Team-BHP - Pics & Video : A Team-BHP Moderator Weekend @ Pawna (MH)
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This, BTW, is my first contribution to the Travelogues section :)

The last Mod trip to Deolali was an absolute blast; here's a picture from that 2011 Trip. Among other things, we'd gone gliding over Nasik in an engine-less aircraft!

Stratos, GTO, Flying Spur, Dippy & Rehaan:
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Credits:

- A BIG shoutout to Ajmat, Vid6639 & Suhaas307 for driving down 1,000 kms from Bangalore, to spend the weekend with us.

- Thanks to Rehaan for the awesome trip video!

- Thanks to Rudra Sen, Rehaan, Ajmat, Manson, Vid6639, F50 & Noopster for the photographs.

Walk down Memory Lane:

- Our First Mod Trip

The Pawna plan was made 3 weeks back, when the Mumbai Mods were out on a Saturday night. This time around, we wanted to make it bigger & more special than the Deolali weekend.

Our Weekend Getaway:
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Rudra labels this pic as the Water Babies. Noopster, Vid6639, Flying Spur, GTO & Ajmat:
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The Team-BHP Moderator Drive Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWyGf5VNPos

The Pawna Team:

GTO:
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Rehaan:
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Rudra Sen:
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Ajmat:
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Manson:
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Vid6639:
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Flying Spur:
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F50:
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Noopster:
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Suhaas307:
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So, what do we do on a Team-BHP Moderator weekend?

1. Discuss Team-BHP.com and the way forward. New initiatives were brought up on Saturday night, including a peek into the future :)

2. Talk Cars. And then some

3. Generally have fun!

The Mumbai Group left on Saturday afternoon, with the Bangalore Mods already having reached the outskirts of Pune. The plan was to meet up in Lonavla.

We stopped right before the expressway to tank up our stomachs. Look at Rudra's shiny Optra; it's kept so clean that each of the 20 alloy-wheel spokes looks brand new. Rudra was contemplating between a new ride in Bombay (where he’s temporarily moved) or getting the Optra down from Bangalore. I told him to drive it down; it’s too much car for the money, if you consider the poor residual value. This is a fabulous pre-worshipped buy for the sedate driver:
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Flying Spur drops some Pepsi onto his seats, opens up the car detailing thread and gets to work immediately:
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Safely cruising on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway:
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Call it a coincidence, but the Mumbai & Bangalore Teams reached the designated spot at Lonavla within 10 minutes of each other. In the picture are Rehaan, Suhaas307, Ajmat, Vid6639, GTO, F50, Flying Spur & Manson:
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After a lot of convincing on the road conditions (*wink* *wink*), Flying Spur found out that the approach roads to Pawna weren't that good after all. The poor BMW lost its front monogram on the expressway too. That’s right, it was there when we entered the expressway, but not when we took the exit. Would be pretty difficult for anyone to snatch it off at 100 kph!! Oh well…just one of the many inexplicable events of life:
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Rehaan & Rudra look thrilled! Everyone was kicked about Pawna:
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The sun-roof was put to good (shooting) use as we crept along the dirt road:
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Right outside the Pawna house. Ajmat – our resident Euro car Guru – walked away impressed with the Figo’s dynamics:
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The Scorpio was climbing steep inclines in 2nd gear, where every other car needed a downshift to 1st. The sheer driveability of this engine blew me away:
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How the parking lot looked over the weekend. Each car distinctively wore Team-BHP stickers, with some really innovative placements:
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Down by the lake was a group camping. With a Premier Rio :D
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What followed next left everyone awestruck. Simply put, the view was breath-taking, especially at dusk:
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After some initial conversation:
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We jumped right in:
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Credit to our support staff - Maharaj & Bheem - for keeping the food flowing, with pizzas, pav bhaji, garlic potatoes, pasta et al:
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The ambience was to die for. Adding to it was the music (all genres, depending on who was standing next to the iPod) throughout the evening:
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The Bazooka is launched. Villagers scampered in the opposite direction thinking they're going to be blown to smithereens. Rudra prefered to shoot on the first day, rather than swim:
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The budding photographer joins right in. In the last 6 months, F50 got himself a business degree, married his girlfriend of 5 years & started a new insurance company. We wish you the best, Priyank:
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The water was particularly chilly that evening. After the sunset, it was impossible to stay in (though a handful did anyways):
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We got to discussing Team-BHP.com and some exciting new initiatives that are lined up for release:
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Manson, who always has something to say, frequently interrupts the presentation. Here, he proposes a new sub-section dedicated to Superbikes:
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The weekend was filled with laughter, fun, some great conversations and loads of back-slapping:
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Post-dinner, Noopster livened up the night with his acoustic guitar. And singing skills to match!
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The gadget freaks discussing Rehaan's snazzy new DSLR:
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Now, there's hidden talent if I ever saw one. Flying Spur woke us up to the tune of Oasis (Stand By Me IIRC). Boy, can he play!
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Manson & I had chosen to sleep outside. I remember him waking me up in the middle of the night asking "Aren't you feeling cold? Damn, I'm shivering?" My reply "Of course you are feeling cold. I've got 3 blankets and you slept with just one rl:"
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Barely awake, but the car talk starts with breakfast itself. On the table was delicious Maharashtrian style Poha:
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Soaking up the view. Penny for your thoughts, Suhaas?
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Noopster says "This picture defines life for me":
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Even after a late night where most of us slept between 0200 - 0300 hours, the gang woke up at about 0800 hours:
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We went boating on the Pawna lake thereafter. This group shot is at the parking lot of the local Boating Club. Noopster’s 60,000 km Blue Swift is still rattle-free and feels tight. Without looking at the odo, my best guess was “30,000 or so clicks”. Each of the 5 weekend rides was brilliantly maintained, including the oldest (the 8 year old Optra that doesn't look or feel its age at all):
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The approach is nicely done up:
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I was apprehensive about Sunday morning crowds and the resultant ques. Luckily, we got on the motorboat right away. Early bird gets the worm, I guess:
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T'was rather cheap. 30 bucks a head for 5 minutes. We got ~20 minutes for a thousand. The dude in Red claimed his boat has "99 HP" on tap rl:
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Rehaan took the best seat and started shooting right away. We've selected this picture for Rehaan's profile picture on the shaadi.com website:
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Absolute magic - Hard to believe that the Pawna lake was artificially created, as a result of the Pawna Dam built not so far back:
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Our boat was affectionately called the Hyundai Verna. For obvious reason:
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After a hot cuppa, we headed back to the house. There was about an hour odd before we had to leave for our Paragliding session. Flying Spur wastes no time:
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And the rest follow his lead:
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A quick home-made Biryani and we are off to the designated meeting spot with our paragliding crew. We waited around here for a while, but time just seemed to fly in good company:
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This is an extremely popular spot with paragliders from Maharashtra. Best part is, the location was a stones throw away from our house:
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Practice sessions going on:
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The heat was terrible with the bright sun right above us. Unfortunately, the wind conditions that afternoon weren't in our favour. Sitting out there for ~60 minutes did us in. We decided to, you guessed it, take a dive in the pool. Our house was anyways 10 minutes away. Numbers exchanged, we asked the Paragliders to call us once they / we are good to fly:
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Someone left this message on Rudra's Optra. Identity unknown and will stay so:
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The ol' man chooses to be in front of the camera for a change. After the heat on top of the mountain, no one thought twice before jumping into the cold water. While the ol' man was chilling, a few of us had drag races on the floats (refer to Video above):
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Noopster regales us with some awesome tunes again:
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The spicy paneer on the table was over before you could say "I'm starving". Just hanging around:
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By late afternoon, the wind conditions got better and the Paragliders went up in the air. Unfortunately, it was time for the Bangalore Boys to hit the highway home, so we had to give paragliding a pass. Just wish they'd taken off 2 hours earlier. Well, there is always a next time:
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Suhaas says "I don't give a damn about paragliding. I'm staying put right here". Nice shot, notice the glider right above him:
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The Bangalore gang just before hitting the road home:
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Super positioning of the Team-BHP Sticker on his dashboard. Thank Gawd he didn't get that awful red dash top:
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Mumbai Mods spent the evening lounging around. After the noisy, action-packed evening of Saturday, the quiet Sunday dusk was different. And a pleasant change:
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Do I have to go to work tomorrow? - Rudra's caption for this picture:
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Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Travelogues section

Wow, what a trip and what a miss for me. I had to cancel my flight tickets less than 12 hours before the trip since my wife was ill.

It was an awesome weekend and a welcome change from the daily grind. The best part was no e-mail, no internet and no cell phone coverage!

Mumbai Mods were planning a trip and I proposed this to Bangalore gang. Ajmat and Suhaas agreed but Suhaas later backed out. 2 hours before Ajmat and myself were scheduled to leave, Suhaas wants back in. Must be the wisest decision he took :D.

What followed was a fun drive on Friday evening to Belgaum, where we camped and head out after a lazy breakfast to Pune on Saturday morning. The timing was sheer coincidence that we were there at the Lonavla exit within 10 mins of the Mumbai gang.

Took the slightly beaten path from Lonavla to Pawna and when we reached the house our cars looked like they competed in the Dakar rally. Rudra's black optra was mud brown and he made it a point to throw up as much dirt as possible on my Figo.

We reached the house and were awestruck. The view was beautiful and we were just soaking up the quiet surroundings and magnificent view. Then we saw the pool and before you know it, everyone was in the pool. A fun filled saturday with awesome food and great car talk. Sunday was filled with more fun including boat ride and paragliding (which didn't happen due to poor winds). We came back and promptly dived into the pool. This time we told the "Old Man" that the pool was calling out to him and looks like he listened. Next minute he was in the pool and was the person to get out in the end.

Before we knew it, it was Sunday evening and it was time to head back to Bangalore for us. We had taken Monday off but did not want to reach late on Monday night so we wouldn't be pooped on Tuesday at office.

We left Lonavla at 6pm and by 10:30pm we reached Kolhapur where we decided to spend the night. Early morning 8am start from Kolhapur meant we covered good ground and were munching miles in the Figo. Ajmat did the entire 500kms from Belgaum and Bangalore and was pleasantly surprised with the Figo's handling and with the diesel torque. We were back home by 5pm and I was already thinking about the fun we had.

Looking back it's amazing that it's been already been a week since we left last friday. Time sure does fly when your in great company and having fun!

Thanks a lot to GTO for organizing the entire weekend and being a great host. Thanks to Rehaan for excellent pics and superb video.

Manson, Flyingspur, F50, Noopster and Rudra it was great catching up with you guys after a long time.:)

Great trip you guys had. So all the other members had a field day on the forum with no moderators around. lol:

By the way can i ask who owns that place? The pool is simply awesome. Is the place available on rent over the weekend? :D

Excellent beginning GTO in this section which was alien to you till now:D

I am totally cursing myself for missing this "exotic" trip. That picture of the pool with all you guys chilling out will haunt me for rest of the life. Simply superb

Great pictures by Rudra only adds that flavour to this travelogue and excellent editing and video shot by Rehaan

Overall, you guys had a loads of fun. Next time for sure:thumbs up

Hey! I'm just coming back from Nashik. Off topic, I know, but a question on the landscape surrounding Nashik. Can a proper SUV like Landrover climb up and down those gently sloping hills?

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 2713692)
This, BTW, is my first contribution to the Travelogues section :)

Ohh! I see your posts in the "Official Joke Thread" but there's been nothing in the Travelogues section till now?

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 2713757)
We stopped right before the expressway to tank up our stomachs. Look at Rudra's shiny Optra; it's kept so clean that each of the 20 alloy-wheel spokes looks brand new. Rudra was contemplating between a new ride in Bombay (where he’s temporarily moved) or getting the Optra down from Bangalore. I told him to drive it down; it’s too much car for the money, if you consider the poor residual value. This is a fabulous pre-worshipped buy for the sedate driver:

@Rudra: Drive down to Mumbai from Bangalore. Stop over at Belgaum for a night's stay if you want. There's a very good hotel (rooms with bath tub, not costing more than Rs. 1500 per night) just off the highway in Belgaum

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vid6639 (Post 2716016)
The best part was no e-mail, no internet and no cell phone coverage!

A good & a bad side to it :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by amitwlele (Post 2716021)
So all the other members had a field day on the forum with no moderators around

That's why there was no advance notice :D

Quote:

By the way can i ask who owns that place? The pool is simply awesome. Is the place available on rent over the weekend? :D
Someone from the family. Sorry, it's not available for rent.


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