Wednesday evening- Primus and I were yet to decide where we were going for our next motorcycle trip. Post work I got a gut feel that google maps had the answer. And it did! Yaval Wildlife Sanctuary (approx 550km from Mumbai) was the destination and the journey was through NH-3 and NH-6. Printouts taken, bags packed, engine oil checked we hit the road on Friday morning at 6am from Kalyan. We had stopped over at a friends place at Kalyan on Thursday night post office hours because it fell on the route to Yaval.
Our journey started with hands freezing on the ghats towards Nashik. The Mumbai Nasik highway (read a section of NH3) is fraught with heavy truck traffic. Not that they came in the way too much. They were driving at a constant 60kph ¡V Pretty much our average speed. You ask why only 60kph. Well that¡¦s the speed bullets ride and Primus¡¦s motorcycle had just been to the mechanics. After covering around 200kms we reached Nashik. Had some chay and vada pav at a roadside stall and we were on our way to Malegoan. Budding photographers, Primus and I, stopped at any place which looked like a decent photographƒº. This included the famous grape ¡§wines¡¨ in the city of pilgrimage. We reached Malegoan at around 2 pm. Appetite satisfied at a local dhaba and after some chit chat with a truck driver we head off toward Jalgoan. At this point I must mention that our bullets received much more attention than we did all the way. Another point worth a mention is that there are so many onion producing farms on this route that the onions literally spill out of the gunny bags.
The road from Malegoan to Jalgoan was a dream. Flat out 6 lane road ¡V A rider¡¦s paradise. The weather was not bad either. On NH6 we witnessed a peculiar site. Birds, I¡¦m guessing herons were flying 50 meters overhead. And they persisted for almost 2 kms. I was looking up at the birds and riding rather than looking ahead. Dangerous some may say, but with such beautiful birds leading the way what can go wrong. At one point they were flying at 80kph. I never knew birds could fly that fast.
We reached Jalgoan at 7pm and slept at a guest house there. Jalgoan is known for its bananas. It contributes almost 10 percent to India¡¦s banana production. Next morning we were off to Pal- A small village in Yaval- At least that¡¦s all we knew about Pal until we reached there. We left for Pal at 9 am. We reached the winding roads through the jungle at around 1030 am. After covering around 10kms I met a hitchhiker. The man seemed to be a local adivasi who wanted a ride up the ghats. He asked me to stop after a steep climb. Again, amateur photographer instinct; I asked him to pose near the motorcycle. Our man may have never seen a camera so he didn¡¦t know what to do. I told him in marathi ¡§Hassa Ho¡¨ ¡V ¡§Laugh¡¨. He actually started laughing loudly. A fake Ha Ha Ha. The sight was hilarious but I kept mum and got my shot. Later he vanished into the ghats.
While we were riding through the now yellowish jungle we came across a river. I¡¦m sure it¡¦s ferocious during the rains but it was very calm on that particular day. The river beckoned but we didn¡¦t have any clothes to change into because we had not planned to stay at Pal. But we just had to go into the river and hence we did. Left to you to guess how.
The river was a melting pot of various birds. And hence out came the cameras and the photographers in us. We raced down rocks, hid behind bushes, waited under the blasting sun at 1pm just to get that one great shot. We got many but not what one would term professional. Pal was 8 km away.
Enter Pal- A rustic, extremely poor village bang in the middle of the jungle. We went straight to the forest officer¡¦s rest house. Being a Sunday the forest officer was not in office. Luckily we met some officials there who told us that we could stay for the night if we wanted to. They also told us to go to ¡§Langda Amba¡¨ ¡V 36kms into the jungle. This place had another forest rest house which was build 150 years ago. They told us that we would be escorted by armed men there who would show us around. The wildlife there would include tigers, leopards, and deer. We asked one of them how to get there. He told us it was a straight road but the road got a little bad after 10kms. Kaccha rasta(mud road) in other words. Under normal circumstances we would be given a jeep and would have to fork out Rs.1500. But now we had motorcycles. We promptly asked him whether we could take our bullets. He said yes. And that¡¦s all we needed to hear. A guide asked us whether he could show us around and since we would be heading into tiger territory and knew nothing about tigers we agreed. After reaching the ¡§kaccha rasta¡¨ we started to think twice about the whole experience of riding till Langda amba. For starters the road was strewn with rocks and steep slopes. Also, Primus¡¦s bullet had recently been fixed with a piston which was only 1000kms old. At this point our guide had also volunteered that post 7pm this area was very notorious. There were cases of murder and robbery which were very frequent. 14 odd men with axes and masks roam these areas for easy pickings. In our case we were 3 men and 2 bikes-Very easy picking. Considering it was 5 pm already we decided to head back. Our guide told us that we could also go tiger tracking in the night. We asked him where. He said down the ghats which we took to reach Pal. We asked him an exact point of a sighting. He said a river in the forest. The same river we swam in! He told us that the river was frequented by a big male tiger. We just smiled at each other. Ignorance is bliss they say and this is a case in the point.
Near Pal there were some deer being raised in a mammoth enclosure. We were allowed to enter the cage and get click photographs up close. One curious deer actually came up to us and didn¡¦t mind being patted. We were told that he came for food. We didn¡¦t have any so we left in a while. Dinner was going to be served at 8pm. Before that we cleaned our bullets with the help of a hosepipe- Very satisfying.
I have to describe what we had for dinner in some detail. Rice, Chapatis, Raw Raddish and a sabji(vegetable). The sabji was made up of an oily liquid with ¡§sev¡¨ in it. Yup! Our dinner at 75 bucks per head. Like I said-Very poor village. Whether we were swindled or whether they are genuinely so poor we may not know until our next visit but that was our dinner and that was the price.
Come 830pm and we headed off towards the ghats to get a sight of the tiger. We passed the river after 10kms and another 12 kms later we stopped at a temple in the jungle. At this point our guide said that the tiger is known for chasing down cars that cross the bridge over the river. We asked him what did he think about us on defenseless bullets. He said ride fast. We told him our motorcycles were cruisers not super bikes. He didn¡¦t say much after that. Hearts pounding we left for the river in 15mins. Call it good luck or bad the tiger wasn¡¦t there. We reached the village and went to a local tea shop to have some hot tea to calm our nerves and frozen fingers.
The guide told us then that we may have not seen the tiger because a jeep and a motorcycle had just passed by the bridge before we got there. I wasn¡¦t sure whether he was making up the tiger story or the tiger ran away. Though I must confess. I still hope he was right. Some local drivers had also gathered at the tea shop by then. They confirmed the tiger story saying ¡§Mahene mein char bar to darshan hota hai¡¨. They also said that if you want to sight it you should head down at 11 pm but warned us against it saying that there are robbers in the ghats too.
After having tea we headed off to the guest house. For some reason we felt that our fuel would be siphoned off by dawn. So we went out to our bullets to figure out a way to make our fuel knobs tamper proof. The guard woke up hearing the whispering and walked up to us. And then began a 1 hour chat of which we understood little. He told us about the adivasi murders, jungle animals, his 2 wives, foresters, agriculture, and his visit to Bombay in the 90s. The conversations started to dry up, so we hit the sack.
We left Pal at 6am, hands freezing as usual and reached Jalgoan at 1030 am. We picked up our bags and head home. A memorable and a very exciting trip.