Goa Road Trip – Pune To Goa on Bike

Its 2 A.M now,my alarm started ringing.I immediately stopped it as i was already woke up.Not able to slept even for the limited time i got between 10 P.M to 2 A.M.Its just because of curiosity and excitement of my much awaited road trip on my bike.Its Pune to goa this time on valentine occasion with my three year old love, my Bajaj Avenger 220.

I had never visited goa before and my friends go pune to goa in almost every six months either by train, car or bus.Your pune to goa experience could be double if you do road trip to goa. And now after doing road trip from pune to goa by road on my bike, i can say you can experience even more fun and adventure than road trip in your car.

Before my pune to goa road trip ,many friends asked me couple of times if i wanted to join them on pune to goa road trip in their car.Goa was always on my mind, but i wanted to do it in my own way, on my Bajaj Avenger 220. Pune to Goa distance is around 460 Km and i never rode this much distance on my bike before.But i was confident that me and my bike can do it. This pune to goa road trip triggered me to think beyond and later on in june 2015, i did Pune Leh Pune on my bike, bike journey of 6506 km.

It was Feb 2015, me and my two college friends Ravi and Madhur decided to go goa on our bikes.Madhur also has Bajaj Avenger, so we decided to go with two avengers and Ravi don’t had bike at that time, but after this trip he bought Pulsar 220 and we together did our dream ride Pune ladakh Pune (6506 km) in june 2015.As we were going from two avengers,our trip title was ‘Avengers On Road’. We took most popular route ,NH-4 highway till kolhapur then from Amboli ghat, sawantwadi to Panjim,goa. Route and bikes had decided, what about dates. We wanted to do it ASAP, what about upcoming weekend, but it was a valentine weekend. Valentine week is supposed to be crowded in goa. Still we planned our pune to goa road trip on coming valentine weekend as i don’t wanted to wait for this ultimate road trip which was pending for so long.Best thing about road trip is that you don’t have to book travel tickets in advance and we used to make our road trip more nomadic by not booking for hotel in advance.

Weekend had arrived,its friday today and we decided to start our ride at 2 A.M, so that we won’t had to ride in scorching afternoon heat. We bedded down by 10 P.M to get at least four hour sleep before starting our tough journey.You can say it excitement or my late night sleep habit, I was not able to sleep for even a single minute at that time. Saturday, 14th feb and its to 2A.M on clock time and its time to start our journey.Tied our bag pack on my bike’s pillion seat, started our journey from Madhur’s flat.Usually in month of february ,winter season was almost gone by this time, specially in western india, still i wore my pullover as we were riding at night.As soon as we touched NH-4 bangalore highway, i started shivering from cold waves.First 50 km was really horrible, no truck driver show mercy on us and at the same time we were struggling from cold as well.We stopped for a much needed tea break after 50 km mark.I told Ravi that its just a beginning, next few days will gonna be more experiencing and adventurous.

Felt hungry after three hour ride,on reached satara by around 5:30, had vada pav in our early morning breakfast at road side dhaba.First 50 km ride was teriffic. Cold waves, no mercy showed by truck drivers and of course some bad road patches.We had covered 100 km till now. Road from satara to kolhapur was butter smooth.We had covered next 150 km in around 2 hours including two breaks in between.Till now I reached maximum speed of 120 KMPH on my bike on these roads itself.At one point me and Madhur were riding parallely at around 110 KMPH and suddenly something just bypassed us like a bullet.When i saw at distant,it was a superbike. After that some 10 more superbikes crossed us at great speed. By this you can imagine their speed as we ourselves were riding at 110KMPH,their speed would not be less than 200 KMPH.

After Kolhapur we had to abandon butter smooth NH-4 highway. Took a right turn from kaveri hotel to enter Amboli ghats.Even roads were not good here, but it was a pleasure to ride through curvy ghats as weather was pretty good.After we entered Sawantwadi weather got completely changed,it was hot and humid out there.Had couple of sugarcane juice en route to get some relief from scorching heat.

We entered Goa territory by around 2 P.M. There are many places to visit in goa,so we already decided to take a room at Baga beach as its in middle of goa city.If you are on budget travel, then home stay in goa is best and cheapest. As it was a Valentine week, we found it difficult for home stay as well. After half an hour of search, we got a room in Mrs Briganza’s house at a cost of Rs 1000.You can find even more cheaper room in off season.Room was quite spacious having dual double bed, attach bathroom and a cupboard for cloths.Best way to roam inside goa is to rent a bike which starts from 300 to 500 INR per day. 300 for non gear scooters, 400 for Bajaj Avenger and 500 for Royal Enfield. In Goa i can easily differentiated my black avenger from distant location as all the rented avengers came in red and blue colors only.

After a long ride of around 450 km from pune to goa,its time to take a refresh bath. Baga Beach was just 200 meters from our stay.We felt little tired after such a long ride, but there was so much energy out there that you won’t prefer to stay in room.We were ready to hit the beach, baga beach was little crowded and hence one of the most polluted beach in goa. Spent some time near sea shore and then we headed for dinner. Me and Madhur had normal vegetarian food, Ravi had some goan fish and finds it delicious and having distinct flavour. Heard a lot about saturday night market near Anjuna beach, its time to check this out. We entered market after some traffic hassle around anjuna beach.It was whole foreign crowd out there. This is one of the place in goa where you fell like foreign element in your own country.Most of the market shops were also owned by foreigners, some of those were like who came goa and then never returned back to their country.Most of the shops were selling unordinary things having some of artistic work which you won’t find anywhere else like jewellery accessories.We spent around three hours in the market, tried some wooden mouth organs and other hand made musical organs.

From there we headed towards Anjuna Beach.You have to cross some steep paths for the entrance to the Anjuna beach.Whole ambience around anjuna beach at night reminds me of movie Go Goa Gone.Small pubs with dark room filled with smoke and laser lights.Again not much indian crowd out there.We came back to our room at baga beach by around 2 in the night.

Candolim beach is one of the less polluted beach in north goa. So today we decided to spend some beach time at candolim beach, played volleyball at beach. Did some of the water sports like para gliding,jet skiing and bumpy ride.All these rides lasts for 4-5 minutes and if you want more adventure then you can pay them some 200 extra bucks.It was first qualifiers match of 2015 world cup between India v/s pakistan match and what can be a better way to watch it inside a shack, lying on lay flat chair and an endless arabian sea in front of you at candolim beach.

India won the match comfortably, after the match we took a bath behind our Antonio’s shack.And now its time for another place to visit in goa , we decided to go towards Panjim, visit couple of Churches and picnic spot called Dona Paula.Today till evening we had a very good time, after that we got stuck in Panjim traffic while returning from Dona paula which screwed us for 2 hours.

Dona Paula has nothing much to offer,you can find local people doing fishing there.Place had a black stone statue of lady named Dana Paula made by his viceroy father in memory of her daughter’s stubbornness and forbidden love towards her Gaon lover who was a poor fisherman.This match was unacceptable to viceroy, hence distraught with love and sorrow ,Dona Paula could not bear a life without her goan lover and threw herself off a cliff into the Arabian Sea.

While coming back from Dona Paula, we got stuck in heavy traffic.Its like same old shit that we face daily in Pune.After came back to baga beach, its time to see goa’s night life.Titos and Mambos around Baga beach are among the famous disco of goa.Titos had entry fees of 2500 INR per couple or stag and Mambos entry fees is of 3000 INR.Entry fees includes limited drinks only. May be they had increased their fees on valentine occasion. As we were not interested in drinks, so we decided to had our dinner at one of the shack at Baga beach. In north Goa, Baga beach is the most lively beach at night.Its shack opens till 5 in the morning. I don’t remember the shack’s name where we had dinner, but they played some famous English and bollywood songs.Enjoyed a lot there,we did some desi dance as well.At one side it was an electric atmosphere and at another side it was calm sea shore.We stayed there till 5 in the morning, as we did not want to go to our rooms.This was our last day of goa trip as we won’t had much leaves.But our journey still remains.

We woke up by around 11 in the morning, its time to go back to pune.Checked out from our room by 12, purchased some items like bandana and t-shirts from Panjim. For shopping Panjim is the best place, you will find things cheaper in price there.At around 2 P.M we started our ride for Pune. Petrol prices are cheaper inside Goa premises, it was around 53 Rs/liter at that time.Hence filled our bike tanks upto the brim.You can take 2 bottles per person of alcohol with you outside Goa premises with permit and there is no restriction on wine bottles.Permit can be obtained from these wine There was a checkpost on goa-maharastra border inorder to check your permit.

We had to reach NH 4 highway before sunset.Because it was dangerous to ride in Amboli ghats in dark.It was not easy to ride even on Nh 4 highway in dark.We were riding on 70 to 80 KMPH on same roads where we rode 120 KMPH while going goa.Riding in night has its own disadvantage, visibility decreases abruptly when truck crossing from opposite side with upper light.Some times truck won’t give you side easily.Had our dinner in KFC restaurant on highway near kolhapur.

Took couple of tea breaks at every hour, finally we reached Pune by 1 A.M. My much awaited ride ends here.My Goa experience got doubled by doing this road trip on my bike. Hope you also had enjoyed this ride with me, ending my journey here with some of my farourite quotes.

Biker never dies, he just fades away on road!

Tough time never lasts, but tough men do!

Cheers!

Ride Safe.