Ride Photolog: Bangalore - Kohlapur - Ganpatipule - Goa - Hubli - Bangalore
Part 2/6
At Hotel Opal, Kohlapur - the day started with a nice Maharashtrian breakfast - Misal Pav, Batata Vada, Kanda Poha and Shira - with bread butter, tea/coffee and banana etc.
I quite enjoyed this breakfast - except I didn't quite understand that the Misal had to be had with the bread (apparently bread is used and not pav in these regions) that they had kept alongside. I basically had it like a soup - a nice soup nevertheless. Lol!
We were out on the road by around 10:05 AM - filled up XP95 at one of the bunks in the city and slowly made our way to the highways. Traffic was quite a handful inside the town, but reduced significantly once we hit the highway.
Day 2 was a relaxed day - just needing to cover ~150 kms between Kohlapur and Ganpatipule. We took it easy and took a few extra breathers and photo breaks.
Mrs Karthik taking a break from the pillion seat - an interesting perspective which we discussed later was that she prefers the pillion seat of the Ninja 1000 as compared to the CB500X. I would have assumed otherwise!
Karthik's typical profile shot for once the CB500X ownership report comes out
Progress was not so smooth through Amba ghat. There were grazing goats...
...buffallos...
... truck traffic...
... road construction work...
... and no roads at times that kept slowing us down. I was a bit cautious with the panniers and taking it easy through the rough stuff.
Some respite from the heat - sugar cane juice. Strangely - for a place known for sugarcane produce, we found very less sugarcane juice stalls along this route.
Back on the road, but in just another 30 mins - the Amba ghat reveals a good photo-opp location. The two debating where to stop, we quickly move ahead and stop at one of the clearings instead.
A look at the beautiful valley down below:
Some shameless posing followed. Lol!
Back on the road... The roads start getting better post Amba towards Ganpatipule
And then much better and a total blast...
The golden dried grass in the Maharashtrian landscape make for good contrasts with the red bikes. We just couldn't resist this photo opportunity...
But I soon get tired of the heat - December is not supposed to be this hot. Or is it so in these regions? My base layer was getting drenched every time we stopped for some reason.
Urging the others to make a move! Senthil didn't need much persuasion - he was the first to leave as usual
Pic Courtesy - KarthikK
And the other two make a stylish exit from the place:
Back on the road, it was all fun to Ganpatipule
The 390 Adventure was giving Rajesh some good fun moments and I was trying to keep pace most of the time
Reached Ganpatipule at around 2:15pm. Our destination for lunch was O'Nest O'Fish restaurant at Gaywadi beach
The place had a good variety of seafood. When asked for local fish catch - they listed three, and we ended up ordering one of each. Lol!
The vegetarians among us were not left behind as well- good food generally was the overall feedback. I guess we would have also finished a dozen Solkadhi glasses between us!
Pic Courtesy - KarthikK
The property is right next to the beachfront, which was completely deserted at 2PM in the afternoon.
The only other souls around where these guys doing parasailing in the distance
And this cute little one that got washed in with the waves
View of the restaurant / resort from the beach.
Post lunch, we headed for our place of stay - another nearby property by the same management - O'nest Nakshatra beach resort. Good clean rooms, though a bit cramped for space:
And seaview rooms are a bit of a stretch by any imagination. However, overall, not bad for the place and price during this vacation season - that too for a last minute booking!
After relaxing for an hour in the room, we went out to the beach to watch the sunset. Meanwhile, I see the tyres and reflect on the day of fun we had. These Michelins continue to impress further on every single ride - and has quite a lot of tread depth left at approximately 15k kms odd.
Why should panniers restrict some good old fun?
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To be continued in subsequent posts...)