There are days when you are surrounded by so much beauty that you feel privileged, blessed even, to witness it. You walk with a spring in your step, a big grin on your face and the world just feels right again. It is like being in love, maybe even better, because you have none of that 'delicious torment' (to quote Emerson) that comes with it. 

This was one of those days.

Bumps on saddle .. A true bumpy ride :) 

Its a local story of my ride, places might not be failiar to you, hope you will enjoy. 

For today ride - I  had a idea for Dakor with shortest route possible.. How and why it turned with 150+ here you read.. 
Morning i started around 6:00 am for this ride, confusion started from home itself, mom thought I m going on motor bike.. But it was cycle. :) 

I decided to take shortest route possible from village to avoid highway traffic. Looked Google map and tough to of taking router 3 somewhere near Sakarda and I asked at Sakarda.. villagers gracefully pushed to highway again.. so no choice, i have to take highway and ride turned to just 70 km more. 

Once I reached at Dakor, around 8:30 people near temples were starring at my bikes and also kind enough to take of my bike when i was in temple for prayer. when i was out from temple i show a big crowed near my bike (25-30 visitors) and i had to encounter lots of questions on bike, about me, why i cycled up to this place, can this bike run at speed of 50 ?..   
Finally one person told me now where I will go now ? I told back to Baroda and suggestion to visit Galteswar which is some 5-6 km (people told me this) and from there you can ride to Savali and reach back home.. it was so easy for them to tell me this. They might be think I have a geared cycle and it can run a speed of motor bike. :) 

My first question to them was how is road, reply was good road .. 
Yes it was good for car not for bike like mine. 
Finally I decided to ride on same route and end up doing 150+ with really nice road where most of the time I could not put my bumps on saddle.. 
.. :D hope to ride soon ..

After 18 years of living in Baroda, I came across to travel in Heritage Narrow gauge train which runs between Pratapnagar to Jambusar for the first time. A lovely ride of 3-4 hours to cross almost 50+ km.  
The first narrow gauge railway line to be laid was to 2'6" gauge by the Gaekwar of Baroda to connect the town of Dabhoi to the broad gauge BBCIR railway. Initially bullocks were used to provide motive power to the railway until three 0-4-0 tank locomotives were introduced in 1863. The tank engines proved too heavy for the lightly laid rails and 0-4-0 tender engines were found to be more suitable with heavier rails. In the 1890s a 0-4-2 tender locomotive was introduced and instantly became popular.

The first train came to Vadodara in 1861, and the Railways celebrated its 150th anniversary in the city recently. The narrow trains are here since almost the same time. The tram line as it was called back then was the first tracks and rail to be owned and laid down by an Indian, the then king of Baroda(as it was known back then), Sir Khanderao Gaekwad in 1862. The coaches were then pulled by a pair of oxen. They were replaced soon by a locomotive built specially. More than a hundred and fifty years later, the narrow gauge train is still active on two routes around the city. Miyagaam to Dabhoi and Pratapnagar to Jambusar. I chose to try out the Pratapnagar to Jambusar route that spanned 50 kms.

I reached 30 minutes before the scheduled departure hoping for a Sunday rush and an empty ticket reservation window. Yet, it held a different picture. The station parking was full autos. The station itself was no more than two platforms a big and had a narrow gauge and a broad gauge. A canteen, a reservation counter and a temple along with the offices of the railways staff formed a part of the platform that was now crowded with men, women and children, most waiting for the broad gauge. The toy train like narrow gauge waited right in front for its scheduled departure and surprise, it was on dot time at 10:00 am. 

There were many surprises on this toy train, one it run on enough speed a one can easily get down and get into other coach, a Guard was giving tickets where no stations in between. I can see that all passengers were buying tickets, even though you did not find any ticket checking in train. Train guard shuts "FATAK" (rail track crossing with road) before and after train crosses. 

WOW a total fun trip .. Thanks Saurabh and Rena to make me part of their journey.
A empty Narrow gauge coach welcomes just opposite to Pratapnagar railway station.

Like most people, the things that worried me about going into this magnificent rainforest along India's tropical western coastline were the usual jungle troubles: myriad creepies with their crawly chums menacing about ruining everyone's day, the off-chance of being mauled to death by some sexually frustrated jungle object, torrential rain, food, and of course, being bitten by a bastard of a snake.

But I went in prepared. Over-prepared even. My ruck-sack weighed close to 60 kilos (132 lbs) for a 4 -day foray into the enchanting forest surrounding Agumbe, a quaint little one-road town nestled in a valley of the Shimoga district. Everything was perfect until I reached the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station. A cop I met on the way was good enough to offer me a ride to the station and on enroute, told me all about the naxal violence in the area while simultaneously assuring me that camping within the woods was safe for me on account of being a civilian( the discrimination!) I was quite relieved to be honest, after all he was a cop.

Later, the good folks at the Research Station told me a story about an incident that had happened in the woods not more than a month before that date. Long story short, an inspector in charge of a police patrol combing the forest for naxals decided to take a dip in this creek he found and sent his boys to circle around. On returning, the patrol spotted movement near the edge of the creek which spooked a few boys who promptly fired off in the general direction of the movement out of sheer nerves, killing poor inspector saab in the process.

Uh-oh.

So, I was advised to stick to tourist spots and the temples by the good people of the ARRS. Since evidently, the training and the lack thereof and almost god-like levels of immunity make the cops a much bigger threat than the naxals. Now this was all rather disappointing. I mean, I had after all come all this way, even if to be mauled to death in a sexual manner goddamnit!

So I decided to do what any rational person would do in a situation like this: First, I drank. A lot. Next, I bid farewell to the nice people of ARRS and then walked straight into the damn forest. fuck it. If all went well I thought, I'd be shooting cops by nightfall. I didn't have a great camera but i did manage to take pictures of a few random things (I stopped using the camera by dusk to avoid detection by flash) which I will upload as soon as I can find the damn thing's usb cable grrr. (photo uploaded above courtesy: google)

Anyway, I found this clearing in the forest at around 2100 and pitched my tent in the moon shade of a giant Banyan tree. By 2230 I was fed and intoxicated. It was perfect. There is a certain joy in being completely alone while being constantly reminded, subtly so, of the fallacy of the notion. The forest, it forces you to embrace the otherwise. There is a toxic level of uncertainty and certainty that exist simultaneously and even battle each other for your reasoning. The trick is to fear and prepare against the certain as best you can and let uncertainty dwell on it's own.

I spent the night listening to the forest, I was eavesdropping. A few times, I could hear what I thought was a Gaur quite close to my tent. Maybe he wanted to investigate my intrusion, I'll never know. But what I know for a fact is that I was under constant observation the whole time. It's an eerie feeling, being watched. And as they watched, I listened.

There is something peculiar about this exchange that surpasses simple sensory function, it's an adaption, a mini-evolution if you will. And if you allow yourself to partake in this seemingly mundane activity, over time you will start to feel like a part of the forest itself. You can almost FEEL the life around you get agitated as you enter its domain and then relax with time's passing. But only if you're earnest. There are unwritten rules which reveal themselves to you, like layers. After all, the energy which is inside you that you may call your soul, your sub-conscience has been around since the start of it all (think law of conservation of energy) and has experienced this before and now, your soul is nostalgic. And if you're lucky, your soul will take you home. To your real home, wherever that may be.

Usually people transport their bikes in cardboard boxes, but i felt that having a dedicated bike bag would be better as it is more compact, has more room for accessories and most of all because of the reason that the bag can be stowed away easily at a left luggage counter or in a hotel and can be used for the return trip as well. That last item was the major selling point for me as i didn't want to run around looking for cardboard boxes especially on the return leg of my journeys. The Btwin bike bag being sold in Decathlon looked perfect for my needs so i went ahead and bought it. And here is its review..