Day 2. Monday. 19th Jan. Mulund
An early morning take off was planned, but by the time we were out the door, the clock had crept past 8. We needed to cover a little over 700km to get to Udaipur, and the start of which would be through Mumbai morning traffic. Karthik again helped us out here by giving us precise directions to get to Gorbandar and out of Mumbai. We got a bit of a taste of Mumbai morning traffic, but were thankfully on the outskirts just as it started to clog up. I managed one wrong exit though and did my drop anchor-waddle back routine again. I wonder where all this practice is leading to.
Breakfast and Fuel were called for as soon as we got on the highway. It turned out to be an affair, longer than we planned and we hit the road again only by about 10:30. Fuel and food stops come with their own entertainment. People checking out the bikes and then the hushed voices about where we come from and why we are dressed like we are going to war. Usually there is one brave soul who comes and asks us the pertinent questions, more often than not, starting with the "how much does it cost?", then moving on to the "what is your fuel efficiency?" and finally to "where do you come from and where are you going?". I even had one guy asking me how much I make in a year! This pioneer then transforms into the local wikipedia entry on us and dishes out the details to anyone else who is interested.
Our answers would of course vary at every location. I was the one underplaying our bikes and Sam was all about giving them accurate and more than accurate specs. Like for instance when they asked us how fast the bikes went, I was always trying to keep our answers around the 120kmph mark, but Sam loved watching their reaction by saying stuff like 160/180/200. I think he even zapped someone by saying something like 50 or 60 kmpl for the "Kitna deta hai" question. This stop was the first, but not the last, where we were mistaken to be from Kerala. Something to do with the number plates, because I am pretty sure neither of us remotely smelt of coconut oil. Or maybe they had seen that we did not like being overtaken!
Next stop was around Daman where we were thrilled to pay much lesser for fuel than back home. Surat was conquered a little later and Udaipur now looked within reach. Gujarat roads, did I mention, are awesome. It is the trucks that make it challenging. Or fun. Post Surat we were pretty much in video game mode. Trucks would occupy the middle lane and were pretty disciplined. We had the lanes on either side to zip past them. But what is one to do when one of them decides to overtake a peer, one at the dangerous speed of 52 kmph and the other hovering around 51, while a third enjoys the ringside view at 50kmph. You of course find a gap and gun it and leave them to their tussle. This of course repeated every few km's, or what felt like every few 100m on our bikes. Can you imagine the conversations at the truck stops? "Man I am telling you, I slip-streamed that Tata truck like nobody's business". "All it took me was 20km to overtake that guy and did I gun it after that." The bus from the movie Speed wouldn't have lasted more than 5km on our Indian roads. That did not deter some of the bus drivers from trying though, so they would be prepared just in case.
I must say though that this was the day I saw more trucks than I have seen in my entire life. We crossed Ankaleshwar and found the mother of all truck jams. A narrow long bridge across the Narmada river funnels traffic into the highway to Vadodra and this is where we were stuck as well for a good 20 minutes. Thankfully we could squeeze our way through, to the utter dismay of the cagers looking on in envy.
The hot day and trucks called for a hydration stop pretty soon. Still full from a greasy breakfast, neither of was wanted to eat lunch. We instead chose to spend some time on TLC for our bike chains. Bikers and our priorities I tell you. This was going to be the start of our 2 meal a day policy. I think we did compensate for the time in our hydration department though. Given our uric acid levels, both of us were advised by our doctor to drink plenty of water and we took that pretty seriously. Which obviously meant you saw one of us pulling over in a hurry every now and then. Gloves off, walk/jump/run to nearest tree/bush/bridge and get business done with. This was sometimes played out at fuel stops too. We would pull up to the pump and one of us would just jump off the bike and run to the washroom. Funny in hindsight, but not when you have a full bladder and find the damn loo locked.
Back on the road and we found ourselves at the Vadodara-Ahmedabad expressway, but the cops at the expressway would not let us get on it. Some stupid rule about 2 wheelers being dangerous on the expressway. This meant taking the older highway, which we find is full of diversions thanks to the construction all along the way until Ahmedabad. A long hot afternoon in store for us. Looks like the God of good roads left us to our own means every afternoon.
As we closed in on Ahmedabad, we realised just how big the city is. It has more than 1 ring road and loads of construction everywhere. Gujarat and Ahmedabad are truly booming. Lots of big cars as well. Getting to and across Ahmedabad was quite the task. Our average speeds had come down drastically and by dusk we had got just across Ahmedabad and on the highway to Udaipur. Fuel and food were called for. A dhaba was located and we sat ourselves down for a longish break. We had the world's greasiest Aloo Paratha's here. Cut up like pizza slices, just smaller. 3 kids came by, I think on their way home after school, and were so enamoured by the bikes and bikers. It was fun watching them make up stories about us and just having a wonderful time. They were our only audience not interested in the mileage and cost of the bikes!
En-route, at a fuel pump is where we met 3 more kids, or rather overgrown kids. Sam had disappeared in search of a rest room, while one of the kids pulled out the stops on a third degree interrogation. He wanted me to pull a wheelie, tell him how much money I make, what company I work for, etc. Boy was I happy to get out of there as soon as Sam showed up. Dusk meant we started our search for a place to stay put for the night, but found something decent, with secure parking, only about 80km short of the Rajasthan border. This was after a few failed attempts. some places looked a little shady, but at one we were refused a room outright! I am attributing it to the 3 weeks growth of beard and the way we were geared. That was a first. Never been refused a room before.
It was tempting to push on to Udaipur but we figured we'd rather get some good rest and get to Udaipur the next morning.
Today btw was the day we clicked absolutely no pics. It just had not occurred to either of us.
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