Roadtrip Day 3: Bye Bye Karnataka, Hello Maharashtra

Welcome to the land of permit room, misal pav, rasvanti griha & high tech nursery

Earlier when I had planned the trip, I thought of doing Hospet to Shirdi in one day. The distance was around 500+ kms. But then, I got inputs in Hospet to break this journey into 2 parts - Hospet to Bijapur & Bijapur to Shirdi. I wanted a campsite & natural setup to stay. Google search for ‘campsite near Shirdi’ showed up some places in Bhandardara which was around 100 kms from Shirdi. So my plan was to stay in Bhandardara, ride to Shirdi & come back & stay in Bhandardara itself. That was the plan, but I could not make it to Bhandardara either (it was around 450 odd kms from Bijapur). Keep reading to know why :).

Unlike Day 2, my Day 3 ride started pretty early as I was aware I need to cover 400+ kms. In my opening post, I had written about the rule of riding not more than 300 kms, but I also wanted campsite under budget to stay. So I took the call to do the 400+ km ride. I was up & ready by 7 AM. For breakfast, I went to the Bangalore Hotel which was located in the adjacent building. After usual idli vada & coffee, I was ready to depart by 8 AM.

I filled petrol at Reliance petrol pump which is on the Solapur road. I rode around 200 kms the previous day so it took only around 7 odd ltrs of petrol for tank to be full (considering mileage of around 30 km/ltr). As soon as I started from petrol pump, a friend from Pune, Saurabh Dwivedi, called me up. He had read my post & knew that I will be passing by Pune. We decided to meet at Boriparidhi where I had to leave Pune bound road & head north. I was slated to reach Boriparidhi by 3 PM.

Road from Bijapur to Pandharpur was an absolute delight to ride. It was a narrow village road but there were hardly any trucks/traffic on it.

The road till Maharastra border was pretty decent where I was able to maintain speed between 40-60 kmph. Just after crossing Maharastra border, the road quality went bad till Umadi after which it became a proper highway with 80 kmph sign boards on it.

Maharashtra offered completely new experience compared to Karnataka. The boards had Devanagri script (in simple terms, being a Hindi reader, I could read what was written on them). So it did feel like home although suddenly the information overload increased significantly as now there is an urge to read every passing board as subconsciously FOMO was creeping in. As usual, I acknowledged the feeling & decided to focus on the route & the enjoyment, rather the urge to ‘cover everything’.

The number of restaurants increased significantly compared to Karnataka roads. Misal paav seems like the favourite offering among the roadside restaurants, followed by ‘permit room & beer bar’. It took me sometime to understand what permit room refers to although I did not try one. ‘Rasvanti griha’ was the sugercane juice & I did have one on the way. They were good choice in the heat for Rs 10. I did pass by quite a few nurseries & all of them chose to call themselves ‘high tech’. I would have understood if nurseries nearby Bangalore called them as ‘high tech xyz nurseries’. Well, tech isn’t just a Bangalore thing anymore I guess. I also noticed that the name ‘Samarth’ was probably the most common name for most establishments.

I then passed by large water body around Indapur. I did got an urge to take bath as it was pretty hot but not sure if the urge wasn’t strong or I was under pressure to reach destination on time, I chose to ignore it.

I also happen to saw a dam which reminded me of the TB dam (refer to Day 2 post). So I decided to capture it.

While I stopped to take the pic, I realized my left side fog lamp (which dangled on my day 1), has a different problem now. Earlier, the nuts holding the clamp & the lamp went missing, but this time, the clamp itself got loosened & the fog lamp is now rotated 180 degrees rather facing the road.

As I did last time, I took a detour to service road at one of the passing cities on the Pune highway before Boraparidhi from where I had to take a detour to Shirur. I happened to stop a 2 wheeler spare shop & I asked the guy to provide me a new clamp. There were 2 guys & they were having tough time comprehending what kind of person I am & what am I doing with such a large set of things on my bike. They first said that find new clamp is going to take time but then they could not avoid their curiousity. So I started answering their questions & enaged them to just tighten the clamp, hoping that it would fix the problem. The more they heard from me, the more curious they became. I just decided to wish them farewell & continued on my journey as I realized their questions are not going to be over soon. They were nice guys though.

I was at Boraparidhi at around 3:30 PM, half an later than what I promised Saurabh. I dont remember when & where, but somewhere on the way, Saurabh & I changed plan to meet at Bhandardara & not Boraparidhi. The detour from Boraparidhi again took me to a village road but with lots of traffic. Thankfully while cars were stuck behind trucks, I found my bike to be more manouverable in such situation.

I was clocking close to 300 kms & realized that I need to fill petrol soon. Soon after, the bike went into reserve. For those who dont know about old Royal Enfield, they dont have fuel gague. So you need to rely on your trip meter, memory of what was the reading when you filled petrol last etc to determine the remaining fuel. It seems daunting but my 12 years of owning this bike has made me pretty good at this task.

I looked up ‘reliance petrol pump near me’ & found one before Shirur. I knew that my reserve capacity is 2 ltr which will give me 60 odd kms & this place was 45 kms away. I decide to take this risk as I felt that Reliance petrol has done justice of giving me 32 km/ltr kind of mileage (which I calculated when bike went into reserve).

I dont remember exactly but there was small ghat section before/after Shirur which was scenic.

Found a small canon placed next to the road.

There is a school which looked like a dream school to me because of its awesome location, large playground & view it offered.

Something unexpected happened once I crossed Shirur. Google showed path to cross the river.

The starting of the path was an unpaved path. I thought it is probably a small stretch. The path worsened over time & at some point, I had to wait through water & slush. I remembered crossing Zozila pass during our Ladakh trip, momentarily while crossing it. The only consolation was, there were other locals who were going through similar ordeal. The bike ahead of me, had 2 ladies sitting on it. They were getting down at multiple places, the guy crossed the difficult patch & then they alight again.

Things became too interesting at a point where I was at some kind of bridge, which had only enough space for one bike to pass & (hold that though), there were no railings on the side. I had only seen this kind of thing in movies where the hero rides a bike & crosses such bridge (or dam or whatever structure you want to call it).

I thought of letting the other side of vehicles pass first but the guys behind me started honking. One guy quickly figured that I am new to this. So he decided to lead & I was glad he did.

The shock / unbelief / adreline rush was way too high for me at the moment to capture any pics. The moment I realized I am getting closer to merging with main road (as I can see it at an elevation), I capture some pics of what I call ‘a natural dirt biking track’. I dont know whose fault was it - Google or the local govt. If it was the only way to cross the river, then its the Govt. Anyway, instead of blaming someone, I decided to be grateful that I successfully cleared this path without any untoward incidence.

Soon I figured that I am now on SH 51 & the road has become scenic again.

Deep down, I realized that I am not going to make it to Bhandaradara as it was 5 PM & I was still 100+ kms away. So I stopped at a chai shop in Alkuti , primarily to have some conversation with a local to confirm my belief & find alternatives. He confirmed my doubt & suggested to take a room at Ale which must be around 20-30 kms away.

I was a bit too enamoured with chance of camping at Bhandardara & did not want to let it go. So I decided to search for ‘campsite near me’ as one last shot in google maps. It showed a location Tour De Agri which was around 50 kms from my place. I called up the number & spoke to the owner. I explained him my situation, my love for camping & lower budget. He offered me a BnB + dinner for Rs 500. Plus he explained that is all organically grown stuff. I was elated & shared this news with the tea shop guy. He showed a bit of skepticism as this place is close to Junnar & I will be going away from my path to Bhandardara. I acknowledged but decided to still head to this place. It had become dark while I rode to this place & I did cross a few hotels while I happen to be on main highway for small part of the journey. In the night, the 50km stretch seems to be taking much longer than what it took in the day, or maybe I was tired because of the long journey. But I kept continuing.

One thing I noticed is that most locals had fog lamps put on their bikes. I was also thankful that I got my fog lamps repaired as without them, the ride on the deserted roads would have been tough. I later asked the caretaker at Tour De Agri about it & he explained how some tigers/leopard missed the vehicles without fog lamp in the past. While I was curious what happened to those men, I chose not to continue the conversation :).

I reached Tour De Agri at around 8 PM. My first impression of the place was a good pleasant surprise. While only some part of the property was lit, the job was pretty nicely done.

I met Mahendra who stays at the property & also nick named as Anna. I freshened up & had dinner at Anna’s home which is around 50m away. It was a nice homely food. I was all excited to look at the property next day morning when there is good light.

While I wanted to put my own tent, I was advised to use the cottage instead as they were empty. I agreed to it & they were actually nice. One thing I specifically liked are the ‘porous walls’ which created a lot of natural ventilation in the night.

The place did have mosquitoes though. They did have a mosquito repellant but it was out of liquid. Thankfully I was carrying one & it came handy at the time.

I could see hills nearby. One had street lights lighting a good stretch of it. Anna told me that it is Shivneri hill , birthplace of Shivaji Maharaj. Another hill had some red hue & he told that it is the fire. He explained how locals burn for a good next crop.

I also called Saurabh & told him about change of plan (that I could not reach Bhandardara). We then planned to meet at Sangamner next day evening as I would drive to Shirdi, do the visit & then ride back to Sangamner, while he will ride to the place from Pune. With the next day plan finalized & the excitment of checking the property, I retired to bed. I was a bit too tied to do the blog post. I decided to get up early the next day & record my Day 3.