Day 11: Devgadh – Vengurla

(Note: The map shown alongside is a more recent one than the one we used. Thus the route described in the writeup might not not match the route drawn on the map)

Marathon ride today. The on-duty policeman at Devgadh woke us up at 4:45am so that we could leave at six towards Malvan. The Devgadh-Malvan distance is 52km, and we surprised ourselves by covering it in four and a half hours. The route was beautiful and passed through forests. We saw two hornbills at close range, on going further at least four more crossed our path. I declared them to be Malabar Pied. Nobody contested.

We stopped and had lassi at Achre (33km) a town full of cool drink and lassi shops. Must be because it is a haltover for private buses (or is it the other way around?) My lassi was frozen and I ate it with a wooden ice-cream spoon. Refreshing experience.

We had an early (and slightly expensive) lunch at Malvan, a large town and tourist spot. After lunch, we drifted towards the beach pier, thinking of getting a boat for Sindhudurg, but gave up on the idea when we reached there. Sleep and the hot overhead sun had caught up with us. We therefore collected our cycles and cycled on a few km to sleep under a tree by the roadside.

We woke up at 4pm and started towards Vengurla, taking the Chowke-Kudal-Math route. Actually Devgadh, Malvan and Vengurla are all on the coast, and there could be a shorter route than the map route we followed. But we neither heard anyone mention such a route, nor did we ask the fishermen or coastal locals, who might have known. The map route is a roundabout one (at times we were even traveling north) but it did have an advantage – it passed through lush green forest. Forest type was mixed evergreen higher up in the hills and moist coastal at lower levels. It was beautiful countryside and no one noticed the kms roll by. We met the Konkan rail at Kudal (30km) and the highway at Math (43km). Kudal is a developing city due to this proximity to transportation and MIDC has already set up a huge park here.

The Kudal-Vengurla ride (23km) was in darkness but the road was smooth, wide and well traveled. This, with the half-moon, ensured that we rarely used our torches and had a tireless ride down the gentle gradient. This was the first time I really enjoyed night cycling, in stark contrast to the ride to Dabhol, when I was glad to see the city.

We reached the Vengurla police station at 9:30pm, dumped our luggage and then started a desperate search for food. The entire city but for the telephone booths seemed to have gone to sleep. Finally found cheap and good grub at Annapurna Bhojnalay. On the way back to the police station from the Bhojnalay, I took a wrong turn and got separated from the group. I then enjoyed a long ride through the dark, cool streets of the sleeping city back to the police station. There is a shortage of water here so no bath. Straight to blissful sleep after a ride of 105km today – all of it enjoyable.