January 17, 2011
A fishing boat ride from Jaigarh
Guhagar
Breakfast can wait. The places here in Ganpatipule seem unattractive at this time of day and I bank on finding one that looks out to sea.
The sun is quite low as I ride away from the lodge, but it's risen by the time I've emailed Debbie as it's gone ten. There are around 90 km to ride to get to Guhagar, where there's a bed and it's time to get moving.
After 4 km there's a resort and they do breakfast and I wheel my bike down the little path towards the beach and sit and have jam and toast and an omelette again.
The rural road follows the shore, but views of the sand are only intermittent. There's no traffic on the route and it's all the more very enjoyable because of that.
When I ride past a large power plant with its tall chimneys and get to a junction it feels I've got to land's end, which I actually have and a man on a motorbike says that to go north I have to go back 40 km, which makes me laugh as it's so ridiculous.
A man behind a desk in a small hotel that no doubt caters to engineers visiting the power plant also says that the route north is back south and I then get a third opinion from a man in military uniform nearby who tells me to take the right turn down and get a boat. This sounds better.
My bike freewheels for a couple of K from the high point and reaches water's edge where's there's a fishing village and a jetty. I guess this is Jaigarh.
I ride up and down the village lane that traces the shore and see a man in a white crocheted hat and ask him about boats and he says there's one at about 5:00pm, but it's only just gone noon and he then says I can find a small boat to get me across, so I go back to the jetty where a man says it'll cost me 300 rupees. A second man says the same about five minutes later and so that seems the going rate.
It's a matter of biting the bullet and after a 20-minute wait I wheel my bike down the sloping concrete and lift on board the small blue-painted wooden craft and it then chugs slowly across the water. The ride takes 20 minutes or so. Perhap Rs300 is okay.
There' a long steep climb waiting for me on the other side -maybe 3 km.
Once I've conquered that and freewheeled along a bit, a man on a bike appears and we both instinctively stop for a chat.
He's Claes, another Swede, who came here a couple of years ago and rode a Hero bike and didn't enjoy the experience as it was a crap bike and now he's brought one with him.
His 'map' is a piece of written instructions and I was hoping he had the same one as his compatriots had from the other day. It's all up and down he tells me.
I ride up and down some more and stop to photograph a window and the man of the house comes out and asks me some usual questions and then asks if I'd like to take tea, so I sit in his rustic stone home that's remote and enjoy some sweet tea and a chat for a while. It's cool inside - out of the sun.
Guhagar is a small place.
I get to the beach, which a vendor says is 6 km long, and the few beach houses are full the lady says, so I ride around and find a room for Rs500 and dine there as it seems polite to do so even though it's a bit dingy.
The local internet place doesn't have a connection, so it's an early night as there's nothing on TV and I didn't bring a novel with me and the laptop I'm lugging around still isn't working -in fact the screen has got worse. Now it looks like it's on LSD, displaying colours in moving horizontal bands. 'A Piece of Crap' as Neil Young would say.
The internet guy says come back at 9:30 in the morning and I think about it.
Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 3,390 km (2,105 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 0 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |