The second day started very early in the morning. There was no need to take a bath. We quickly finished our morning rituals and breakfast at home. Yesterday we were moving towards the West, today we started moving towards the South. Avoiding the street dogs, we soon reached the Mumbai Goa highway (oops! It was the Bombay Goa Highway that time), NH 17. Our feet were still aching from the tiredness of yesterday, but the only way to get rid of the pain was to move. The road was more or less flat now, and the air was cool. We crossed Poladpur and reached Kashedi Ghat with an uneventful ride.
The road between Poladpur and Khed was somewhat familiar to me. When I was in primary school, I used to travel from Dapoli to Pune by ST bus via Mahabaleshwar, once every year. The hairpin bends in Kashedi Ghat were quite well known. For larger vehicles it was not possible to manoeuvre those turns in one go. It required some juggling to make a turn. My observations of that juggling helped me later to quickly pick up the ‘K’ type U turn when I was learning to drive. However on a bicycle, those turns were pretty trivial. The vertical white stripes on the sidewall of the last turn were a sign of relief as it ment end of the Ghat while going up. All that fun will vanish soon as newly built tunnels will remove those turns and slopes.
“Hey Makarand, stop, I don’t see Sandesh and Ajay anymore.” Anil shouted.
On the downward slope we had caught up a good speed, and thought that the remaining two must be following us. In a few minutes both of them appeared, looking tired. Ajay’s bicycle had a flat tire, and Ajay was riding for some time without realizing the damage. There was no repair shop in sight. A solution appeared rather quickly.
“Ajay, you ride double seat along with me, and let Makarand carry your bicycle in one hand.”
Looks like Sandesh had prior experience of cycle trips, and that helped. The ghat was mostly over and it was possible to travel double seat. We had to travel about thirty kilo meters that way before we could get some help.
As we reached “Bharana naka” we spotted a repair shop which came to our rescue. The bicycle tube was severely damaged, and required replacement. That was a serious drain on the resource Ajay did not have much. Also we lost time that was crucial.
Just after the ‘Bharana Naka’ the road towards Dapoli turns right. The familiarity ended. We continued straight towards Ratnagiri. As I figured out later ‘Bharana Naka’ at one time was a toll booth for vehicles carrying forest goods. For us it was just a small road side market place. We also had some food, call it breakfast or brunch. For the first time since we started we were spending some significant amount of money from our pocket.
The road between Bharana Naka and Ratnagiri is full of ups and downs. There is no end. You will not find a stretch of hundred meters that is straight or flat. But that also meant half the time we were going down and not paddling. That was fun. The Mumbai Goa highway had some traffic. In the ghats we had to watch carefully and avoid trucks.
Learning from the earlier experience, we all tried to stay together as much as possible by keeping an eye on each other. Option was available to cling on to a truck by holding the chains that hang out on the rear. It can be unsafe, but very useful, particularly when you are going up the hill. More than the thought of safety, my pride did not allow me to do so. I wanted to finish the journey on my own efforts.
Since we started a bit late and spent time repairing the bicycle, it was almost dark when we took a slight detour from the highway and entered Chiplun. A helpful hand at the junction pointed us towards the “Bhairi Temple”.
“That’s a usual spot of stay for stray visitors”, he mentioned.
“Keep your I Cards ready, as a police man will visit at night. Don’t pay him anything, and don't be scared. Just show your I Cards and you will be good. Also take care of your belongings, you don’t know who else will be stopping by at night.”
We were getting more advice than we asked for. But he was right, it’s better to be prepared. We had very few things to worry about, but that was all very essential things required during the trip.
“Bhairi” is a short name for “Kalbhairav” in konkan, it is the name of god Shankar. And a Shankar temple will always have some form of water around it. In the temple campus, there was a nice large well with plenty of water, and the facilities to draw it out. That’s all we needed at the moment. The temple area was surrounded by many hibiscus bushes with large red flowers. A few birds were chirping around. We were thankful to the unknown people who had made the arrangements.
We were still carrying some food with us, and that was enough to serve the purpose for tonight. “Let’s finish it off. Anyway we will reach Ratnagiri tomorrow, and won't need it anymore.” A comment by someone was very encouraging, we needed all the energy we could get.
When the food was over, everyone was tired, and there was nothing else to do. In a small town in Konkan, which is surrounded by tall coconut trees, it gets dark soon after sunset. The best choice was to get into a bed. All of us were carrying a light bedsheet, good enough for one person to sleep. Maybe there were some mosquitos around, but who knows?
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