Bike trip to Konkan - part 6 - Malvan to Goa

Events from Day 1:

-- Thane to Dapoli

-- Dapoli to Anjanvel Lighthouse

-- Dabhol to Guhagar Beach

Events from Day 2:

- Guhagar to Ganpatipule temple   

- Ganpatipule to Malvan city

Day 3 and Day 4

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Morning struggle:

We had to start early from Malvan. Today's plan was to visit Sagar Sangam and via Vengurla reach Goa. Woke up early in order to capture the shared bathroom and toilets. This is what we do when these things are shared. Morning was chilled and so the water. There was no warm water facility for shared bathrooms. With my shivering body and shivering hand lifted the mug and placed down. Repeating this reluctance multiple times gave me the needed warmth which made my bath easy :)

Packed up and left the lodge, took road which goes to Sagar Sangam. Sagar Sangam is at the mouth of Devbag backwaters, a 10 KM peninsula like stretch. Road were misty with fogs. School going children on cycles made the scene interesting.

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Incredible Konkan - Part 5 - Ganpatipule to Malvan city

Events from Day 1:

-- Thane to Dapoli

-- Dapoli to Anjanvel Lighthouse

-- Dabhol to Guhagar Beach

Events from Day 2:

- Guhagar to Ganpatipule temple 
 
Ganpatipule to Malvan :

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Finished from the walk-through in Prachin Konkan, without wasting any time we started towards Malvan as we were already late.

This phase was one of the most scenic in the whole tour.

High mountain roads on one side and vast ocean roaring on the other side. Its very much like the Pacific highway map we used to play in the NFS.

 Scenic road after Ganpatipule - Sagari Mahamarg

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Incredible Konkan - Part 4 - Guhagar to Ganpatipule Temple

Events from Day 1:

-- Thane to Dapoli

-- Dapoli to Anjanvel Lighthouse

-- Dabhol to Guhagar Beach

Route:

 Day 2 route map

Following morning we started early from Guhagar towards Ganpatipule. Mountains were misty and winds chilly. Silent hills and curved ghats made the ride more interesting.

 Ghat roads just after Guhagar

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Incredible Konkan bike trip - Part 3 - Guhagar beach

Incredible Konkan - Thane to Dapoli - Part1

Incredible Konkan - Anjanvel Lighthouse - Part 2

From Dabhol lighthouse we moved ahead to Guhagar.

Guhagar is around 15 km from Anjanvel.

Guhagar is a pretty small and straight town with awesome beach and windy surrounding.

Search for night stay in Guhagar:

Our priority was to get in a decent hotel/cottage anything and then proceed with sight seeing.

We had around 1 hour to settle ourselves before the sun sets.

Soon the search started getting troublesome. Every hotel lodge we visited, turned us down. They were not ready to listen. Just kept repeating that there is no room for singles and only family are allowed.

Half an hour passed and we were still on road.

My eyes went on a wall next to road 'rahnyachi uttam vyavastha aani gharguti jevan milel'. Called that person, the wall which had the advertisement was nothing but his store.

We settled the deal for Rs.500, it was much cheap in that area when compared with other hotels in Guhagar. That man opened the mystery why we were rejected from all places.

He said 'aap jaise hi do aadmi kal aaye the. unme se ek ka khoon ho gaya'. We got a nice shock but why to worry, proceeded to his house some 300 metres from his shop on a small hill in the outer perimeter of the village.

His family lived on the ground floor while the first floor was for renting. In the 5 rooms on the first floor only our room was occupied. It was a big 2 room house with 4 cots and a separate toilet and bathroom. Although the fan made scary cranking noise but we were happy !

Guhagar Beach:

Settled there and proceeded to Guhagar beach. Beach was long and beautiful. White sand and blue water looked awesome. Also it wasn't crowded that much.

Enjoyed shooting there. We also received an old guest on the beach who was keen to share how they used to manage lighting conditions in the old film days.

 

Evening at Guhagar  

  Evening at Guhagar 

Evening at Guhagar

Evening at Guhagar 

 

Evening at Guhagar

Food options in Guhagar:

Guhagar has enough options for Vegeterian and Non-Vegeterian restaurant both. Vishwanath enjoyed gaavti chicken and I filmed him crying while sipping the chicken rassa  ;)

Super spicy Gaavti komdi thali with Solkadi

Being a vegetarian I went to Suruchi hotel in the market and finished a big thali.

Back to the room:

While returning we missed the road leading to lodge almost 4 times. Sitting in the room I was searching  on Google news for the murder news yesterday. Yes, that man was right. Vishwanath went inside the other room which had a palang lying in the corner.

Just to check he lifted the gaadi from the cot, came out and asked me to come inside. Gaadi was having blood spots all over it. And it seemed fresh !!

Gulping sailva came out thinking that we were thugged.

 Blood spots on the Gaadi

Guest house at Guhagar

Guhagar guest house

Its easy to say that we don't believe in ghost, but when we are caught in such situation its hard to keep the fear away.

On top of that I was experiencing that my cot was shaking but later realized that it was an internal feeling due to the ride we had on ghat  :)   That night was difficult.

This is how our first day of bike ride to Guhagar ended.

Hope you all enjoyed the travelogue.

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Incredible Konkan bike trip - part 2 - Anjanvel Lighthouse

Incredible Konkan bike trip part 1

Towards Anjanvel lightouse:

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From Dabhol jetty we rode towards Anjanvel gaon. And from there a road goes to the left towards a small village.

Boat at Dabhol Jetty

Boat reflections

At Dabhol jetty

I believe this brings lots of memories for many of us !

Captured

A boy caught catching fish in the river :)

Old river bridge

En route lies the controversial ENRON power plant.

Enron power plant

After the village a kuttcha road on the left takes you to Anjanvel lighthouse.

Anjanvel lighthouse.:

Light house is at the end of the plateau. Gates leading towards the lighthouse was closed.

I waited outside with bike and luggage and Vishwanath went inside and returned with the good news.

For the information almost all the Lighthouses remains open only from 3PM - 5PM. And we were there around 4:15 PM.

Took my bike inside and parked it there. The place seemed deserted and but it was nicely maintained.
Compound had beautiful flowers blooming. But keeper was nowhere there.
I was wondering whom did Vishwanath talked to.

Yellow field outside lighthouse

Grass macro

Scenery outside Dabhol lightouse

 Flower inside the lighthouse garden

Lamp post inside the lighthouse

A man came out from inside a small cottage where I was busy with my camera. And he started yelling 'Maine sirf tum dono ko andar aane bola tha, bike kisne bola andar laane ke liye. jao bahar park karo bike'

Now I found this completely illogical and I didn't gave him a look and continued with my camera.

He repeated again in a more harsh tone.

Giving a hard look for his arrogance, pushed my bike on the man built small interlock pathway running towards the gate. And parked outside.
For this I had to untie all the luggage and carry with me.

An old man came out from another cottage dressed in ganji and took some sort of Fireman like shirt from the hanger and asked how many were we.

We said 'Two'. 'Ok'  he said 'Rs.20/each'. Handed him the money and walked behind him upwards in the lighthouse.

Small  narrow stairs lead you to a small round closed room with a machinery painted green in the middle and lots of prism glass at the height of eyes.
Multiple batteries and other electrical gadgets were lying in the left corner.

He started explaining the working of lighthouse and that every lighthouse has a fixed frequency at which prism rotates. 3 bulb in the center emits light surrounded by 3 set of big prism glass. At the same time it keeps on rotating thus emitting 3 beam of light in one minute.

Now this is the code that fisherman uses to locate Dabhol. Lighthouse in the night can be spotted from 30KM in the sea.

Dabhol lighthouse

 

Prism lens inside the lighthouse

From that small room through a mini door came out to see the amazing sea-view.

Sea view from lighthouse. Apparatus in the small tower ahead is RADAR

The Lone farer

 

From Dabhol lighthouse

 

Lighthouse tower

It was good learning session for us.
Packed our stuffs and continued towards Guhagar our last spot for the day.

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Incredible Konkan bike trip - part 1 - Thane to Dapoli

Rider:Niraj Yadav Pillion: Vishwanath Dalvi

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How it started..

Some 20 days before the trip, as usual I was going through travel and biking forums when my eyes got stucked on a word  'Sagari Mahamarg'.

To me, it sounded like an amazing fiction word. It was making me restless.

Next day in office I went through the list of national holidays. Got my leaves approved for the long weekend in October.

Initially the Konkan Darshan was solo later my friend joined me.

Planning the route:

This becomes quite difficult when you struggle between the time you have and locations to explore.

I started several times but left the job hanging as things didn't balanced out well.

As the route was through Sagari Maharmag or Coastal sea route I saw multiple creeks lying enroute. There were two options, one to bypass the creek and take a longer road around it. Second check if ferry services are available and their timings.

In total from Dapoli to Goa there was around 3 creek. Availability and timing of ferry was my only concern. 

But I didn't wanted to escape them either :)

Luckily this was the most beautiful part of the tour. None of the Jetty made us wait.

Just as we used to do during Engg days, figured out the routes and halting stops in the last week very loosely.


Planned route:

Day 1 has to end at Ganpatipule  [We could reach Guhagar on Day 1] [300 KM]
Day 2 has to end at Vengurla [We could reach Malvan city] [250 KM]
Days 3 has to end at Vagator, Goa after visiting Dudhsagar falls [We were late and could not visit the falls, so stayed at Calangute ] [200 KM]
Day 4 we had planned to reach Thane via Sawantwadi->Kolhapur [Again we were late and managed to reach Pune] [560 KM]

Preparing the bike:

Fixed my expired insurance and PUC
I had lost my visor for the open face helmet.
Struggled getting a visor for it. Finally a road seller fixed the helmet for Rs.250.
Got the bike serviced.

Asamanjas:

For me, the week before the tour gets filled up with multiple feelings. First three days of the last week, excitement goes on rising. From the fourth day feeling to avoid the trip starts building up. It takes a good amount of struggle to start the tour. Hope I am not alone but some of you may have surely experienced this !!


DAY 1 :

Vishwanath was to reach Bhayandar station at 5:30 AM. We started at the right time. Filled 10 liter Petrol and continued.

After riding the cold winds and dark blue sky at Ghodbunder hills took
Thane -> Mumbra -> Kalamboli -> JNPT Road -> Pen -> Vadhkal Naka -> Kolad -> Mangaon route

Near Thane

Day started heating and we could feel the heat after Panvel and it was just around 9 AM.

Landscape near Pen

Landscape near Pen

A regular traffic of heavy vehicles was there till Vadhkal Naka.
Naka is small enough to be misled. Straight road goes to Alibag and the take left takes you on Bombay Goa Highway.

Took our first halt at Mangaon for quick breakfast.

From Mangaon rode another 10KM on the Bombay Goa highway before taking left for Mandangad.

Mangaon to Mandangad route:

Mangaon -> Lonere -> Goregaon -> Nandvi -> Lokarvan -> Bhingaloli -> Mandangad

Wild Plants

River Reflections

Route is scenic with beautiful Savitri river flowing in between.

Dapoli has season Cricket too

Mandangad Landscape

Mandangad Landscape

There is an Indian Oil petrol pump just before Hingaloli if you are low on fuel.

Continued towards Dapoli via Dattanagar -> Kadivali route.

Starting from Lonere to Dabhol the whole section is Ghat road with plenty of curves. Wonderful road to ride on.

From Dapoli continued towards Dabhol.  This stretch of the road was worst in the whole tour.

Just as we reached Dabhol bandar a ferry was about to leave.

 Quickly took tickets and parked bike in the ferry.
 Ferry tickets are were cheap than we imagined. It was Rs.20/person and Rs.30 for two wheeler.

The ferry takes you to the other side of the Vasistha river on Dabhol jetty.

At Dapoli Jetty

Ferry driver at Dapoli

Dapoli landscape

Dabhol jetty:

Some photos from and near Dabhol jetty

We have a busy day ahead

Dapoli Dabhol creek view

Vishwanath posing

Bajaj Pulsar 150

Dabhol Creek view

Ferry at Dabhol Jetty

Konkan Houses

Supriya at Dabhol Jetty

At Dabhol Jetty

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