Ride to lakes around Mumbai - 5. Gadeshwar

Our (me on my Royal Enfield and my nephew on his Kawasaki) last ride, before the second Corona wave struck, was to Gadeshwar lake on the outskirts of Mumbai. It is close to Panvel, at a distance of around sixty kilometres from Mumbai. We followed all mandated Covid protocol of masking, social distancing and not interacting with locals.

It is very serene and a beautiful place to spend some ‘me’ time or with friends.

Carry your breakfast with you, have it at the lake in beautiful surroundings and carry back your trash.

Here are a few pictures followed by a short video of the ride. Enjoy. 

Do check out the video and if you like it do click on like, share and subscribe! Thank you.

Ride to lakes around Mumbai - 3. Khand

Soon after the first wave of Covid19, when the travel curbs were eased and everything seemed going back to normal, we (my nephew on his Kawasaki Z650 and me on my Royal Enfield 500) rode to Khand lake which is around 120 kms from Mumbai and can be reached either by Western Express Highway or the Eastern Express Highway. We rode via the Western Express Highway upto Manor from where you have to turn into the interior single lane road and the last couple of kilometres is a bit of off-roading but fun.

Carry your breakfast with you, have it at the lake in beautiful surroundings and carry back your trash.

Here are a few pictures followed by a short video of the ride. Enjoy.

Do check out the video and if you like it do click on like, share and subscribe! Thank you.

Ride to lakes around Mumbai - 1. Vandri

 There are many beautiful lakes around Mumbai that one can ride to.

The first lake I visited on my bike was Vandri lake in April 2019  when Covid was unheard of.

 It is at a distance of about eighty kilometres along the Western Express Highway between Virar and Manor. As soon as the highway ride starts getting boring, you get the turn off for the lake. After the turn off it is a beautiful ride of approximately five kilometres on a single lane road which am sure will be beautiful during and just after the monsoons.

Met a lot of other bikers there too.

Carry your breakfast with you, have it at the lake in beautiful surroundings and carry back your trash.

Here are a few pictures followed by a short video of the ride. Enjoy.

Do check out the video and if you like it do click on like, share and subscribe! Thank you.

Camping getaway

Had been reading a lot about some great camping getaways from Mumbai. Finally we decided on this fabulous place called Sahyadri camping in Wai, on the banks of the Krishna River. What more can one ask for? Tents on the banks of a river and easily accessible creature comforts like proper toilets to ensure that the environment is cared for. They also have facilities to cook for you or if you wish you can light up a bonfire and have a cook up outside your tent. All this for very reasonable pricing.

We rode out on a Saturday morning and since the distance to the camping grounds was not much and 

we did not want to reach too early, we rode on to Panchgani and gorged on Pizza and thick 

strawberry shakes in the amazing Mapro garden, before heading out to Wai which was just about 20kms away. The ride was amazing. Generally good roads and pleasant weather to up our spirits.

Had a lovely time setting up our tents followed by a bonfire and a dinner that we cooked of our outdoor favourite – Maggi noodles!

The morning after was spectacular. As I unzipped the tent flap, the view blew me off. Could have 

spent a long long time sitting there but had to get back home too, to ride to yet another piece of heaven elsewhere, some other time.

Soon we wrapped up and started on the return journey. Stopped at a quaint little café on the way 

where tea was served in eco-friendly earthenware cups and there was a swing fashioned by aerial 

roots in the compound.

Click on the link below for a short clip of our ride.

Ride to Spiti..

Ever since I had read somewhere on the internet that Spiti is like a wild child that refuses to be disciplined, I was hooked. And it did not take too long to convince a friend Dr. Alap Mehendale, a mountain lover and an excellent co rider, to take time off to set out on this wondrous ride.

As usual, tapped the information bank, Mr.HV Kumar and subscribed to his plan wherein he and his team would ensure we just concentrate on our ride and leave the logistics to them.

On 28aug2015 we met up at BKC, fuelled up and kicked off at 1030hrs. I know it was rather a late start but there were some last minute things to be  done and what was more important was that we set out! The weather was cloudy and rainy too with the sun peeping out occasionally to dry us. It was a wet and dry ride and we reached Dhule at 1730hrs after riding a brisk 327kms on good roads. A room in Hotel Jhankar Palace was waiting for us in Dhule, booked by the CHD team of HVK, where we

View from our room in Dhule

checked in for the night. The dinner at this hotel was memorable. This was a period when onions in Mumbai were scarce and almost rationed in restaurants. However we were in for a surprise when the ‘Chicken do pyaza’ that we had ordered was overflowing with onions and in addition there also was a plate of onion salad on the side!

Next morning we rode out at 0800hrs and headed towards Chittorgarh, a distance of 539kms and we reached our destination at 1730hrs, again on some good roads but we were startled with camels 

Staple breakfast of aloo parathas

Camels strolling along on the highway

Sev Tamatar for lunch in Jaora, Rajasthan

crossing the highways in a few places. Our night halt in Chittorgarh was in RnB Hotel away from the hustle and bustle of the market place.

Next day we had an uneventful ride of 583kms to Rohtak where we checked in Myna resort of Haryana tourism. The room was big but the airconditioner was a dripper! Seemed like a popular meeting place for the locals. Enjoyed the food there.

The mountains were approaching and so was the excitement as we started our ride towards Chail in 

Delicious Tandoor aloo parathas

Chholey kulchey

Lemon goli soda

In Kurukshetra Pic courtesy Dr.Alap Mehendale

Nearing Chail

View from our room in Chail.

Himachal Pradesh. Had amazing parathas and chhole kulche on the way. The icing on the cake was the view from our room in Jungle Inn resort in Chail.

The dream ride now began as we traversed through the mountains and valleys to Chandratal via 

HPTDC resort 'Srikhand' in Sarahan

Sarahan, Rakcham, Nako and Kaza over a period of six days. I have no words to describe the beauty, thrill and a sense of achievement as I overcame the fear that was brought on by the paths that we rode on. Do check out the images and a video posted below, of that part of the ride to get a sense of how amazing it must have been.

View of Spiti valley from Ke Gompa in Kaza

Enroute Chitkul the last inhabited village near the Indo China border.

Path towards Chandratal

One of the many bridges that we crossed.

Chandratal

The long and winding road.

Rode on the world's most treacherous road

We closed our ride at Solang on the way back, trucked our bikes and flew back home. After the ride in those mountains, riding in the plains would have been so boring.

Part 13 - Ranchi to Mumbai via Kanyakumari -The Home run!

After a fabulous stay in Ranchi it was time to move on and frankly speaking the thought of getting home was pretty motivating! But it did involve a few thousand kilometres of riding before we could rest our heads on our own pillows. And so we moved on to Nagpur where we spent a couple of days with Aditya’s  cousin who went that extra mile to ensure we were extremely comfortable. They also ensured that the local press got to know of our travels who then interviewed us in the electronic media and newspapers too.

 The local Royal Enfield motorcycle club too ensured our rides were serviced well for the rest of the ride. Special mention here to Nagpur’s Zero Mile Riders’ Club whose members ensured that our 

bikes were taken care of. Shahnawaz Khan (member of ZMRC) who owns the garage took personal interest in getting our bikes ready. Thank you guys! And a big Thank you to Shezad Doongaji, a local motorcycle enthusiast and entrepreneur who spent most of his waking hours with us, while we were there, to assist us in getting introduced to the local RE club and taking us around.

Then we moved on to Hyderabad where we spent a couple of days taking in the popular sights and the pilgrimage to Paradise café for their famed Biryani.

By the time we reached Puducherry the rains caught up with us and we spent a couple of wet days by 

the seaside.

Kanyakumari beckoned and we rode on to the southernmost point of India which is where we decided to head straight for home rather than going up via the western coast. The main reason was of course we were feeling tired and secondly because the western coast was well explored by both of us a number of times hence did not excite us.

So we turned up our rides nothwards and rode home via Hubli, Satara and Pune.

Our homecoming was a tame one compared to the thunderous send off that we had.

It was just us hugging each other at the completion of our epic ride of 13000kms in 72 days. On the 73^rd day we were at Bandra Kurla Complex, from where we had set out, congratulating each other on the splendid time we had!

Hope you too enjoyed reading about our ride as much!!

Cheers!!

http://magictravels.blogspot.in/2014/12/my-2-wheeler-odyssey.html

http://magictravels.blogspot.in/2014/12/vapi-to-kapurthala-in-my-2wheeler_16.html

http://magictravels.blogspot.in/2015/01/kapurthala-to-keylong-part-3-of-my.html

http://magictravels.blogspot.in/2015/01/keylong-to-leh-part-4-of-my-2-wheeler.html

http://magictravels.blogspot.in/2015/02/part-5-our-time-in-leh-ladakh.html

http://magictravels.blogspot.in/2015/03/part-6-leh-to-tanakpur.html

http://magictravels.blogspot.in/2015/04/part-7-entering-nepal.html

http://magictravels.blogspot.in/2015/06/part-8-bardia-to-lumbini.html

http://magictravels.blogspot.in/2015/07/part-9-lumbini-to-pokhara.html

http://magictravels.blogspot.in/2015/07/part-10-pokhara-to-gangtok.html

http://magictravels.blogspot.in/2015/10/part-11-gangtok-to-paro.html

http://magictravels.blogspot.in/2015/11/part-12-paro-to-ranchi.html

http://magictravels.blogspot.in/2015/11/part-13-ranchi-to-mumbai-via.html