BAT CAVE

Its almost one year we have been traveling through meghalaya. This time we decided to travel to the famous bat cave located at a remote village in South Garo hills. We got our maps downloaded and printed. So after a thorough discussion we decided our root to SIZU via. Tura, Baghmara, almost 400km from Guwahati. Our team members Abhinandan Borah on pulsar 180cc, Vikram on pulsar 150cc, Bipul on hero Honda super splendor 125cc. So the day came, it was 2^nd oct 2010. The day before I called up vikram and bipul. Vikram informed me that he will bring his official bike, the old Pulsar 150 model. I was bit confused about his bike, cz it was a old one. Vikram….he is just a jolley guy and bipul he’s kool.. Travelling with them is really amazing and adventurous. So vikram called me at around 5.30pm on 1^st of oct, and asked me if he need to change his rear tyre of his bike. I was on ma way to purchase my cam with bipul. I told him if its urgent get it changed, at that moment I was bit crazy about my cam, so I thought he will make it. So me and bipul reached home at around 8.00pm. Vikram was standing in front of ma room. He asked me to take a test drive of his bike, at that time I was worried, if his bike won’t make it!!! I took a test drive and it happened what I was worried about. His bike cannot even cross 30km/hr. If so the whole body gets shaked.So, what next, we decided to get it changed some where enroot, so until then a bit slow ride. 

First day 2nd oct 2010
We woke up early morning, bags were packed, took our tool kits, foot pump, puncture kit, flash lights, tent and few bottles of water. Bikes were ready to rule the road with all parts well checked except, viki’s. Since it was a October morning, one can feel the cold wintery wind, which makes feel the advent of winter. We started at around 6.00 AM. We drove through national highway 37 with Bipul in the front, Vikram with his dancing bike in the middle and me in the last. The weather was clear and the sun was heating up slowly with cold wind’s touching our body.
Our first stoppage was Vijaynagar, where we stopped to fill our tanks with gas. Me and viki filled 20lts of gas and Bipul with 12 lts. We had a cup of tea on a road side dhaba and took some puf’s of chigrate. Started our journey again with a minimum speed of 30-40 km/hr. I was just afraid if something goes wrong with viki’s bike before we get it changed. It was 8.00 in the morning and till then no tyre shop was opened. Till that time we had only one thing in mind, how to change viki’s tyre. Slowly and steadily we reached chaygaon by 8.45am. Fortunately we saw a tyre shop was opened, so we rushed there to change the tyre, but to our bad luck the shop do not sell pulsar tyre, so we had to move ahead. Now the real thing started what if we don’t get tyre? will we be able to continue our tour??? Dam!!!!
So with the faith on god we continued, until we reached Dudhnai at around 9.45am. and to our luck we got viki’s rear tyre changed, spending 2200 bugs. Now we took to our topmost gear with 70-80km/hr. The road was cool, the weather was fine. Next we have to reach Paikran where we will take our root to Tura. By 11.00 we reached Paikran, there we halted for another cup of tea and some road side chapatti.
From Paikran the road was dam cool, just like Panama Highway with tall trees on both side of the road. This time vikram was speeding up with his punctured tube tied at back of his bike. We halted at some places taking photographs and enjoying the beauty of nature. At some places there were tree houses by the road side. By noon the weather got heated up with the sun on top of our head. At a maximum average speed of 60-70kmh we reached Tura by 1.45pm. There we halted for about half an hour and took some soft drinks and light food on a road side dhaba.
Our next destiny was Baghmara. We had to reach Baghmara before it gets dark. The before we talked to one of our brother at Baghmara who was supposed to make our lodging accommodation at Baghmara. We droved our bike as fast as possible to reach earlier, but as the road from Tura to Baghmara was not good enough we couldn’t continue at our top speed, so our speed came to 40-50kmh. It was almost 2hrs from Tura we were driving but, there was no sign of reaching Baghmara. The road became narrower and steeper with dense jungle on both sides. It was almost 4.30 and was getting dark. By 5.00pm it was almost dark, and we had to turn on our lights. At that moment these lines by Robert frost flashed in my mind
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

And problems come when you are never expecting it.Seriously!!Now another problem arised. And that to with Viki’s bike. His Bike’s head lamp was not powerful enough to show of the road. It was a risky job to drive on the road with less powered light. Since my bike was new so we didn’t had any problem, showing light to viki. It was almost 6.00pm and we were in the middle of nowhere with thick dense forest on both side of us. The only thing that can be seen was the tail lights of our bikes and I saw vikram riding his bike on standing posture coz his buts were paining like hell due to long ride !hahaha
After one hour of riding we saw some shimmering lights from above the hills , Halleluiah!!! We think we are there. And as we moved downhill the shimmering lights became brighter and we were almost near to Baghmara. After 20minutes we reached the entry point of Baghmara. There we halted to make a call to our bro.Talked to him and he asked us to come toa certain point in Baghmara where he was waiting for us. And as instructed we moved ahead through the roads of the unknown place. After 5min we saw him waiting for us near a petrol pump.
He arranged a missionary charity home for us as the tourist guest house was booked by someone else. He then took us to a nearby hotel where we had our dinner that night. We took our bike with us for having our dinner. Our guide (brother) was on his own bike. After 2min driving we reached a market place where our bro asked us to park our bike in front of some shops. Although there was a road we were not allowed to bring our bike and park in front of the hotel. Strange!!!. Since our stomach was empty we didn’t noticed much about bringing our bikes in front of the hotel. We had our dinner and we came back to the place where our bikes were parked. We asked our bro why he did’nt allowed our bikes to bring upto the hotel. Then..Suprise…bang!!bang!!..he said(bro), we parked our bike in India and we had our dinner in a Bangladeshi hotel…oooooooooo.It was a open border of India & Bangladesh..ha!ha!ha...m not joking seriously..
Whatever!!! we already had our dinner and came back to the cherity home for the night’s sleep. As this place was a border area, the risk of theft was more. So we had to work hard in pulling and pushing our bikes to the baranda, as there was no parking yard. All done!! And now its time to have some puffs of chigrate, discuss a bit about the next day and go to sleep. Good Night!!!

Second day 3rd Oct 2010
Bipul woke up early and I saw him straying in the baranda with a chigrate in his hand. Viki was trying to make his buts comfortable for our next riding. So we planed to move to Sizu cave and and move back to Guwahati as soon as possible as Sizu was hardly 35km from Baghmara. We had a cup of tea and few chappati’s on a nearby dhaba!! This time no border hotels..llloolll..So we moved ahead at around 7.00am with another day of journey with full of joy. The weather at Baghmara was almost similar to Assam.and the people mostly garo people. They are very helpful and descent.

It was a sunny weather and the sun was shining bright. So we took to road to sizu. The road was narrow but still good and traffic almost nill. So we didn’t had much problem. We enquired the locals about how far it was to reach Sizu, they said first we will reach a place named Riwak which is 15km from Baghmara and then we will reach sizu. So according to the information we moved ahead enjoying the beauty of nature with some beautiful village passing by. The only network that was available was BSNL, so we talked to home and gave our position to our parents. The only lonely BSNL tower was at Riwak which we reached at around 8.30am. As the road was narrow and steep we could’nt take the top gear. So at an average speed of 30-40kph we moved ahead until at around 9.00 we reached the point where the road leads to the cave. 

There was a tin ali where we met some locals, who said that the road to the cave is down below from that tin ali. It was almost 5km to the cave. So we took the root to the cave, oo!!oo!! Now the dam fucking road, it was not at all a road, with full of big stones and boulders and the road was downhill. So we had to do a lot of exercises in controlling our bikes.Bipul in the front, he was just jumping like anything, as his bike was lighter. And that 5km was like 50km for us, we were moving down, till we reached a local tavern llooolll….time now is 09.45am.

Now another tension started prevailing, will we be able to go back home today? Cz it was already late due to the condition of the road. And if we go to the cave and come back it will take another one hour. So we asked the local people if there is any accommodation in that place. They told us that there is a wild life guest house, where it might be possible. So, we talked to the watch man and he allowed us to stay, but he cannot feed us, as he does not have enough staffs. He asked us if we can provide him raw materials he will cook for us. As the day was Sunday the only available shop there was closed and no one knows if it will be opened.

Bipul then told that first let us xplore the cave then we will think of fooding. We parked our bikes near the tavern and we headed for the cave, it was hardly 150m from that tavern.Now-the real adventure begins…..THE SIZU CAVE….the mouth of the cave was really amazing and scary. The moment we reached there, it reminded us about some scary places depicted in horror movies…ha ha ha….It was dark inside, with water drops falling from the roof of the cave, a river flowing out of the cave…green trees beside the cave..it was really scary. Now we decided to go inside but we didn’t bought any lights. But some how Bipul bought a small trouch light from the owner of the tavern. 

The inside of the cave was real beautiful with moss green light reflecting from the walls of the cave. Due to darkness we couldn’t go too much further. So hoping to visit another time to xplore the cave inside. We had some bath in the cold water of the river flowing out of the cave.Took some amateur photographs…llooll….we spent almost 2 and half hour there, time now is 1.00pm, and hungry now. Went back to the tavern and asked if they have anything for us to eat. The owner said omlet nd chapatti, so we had some of them. People here serve not in plates but in banana leaves, the food was delicious.

Now our next task is to get some food stuffs for dinner as we decided to stay back there as it will not be possible to get back home that day. While we were having our lunch there, a local man bought some fish and hanged it in front of the dhaba. We asked him if he will sell those,but he refused. The man said that fish will be available by the banks of the river side.

So we headed for the river bank which was nearby. The river bank was amazing with hills full of greenery and tall silver grass in full bloom. We had some nice shots of the river. And to our luck there was a fisher man who was catching fish in the banks. Asked him about fish, he showed us some thing around 5kg of fish. And to our surprise the fisher man was ready to sell @ only 430 buck, the fish was alive and was fresh water fish. So we bought all of them for our dinner. Came back from the river bank, gave the fish to the watch man for cooking, time now is 3.30pm.

There was a hanging bridge over the Simsang river which was near the guest house. So we headed for the bridge next. So it was almost 5.00 in the evening.Although the guest house was ready we decided not to sleep inside but to sleep out in the tent.So, we started to rearrange the tent as it was a folded one. Then we  made some bonfire and roasted some fish for the dinner as we had nothing but only 5kg of fish to eat.Bipul and Viki got busy in roasting the fish.The whole day was adventurous and bit scary. We passed the night gossiping and some what sleeping.

Third day 4th Oct 2010
We woke up early morning along with the rise of the sun as we were outside, time now is 6.00am. Packed out tents, luggage’s, checked our bikes, had some smokes and started our return journey. So now we have to drive back home almost all the day long almost 400km. By 2.00 pm we reached Tura, where we had our lunch in a road side dhaba. It was almost dark until we reached Paikran, from here the road was straight, so we didn’t had much problem in riding. Time no is 6.30 pm. By 9.00 pm we were back home safe and sound. Time now is 9.30 pm…….till then another new place, new people, with more adventure….