Kabhie Khushi Kabhie Ghum (The Tadoba Ride Story)

It was a diwali + Eid weekend, a stretched extended weekend, and so it was sure that me GR, and Anand gonna spend it on road only, and in the excitement, our Amber also joined in from the banglore, and we set off for one crazy ride with loads of actions, drama, comedy and tragedy….

A Night before the Day:
A night before the day we were suppose to start our ride, Amber was supposed to reach Hyderabad from Banglore, along with Samarth, a fellow 60kph member. I was expecting Amber to be in Hyderabad by 2 am, as he had started from Banglore by 4.00 pm, and so I decided not to sleep off early, cause if I sleep off I wont be able to wake up in mid of night and go and get amber to rest at my place. So spent the night packing and thinking where exactly we are gonna go. This was one crazy ride, cause even after a day on the road we never knew where we are headed, we initially had Kanha, Pench and Tadoba in the mind but none of the places accommodation and contacts were working out, and to see a wild life sanctuary properly, it seemed we needed it. And suddenly on the last day, even the plans for going to Araku were cropping up, but in the end we decided that where ever we go, we heading to some Tiger Reserve only. So with the packing done, I started waited for Amber’s call, and it was 3 am still he didn’t called, which made me lil anxious, and I never knew when I fell asleep, only to be woken up by the ambers call at 4.30 am, went out and got him home, and we both slept off very soon, only to be woken up at 6.30 am by Anand’s Call.

Day – 1
On the Road Atlast:
After a hiatous of around 2 months I was back on the highway, and it took me few mins only to clean of the cobwebs and come into highway mode. Me and Amber, had started a bit late, as we had some sleep to catch up and had to cross the whole city to reach the Medchal highway, so Anand and GR were riding ahead and were waiting for us at breakfast at the Fauji Dhaba, so soon we reached there and gobbled up some aloo paranthas and dahi. So finally we decided here at this point to head to Tadoba, and GR has arranged some accommodation for the night at the Adilabad Forest Rest House. So we had only 300 kms to cover on day 1, which we thought wasn’t much. As anand’s bike was in running in so he started ahead while we finished our break fast, and we soon catched up with him, and had a real smooth and gr8 ride. The highway from Hyderabad to Adilabad is simply awesome.

Kick Off:
As we were approaching Nirmal, there was a small fort just outside that city, so everybody got camera happy there, and got thinking, either the king of Nirmal was quite fatichar to have such a small fort, or as amber said, this must be one of the forts he must have bought out to his girl friend ;) As we started from here something strange happened to my bike, while running, suddenly I feel the kick going down, and as I looked down, the whole kick was just dangling lifelessly, stopped at a dhaba at Nirmal and tried to figure out the problem, Amber got a mechanic from the Nirmal, and it turned out to be that the Spring of my kick has broken, alas, a strange place to have a strange break down, tried to fine the spring at Nirmal but couldn’t, so we decided to just to have our lunch there and push off to Adilabad.

Dhakkaa Lagao:
So with the kick gone, the only way to start the bike was to push it and put it in first gear and start up, so we asked amber to sit on the bike and do that, while three of us push, and this was the case for next whole day, whenever my bike used to stop we hafta push, my bike was the full loaded with our luggage and spares and sleeping bags and tent, so zor laga ke haisha….. Me and Amber pushed off to Adilabad full throttle while GR and Anand came slower enjoying the amazing ghats and taking some good shots. At adilabad, I tried to hunt for that Spring but it turned out to be, that there was only one Bullet in the whole of Adilabad, and whenever some problem happened to it, they took it to Hyderabad, so now I was stick with no other choice but just to stick to Dhakkaa Start.

Happy Diwali:
Day one of the ride was the Diwali day, and my third diwali on the road in the row, so it was feeling great. We all head to restaurant to enjoy a hearty dinner. At the restaurant, suddenly Amber remembers to pay his Reliance phone bill, and tries to go and fill it there at a Reliance Web World. This was the most hilarious thing we all had scene, this guy coming all the way 950 kms to pay the phone bill, and for that too he got late, as the web world was closed. We just laughed our way to glory and enjoyed rest of the evening, talking about bikes, roads, engine breaking, counter steering and sigma speedos.

Day 1 Way Points: Hyderabad – Medchal – Nirmal – AdilabadDistance covered: 300 kms


Day – 2:
Chale Chalo:
Finally we had freezed upon heading to Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR), and so we decided to head for Chandrapur Which was the District head quarter for TATR and all the permissions was to be taken from that place only. We decided to avoid the higway, and take a interior bus route to the Chandrapur, and our decision surely turned out to be real good, as it was a lovely route with real good scenery, complete with some patches of bad road. We stopped for our break fast at Bela, a small village, and as we parked our bikes, hoardes of villagers gathered around to have a look at the bikes, and the four strange guy who were riding… everybody has this curious look in there eyes with a familiar question to Amber: WHAT IS YOUR OBJECTIVE? Well after the breakfast the real Tamasha started, when it was time to start my bike, with around 200 villagers present there, we were pushing and trying to start my bike and it was as hilarious as embrassing, but luckily, my bike got started in just one push and we were on our way to Chandrapur. Now me and GR, decided to push off ahead to Ballarpur, and try to get my bike fixed, as anand and amber were gonna come little slower due to the photo stops. So me and G.R. got engaged in a real fun ripping session, on the interior roads of Maharashtra and in no time we were able to reach bellarpur and I was even able to find the Spring for my kick, but as I got the kick fixed, still the kick wouldn’t go all the way, as it turned out that the whole kick assembly had gone bonkers, but somehow now it was in condition that with few adjustments I could start up my bike with the kick. Soon Anand and Amber caught up with us, and we headed for Chandrapur.

Raat ki Baat:
Now we tried to fix up some accommodation in the Moharli, the last check point till which we were allowed to take our bikes, after which the national park area started and the two wheelers were not allowed inside. This Moharli place was real good too, quite inside the jungle already. But to stay at the forest guest house we couldn’t get forest officers permission and the only MTDC resort available there was too costly for our budget. 850 Rs for double room, so we were considering the thought of going back to chandrapur and staying in some lodge, but we didn’t wanted to stay in the city, so we sent anand on a mission to find an accommodation somewhere at moharli only, and after 45 mins anand came back victorious managing an accommodation in a forest hut, just near the check post. Found a family of elephants there which were used for the jungle safari, and the time we reached there it was there feeding time, so were able to watch the elephants enjoying there food from real close quarters. In the dinner Anand was in mood to have some local food, so we managed to convince a villager to cook some dinner for us. With no Mobile phone signals in that area, we were left with only one choice, but to use the only STD PCO booth in that area, and by far that was the strangest phone booth I have ever seen, in the living room of some villager, and the funniest thing about that phone was that u could only call to any mobile number, you couldn’t call to any land line, or reliance or bsnl from that phone. So after dinner, we decided to sleep outside in our sleeping bags and enjoy the fresh air of jungle, but soon that idea was spoilt by the check post guard who warned us not to sleep outside, as there was a tiger on the prowl, who has killed a person just half a kilometer away from where we were a week ago. Also the guard told us that no villagers sleep outside there house as the bears and tigers used to roam that area in the night and it was quite risky, so anand cajoaled and forced me to go and sleep inside, but as it was quite stuffy in the hut, and with so many mosquitoes I decided to take a risk and so me and amber slept outside the hut in our tent. Before we both slept off, amber has some crazy idea to escape in case some tiger or bear attacked our tent. He said he has a lighter with him, and in case of an attack he will burn off the tent and the sleeping bag and scare away the animal. And I was just trying to look for that lighter, in order to save my tent. Soon we all slept off hoping for a great day ahead.

Waypoint for Day 2: Adilabad – Jainath – Bela – Bellarpur – Chandrapur – Moharli – TadobaDistance covered: 160 kms


Day 3:
The Call of the Wild:
This was the most exciting day as we were to get into the Tadoba tiger reserve and enjoy the wildlife. As two wheelers were not allowed inside the park area, so we had to hire a sumo taxi for this day. The Tadoba Tiger is spread over in the area of 635 sq kms and the vehicles are allowed inside the forest from the morning 6am to 11.00 pm and than in the evening 3.00 pm to 6.00 pm. Our morning session was pretty good, with lots of sightings of spotted deers, Sambhars, crocodiles, wild boars, some bird eating spiders and also were able to catch a glimpse of the very shy barking deer. But our real interest was the Tiger and the Bison. But couldn’t have a dekho of it in the morning session, but able to get loads of gyan on the jungles and trees and animals. During the break we had a look at a stuffed tiger at the forest check post, which was declared man – eater in 1996 and was killed by 10 bullet shots, and took two nights to kill that fellow. Man that was a huge tiger, and it had managed to kill three man and eaten one of it, before the forest gaurds and police commandos gunned the big guy down. The afternoon session was a real let down for us, with very few animal sightings and the tiger was at its elusive best, got the news of some family able to see a tigress with its cub and some other group able to sight a leopard, but we didn’t got anything, and so most of us were drowsy and soon we headed back for Moharli to call it a day. The Tiger Hunt is still on…

Is Raat ki Subah Nahin:
Back to our base camp Moharli, we all decided to ride back to hyderabad whole night long, as it was hardly 430 kms from there, and we wanted to have half a day to take rest and freshen up and the major cause of worry was the amber, who has to yet ride back all the way to Banglore on Monday itself and report to office on Tuesday. So we decided to ride whole night long, but little did we knew that we were in for a really really long night. On our way back we decided to take another route via asifabad and karimnagar, and so we started from Moharli at around 7.30 pm and headed towards asifabad, after a brief fuel stop at chandrapur. We reached asifabad at around 10.30 pm, which was just 80 kms from Mancharial, we all had decided to stick in the group at least for the night, and as anand’s bike was in running in, we were just averaging 24 kmph, and that was real real real boring. We had a dinner at Asifabad, and than again started for Mancharial, again on our snail pace, but around 12.45 am the monotonus of that pace and nothing much happening caught up with me, and I dozed off while riding, only to be woken up next second by rumbling of a truck. I decided I m not gonna ride this way, it wasn’t safe, so I told the group either we stop or I go on my pace. As this highway is quite a remote one in the night with very little traffice, we couldn’t find any dhaba to sleep, so we decided to carry on till mancharial, where anand was sure to find a dhaba to sleep, but this time, I just went ahead of the group on my own pace in order to kill the monotony and avoid getting sleepy again. The adrenaline pumping up, and the gushing of the wind in my face freshened me up and was able to ride till mancharial with no problem. Waited for the others to catch up at chai ki kitli, and than we started to look out for a dhaba to crash out, but we couldn’t find any and so we decided to carry on, after around 20 kms, we found a big industrial junction with some chai shops and one really big big big HP petrol pump with all kinda facility and store, and nice lawn on side, so we all decided to sleep on that lawn on the side of the highway under the starry sky, and get the lullaby by the passing trucks, that was quite an experience, and soon all of us were sleeping happinly, though GR couldn’t sleep for long. By 5.00 am all of us woke up again and hit the road, as it was day break and we were just 230 kms from Hyderabad, we decided to just zoom towards hyderabad and catch a breakfast at secunderabad as I was pretty confident that from here anand can manage back any how in his running in speed. However anand stayed in front of us all the way till Karimnagar, an added advantage and assurance. From Mancharial to Shameerpet (180 kms) it was just crazy crazy ripping session. GR, Me and Amber all of us got engaged in some crazy riding and most of the time was just zooming past the scenery, but in order to push my bike to extreme, I had the break down just 50 kms before Hyderabad. Due to loads and loads of luggage, my bike wasnt touching 120, which got me quite upset and i was hell bent upon touch the 120 mark, and finally after crossing siddipet was able to do it on long straight stretches, now again i wanted to have more speed, so did the same thing which i did last week, took my bike to 4th from 5th at 120 and the result was again the same, one of the tappet came out again. Now GR rode back to the village we just left behind and came back with a real huge rope, and than started a towing session. Amber’s jimmy pulled my Mystique for around 50 kms to hyderabad. This was surely a novel experience, though I had a similar one during my Gujarat ride, when mandeep came to the rescue in the tata sumo. The fun part of this towing was, we were still averaging 70 kmph while being towed, that was something awesome, though we nearly avoided a fall and finally were able to tow my bike to vikram puri, where dj’s mechanic was able to fix back my tappets, and I rode back home, bruised, tired, thinking but happy.

Final day waypoints: Moharli - Chandrapur - Bellarpur - Asifabad - Mancharial - Karimnagar - Siddipet - Hyderabad.Distance covered: 430 kmsTotal distance covered: 1010 kms