APSA ReUnion trip to Divyagarh - Lonavala

06/02/2009, 8AM in the morning, five of us reached Pune from Hyderabad to celebrate reunion of our batch ( 2001-5 batch, Andhra Pradesh Students, SVNIT, formerly SVRCET ,Surat.) after four long years. By the time we reached the apartment, folks from Bangalore were eagerly awaiting our arrival. We all have been received with lotta affection and love filled hugs. All of us had quickly gone back to those good old days, when we used to assemble to celebrate birthdays of our dear ones, much excited to eat the ice cream or cake than wishing him on his b'day. we used to generate so much noise, enough to generate few MWs of electricity. Such were the noise levels in that apartment, I'm sure Pichayya would have received the mouthful from his neighbours after we'd left. Many of us, have met earlier in a group of two, three or four, but nothing matches this get-together. All of us had put on few pounds and few of us had healthy family packs :)
11 of us were present (6 others had ditched us) :
Musali (Myself)
DaKota (Sridhar)
Bothu (Hari)
Pichayya (Viswa)
Banda (Raghu)
Pindaal (Krishna Kishore)
Don (Durga)
Half Mind (Kiran)
Mestry (Chandra Sekhar)
Laughing machine (Nag)
Mouli (Mouli, only man who has no nick name)

We must be very much grateful to Pichayya n Nag who have taken care of all the arrangements such as the tempo to travel around and restrooms to fresh up :). We all had breakfast in a nearby restaurant, seated in two tables ordered few plates of Chapathi, Poori and Idly. Gulped few sips of Coffee and Tea. Waited at the apartment about an hour for tempo to arrive. Tempo arrived @ We had several plans on our table, featuring beaches, hill stations & treks, and nailed down "Divyagarh", a very famous beach in Maharashtra, well known for its rock solid shore. Pichayya n Nag have done all the necessary arrangements for stay and food.

V commenced our journey @ 12 in the afternoon and reached the outskirts of pune by 1:30PM. We got down near a Dhaba and had a very heavy lunch, few plates of chicken kebabs, roti-naans and biryani. We reached Divyagarh by 6 in the evening and settled under a roof. We just threw all of our belongings in the rooms and locked the doors. We just sprinted towards the shore, on our way we found a "thela" (kiosk) where aamchi Vada-Paavs were sold by a family (Husband and Wife). We ate several plates of it and resumed to the shore. It was pitch dark out there, and there was no concrete path to reach the shore. We had to pass under the moon's light, no sights of street lamps. It tooks us five to ten minutes to reach the shore. To everyone's surprise, the beach was so calm, no trace of any human beings around, much different to the normal beaches in Goa, or anywhere else you visit. Sand resembles the rock solid floor you have back home, I call it "Sand Bed" than just "Sand". We didn't get into the sea, as Arabian sea is much aggressive during the night.

The place is not very much commercialized, though it cost us dearly for dinner, lunch and breakfast. You won't find any lavish or luxurious hotels around to put up, stay is gonna be in normal houses where they spared couple of their rooms for the tourists and feed them. We just took one of that kind.

After few minutes, everyone had slipped into sleep after tiresome journey through hills. Cold breeze passing through, and full moon looking from top, decent enough to make any sensible human being slip into sleep. As one of us realized after a couple of hours, few layers of water had gone underneath our backs, and soon realized that water advanced its movement by several feet. Though we had kept ourselves at least fify feet distant from the tides an hour ago, we had to leave the place and shift our base to another fifty feet away from there. And this time, we kept track of the advancements by the tides and left the place after fifteen minutes.

Dinner was prepared in a home few metres away from the place we stayed, v had had a quick shower and reached the place. Food was very much homely and less spicy. Gone into bed by 12 in the night after having few cracks at each other. I'd never forget the discussion we had during dinner. I'd not want to name that friend here as he had had a couple of affairs with next door girl and a colleague in his office. He was trying hard to defend himself, nonetheless, "Pindaal" and few others of us had a different perspective altogether. We couldn't come to any conclusion that why was he doing that. He was happy in that relationships, so are we for him. We prayed the Almighty that he would learn his lessons very soon.

07/02/2009, woke up in the morning and had breakfast. We've been charged 20 bucks for a single plate of "Pooha", this is costlier than what we used to have in Surat, and that too of very less quantity. As I said earlier, Food is the biggest problem there, they always seemed to be in a deliberate mood to loot visitors big time. We went into the beach in this sunny morning. I'd take this opportunity to promote this beach big time. I'd visited numerous number of beaches across arabian & bay of bengal coasts, ranging from Goa (Arabian - Covalam, Calangute, Anjana,...), DevBagh (Arabian), Kakinada (Bay of Bengal) and Visakhapatnam (Bay of Bengal), ........ , I rate this beach right on the top of all beaches for various reasons. Water is damn pure out there, tides are not rough, Sand underneath is very much shallow. We jumped into the water and went inside for at least 100m, you wouldn't believe this, the water was still chest high. Any amateur or non-swimmers can blindly get into the sea and have fun, in fact, not many seas offer you such a comfort. We spent, spent and spent hours there, played cricket, football on the shore and dried up on our energy. All the calories we gained in the breakfast were lost. We came out and gulped few coconuts and regained our senses :)

Sprinted back to the huts and freshened up. We set our sights on " Jalzeera Fort" for the day. This fort is pretty famous and 30KMs away from Divyagarh. Fort is situated in the middle of the sea and few hundreds of metres away from the shore. We had to park our tempo in the town and catch a boat to reach Jal Zeera. This fort was constructed hundreds of years ago, during Shivaji's time by some of his counterparts, this was the only fort which shivaji's son couldn't conquer. Boat ride into the sea was pleasant and fort was decent. It was 3PM by the time we returned from that place and all of us were feeling hungry. We had found no decent restaurant around, settled ourselves to eat vada-paav/samosa and killed our hunger. In fact, "Half mind" went on eating spree and ate few tens of Vada-Paavs. I had to pay 500 bucks there in just Vada-Paavs, imagine how much he ate :)

Time had come for "Pindaal" to leave as he had few appointments in Mumbai. We said good bye to him and wished him all the very best. We thoroughly enjoyed his presence. We returned to Divyagarh by 6 in the evening and ordered for non-vegetarian meals. What next ??? We split on our views here, few of us were suggesting a trek and few others wanted to visit "Lonavala". Latter won the battle (Trek would be more tiresome), and former had no other choice, except to obey them. Gone the second day.

08/02/2009, woke up in the morning and left the place without any breakfast @ 6. We were on our way to Lonavala/Khandala. Visited the place by 2 in the afternoon, after tiresome 8 hrs drive, and had our breakfast on our way back. Visited Khandala View point, and had lunch in Lonavala. Not the best of the times to visit this place as there were no rains, and SUN was at his best. We came down to Lonavala and found out a place to rest our butts for that night. It was a government managed resort, situated right at the heart of the town. It didn't cost us much. We had dinner outside and slept for the day.

09/02/2009, returned to Pune to the same apartment where we'd all started a couple of days ago. We thoroughly enjoyed each others presence and shared wonderful time with my old buddies. I met Bhavesh and Ashish during the day and caught a bus in the evening to Hyderabad.

Bike Ride down to Karwar (From Bangalore) on new year eve 2009.

V were 007 in number, Our first bike ride which surpassed 1000K mark. Folks on visit were Apna Manu Bhai, KT, Dipu Da, Jammu Aatankwaadi, Naval, Maddy and Myself.
V all kicked off our butts in early wee hours of 1st January 2009. What a day to commence our journey, the very first day in the year. All crazy riders set off on four bikes. A windy drive to the outskirts of Bangalore, travelled around 15 KMs and were about to enter beautiful NH4 stretch. By the time v crossed KR Puram, Manu punctured his bike tyre. There was no mechanic in the vicinity. Manu and KT set off in search of a mechanic. Rest of the folks, all combinations were just passing through our minds. Aditya wanted to put an abrupt end to this tour. Jammu n Naval were not speaking up. Dipu da was busy having smoke. I stood there with all the dimmed hopes that any good would happen. Clock was ticking and it took 90 long minutes to settle down. V had the bike ready by 6:30. Everybody was on high, yet again. V kick started our bikes and set off. It was 7AM.

Gone 50K. As our backs started burning with the heat off engines, took a halt at CCD (Cafe Coffee Day). Had few bites of choco, samosa and Capuccino. We, now, set off to much longer ride. V took left @ Tumkur to NH206. V drove, drove and drove. Gone Tumkur, Gone Tiptur. As the clock ticked 2 in the afternoon, V were all feeling damn hungry. We found a very good Dhaba to eat. Re-filled our stomachs and set off this time.

Gone 70K. Clock ticked 6PM. We reached shimoga and refuelled our bikes. I was on to Thunderbird this time and Jammu was the pillion rider. V sailed through the thick forest for at least 50KM, one of the best rides I've ever had. Road was little patchy for a couple of kilometers. V reached Shimoga finally by 7:30PM and found a decent hotel to stay in. Spent a whole night there.

V reached Jog Falls by 9AM on the second day. what a sight that was, sheer delight to one's eyes. V trekked down to the bottom of the fall, which took us at least an hour. We had to walk through rocks lying under. It felt good to have those water being sprinkled on to your face. V spent an hour or so, and resumed our journey back to the top. Captured some snaps and Zooooomed from that place. The best time to visit Jog is Monsoon.

Next halt was Gokarna on the arabian coast of Karnataka. V set off from Jog for a ride through Western Ghats to reach Gokarna via Honnavar. V had our lunch in Honnavar. It took us five long hours to reach Gokarna and put up ourselves in "Gokarna" international hotel for that night.

It was a decent place to stay for a night. V woke up early in the morning and did the daily duties. We knew that we had to have our stomachs filled that day as we had to ride our bikes under scorching SUN. So did we reach a small tiffin centre placed in the same build we stayed that night. It all started with Bread-Omelettee and went on, on and on. My friends would never forget this breakfast as Jammu and I were on eating spree. Our immediate target was, Om Beach. V vacated this place, 3rd January. V reached Om beach and tattooed ourselves on shoulders, biceps, forearms,....all possible places on our human body. Om beach is much famous for its shore forms the symbol OM (Hindu God). V walked down the shore and found out a place for ourselves to have quick chilled beer. V'd left that place @ around 11AM.

As we reached third day of our trip, everyone of us was low in energy levels. We all were left with two options, 1. Resume our journey n head back to Bangalore. 2. Reach Karwar and spend sometime on some island, none of us had idea about how that island is gonna be ? Half of the group was willing to go Karwar and the other half to head back. Finally, v all decided to go Karwar.

Reached the place Karwar by 1:30 in the afternoon, situated 50KM from Gokarna towads north no NH-17. Road was very , heavy trucks were on our way and very hard for the riders to march past them. We had split on our way and made kaustav alone @ the back our group. He was very much pissed off with the other riders, he was much right in his context. We had to calm him down a bit. We gathered information about the island and found out that it is called "Devbagh". We visited the office of Jungle Resorts who look after this island. We were charged 1500 bucks per head for a day stay, starts @ 1 in the afternoon to 12 next day. It includes lunch, dinner with drinks (of course, you have to shell the bucks of your pocket), breakfast (next day). We parked our bikes in the same compound this office is located.

V all got into a steam boat which took us to Devbagh. It was a chilling half-an-hour, boat had to go against the tides and water sprinkled on to our faces as a resultant. By the time we reached the island, lunch was ready to be served. We all had a very quick lunch (unusual to our standards) and headed to the shore. The place was such an awesome one, very calm, no connectivity on mobiles, no traces of motor-vehicles, no crazy traffic. Played a couple of volleyball games, I teamed with Kaustav and Aditya, against Manu, Naval, Dipu n Jammu. We perspired enough to secure a loss :) We all moved into the tents and took a nap for an hour or two. There are two kinds of stay available here : 1. Tents (Only bachelors prefer this) 2. Cottages (for bachelors and family). We woke up in the late evening and dinner was arranged on the shore with drinks. Dinner was very tasty and few of us had a couple of pegs, as well. We had a very friendly chat while having dinner. Along with us, few honeymooning couples and a group of ten (may be more) men. We had spent much of the night time on the shore and went back into tents to catch some sleep after 11.

Woke up early in the morning @ 6, and missed the first jogging train, I mean a little jog circling the island. We compensated this with a few sprints on the shore and burnt few calories. After having spent close to an hour or two on the shore, we were all very tired and hungry. Had healthy breakfast and a quick shower. Dipu and Kaustav headed towards SPA to get a good body massage. Meanwhile, we thought we would get the taste of sea on having few water rides. Among us, Manu and Jammu were keen to do some snorkelling. To their disappointment, men (present at the site) refused to take just two guys to the snorkelling. They wanted at least a group of eight, we were way short of that number. Time to do some rowing, we hired three rowing boats paired ourselves up into three groups. Went into sea and rowed as far as we could and returned from there. That did not give us enough joy and fun we would have liked, still short of something.
There comes BANANA RIDE for you. One of the most awesome rides (including dry and water) I've ever had. All you gotta do in the ride is just get your hands off the banana when your master signals to do so. Am I confusing you, let me make it more clear ! There is a banana shaped balloon which can accommodate at least 6. You gotta sit one after another on it, and you have a clamp on either side to hold onto. This banana is now connected to the boat's rear end. The master takes the boat to a very high speed and takes a sharp U-turn and signals us to take our hands off the clamps. As a resultant (sharp U-turn) banana tilts a bit on to its side and you kind of get a dive into the water. Imagine, you are in sea water which is at least 40 feet deep. You get a deep dive into the sea , with jackets on, you don't get drowned. Master comes again with the boat and you will be helped to get onto the banana. You get three to four such deep dives. I promise you banana will make an indelible mark in your memory and you will cherish those moments for a long long time.

We took a different route while returning, Karwar - Hubli - Chitradurga - Tumkur - Bangalore. Started @ 2 PM in Karwar and drove whole day and night, and reached bangalore next day morning by 9AM. 500KMs, 19 long hours, with few breaks here and there. This concludes our trip to Karwar, covering Sagar, Jog, Gokarna, OM, Devbagh. A four day trip on four bikes, 1200KMs, what a way to star the year 2009. Hope you thoroughly enjoyed my narration. Please keep a tab on my posts as I'm a very keen traveller.