Saturday, February 23, 2008

Saturday trip to Karnala



My friend ron was a bit worried on Friday……Ron, KC and I were to go Karnala on Saturday on our bikes (biking trip). Ron was worried because the last time we had planned a trip on Saturday on bikes……things had gone wrong…..reason being I had met with an accident on preceding Friday…….due to which my buddies had cancelled the trip. Anyway…..nothing happened to me this Friday…..the only accident I met with was seeing a beautiful girl in our locality !!!
We started off to Karnala at around 0830 hrs in the morning….everbody got up on time thankfully…..Filled our bikes’ tanks with petrol….and started off. KC and ron were on ron’s bike and I was alone on my bike……On the way we stopped at Shree Datta snacks corner in panvel…..and had wadapav and chaai. The advantage in going to Shree Datta snacks corner is that the food is good and there is a lot of candy for your eye too..!!! From there karnala is not much far off on the bombay goa highway….we reached karnala, KC bought the entry tickets at Rs 30 each and we parked our bikes near the rest houses some distance away from the entry gates. Karnala is, of course, a bird sanctuary but apart from that there is also a fort at karnala…We saw some unhappy looking birds in cages and then went on to climb the fort. Actually we came to Karnala for the sake of making a short trip by bike and to have some fun together. We started the climb which initially seemed to be quite ok, as usual, we were wrong!!! We took the harder route….the steep climb path….it turned out to be extremely steep…and as if that wasn’t hard enough there were patches where there was loose dirt and loose stones…..which made the climb difficult…..and so puffing and panting and slipping and sweating we finally reached a sort of plateau. We thought we had reached the fort but then in the distance saw that it was still some more way to go…..We decided to stop for some time on the plateau and return as it was already 1230 and our stomachs had started rumbling with the want of food. So we clicked some photos and started back….the descent seemed to be as difficult as the climb, it was very steep and we had to hold on to a branch of tree every time we gained ‘extra momentum’. KC was on flotters and this kind of footwear is guaranteed to give you that extra ‘slip’ (not the extra ‘grip!!), I was a bit afraid that he was behind me while descending….but then he was a bit afraid too because ron was behind him too!!! Luckily no one fell…… I nearly caused an injury however….I held one of the branches and swung on it while descending and then took my hands off it…..the branch…..swung back to its normal position…..where ron was standing!!!! It hit him on the head……not too hard however…..just enough to make me laugh at this incident!!! After this we started back on the highway. We stopped at the dhaba where I had stopped on New years night. We ordered food…..the old ‘kaka’ seemed to remember me…….he told me that he had seen me before…..was pretty much surprised at the old mans razor sharp memory!!! We ate channa masala and chicken sabji in the typical countryside gravy and 4 tandoori rotis each……all this while there were animals around us…..A dog, lots of hens and only one cock (lucky bastard!!). There was also a small kitten she seemed to be enjoying mewing at us and weaving in and out of the spaces between our feet…..Finally kaka picked up the kitten by the skin of her neck and threw her out like a rag!!!! After having our food and paying the bill (Only Rs 346!!!) we came back to vashi non stop, this time KC riding my bike….(he drove it faster and ‘incident free’). Came home and slept like a log only to wake up when the Electricity load shedding power cut started.!!!

1 comment:

Ravan said...

Did'ya forget that KC fell down? Clumsily over the log?