Celebrating Diwali- BN Style

Trip Duration- 3 days
Distance- 1178 Kms
Mumbai- Chiplun-Kunkeshwar-Malvan-Pavas-Ratnagiri-Ganpatiphule-Mumbai

Day 1

As I left from home at 10:00 Pm I was thinking about the unusual turn of events. I had almost decided to go on a solo ride to Hedvi when Vinod called at 7:00PM. “where do u wana go” I asked. “Lets meet up at Vashi den we will decide” came the reply. We rode out of Vashi toll naka at 11:00Pm with no destination in mind. We were doing good speed and reached Vadkal about 70 kms from Vashi at 11:50 PM. A small halt for chai, a couple of calls later we were off at 12:15 AM. Still no destination in mind. once past Vadkhal things got really trickybeing amavas it was pitch dark. Our puny little headlights were no help at all. About 5kms from Vadkal Vinod suddenly veered to the right and narrowly missed a man lying in the middle of the road. On the left we could see an Autorickshaw had rammed into a tree. We stopped and Vinod asked me “what do u wana do”, lets check, said I. So we backtracked. We could see the man twitching a little bit. I feared the worst. My mom’s words came rushing back to me “beta its amavas today. Not a good day. dont ride tonight.” Scared to hell we checked upon the man only to find that he was drunk way beyond limits. We woke him up; he walked a couple of feet to the side of the road and fell asleep again. We continued a little more cautious now. The second scare came in the form of an 18 wheeled trailer with no lights whatsoever. Vinod again braked hard to avoid rear ending it. I was thinking now if it was a good idea to ride at night. We rode mile after mile with the only trace of life being a lizard or a snake crossing the road. Finally we reached Poladpur at 2:00Am, and stopped for some chai. We had covered a distance of 180KMs in 3hours. Not bad I thought. With still no destination in mind we decided to ride on to Chiplun. We took on Kashedi ghat at 2:15 am. Kashedi was a great experience during the day and I was curious to find out if it was as much fun at night. In fact it was. The eeriness and silence broken by the growl of our engines made it even more fun. The thing with a ghat like Kashedi is, no matter if u like riding or not. No matter how tired you are. It refreshes you. 3:05AM we reach Chiplun and things are a getting a little tough now. Not because of the fatigue but because of the dense mist. The visibility was barely 10-15 feet. But after a short break we decide to ride on. Still no destination in mind. But things get even worse. The mist is denser, the roads are bad, there is condensation on our visors. My jacket, gloves, pants are wet cause of the dew. And the worst part is we cannot see beyond 10 feet. Earlier we managed to cover a distance of 280 km in 5 hrs. but with the conditions change we struggled to cover a distance of 40 km in 1 1\2 hrs.

The Mist at Kasedi ghat.

We reach Sangameshwar at 6:00 AM and decide to halt for the night. Check into a local lodge and straight off to sleep. 10:15 Am the phone rings and there is Prasad askin me where we had reached. I sleepily answer his call and off to sleep again. Finally wake up at 10:30Am. Walk sleepily to the balcony and it’s the best view ever. The sun warming me every so gently and all the green around soothing my eyes. Inquiries from the hotel manager reveal that there is a hot water spring nearby. I and Vinod decide to take a bath the natural way. But damn the water is too hot. back to the thotel room and after a very conventional bath and a heavy breakfast we hit the road again at 1:00 PM. The beauty of Nh17 is ever so mesmerizing. The next 150kms was pure peg scraping fun with butter smooth roads and scarce traffic. All this meant that we reached Talera 140 kms from Sangameshwar in 2hrs flat, a 15 minute nature admiration break included. Halt at Talera for some refreshments and we finally decide to head to Kunkeshwar.
Check into the hotel at 4:15, wash up, change and we were off to Kunkeshwar temple. After the temple darshan we took a walk on the beach. The beach is actually a sort of an unpolluted fishing village and we witnessed at local fishermen at work. It’s amazing to know that the fishing season lasts only 3 months in a year and these guys make the most of it. If someone thought fishing was easy, think again. A normal fishing net goes about 1km into the sea and it takes 2 boats and about 50 men to lay the net and about 50 other men to pull it back to shore. While Vinod was all excited, being a veggie watching the fish struggle without water was a pitiful sight for me.
By the time the fishermen pulled the net to shore it was pitch dark {remember it was amavasya} we were about 2kms into the beach and I was shit scared. The vision of crabs biting me all on my foot filled my mind. On the other hand, Vinod being a native was pretty cool and after many a silent prayers we finally made back to the temple. After all this if I thought the day was over. I was mistaken. Diwali in Konkan is very different from the crazy, noisy Mumbai diwali. It’s a sight u can’t describe. Each and every house, no matter how big or small is lined with an array of diyas and a very artistic lantern. So after a walk around a village and very tasty Konkani dinner we retired at our hotel room.