Part Two - Night of Debauchery
And so, at 10. P.M, we wait outside what is now our favourite brain restaurant (for two of us at least) , picking each other's brains for a while, whiling the time away. I hit upon the idea of visiting the large park behind Mindspace, so off we go again. It seems like we're travelling in circles tonight.
Unfortunately, the park is closed at this time. It even has two security guards. For what, I wonder? For the park? Are they afraid of someone stealing the grass? Or doing stuff on the grass? Or doing grass? But then, if there are guards, why not let people in?
We wait there for a while until the mosquitoes announce their presence. Mistake number two of mine is forgetting the odomos. At 11.00, we soon get fed up and decide to leave, hitting a bar midway to buy water *gasp* and ending up at a Gokul. Our final angry threat call to the more-than-fashionably late group member number 4 has her abandoning a family reunion in haste and meeting us here.
She has two other people joining us, she tells us, and we decide to meet them at the JVLR flyover. Before they arrive, she asks us to be nice. We promise her of our neutrality in the event of a bike breakdown on their part, followed by a leopard attack. That's about as much as we can do.
They arrive, with a lose brake part, which they stitch up with tape. I like them already. We ride to Thane, the only uneventful occurrence being that every person we ask for Yeoor hills has a different pronunciation for the word Yeoor. There's 'Ye-oor', 'Ye-oar', Yay-oor', 'Yay-oar' & 'Your', among other weird delicious sounds.
We finally take a turning that slopes upward, through a dark curving road lined with forest on both sides. The forest looks like typical SGNP territory. But it's higher up, and we catch glimpses of the midnight city lights below us through the trees. It's cool here at this speed and time. Weaker members of the human race might need the comfort of a light jacket here.
We come to a little village in the forest, and a little after, restaurants and places to stay. All through our journey, we can see other bikers leaving for the night. We've just arrived. We come to a main junction with two turns. We take the left one, for one of our two new companions has been here before. We are in the dark forest again pretty soon, with only occasional lights from the occasional buildings at the sides of the road.
And then the lights & asphalt end, and a dirt road begins, narrow but wide enough for a bike. A car would have a hard time squeezing through here. And it's seriously off-road, a rocky sloping winding path with huge rocks everywhere. Still, we take the bikes down, risking punctures, until we come to a nullah criss-crossing our path, where we break and look around.
It's beautiful, and haunted. No lights here at all, except from our bikes. We feel eyes upon us. Who knows what mysterious creatures they belong to? We take pics, and double back to asphalt soon after, then more pics and more doubling back to the main junction, where we take the right turn this time for a place to eat, all the other culinary establishments on the way having closed. It's 1.00 A.M.
We find one restaurant/bar that's open and we get a nice cosy little eating room all to ourselves. We get comfortable, chatting for the next two hours. I watch the others eat and drink. Our two new acquaintances work at the airport, and they have interesting stories to speak of. We discuss a possible affiliation with reference to video footage of said stories, which will prove to be of financial merit to us both.
One of our new friends has a lot of personal stories to tell us - true stories involving gangsters, prostitutes & life in the city. At one point nothing surprises me anymore, but I guess that's just the sleep deprivation talking.
We leave after 3.00 A.M, travelling to Borivli via Ghodbunder, where we face our final adventure of the night, for there's a huge truck jam on the highway. Somewhere near the toll booth half a kilometer in front of us, there is a slow truck on the left lane, and another slow truck on the right trying to overtake it. Add the other numerous lumbering meandering 18 wheeler giants behind them and you have a colossal pile up. We'd have been stuck here indefinitely if it weren't for the fact that we're on bikes. It's scary, the sight of all these massive load carrying machines, and us weaving in and out between them. Unnerving. Quite an experience.
I get home at 5.00 A.M. NS pens down his experience of the trip the next day. Read it here, with photos.
Do you have any interesting adventures at Yeoor that you'd like to share with us? Please do so in the comments section.
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