Ride to Goa from Hyderabad

It all starts with a random talk getting transformed into a plan followed by the execution. A trip to Goa is a very common plan amongst friends, so was our case. 

The planning phase was long and we zeroed down to a monsoon ride to Goa. 

The next important thing that goes along is applying for leaves and getting them approved. That is in fact the most difficult thing to do. We finally got everything sorted. By the way by "we" I meant myself and two of my best buddies. We have been friends over years now right from our school days.

DAY 0 : 

After some sleepless nights and tiring weekends preparing ourselves and our machines for the long trip, finally we were to start our voyage on 14th July at around 10:30 pm. I was eagerly waiting to log-off from office and start riding. I left office at around 7 pm and rushed to my riding partner's place for packing up. It had been raining constantly for last couple of hours. We geared up with all our riding and rain gears and started off at around the planned time 10:30pm. It was still raining as we rode out of the city limit and maintained good speeds on the highway. 

We stopped for dinner at 12 pm at our favourite "Deshmesh Dhaba" which is around 65 kms from Hyderabad on the Bangaluru highway. The food they served was amazing and recharged us totally. It continued to drizzle as we relished on the steaming yummy Punjabi food.

After the dinner, we continued our journey on the Bangaluru Highway till Mehboobnagar and then took a turn on to the state highway which would lead us to Hubbali. The plan was to ride all night and take rest in the day to avoid traffic. We could stick to our plan as none of us felt the need of any breaks or felt fatigue. 

The journey was thrilling through the remote state highways, covered with thick forests and few sleeping hamlets. All night we kept praising our bike's upgraded headlamps, after all they were a lot of hard work and money. All the hard work paid off and it was literally day light in front of our machines. The headlamps boosted our riding confidence to a whole new level.

At around 6 am in the morning, I started to feel dizzy and I communicated over the helmet-communicator that I needed some rest. Both my riding partners were also dead tired by then and we all agreed to take a lodge and get some good sleep before we continued our journey ahead. Plan was to ride through the haunted forests of Molem in pitch dark.

We finally found a wonderful hotel at a place called "Gangavati". We got a good deal for the room and just checked in and crashed on to the bed. Came back to our senses after 5 hours. A much needed rest! Then we made our way to the attached restaurant KAMAT and had some yummy vegeteraian food. 

We went back to our room, took a shower before we resumed our journey. It started to raining as we were about to resume our ride towards Goa. We reached Dharwad at around 8 pm, crossed it and stopped for dinner at a road side dhaba. The food was good. It was constantly raining outside. Our discussions went on subjects like road conditions, weather conditions, fog, rain etc. We were nervous and excited at the same time, to ride through the forest of Molem.

First pic of the dawn

The journey was absolutely spine chilling after our dinner break. Trees as high as they could have been, covering the sky, dense forest cover on both the sides of the road and very less traffic on the road. We stuck together and kept talking to each other on the communicator which kept the spirits up. 

At places there was dense fog/clouds and visibility was affected badly, though the headlamps continued to do a fantastic job. It would have been nearly impossible to ride with stock headlamps that our Indian motorcycles come equipped with.  

There is something about this route that I cant really explain in words, but strange things happen on his stretch! We noticed couple of isolated houses which did not look inhabited, but strangely all the lights were glowing inside the house. The fog would move in a peculiar way, branches broken, fallen on the road, sudden gush of winds out of nowhere. One needs to be present there at such odd hours to feel all these paranormal-ish phenomenons. 

Riding through Molem ghat

We did stop for couple of photo breaks, but made sure the breaks aren't too long. 

We finally reached our hotel in Colva at around two in the night. As it was pre-booked, we quickly checked-in without much fuss. We got freshened up and passed out on our beds. We were indeed very tired as we had ridden over 700 odd kilometres from home. It rained most of the time during our ride.

DAY 1 :

The day started as a lazy morning, recovering over our sore bodies from the long ride we completed the night before. I opened the door to look over the glittering pool outside. Got freshened up in no time and all three of jumped into the pool. It was absolutely refreshing spending hours in the pool, listening to music. In no time fatigue and soreness became history.

Our portable music system

We planned to have our dinner at "Martin's Corner" and rode down to the restaurant to learn that it had not even opened. We had about an hour to spend so we decided to visit the Sunset Beach close by and watch the sun set into the Arabian Sea. 

Sunset Beach, South Goa

Sunset

I loved the food in Martin's Corner. We spent some time on the Colva beach after the dinner and called it a day.

Food we ordered

DAY 2 : 

We woke up a bit early and got ready for our quest to ride till Dudhsagar. We rode down to "Colem". The journey was indeed scenic with lush green forest cover all around. We reached Colem withing one and half hour and enquired bout Dudhsagar. It seemed the only way to get till the falls was to be pillion on the local guide's bikes. We tried convincing the guides to let us ride our bike till the falls. We even agreed to pay them, but it seemed that was not possible as there were restrictions on entering the forest.

We still did not give up, researched on the maps and planned to attack Dudhsagar from "CastleRock" side. We rode another one and half hours to CastleRock and then kept exploring all possible ways to reach the falls. Finally at around 3 pm we decided to give up.

With a heavy heart we started our journey back to our hotel. Though we could not get to Dudhsagar, but the exploration and adventure was well worth it. It rained cats and dogs the whole day. We reached our resort and took some rest.

We went for a small spin to Colva beach late night where we met a group of friendly guys. We interacted with them and I clicked a few pics of them in my cam and sent them. We called it a day with no plans for the next day.

DAY 3 : 

During the exploration of the previous day, one of my riding mate started to face some mechanical issues in his bike's steering column. We had to rush to the nearest Yamaha service centre after we got up. The service centre was super friendly and treated our job as high priority. Also the service quality was superb.

We came back to hotel and dived into the pool. After about an hour in the pool, I casually made a statement that we missed Dudhsagar even after being so close. Two minutes of silence followed by a quick plan. We decided to visit Dudhsagar no matter what. We got ready in no time and left. Rode down to Colem again as fast as we could to know that it had rained so heavy that even the local bike service was closed down. 

We caught hold of an agent who assured us that we could travel by train and visit Dudhsagar. It was totally an illegal process but we were up for it. I will not share any information about this as one can easily find these agents in Colem.

We had a quick lunch and were ready to board the train to reach Dudhsagar. We got into a passenger train without any tickets, while our agent managed everything else.

The Kulem (Colem) Station

The Train Journey

Dudhsagar seen from the train

The train stopped at dudhsagar and we rushed ourselves off the train. The guide gave clear instructions to be present at the same location where we got down by 7 pm without fail. 

We had to walk down till the falls through the railway tracks. We went past a long dark tunnel on the way. The trek was about 1.2 kilometres. The mighty Dudhsagar was right in front of our eyes. I was awestruck for couple of minutes, astonished by the size and nature's fury. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water gushing down a huge cliff turning into a white coloured water falls justifying its name "Dudhsagar" which means "Stream of Milk". We spent good time there and started our trek back towards the place where we had got down from the train.

A train through the bridge in front of Dudhsagar Waterfalls

It slowly started to get dark as we walked back. We were at the Dudhsagar station, old, almost abandoned, rusted with flora grown all over. The dim incandescent bulb at the station master's room was the only source of light in vicinity as it got dark.

Ruins of the abandoned Station Room 

It was over an hour we had gathered there and there were no signs of any locomotive coming. We kept waiting in the middle of nowhere. All our phones were dead by then. 

We did not even have a flashlight with us. It was constantly raining heavily and we were drenched to the core, shivering as it started to get cold with the nightfall. There were few other tourists with us as well but that did not help us feel any better or safer. We also learnt from our guide that the forests were full of wild animals and he himself had seen Leopards there in the past. The wait seemed to be forever!

Finally a goods train arrived at around 9:50 pm and everyone present over there had a sigh of relief. We boarded on to the last bogie which is the guard's room and is again totally illegal. It was such a relief that we were finally heading for our resort ALIVE!. We reached our resort dead tired, had dinner near the Colva beach and just crashed on to the bed.

DAY 4 : 

It was again a lazy morning, pouring right from the time we got up. We decided to not get drenched anymore. Looked for self driven cars but found nothing. Then found out some sources through a local store and grabbed a car at 1500 bucks for the day. We had no other choice and we drove down to north Goa, visited "Chapora Fort". 

Chapora Fort is where "Dil Chahta Hai" was shot.

Three of us - Crazy heads

Calangute Beach

We also visited Calangute Beach on the way back. We were in no mood to get stuck in Panaji traffic, so we headed back for Colva by evening. We handed over the car back to the owner and went to the Colva beach to spent some time. There was a beach side restaurant where there was a live band performing. We sat there to enjoy the awesome music and some good food and beverages. The day ended with a small stroll on the Colva Beach.

DAY 5 : 

We stayed back in Goa for this day only to listen to some good music played by a wonderful band "Lynx" in a Bar-cum-Restaurant named "Leda". I had heard them play before and wanted to enjoy their music again. We spent the day in the pool and the evening in Leda, jiving to the awesome numbers played by Lynx. We had a nice time at Leda.

We came back to our room and packed our stuff as we were to start back for Hyderabad the next day,  early in the morning.

DAY 6 : 

All we did was just ride! We took a slightly different route this time through a place called "Lingsingur". The roads were remote and extremely well laid. We did real good speeds but rains did slow us down at some point of time.

Somewhere before Raichur in the middle of nowhere my motorcycle stalled after I hit a speed breaker and just wont start. I kept trying but failed. There was a guy walking by who suddenly became very helpful and my engine just fired up all of a sudden. I asked him what did he exactly do and we was not clear. He kept insisting on visiting a workshop probably owned by his friend and get something fixed. I somehow did not feel that was a good idea as my motorcycle was in perfectly running condition by that time. We were sceptical about the person's intentions. We decided to not listen to him and we fled the scene.

My motorcycle did not trouble me at all after that incident throughout the rest of the journey. We had our dinner at the same "Dashmesh Dhaba" at around 12:30 in the night. I finally reached home at around 2:30 in the night.

I unloaded all my luggage and entered my home. It did not take me time to doze off as I was tired. The wonderful 7-days trip to Goa finally came to an end.

Odometer reading

Total Distance Covered : 1770 Kms

Total Expense per head : 10000 INR
Resort Name : William's Resort, Colva