A cancelled Bus ticket to Goa

by Shreyansh Shewalkar (India)

A leap into the unknown India

Well, This was first travel experience ,which turned into a motorcycle road trip to Goa which was unknown and completely impulsive It was a wonderful ride, from Pune to Goa (Two cities in India) yet culturally apart which is quite common when travelling in India. So here I was traveling to a one of the most prominent destination of India, didn't know what to find what to do of course I had checked out a few places and to do things on the internet.So, I met my brother in Pune had a few drinks in the afternoon before taking the 7 PM bus and suddenly a suggestion came from my brother ,let's ride to Goa! at first I was bit surprised, but then I said yes, was it out of impulse or some Sub-consciousnesses, I still cannot explain. As we decided to travel by motorcycle I cancelled our bus tickets. Now there were few things that we had to arrange like bungee chords to hold our luggage, a power bank for mobile, Puncture kit and through motorcycle checkup but we managed only, to get the bungee chord and power bank. We had to be on the road by 9 O'Clock so we skipped most important part , bike check up, believing that it will not be an issue cause we didn't had time for it. The roads are good, cruising @140 km it was terrifying for me, but my brother was comfortable as he was riding for sometime and was use to that speed.After riding about 170 km (total distance from Pune to Goa is roughly around 420 km) we stopped at Kohlapur( A small city in Western Maharashtra) for tea and some snack. It was my turn to ride, though I ride however I had never ridden a Harley so I was extra thrilled and afraid about ridding well post that tea point the road became a bit narrow with no streetlights and through a Jungle. It was scary, unknown and cold while riding in the dark it felt like a never ending night like we were riding in a black whole with no end to meet for our destination, but some how the chilling breeze and the rev sound of Iron 883 kept me focused and determined to ride and that determination came with a aw taking movement when we reached the mountain pass exactly at the time of sun rise, ( while writing this i went back in time). Almost all of us had seen the sun rise on a mountain pass for me it was the first experience to feel the warmth for the sun along with cold breeze passing and first experience is the most best experience as nobody knows what to expect as we have lived that moment only in out mind with imaginations gone wild, however most of the time that very experience is very different from what we have imagined. The very mountain road we were riding through provided lots of scenic sites, small vendors selling corn, maggie noodles on the side and believe me just by remembering it make my taste bud tingle. We reached Goa at Mandrim beach around 11:00 AM and first thing you want to do is take that beer and have sip after a long ride while sitting in front of the ocean. Me and brother had decided that we are noting going to make a to do list, will just ride and try to explorer it in a best way possible,as mostly Goa is known for it's beaches and parties and old churches. On day 2, we went to Chapora fort which is in northern part of Goa, while on the way we stumbled upon a cafe called Hangout cafe Siolim, the cafe was not crowded, the first thing to notice about the cafe was, an Old Indian Motorcycle from 1940's one of the rare collection and lots of other pictures and artifacts so it was temple for bike lover's like me and my brother, however it was not on the google maps so we marked it in. The ending are hard but leap follows the faith, I am great-full that I took this leap to travel in an unorthodox way.