Saturday, 14th of June, 2003
I wake up. Slept through the alarm, and gr didn't wake me up either. First thing I do is look down from the window to check on the bikes. There are three new bikes there, a red Pulsar, a black Pulsar and a black Fiero. The Fiero has a funny looking silencer. They are finally here.
Gupshup in 106, Ashok/SanjayR/gr's room. DNS (DocNavSanjayP) have the room opposite. We check on them, sleeping like babies. We try to guess which is which, never having met them before.
Fresh after a bath, come back to 106. DNS are finally awake. I meet this chap in the corridor. "Hi, I'm Doc" "Nice to finally meet you, I'm Shashvat". A very Dr. Livingstone moment.
We make plans to go to Magod falls. Mr. Pai and I had had a long discussion the previous night about good places near Hubli-Dharwad. One of the places he had suggested was Magod Falls. We check for directions and distance with gr's map book.
10 of have breakfast. Vibhu, Ashok and Sanjay have gone to get Vibhu's visor fixed. I co-ordinate with Vibhu about where to meet in Hubli. We all set out after breakfast for Hubli and beyond.
We find them, get caught in a mess of traffic, split up, join up, split up ad nauseam. We finally make it outside the city.
Vibhu: Small towns it seems don't believe in the helmets. Unless it is forced most people just don't think of their safety. Finally we were able to fix the visor with a rubber washer, a screw and wires. Desi style of fixing stuff, but very effective.
We stop just on the outskirts of Hubli, on the road going to Karwar. My visor has broken and I need to fix it. The plastic clip that holds it to my helmet has broken, so I need some tape to hold the clip. Find some and fix it. We start off.
Vibhu : Ha Ha Ha ! Shashvat is also falling to pieces. Yesterday it was my turn, now it is shashvats. But it still beats me how he managed to get the tape in the middle of nowhere!
The road we are on now is NH63. Its cool and cloudy. The monsoons are here, but it isn't raining. Yet. Its difficult to describe the beauty of this place. The road is wide, smooth and perfect, with practically no traffic. The curves are sweeping, the straights are fast and the dips are peaks are exhilarating. The scenery around us keeps up the standards, with wide open meadows, gentle valleys, the ground either green with farming or think with forests. Grey mountains in the distance. 
Divyan: We were going in formation, lead by Shashvat. Suddenly we saw him ripping ahead, leaving Ashok in the lead. Came back with a wide grin and says "Guys I had my share of ripping, now your turn". By that time rain had started.
Vibhu : I was drag (again), and since I was the only one with the camera, it was the wrong position. Asked sharath to act as drag, while me and shashvat ripped ahead (doing 80 on wet roads), to get into a good position for taking photographs.
It soon starts raining. We continue riding. The rain isn't very strong, and once you get used to it, you its not bad to ride in.
Stopped for chai after Kalgadgi. Hot cups of tea and coffee for all. Ashok buys some cheap cigarettes and rubs their tobacco on his visor. Evidently the waxy nature of the tobacco keeps the visor clear in the pouring rain. Almost everyone then tries it out.
We move on, enjoying the ride.
We reach Yellapur, a small town on NH63, nestled in the western ghats. Ask directions to a nice little restaurant. We all stop, but Vibhu and Sharath, who had falled behind were at full speed and didn't see us parked at the side of the road.
Vibhu : a few things come back in sharp contrast when I think of this ride. I guess, this has been easily one of the best rides that I had so far ( the other one I would say was with abhi in the western ghats to mangalore).
1. I remember sharath brake sharply and stop. "Did you see the stone on the road?". He had just avoided the stone left by a helpful truck wala. He went back and removed it from the road. Cheers Sharath !
2. Ok. I like the twisties. But this was unlike any ride I had before. It was raining cats and dogs, and we rarely went below 60kmph. Whew !
Sharath was so enjoying the ride that he just forgot where we were supposed to go. Finally had to somehow overtake him ( he rides as fast as me, and his bike is faster), and tell him we must have been going the wrong way !
I ordered food for everyone. It was simple, with only two vegetarians :)
Balaji: The veggy duo, Sharath and myself !!.
Ashok once again displayed his talent in ordering fish. Both the "Fish Masala" and "Fish Rava Fry" were incredibly tasty.
Divyan: And beer too…
Vibhu : more like finishing off whatever was left !
By now all of us have finished lunch. We get a call from Venkat. Ashok gives him an update. Comes up with the classic quote "Its raining comfortably".
We finish lunch and make towards Magod falls. Vibhu decides to turn back. Its going to be dark by the time we return and he doesn't want to ride in the dark in the rain. Sharath joins him.
Divyan: These two were the Tom and Jerry of the group. Friction at times and best friends.
Vibhu : we covered the distance from yellapur in just under 1.5 hours. When we reached back to the hotel, both of us were wondering how come it took us such a long time to go there. We did not rip on the way back, and covered the distance at a very comfortable 80kmph on the flat roads…. Even so, how did we take so much time to go there ?
Friction ? Divyan, I guess you are mistaken.
About 10kms from Yellapur, we turn off NH63 in a small road in the forest. Gr and I are bringing up the rear. The road gets narrower, and breaks down. The rain has turned portions into mud. We're going 1st-2nd gear here. There are many small farms here, each in their own little valleys, with a few small cottages with smoke coming out of their chimneys. Picture postcard.
Magod Falls is a nicely made tourist stop. We go down till the viewing gallery, situated on a cliff. The waterfall is on a cliff on the other side. There's a great fog around us which brings an ethereal quality to the entire place. Downside is that the autofocus on SanjayR's camera can't work.
After we leave the falls, we ride to (name anyone?) lake. Once again, I'm taken in by the beauty around.
Doc: I thoroughly enjoyed riding on the wet and slippery mud with the bike constantly breaking out of line - didn't like the more circumspect speed the others were maintaining so went ahead at a faster and more risky clip and enjoyed myself thoroughly!!!!!!! Had done 100+ km of this type of surface at the same time of the year 4 years ago when I had ridden with a team of other test riders with Dilip (Bam) for a scooty/step-thru test ride (to the Konkan coast and back) and had enjoyed it then too - guess its all the women's mud-wrestling I like watching on TV ;)!!!!!!!!!
We start riding back. Its getting dark, somewhere around 18:30. SanjayR takes the lead position, since the Eliminator has the best headlight. Ashok is the tail.
We reach Kalgadgi. I'm feeling terribly cold from the wet and wind. I vote that we stop for tea. Ashok, gr etc. want to move on and get home to a warm bed. SanjayR, Chitti, Divyan, Navendu, Viper and I stop for tea. I'm so cold that the entry in my PDA says "Stpp for tea".
Sanjay R: Tea… Tea… I had 2 cups, my hands were almost frozen :)
Raj: My cell phone got damaged due to constant riding in rain, although it was well wrapped up in plastic cover, but still had to go.
We move on after warming up. Its completely dark now and we have a full moon. Sometimes, through the breaks in the trees, we see the valleys and meadows on the sides of the road. They have rainwater in them. The moonlight reflects off the water and it looks like mercury on leather.
There's a Y-junction in the road (the direct route to Dharwad). Sanjay and I stop to ask for directions, but Divyan, Chitti and Viper race off (thankfully in the right direction). Sanjay, Nav and I chase them, stop them and ask them never to overtake the lead (SanjayR). We continue.
The road passes under the Hubli-Dharwad bypass highway, and then enters Dharwad about 1km from our hotel. We reach by 9:30, exactly as Vibhu had anticipated.
We've ordered food from the restaurant downstairs. We have more than a liter of Vodka. One crate of soft drinks. Looks like a good evening ahead.
The party is a blast. Raj asks for a Vodka+Sprite. I can't make out the difference and give him Vodka+Coke+Sprite. Effect of various spirits on my system. More such stuff happens.
Mr. Pai also drops in and we raise a toast to him. He got us the hotel bookings (nice place, nice prices) at a discount, helped us get the food and drinks and was the one who suggested that we go to Magod Falls, which turned out to be the high point of the trip. We were really lucky to have his help.
The party finished at something like 1:30, when we all finally retired.
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