Holi Diver

after breakfast and coffe with kunal, we made tracks to marud. kunal gave us well wishes and two cocnuts each for 'today's ration" as he said. we were excited that holi celebrations would be going on. not 5km from kunal's a motorcycle pulle over and two guys jumped off.  with screams of "HAPPY HOLI" they smeared colored powder all over our faces. for the next several hours, our trip was an excrutiating climb of steep hills, wet lowlands, and about five more colorings.  after a while the stuff really stared to sting. and yesterday i read an article that said some of the colors can be toxic .hmmm. ....

we biked all day covered in the stuff. it was awful. every time we stop, crowds gather but this day a whole restuarant gather around us and took pictures and asked questions and forced us to participate in magic tricks. there was one guy who really liked card tricks. it was wierd.

then the really hard part started. up and down the western ghats the road was in poor shape with lots of hills. plenty of water on hand, but the coconuts and the food tins made extra weight. we were tired and struggling. and covered in toxic chemicals. i mentioned that, right?

we limped into marud at 1730. we were beaten, severyly tired, wet from sweat and sore throughout from an intense 50km ride we took a room at the Sea Beach resort (read - a room above this dude fizel's house). our third floor room overlooked the ocean. there were tons of palm trees, birds, bats and of course, janjira fort. we washed clothes, showered, rested and thentook a walk on the beach.  headed back to the room after chatting with some locals about where the ferry to the fort was.

very tired. sore and sleeping but fed, comfortable and safe. still, as the final prayer of the day wafts into the room from the nearby mosque over the sound of the hastily rotating fan, i wish we had another night at kunal's. alas, the road goes ever on and on ...