight colourful plastic pots. I asked them where the water
was going to arrive from and they said they were waiting for electricity. The
villages have one or more large cylindrical tanks painted with pictures of
goddesses, often by the roadside, about 8ft high and I’ve often seen people
filling water at these. They were waiting beside one of these now. There were
guys at the chai stall and the usual barrage of questions followed. There were
some new ones as well. No, it’s not solar powered. Yes, you have to pedal it
all the way.
I managed to ask if there was a
place to stay somewhere around, trying to gauge how difficult or easy it would
be to find a place later in the evening, and they said I should try the big
towns, Kadur, or Tarikere. And so on I went. Then there were lots of people
selling grapes by the roadside and I bought half a kilo from this woman for 20
bucks. They were grown in the vineyard behind her, but no, she wasn’t the
owner, she was just selling them. I asked her to wash them for me as part of
the bargain but then I realized that I still had more water on me that she had
in her bottle so I just washed them myself, and keeping them in the handle bag
kept popping a few as I cycled on.
Next I stopped at this school.
There were some kids playing carom in the verandah so I figured it must be a
school. So I went in and asked this guy who turned out to be a teacher if I
could just sit there and rest a while. There were four or five teachers there
and they were most gracious. I wanted to just sit in the verandah but they
insisted I sit on a chair inside and they even asked me if I’d like some lunch
but I declined saying I’d just eaten. I offered them grapes in return and they
were quite surprised to be offered grapes by the traveler, taking only one
each. We talked for some time, in English, which most of them could speak, and
answered each others’ questions. But it’s only so long you can keep chatting
and again I couldn’t really take a nap there so I decided to go on. I offered the
kids playing carom grapes before I left and they were really shy and burst out
laughing, only to be curtly told by the woman watching over them to behave like
humans in front of the stranger. For some reason I’d thought this bit would be
all industrial towns all the way to Shimoga but I was pleasantly surprised to
find small towns and villages dotting the largely agricultural landscape. A few
ks down the road I finally found a nice bus-stop, deserted but dusty, you can’t
have everything now can you? It was 2:30pm by now and incredibly hot. I pulled
the cycle in with me and lay down to take a short nap.
..................................................................................................................................
I woke up at 3:30pm, dusty and
sweaty, and started out again. I could just about see my shadow clinging to the
rear wheel to the right. The sun was like a large bouncing ball that goes up
fast and seems to come to a standstill at the zenith before beginning it’s
incredibly speedy descent. It reminded me of the question in the physics exams
about why basketball players seem to freeze at the top of the jump. Well the
sun was right now stuck to the top, not frozen, but stuck because it had caused
the fabric of the sky to melt and gone and gotten stuck. I find that I can ride
really well if I can see my shadow beside me, maybe it’s because being vain I
find inspiration in my own shadow riding well, or maybe it’s because you can
only see the shadow when the sun is lower. And while I was melting in the midst
of such musings I saw kids playing under the blazing sun in a courtyard. So I figured
if they could do it, so could I.
I found a building under
construction, tanked up on water and poured some all over myself form a hose.
The next five minutes felt really good, arms and legs cooled off as I rode on,
but the micro-climate management doesn’t last and I was drying up in no time. I
passed that ox cart somewhere on the way with an exchange of hand-waving and
quick questions.
Eventually the sun began to
relent as I approached Tarikere. It was too big a town to sleep in. I had the
vision of a small house, or a school, on the outskirts of a village, surrounded
by fields, where I could put up for the night. As I entered the town, weaving
through the main road traffic, the dull ache in the nape that had been
pestering me on and off gave a sharp twang and almost in the same instant I saw
a fresh juice shop and coasted to a stop in front of it. It was the best
chickoo milkshake ever; thick, chilled, not too sweet; two for 40 bucks;
totally worth it. It was 5:30pm and I had come about 240k. Bhadravati was
another 20k, I could maybe cross Bhadravati and find a place to sleep. I
checked the bike once and all seemed well.
And as the milestones told me I
was approaching Bhadravati, I started looking around at places that I thought
looked promising. I passed by some really good looking stuff, there were
isolated houses amongst green fields and this perfect looking little post
office with a verandah. But I got greedy and didn’t stop. The more distance I
cover today, the less I’ll have to ride tomorrow and then the ghat road from
Shimoga to Sagara was something I was very wary of. This would prove to be a
big mistake and I would soon discover that I could long for a post office that
I saw but for a split second.
Soon I saw the turn off for Bhadravati
dam and wildlife sanctuaruy. For some reason I assumed it would get greener and
better from here on but was quite disappointed when the sign said welcome to
the industrial town of Bhadravati. The road turns left here and you don’t
really enter the town, just skirt through the egdes and on towards Shimoga.
There were signs for paper mills and what not and the roads were lined with
dumps and waste instead of the fields and forests I’d been hoping to see. By
now the sun had set and I figured I best start asking around.
First up was Don Bosco Institute
or Technical College or something. It was an impressive building complete with
a big gate that was open. There were a group of boys about 16 - 18 years old
playing football and I asked one of them where the main office was. The
office’s there but the headmaster’s standing there by the field, you can go
talk to him, he said. The headmaster was a young fellow of about 30 maybe,
standing with, I assumed, another teacher. All the boys gathered up around us
as I approached him to see what the strange cyclist wanted. I felt a pang of nostalgia at his stern, go
have your bath boys, and I thought of how cool it would be to stay here. But it
was not to be. Today’s Thursday, he said, and Father’s at the church. He won’t
be back for another half an hour and I don’t have the authority to let you
stay, maybe you can wait and talk to him. Maybe I could’ve stayed and convinced
the Father, but it was getting late and I didn’t want to take any chances, so I
decided to try my luck elsewhere. Soon as I told the headmaster that he relaxed
and started asking me questions about my trip, but I had to cut him short and
move on.
The only other person who’d done
something like this was a friend who’d cycled form Bombay to Goa and stayed
with people. He’d even kept in touch with some of them and he’d told me how
kind they’d been. His strategy had been to catch them working or sitting
outdoors as he cycled past in the evening, while it was still light, get
talking and get them to ask him to stay. Or at least that’s what I remembered.
That’s how I’d thought it’d work for me. It didn’t, of course.
I asked at two more places.
Homes, this time. At the first place they were sitting outdoors, the man, his
wife moving some hay, the kids playing, some other guy working by the wall. I
was very discreet and indirect, dropping hints. Is there a place to stay
somewhere here? Just sleep, actually, since I have my own stuff. No, no, not a
hotel, a school maybe? A post-office? There’s a hotel 2k down the road, he
said, or try the town you just left behind. I asked directly at the next place,
using the single largest Kannada sentence I knew, nanage illi ondu ratri
irrakolakke jaaga kodake aggatta? will it be possible to give me a place to
stay here for one night? Not caring for even the effort I’d taken to memories
and say that, he said a prompt no.
I almost stopped at one of those
cheap looking over-priced restaurant/hotels on the way, but then thought better
of it. I was tramping after all, right? I couldn’t possibly pay to sleep. The
world is supposed to be full of places where you can sleep, I mean all you need
is that much clean space to spread out your sleeping bag, right? Right. Until
it gets dark. Then you can’t see much beyond the lights close to the road and
most lights off the road could be potential places but you don’t feel very
inclined to check them out. Oh how I longed for that post-office.
So then I stopped at a small
dhaba. Oota sikta? Food available? Yes, he says. He looks like a decent chap
and by now I’m quite relaxed since I have nothing to lose and so I casually ask
him if he can give me a place to sleep as well. He points to the bench along
the wall and asks if I’d like to sleep there, sure, I say, anything. Cool then,
sleep there later. How much? I ask him, best to get these things sorted right
at the beginning. No money, just sleep if you want to. It’s 7:15pm, I’ve come
260k and I have a place to sleep. Excellent.
I’ll eat in some time I tell him
and he says I can wash up outside where there’s a woman washing utensils from a
large drum of water. Then a couple of guys turn up and the inevitable questions
begin. Now these guys are drinking and the owner comes up to me and says
something about a watchman which I don’t entirely understand but he lets it be.
Eventually this guys shows up who speaks hindi and I get the whole story. He is
Mohammed Iliaz, a thinly-built balding man of about 40, the watchman that the
owner had been referring to. He explains to me over coffee that since the
dhaba’s not a very safe place with all sorts of characters coming, the owner
has suggested I go sleep at the watchman’s place just down the road, it’s the
one with the big light, he points. Cool, awesome, I’ll come over after dinner I
tell him as he pays for the coffee. The dinner is sambar-anna with some gram
and pickle. It’s a lot of food. That and two sweet buns that I pick up for the
next morning come to 20 bucks. I thank the owner and head for the light down
the road.
mohammed iliaz, the
watchman. very kind man. outside bhadravati.
day1. 7:15pm. 260 k. / day2. 4:05 am. 260k (0 k) |
I’d asked Iliaz if there was a
place to bathe and he’d said there’s water flowing nearby and I could bathe
there, so now I asked him to show me the place so I could bathe in the meanwhile. About
20 metres down the road we turned in and went past an abandoned house (I could
sleep here, I’m thinking in my head) and some abandoned fields. There were no
lights and we used torches on the narrow path between the fields to reach the
little canal that was flowing parallel to the road. It must’ve been about 10 ft
wide, maybe 12, with cemented sides and there were steps in the sloping bank
just where we’d come out. I went back to fetch my clothes, asked him to watch
my cycle, which wasn’t necessary, and though I trusted him, brought my wallet
with me anyway. It didn’t have much money, but the cards would be a pain to
replace. I watch the trucks, I’ll watch the bike, he told me, don’t you worry.
The water was cold and
fast-flowing. It couldn’t have been very clean, but there wasn’t anything
floating in it, it smelled ok, and I could see the first three steps quite
clearly so I figured it was ok, switched off the torch and went skinny-dipping.
I could feel the weariness getting washed away as I just sat there in the dark.
Moments from the day flashed past my shut eyes and made me smile. I’d come a
long way, I was amongst strangers, far away from anyone or anything I knew, day
1 of being footloose and fancy-free. Only reason I eventually left was I didn’t
want to fall ill.
The manager was packing up as I
got back, the truck hadn’t turned up yet but he had to get home. That truck
came later and I half-remember hearing Iliaz telling them about me half-asleep.
It was 10 by the time I opened up my sleeping bag and put it on the wooden
bench outside since Iliaz suggested the breeze was good there and there were
some people watching tv behind a partition in the main office. But then after
an hour and a half of mosquito-buzzed disturbed sleep I got out some odomos and
moved to the floor inside the office. The next thing I remember is Iliaz waking
me up at 3:45 the next morning like I’d asked him to.
I’d rinsed my cycling shorts,
shorts and t-shirt the previous night and put them on the barb-wire fence
around the compound. I changed behind one of the parked trucks, washed my face
and was ready to leave. I took a picture of Iliaz with the bike and was shaking
his hand, saying goodbye when he says, paisa, money? Well, I asked, how much?
slightly disappointed. Whatever you feel like, he says, as a remembrance. He did
treat me to coffee last night, so I shouldn’t be so grumpy I figured, but
still. I gave him a 50. It was hardly anything, but he was fine with that.
It was 4:05am when I left. I
didn’t feel very rested and my legs didn’t feel all that solid. My toe-tips hurt
and my butt was still sore from all the riding yesterday. Maybe if the place to
stay had been more comfortable, I’d have contemplated staying back another day,
but given the situation, I was more than happy to leave and get to Sagara.
Getting through Shimoga in the
dark was a bit of a pain but there were people at almost all the major
intersections and I went asking for Sagara. The road had been bad in patches
near most major towns and it was worse leaving Shimoga. And there were uphills
in store to boot. I stopped outside the flood-lit gates of a big educational
institute after about an hour of riding because the nape was killing me. I
refilled water from the large can in the watchman’s cabin where there were two
guys sitting while a sweeper swept the entrance. I stretched a bit, trying to
relax the muscles in my neck and back. No one goes in 100 percent fit, Matt
Damon says to Nelson Mandela in Invictus. I
thank whatever gods may be
for my unconquerable soul.
for my unconquerable soul.
So then I go on. the road is good
and the edge is marked with a white strip. This was really good because the
headlights form the oncoming vehicles can be blinding, so I would focus my
headlamp on the white strip and ride when they came. The trucks would sometimes
even give me a dipper, lower their lights for an instant and that really
helped. The climb was tiring, but I’d been expecting it so it was ok. That way
the altitudinal profile was very helpful. Soon it started becoming light and I
found myself riding a smooth, broadly undulating road. I passed Ayanur in this
early morning light before the sun was up and stopped in my tracks as I spotted
a large owl sitting on a peepal right above the middle of the road. I could
barely make out it’s silhouette and it flew away as I looked up and saw its
eye-shine. There were nice forest patches between the villages now and I passed
by some patches that looked like erstwhile teak plantations.
The terrain was not as bad as I
feared. The uphills, though steep, were mostly short (there were the long ones,
of course, but interspersed with these short ones) and then the downhills were
nice and smooth. The first day I’d been switching between gears four and five
on the overall down undulating roads and between three and four on the overall
up undulating roads. Now I went between three and five, zipping from one
downhill to halfway up the next uphill, very much like the flyovers near Mekri
in Bangalore. Then when the sun came up I got the sunglasses and headband on
and kept the sweet bun in the handle bag to take a bite or two of when I could.
And I kept sipping form the hydration pack. This is an excellent accessory
because before I got it, every long ride would end with the lining of my mouth,
the palate and tongue peeled dry, making eating and even drinking really
painful. This part of the ride felt excellent, it was like cycling heaven: broad
smooth creamy roads, lots of downhills (and uphills, well) and green fields or
green forests on the sides.
And oh! this is where those
painful rumble strips were. One thing I absolutely hate in life are
speed-breakers. When I’m in an auto or a car, I end up hitting my head against
the roof or a metal bar or something or the other and it’s insanely irritating.
On the cycle, many of them you can just speed over and feel like a boss, but
then they come with innovative designs like the little narrow steep ones that
you can’t even bunny-hop over that they’ve put up all over IISc, or the rumble
strip, a series of little bumps. Usually they’re 3 – 5 of them, but here they’d
gone overboard and put up like 10 – 12 in a row and that too at the bottom of
the downhill. The first one I completely missed, went onto the pedals just in
time, lost my footing as I went over it and was thrown back down onto the seat
with a painful thud. Painful. I was much more careful next time onwards.
Then I crossed Chordi, a lovely
little village, all cleanly swept and the houses all with washed verandahs, and
bought some biscuits at a bakery which I again kept in the handle bag and kept
popping now and then. I passed some forest department signs too and felt elated
that I didn’t have to deal with them, I was just whizzing past them.
I had stopped at a culvert for a
breather when this guy on a bike pulled up and started talking to me. After the
usual questions he surprised me by saying, you are our state guest, please feel
at home, and have a nice time. That felt really good. He lived nearby he said
and was going into town for some work. The name of the villages in these parts
are written on big concrete boards in kannada which I can read a bit of, though
now it’s hard to remember any of the names and they don’t show up on google
maps.
outside suji's place, sagara. and that's it for the day!
day2. 9:35am. 345 k (85 k) |
Well, I reached Sagara, asked for
the bus-stop and then coasted to a stop outside Suji’s place at 9:35am, having
finished the 85k planned for the day. I’d told him I’d be there by afternoon
but I’d arrived early, so I gave him a call to wake him up.
breakfast with suji-always-busy. sagara |
All I did that day was eat and sleep. I bathed and we went for breakfast after which I took a short nap. He woke me up for a nice leisurely lunch after which I came back and slept until late in the evening. Then I accompanied him on a few errands for he is quite the man about town, an entrepreneur actually with an amazing start-up of his own. (If you want to make arrangements for a wedding, construct a house, spend a quiet weekend out of town, or just want groceries delivered to your door-step, he’s your man in Sagara). Then in the evening he asked if I’d like to accompany him to a friend’s place about 20k out of town to see jaggery being made the traditional way. Sure, I said, why not? But we must come back in time for an early dinner so I get a good night’s sleep before I leave at four tomorrow. Sure thing, said Suji.
the sugarcane |
from juice to jaggery |
It was 11:00pm by the time we
finished dinner. All of that day Suji did not let me spend a paisa on food
every time we went out to eat. And there was no point arguing, you can pay when
I come to Bangalore, he’d say. Back at his place I packed up for the next day,
I’d bought some juice and cake and everything seemed set by the time I went to
sleep at 11:30pm. But the next morning was far from smooth.
..................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................
I’d put two alarms one for 3:30am
and another for 3:45. But when I put off the first one, for some reason, the
second one went off as well. I was in the middle of a dream when the
realization that I ought to be cycling woke me up with a jolt, and scrambling
for my phone I was aghast to see that it was 5:30am. I’d overslept. I stumbled
to the loo, luckily remembered to pick up my cycling shorts that were drying on
the wire outside and shoved them into the jhola, and was good to go in five
minutes flat. Then I woke Suji up to say goodbye, it’s just a little late,
don’t worry and go easy, he said. It was nice to have someone there to say that
to me.
But I got onto my bike and at the
first pedal, the chain came off. Someone had fiddled with the gear-shifter
while the bike had been parked there. Oh god, not this, not now, I thought, and
quickly put the chain back on. I cycled away from there and as I hit the first
uphill and shifted to a lower gear, the chain came off again. This happened
thrice more in the next one kilometer, but then the cycle found it’s rhythm,
the gears seemed to ease into the place and I realized how I could never have
made it so far without the bike behaving as well as it had. I changed into the
cycling shorts (beneath my shorts) at one of the wayside bus-stops and tried to
tell myself that it wasn’t all that late. It did actually work to my advantage
because the highway leading out of Sagara isn’t marked on the sides with white
lines and it was really painful every time something came charging from the
opposite side, headlights blazing. So it was with a sigh of relief that I saw
the sky brightening up soon after.
The highway heads to Honavar on
the coast, going along the Jog valley, but I’d decided to head straight for
Kumta which is further north along the coast from Honavar. For one it was
slightly shorter, and second and more importantly, it meant that I’d be off the
highway and riding through the interiors for
some time. So then I asked around a bit and turned right for Siddapura at an
unmarked fork, left the highway behind, and wasn’t surprised when the road
wasn’t as good as the highway anymore. The forest until you hit Siddapura is
more or less deciduous, interspersed by fields and acacia plantations which are
the forest department’s helf-witted attempts at reforestation. But as you leave
Siddapura behind, the forest begins to gradually change and before long I was
riding through tall thick trees of an evergreen rainforest.
between siddapura and bilgi. left sagara at 5:45am.
day3. 8:00am. 390 k (45k) |
I forget her name now. I’ve never
been very good at remembering names, but I rarely feel bad about forgetting
them. There were a few kids cycling to school, in twos and threes, all on the
standard working man’s Hero bicycle for guys. One of the boys tried to keep up
with me for a few ups and downs but it was tough with a single-gear bike. With
kids, and people in general actually, it was always tough to predict how they’d
react to you. Like I was making eye-contact with at least a three-digit-number
of people everyday, some smiled back, some didn’t, some waved me on, while some
gave me blank stares. (Worst, of course, were the small number always in groups
who would shout or whistle or call out just to attract my attention and then
snigger about it, quite irritating.)
the forest goes evergreen |
descending a parallel valley north of the jog valley.
siddapur-kumta road. day3. 9:30am. 410 k (65k)
|
level ground again.
~day3. 9:30am. 410 k (65k) |
the descent, road under construction, so only two-wheeler traffic.
~day3. 9:30am. 410 k (65k) |
one of the afternoon stops. very hot and a rather bad road. day3. 11:00am. 430k (85k) |
I stopped for a breather at 9:50am and by then the road was quite bad. I didn’t know it then but it would only get worse until I reached the coast at Kumta and joined the highway again. For now, I was in the land of the whitewashed milestones. They were all blank, painted over and very irritating because by now I’d come to rely on them a lot. I cycled along a river for some time here but couldn’t really see it, just knew that it was there because of the strip of greener trees. This was slightly disappointing but then I left it behind and passed lots of villages. The road was narrow with lots of potholes and repair patches and so the going was slow. The only consolation was that there were the occasional shade trees which were as much a relief to cycle under as they were to take a break beneath. There really is nothing quite like the shade of a tree; and you need to take a walk on a summer afternoon to realize that.
I was supposed to bypass Kumta
and head straight for Mirjan, which was the next town, but I guess I missed
that turn at some point. I tried asking people but they weren’t very sure of
where it was so then I just stuck to the road I was on. To my immense relief,
about 15k from Kumta the road condition improved, I was on smooth black tar
once again. My first sight of the coast was from a bridge over a river that turned and met the sea in the distance. I stood in the middle of the bridge in brain-boiling heat and took a picture. I crossed over and asked at a stall, oota sikta? and they stared back as if I had spoken a foreign tongue, though i was well within the borders of Karataka. And then it sank in, Kannada won't work anymore. They spoke Konkani, a dialect closer to Marathi, spoken all along the coast.
where the river meets the sea. near kumta.
day3. 1:00 pm. 450 k (105 k) |
At Kumta I turned onto the
coastal highway and for a brief moment actually missed the quiet ride on the
bad roads, but then the roads made up for it. And then I saw the sea, or
started seeing bits of it and that kept me going for some time, in spite of the
heat. The altitudinal profile had warned me that this highway is
super-undulating and it lived up to its reputation. Lunch was at a road-side
shack at about 1:15, and I’d come about 115k since morning. It was extremely
hot by now, the sun right overhead, with no shade on the highway. I put the
cycle up against the wall of the shack, in the thin strip of shade under the
thatch that extended out a bit. There were some kids half-heartedly selling
mogra flowers to a couple of other customers.
The guy, who tuned out to be the
cook, was a bit disappointed when I chose sambar-anna over chicken or fish. But
he was pleasant enough, the sort who move from one tourist hotspot to another
depending on the season; he’d been at Gokarna last, he said. The owner arrived
later and he too was nice, but by now the general impression I made was that of
a freak, or at least that’s what it seemed like to me. Until I was in the ghats
the people had been kinder, on an average more pleasantly intrigued by my trip.
Now the intrigue was giving way to skepticism and a strange wariness. The
questions too taking on the tone of, why would you want to do such a thing?
riding beside a river.
~day3. 3:30pm. 465 k (120k) |
After food, I sat around a bit
longer, lingering over a local lemon cold-drink called cheers, but then finally
decided to move on at 2:30. Food got costlier as I approached Goa and my lunch was
about 85 bucks I think. From there on, the altitudinal profile showed a more or
less a regular pattern of spikes, about one every 5k, joined by the regular
undulations. They were proper uphills, forcing me to go to second gear, and of
course I made the most of the downhills. For some time I was actually riding next
to a river and couldn’t resist going down for a quick wash to cool down. The
smell of the sea was strong, right form the time I’d reached Kumta, and would
stay with me through the rest of the ride.
another random afternoon break. this time to cool down
by the river. ~day3. 3:30pm. 465 k (120k)
|
The next town was Ankola and I could try getting a place to sleep there, I thought. So I rode easy for some time, stopping often to take in the scenery. From the tops of most of the uphills, you get a good view of the sea, mostly mongroove and the water coming in in a network of broad interconnected channels. The traffic on the highway wasn’t too bad, the trucks were far better behaved than I’d expected. In fact loaded trucks and tractors moved at about the same speed as me, especially on the uphills. The worst are the buses, speeding and overtaking like insane. It’s really bad in parts where the highway is not four-laned, then the vehicles coming from the opposite side push you off the road in their bid to overtake. And buses take forever to overtake, driving alongside whatever they’re overtaking, taking up the whole road. Initially I’d just stay on as long as a I could and then quickly get off the road, making loud what-the-fuck gestures at the bus with my hand. This is until I saw this one bus driver actually looking at me gesturing with his chin for me to get off the road while he maneuvered the steering with both his hands. The problem with me is that more often than not I start to see the other person’s point of view, like the bus driver must’ve been having a tough time overtaking on the uphill or something of that sort, and then it’s hard to stay angry. Anyway, the realisation that I could directly talk to the drivers brought about a change of tactics. By the third day I was gesturing wildly to any potentially hazardous overtakers to stay in their lane. Big hand waves, before pulling off the road sometimes, as they came at me anyway; but in some of the cases it did work.
And the head-winds. As any
bicyclist will tell you, if you’re riding, and it’s windy, it’s got to be a
headwind. Mostly it’s hitting you straight head-on, if not then from 11 or 1
o’clock. I’m yet to experience wind that assists your ride. So every day in the
afternoon, as if the heat wasn’t enough, the wind would pick up and I’d have to
struggle against it.
At one point I stopped at a
culvert over a little dry canal or drain or something, under a gulmohar. I was
lying there with my eyes shut for about five minutes before I realized that the
smell was suddenly much stronger, more rotten carcass than fishy. I sat up to
see the skeleton of a goat, shrink-wrapped in discoloured hide staring back at
me with hollow eyes. I lay down again and decided to just ignore the smell. The
trip showed me some lovely sights, but then the world is quite unbiased when it
comes to throwing sights at you. When you set out to see the world, you get to
see the good, the bad and the ugly in the correct proportion. I passed a lot of
road-kills, dogs mostly, some birds, some rats and disproportionately more
snakes in goa. And somewhere on the first day I cycled past this horrible scene
that I couldn’t make much sense of. There were dead chicken all over the place,
dead and decaying, feathers and all. Must’ve been an accident involving a truck
carrying chickens, but then there were dead chickens hanging from trees and
bushes. And feathers everywhere. It looked like a truck carrying chickens had
exploded.
But then as I got up to leave
from the culvert, there were these two girls fetching water. Or were they
carrying school bags? I forget. One must’ve been about 14 and the other 8. They
didn’t come close but asked questions from afar, smiling broadly at my
responses. And when I finally got on the bike to leave they blew me flying
kisses. I was smiling for the next few kilometers.
i watched with great satisfaction, a bus struggling uphill |
the sea from the highway
|
After an especially long and tiring uphill I came upon a little temple right on top. Temples are good places to put up since they generally have water and walls. This one had neither. While I was chewing on a bun, contemplating staying there anyway since it did have a good view and clean stone slabs, I saw this man get off his scooter and watch the sun set. He’d not stopped to pee or something, actually just watch the sun set over the town sprawling in an arc below us, hugging the sea. I promptly went over and struck up a conversation. As I’d expected, he lived in the town that we were looking down upon (literally for now, but soon, metaphorically as well) and was just heading home. So far so good. Now if I could only get an invitation out of him. Are there places to stay there? Like maybe schools or post-offices, I asked him, what’s the beach like? No no, he said, this is not a good place, it’s a fishing town with all sorts of people, not safe at all; you better head for Karwar. And that was that.
the sun setting upon the town we looked down upon |
A few kilometers before Karwar
there is extensive Navy presence and there was this big barbwire-topped wall
along the road starting well before the beginning of the last big uphill, that
cut off the view of the sea completely. I cycles past what looked like a
ship-building/ repair dock, past some brightly coloured boats on a beach and
then into the town. I pulled up sharp opposite this building which the board said
was the fisheries research institute. Institutes I thought were good places to
try and get a bed, people would be more willing to accommodate you since they’re
not personal property. But the guy there refused to let me stay and suggested I
try the municipality offices, I asked for the way to the beach instead.
karwar beach. done for the day.
day3. 7:10pm. 525 k (180k) |
Ten leagues beyond the wide
world’s end:
Methinks it is no journey.
It’s from an old
poem called tom a bedlam, that I’d come across on a bicycle touring blog. The
last para goes:
With an host of furious fancies
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse
of air,
To the wilderness I wander.
By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to a tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wide
world’s end:
Methinks it is no journey.
The Rabindranath Tagore Beach in
Karwar is a nice place. At 7:30 it was dark, lit by only a few large flood
lights. There were lots of families sitting around, kids playing in the sand,
couples walking, people generally going about their own business. I wondered if
I could get someone to ask me to stay at their place. But it’s always more
difficult when it’s you approaching the person; it’s the same principles of
animal behaviour that apply to befriending dogs, or kids. So I tried to strike
up a conversation by asking some people to take a pic of me with my cycle, but
it didn’t work. They took the pic and left, no one seemed to be curious enough
to ask me what I was doing there with my bicycle. So then I asked people
tangentially about places to stay and plainly got told the names of a few
hotels. In short, I wasn’t having much luck. So I decided to spend the night on
the beach; but I had to go get dinner first.
I ate at a roadside stall and
asked the rajasthani owner for cheap hotels. I figured I should give these a
look over once in case I needed to locate them later in the night. The first
one I went to was 400 bucks for the room and hot water, the second one that I
didn’t go to (because the reception was up a flight of steps in a crowded
street and I didn’t want my cycle to disappear) I was told would be 200. Then I
headed back to the beach which was still crowded at 8:30. I found a nice spot
in the soft dry sand and lay down just above the waterline with my head-band
beneath my head. I put the cycle right next to me and held onto the wheel with
one hand as I dozed off.
I half expected to be evicted in
some time, or at least be woken up and asked what I was doing there, by
policemen at best and drunken louts at the worst. But when I woke up an hour
later because of the mosquitoes, the beach was deserted. The only others around
were the people sleeping on the concrete below the flood-lights. Now that was a
very sensible thing to do because by now I had sand all over me and in my
clothes and it wasn’t the most comfortable I’ve been. No one, however, seemed
to have a problem with me sleeping there, so I applied odomos against the
mosquitoes, grainy with sand particles, and went back to sleep, hand gripping
the wheel.
..................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................
When I woke up at 2:30am it was because of the cold. I felt really foolish because I had a sleeping bag in the jhola but I couldn’t use it because I was all sandy. I guess I could’ve used it, but I was afraid once in, I’d never be able to get the sand out of it again. So I tossed and turned a bit but when that didn’t help, the only thing to do was to move on. I cycled a few kilometers out of town and the pedaling warmed me up a bit. I came to a bridge and took a short nap on the pavement, holding onto the cycle again. The whole bridge would shake when a big truck passed over it and the sea below looked beautiful, a dark expanse only reflecting the distant streetlights. I must’ve slept there for about half an hour but it was still cold. And the most frustrating bit was that in a few hours it would be too hot to cycle! Such is nature and such the tolerance of man. I stopped one or two more times but figured it wasn’t worth it and that I’d best go on.
on the highway between karwar and canacona.
day4. 5:10am. 545 k (20k) |
on the highway between karwar and canacona.
day4. 6:00am. 555 k (30k) |
I crossed into Goa before dawn
that day. Riding in the dark was not too painful because there wasn’t too much
traffic and more importantly, the highway in this part is marked on the sides
by reflectors. On one of the long, slow uphills I had the road all to myself.
It was pitch dark and all I could see were the reflectors shining in the light
of my headlamp, snaking their way up into nothingness. As a kid I’d read the
story of the pandavs and draupadi climbing up to the heavens, accompanied by a
dog. This is what I imagined the road would’ve been like; though there were no
cliffs for me to fall off here.
outside canacona. planning over chai and
biscuits. day4. 6:55am. 565 k (40k)
|
Soon it was light and in a few more stops to catch my breath I was near Canacona. The uphills today had been steeper and longer but up ahead lay the biggest uphill of the trip; it was a 5k long uphill that went from near sea-level to about 175m at the top. So it was time for some nice sweet chai along with some nice, well, biscuits, since that was all they had at 6:55 in the morning.
cow |
This is nothing compared to Nandi hill I kept telling myself as I pushed up that one, sweating away. And then there was the lovely downhill to look forward to. There are two kinds of people in the world, those who fear downhills, thinking that every downhill will be punished with an uphill, and those who relish uphills, thinking that every uphill is rewarded by a downhill. I fall in the latter category. Another big uphill and then the highway starts going through small goan towns with walled, narrow roads and houses on both sides. These towns are interspersed with green open fields and coconut groves. After one of the long downhills, I had to tighten the brakes on the front wheel that had come loose a bit. This was the only repair the cycle needed in the four days of riding. The freewheel on the rear wheel, I think, kind of started to creak towards the end too, but that was almost near Panjim and I managed to ride it alright to Candolim and back to the bus-stop five days later.
margaon.
day4. 9:50am. 595 k (70k) |
tiswadi, near panjim.
day4. 11:00 am. 610 k (85k) |
At a fork, I asked a woman selling
aluminium utensils which way Candolim was. It always surprises me how people
like her make a living since she had just about 5 pots with her to sell. How does
the newspaper stall pay for itself? What about the guy with like a small basket
of oranges on the bicycle? Maybe I should ask the newspaper guy the next time I
pass him by.
and finally, candolim beach.
day4. 1:00pm. 635 k (110k) |
It was 1:00 in the afternoon, and I’d come 110k that day. It was done. I’d come from Bangalore to Goa by cycle. Bicycle. 635k in four days. I lazed around a bit in the chair and then asked the guy to look after my cycle while I went to the sea for a dip. They had lounge beds laid out under large umbrellas and I went and slept in one of these until it was time for mum’s flight.
15 comments:
awesome efforts dude, we all crave for high performance bikes, and u did this very difficult task, on a very modest bike.
hats off to ur courage !!!
keep up the good work
thanks man!
Very impressive..and that too u were alone....hats off.
I have no words man! What are you ? a human being? you lived for an entire lifetime in those 4 days. And what a blog too. Congrats and may you live many such lives.
Fantastic ride! It took me a day to finish reading the write up, but it made my day!! Felt like I am riding the bike!
About never feeling tail wind.. You cannot 'feel' the tail wind until the tail wind gets faster than your bike. Relativity!
Excellent ride and a narrative that matches the superb spirit of the writer! Kudos, Sartaj! Loved it! :)
thanks guys :)
hey, awesome stuff...thats really pushing yourself physically quite hard...hope to join you someday somewhere...cheers!
sure thing karthik.
Nice meeting you yesterday, and i should say, your journey is one inspiring stuff for me to continue cycling.
amazing!! hats off.
A crisp write up.
I too own a hawk and your travelling story changed my opinion on hawk. Lets meet up.
Krishna....
Well done man! That was an excellent blog. To cycle from Bangalore to Goa in 4 days! Phew!!
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Nice and interesting information and informative too.
Can you please let me know the good attraction places we can visit: Bangalore To Goa
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