Day 6 : Dhargem to Panaji

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The Goan shopkeeper kept his promise contrary to the 'sushegat' (sth like Take it easy in Goan) attitude so common here. He was actually up at 6 am and actually reproached us for turning up at 6.30 am. Four of us Rana, Vishal, Gayatri including me opted for the omelet, while others left ahead asking us to catch up. Relishing on the delicious omelet, little did we know of what the day had in store for us. Our tummies full, we got on our bikes and missed the first left turn which we were supposed to take for the Bondla wildlife sanctuary. It was claimed to be the roughest and most exciting terrain by those who did it. Four of us took the right instead for a longer route bypassing the sanctuary. Rana got the idea of putting the bikes on bus and buy a bus ticket for Bondla. I was not keen on that and so I continued ahead. Soon, I was well ahead of almost everyone. After waiting for some 20-25 min, the other three did not get the bus and so they started peddling on the same rode. The other group was in Bondla Sanctuary. I kept on riding till Usgaon-Tisk where I got the phone network and I could talk to others and get to know their locations. Unable to stand the incessant trucks at the Usgaon circle, I continued towards Ponda. Luckily I got Aniket's dairy where he had jotted down the details of the complete route. So I continued following the directions till I got a frantic call from Chandan, our guide to stop wherever I was. He had gone a bit hyper on the group getting split. So I stopped at a place called Khandepar. I had to wait for almost an hour and a half till we regrouped. I met a rather interesting person while I was waiting at the village. He was from Dadar's Shivaji park area (in the heart of Mumbai city). He had left the city for greener pastures some 15 years ago and settled here in Khandepar village. He had done the mumbai-goa trip on a bicycle as well as a motor-cycle trip of the South India. He tipped me on a few not to miss places in South India.

After regrouping, we headed towards Marcel, where we were supposed to take a Ferry to Old Goa. As we were riding, Shekhar's bike-chain broke. Rana and I decided to give him company till Narendra who had already reached Marcel on Chandan's bike comes back. We waited for another 45 min before a bruised Narendra showed up. He had an accident on Chandan's motor-cycle on the way. The motor-cycle's handle was damaged. So Chandan went to a motor-cycle repair shop while Narendra took someone's bike and came to us to repair Shekhar's bike. It took him 5 minutes to put a new link in the chain and get the bike going. So we started Narnedra leading followed by me, Rana and Shekar. I cruised down the slope near the Savoi plantation and a few hundred meters later, few guys stopped me and pointing at the slope behind me asked, "Does that guy belong to your group ?". Which guy ? The guy who just fell down from his bike. I turned back and saw a crowd gathering around Rana who slipped from his bike as he was driving down the slope. He was trying to catch hold of his cap when he drove his cycle over some loose gravel and was unable to control the cycle at such high speed with one hand. He was badly bruised. Luckily a cruise was nearby to visit the Savoi plantation and one of them was a doctor. He applied some iodine and cleaned the wound. As luck would have it, he was also a participant of the youth host family camping program and agreed to take Rana back to the camp on the cruise. As I was helping Rana to get into the cruise along with his bike, a few tourists took our snaps. He had turned into a minor celebrity on the cruise.

After that, Shekar and I peddled quite cautiously to Old Goa and then to Panjim to the base camp. It was a fantastic experience. As usual, full marks to Youth Hostel for their excellent organisation. The only killer on the expedition is the heat. I stopped using sun-screen the second day, as the sweat would wash it away in 15 minutes. I got severely tanned but no complains. The night ended well with some chilled beers at a friend's place in Ponda. A perfect way to end the most tiring day of all.

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