Here is the plan- get up at 5:00 am, leave by 5:30 am, reach Querim for breakfast, continue to Shiroda and from there on upto Malvan for some mouthwatering malvani food...umm... fish. Check out Sindudurgh fort and head back by 3:00 pm. You see I am a very organised man and absolutely agree with what my aunt says, "everything should happen, time to time."

Here is what happened, I wake up at 10:40am by the sound of a friend's phone call, still decide to carry on with the trip (what else did i really have to do).

I take the really smooth road to Saligaon from Porvorim, head on to the road parallel to that leading to Baga. The roads get narrow but they are not all that bumpy.

Stop. Breakfast. 2 glasses of sugarcane juice.

Continue to Siolim,the motorcycle ahead of me suddenly stops. What? there is a snake darting accross the road. I swerve right to avoid crashing into the motorcycle and then further right to avoid the snake now back to the left to avoid the motorist coming towards me..... phew...... that was fun.

But why did the snake cross the road?
Maybe it went after the chicken.

Accross the bridge and through the hills to Arambol.

The road swerves left around the hills making way for a beautiful view of the river below.

Avoid the first ferry crossing and continue riding, Querim.

Querim Beach. Beautiful, deserted and clean. But there were people bringing in Coconut leaves (to be used as roofs), and there is a bamboo framework in the shape of the houses I used to draw for art class in school.........Shacks!! There goes the deserted and clean. But its still beautiful though.

Just ahead the road ends at the ferry. Onboard the ferry I saw this huge, multicoloured turtle swimming into the river from the sea. At first I could'nt tell, the outlines of the sections of the shell was a mix of red and green. And its motion was masked by that of the boat but as we passed it, it became more clear. Huge Turtle. HUGE.

Off the ferry, and the road ahead leads to Tiracol Fort, now Tiracol Fort Heritage Hotel. It houses a church within and from the top you get an amazing view of Querim Beach, I could also see the ferry heading back.

A few pictures and onward to Shiroda. The road gets pathetic, with pot holes big enough to be lost in for a week and trucks thuding along, creating a mini dust storm before my eyes. Its like an extension of No Mans Land, No Mans Developmental Hassle, I thought to myself. Goa must have said, "the land belongs to Maharashtra". Maharashtra said,"the land maybe ours but the road belongs to Goa". Just then I see a number of trucks, all bearing Karnataka registered number plates. Karnataka must have said,"I don't understand what you say and you don't understand what I say. Just the way I like it."

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But that stretch does end and soon I am turning left to join MSH 4 or Maharashtra State Highway 4. An amazing road through the ghats alongside the coastline, which is visible as you climb higher. The ghats are green with little traffic, mainly the locals on scooters, some cars, very few tempos and the occasional ST Bus. Be very careful of the buses and tempos though, the roads are narrow and for some reason they always pop up at the end of a blind turn.

Its 2:30pm no time to stop for pictures, besides, the camera I borrowed allows me to take just one picture before it says that the battery has died. So Iam back to my phone's camera.

The milestones along the highway are not meant to be taken seriously. I see a milestone saying 25 kms to Malvan. After 2 kms another says the same. Further down It says 20 Kms to Malvan after which I am back to 25 and then 22.

After a series of ups and downs I land up climbing again and then its flat with a totally different terrain. They are flat lands ... well more or less with dried grass which appear golden and you can see kilometers of it on either sides. Then its back up and down. This happens again for quite a stretch just before I turn left and head into the town of MALVAN.

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Its 3:30pm with some directions I reach the fort its pretty simple to find actually just keep riding straight till a sharp right, when your there look on the left and you can see the fort.........Whoa its huge. Its out at sea and there are coconut trees growing inside.

The roads are very narrow and are labelled with ONE WAY, NO ENTRY and NO RIGHT TURN etc. But nobody actually follows them.

Now for that malvani food......ummm...fish.

Just my luck, lunch time is over, I was told. only breakfast was available .....what ??!!!

I had to settle for Onion Uttapam in Malvan...that sucks !
No I mean the Uttapam was delicious but there is no fish in uttapam.

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A ferry service is in place to take people to the fort and it brings them back after about an hour and a half. It costs Rs 27 and they take 15 people at a time.

Its a small boat with a motor and a plastic can for a fuel tank.

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The fort is huge. 3sq Kms some website had told me. As you enter there is a stall selling cold drinks and Kokum Juice. The kokum juice is very refreshing .... and I am still alive for those wondering how safe it is. There's like a village in the fort, one house even has Dish TV! There are atleast 3 mandirs that I have come accross along the cemented path.

A huge pedestle stands from where one can see the sea and the walls of the fort.
The sky looked amazing with huge clouds, which looked like rain clouds allowing sunlight to just seep through, illuminating the periphery of these clouds.

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Coming back I have some more of
that kokum juice and I climb up above the entrance of the fort. There I see it, a beautiful rainbow over the town of Malvan. A few others come but they are pre-occupied with something else. Apparently a footprint and a hand print of Shvaji was created and housed in 2 structures on the east wall of the fort."Who knows one of these locals only must have made these to attract more crowds, where there was cement during Shivaji's time" says one of the revellers.

It begins to rain. Those did'nt just look like rain clouds. They were rain clouds.

It stops raining back on the boat. There is a dead squid on in the boat. One person picks it up (I don't know why) another just says "Dil Chahata Hai" and this guy has got the squid over his mouth, which I manage to capture on camera.

As we get past the fort I can see the sunset. Now Iam almost at the level of the sea, the sun appears a deep orange in colour and its half swallowed by the sea. I take out the phone, click a picture and put the phone back in. When I look again the sun has set.

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6:15pm. Back on dry land.

Here, two choices lie ahead of me :

Head back home with the ever dakening sky behind me, reach by say 9:00 or 9:30 pm, look for food, go home where there is no TV, nobody and nothing to do except sleep.

Or.

Find a decent Hotel with a TV (oh, how I've longed for thee), have authentic malvani food for dinner, sleep early, wake early and ride back with daybreak, on a road with no traffic.

In no time Iam watching James Bond's Never Say Never Again with a fish thali........umm awesome fried fish, in a clean hotel which goes by the name of Sonchafa.

I watch Jerry Maguire (again), and doze off.

7:25am. Off the bed, out of the room, on the bike and vvrrrroooooom.

2 hours 10 mins and 110kms later Im back home with the whole day ahead of me and lots of stories to tell.