The Tail Light Guided Missile

Ride: Mumbai – Jwahar-Dabhosa – Mumbai Ride aka S3 Trip (Serene Landscape, Smooth Roads and Super Waterfall)

Distance – 400kms (from home)

Ride Duration (incl. leisure time) – 18hrs

Why did we go – Headaches of a city life, discovering new avenues of sounds from the bike, an ass which had not ached in a long time, comparing the avg. depth of potholes in Maharashtra vis-à-vis rest of India and last but not the least pleasures of paradise.

What did we plan to plan for – camera, floats, sleeping bags, spare parts, saddle bags,2 days of riding, place to stay, mobiles and chargers, change of clothes, a stay

What did we end up planning for – Full stomachs, full tank, change of clothes and a haversack

Important things we forgot - camera (we thought of making up for that with my camera phone), mobile charger (Sigh!), floats, saddle bags, place to stay

What we found – Initially a lot of potholes with some road sprinkled here and there, butter smooth jungle roads with awesome road side hill views and the best waterfall we have seen till date.

Results of the ride – A refreshed brain, a tired butt, a crying m ‘cycle and one helluva day

Most important lesson of the ride – NEVER PLAN FOR A RIDE, plan for your ass.

We, me and my friend Malik, started for our ride on a fine October morning with the sole objective of killing the boredom that had set in our lives due to multiple weekdays and weekends spent earning, sleeping, drinking and eating. We had decided on a place called Jwahar, hearing about a beautiful waterfall and an awesome route, we decided to take the plunge without any planning whatsoever except a lot of food and water. We found out all the routes possible on phone on the last night and were on our way in the morning still not decided which route to take.

On reaching the crossroads which split the various routes we decided on taking the route which we had last heard of being Kuccha.

The possible routes were:

1.

Mumbai-Manor-Jwahar-Dabhosa
2.

Mumbai-Bhiwandi-Wada-Vikramgadh-Jwahar-Dabhosa
3.

Mumbai-Bhiwandi-Wada-Kodala-Jwahar-Dabhosa

We had heard the second route as beautiful and the third as beautiful and Kuccha, with obvious enthusiasm and without care for either our ride or our butts, we decided on Option 3. Then began a day which I will say is the best ride I have been on till date.

On passing Bhiwandi, we discovered that the state govt. had been more engrossed in strategic placement of potholes than on making the road. As a result of which on an average, in the stretch between Bhiwandi and Wada, there were unavoidable potholes every 400mts. Please read the description below to discover the strategic prowess of the Maharashtra govt.

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If you move only in your lane – You will have to replace the suspension every 10kms
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If you change lanes constantly – Your suspension is guaranteed to last for 20kms.
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If you ride on the wrong side of the road – the oncoming traffic is empowered to fine you for breaking rules, the vending machine for that is installed in the underbelly of all vehicles, especially jeep taxis.
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Pothole size – All potholes in one lane are warranted to be of different depths, with maximum depth of 1ft., diameter of the same can vary with no maximum limit

This is some serious thought man, where do the babus get training for this.

Ok now, we crossed Wada and took to the road to Kodala, fearing the worst, as the road width reduced to 2 lanes from the 4 lane we had been on all the way. But here is the biggest surprise of the day, for the entire 35kms stretch of jungle that we encountered there was not even one pot hole. Now where does this forest deptt. Learn to make its roads, I must say, to find roads in such good conditions just after rains is amazing, mind you there had been no fresh layering on the roads for at least a year from what we could make out.

This forest was a welcome break from the sweltering heat; it was pleasant with many streams constant canopy and unending hill side views. These hill side views I must say put anything I have seen in Maharashtra so far to shame; clean, tourist free, no deforestation, wonderful roads and almost zero traffic; the views were such that we could stop for a photo every 3-4kms had the camera battery permitted. We were going at a leisurely pace, no plans help a lot you see, we took a full 7hrs to travel the distance one way, also, we were eating every now and then. At one of the places in the jungle the view was such that we thought how is it that the Himalayan landscape has come to Maharashtra. I will describe what I saw, the road was overlooking a valley which had a stream running by the side of the road about 150-200ft below, on the other side of the stream were grasslands sprinkled with trees and at the end of that we had hills covered with forests, the road was constantly running along the valley maintaining its height from the valley floor. We could see hills all around this landscape and it seemed to be locked in by hills, the plains were not to be seen anywhere, the cherry on the cake was zero traffic due to which we could hear the water running in the stream and the cool forest breeze.



After crossing the forest we reached Kodala then went to Jwahar, where we saw the historical memorial to the Chattrapati and also the local Raja’s palace which can be at best described as a Haveli, considering what we had seen before the landscape between Kodala and Jwahar was disappointing, what was adding to our painful thoughts were the short patches of bad roads from now on, at one point we even thought that the waterfall will disappoint too. But that was not the case; at the end of a beautiful ride was a 300ft waterfall about 500ft below the side of the road in a gorge. I have seen many waterfalls but few would beat the sight of this one, it was perfect, set in a gorge below the surrounding landscape, it was surrounded by a pool of water with sunlight only on one part of the pool, a perfect place to spend an entire day. From where we were sitting at the pool side there was a constant breeze permanent shade and constant spray of water, it was paradise. For the entire day that we were there, not one lost soul was seen.

We left our little paradise at 6 in the evening climbing up to the nature trails camp looking for accommodation who then informed us that we have to book from Thane to get accommodation. Here we were with no place to stay and with night approaching fast, I took a decision to add to the thrill of the day with the thrill of a night safari in the jungle on a bike. We were on our way back to Mumbai at 6.30pm, AWESOME, we are 180kms from home, I am never going to plan any ride ever, they have to be compulsorily unplanned.

We reached Kodala, in about hour and a half and had our dinner there, starting 140kms of travel at 9pm with 35kms of dense jungles ahead. Man oh man, was this an experience, just to highlight, we did not see any vehicle for 35kms in the middle of a jungle at the dead of night. We even stopped our vehicle once turned the lights and engines off, we felt like we have gone deaf, it was exhilarating to see the jungle bathed in the moonlight with only insect songs being audible and a cool breeze, what more can we want from a day’s trip, fun and invigorating.

The roads ahead were as mentioned before, therefore, they did there job of getting us back to earth combined with the constant full beams of oncoming traffic, this was a serious pain until we found our messiah, a speeding ambulance with a superb driver and a patient inside. We coined a new term for this kind of riding ‘The Tail Light Guided Missile’. We followed the ambulance like crazy and did not let it distance from us. It helped us avoid all potholes, bike cum speed breakers and increased our average speed. What we should have covered in 1.5-2hrs we did in about an hour’s time. The ambulance blared its siren through all the traffic with us in tow. This was a life cum butt cum bike saver ambulance. ‘Thanks a lot’ to that driver and also a ‘Get well soon’ to the patient inside, hope he is up and about by now.

This is one trip I would recommend to everyone; see it to believe it people.