Pune to Puri - Bike Trip: Day 9

Solapur to Pune

We left Solapur after breakfast and then stopped for a quick cuppa-tea at a Hotel Sairaj. Short-stop later we took one last stop at Bhigwan at "Jyoti Misal" :) before finally heading off for home. We reached Pune by 15:00 hrs.

Eight-and-a-half days and 3,700 (three thousand seven hundred) kilometers later I guess we were ready to go off to sleep and leave the unpacking for the next day!!!

Cheers and Goodbye,
Till the next trip,
Amod and Shantanu

Pune to Puri - Bike Trip: Day 8

Hyderabad to Solapur

As we had decided to slow down our pace, we planned to stop at Solapur before heading to Pune the day after. The trip to Solapur was was also quite uneventful, only thing to mention is that the road has the top-layer chipped off but very easy to pull "zig-zags" on, or you can stick to the extreme left on the road, which is by far the least eroded!!! :)

We also took a halt to snap some pictures of the Naldurg en route to Solapur. The first place we were actually stopped and asked for papers was when we were leaving the Andhra Pradesh border and entering Karnataka (Bidar district). Having all the papers in order helped!!!

The second time we were asked for papers was as we were heading to Amod's uncle's house. The policemen seemed quite energetic to cross rushing traffic to single us out of all the traffic. When asked as to why they had asked us for papers (you know usual chit-chat while enjoying the chagrin on the cops faces), the reason ... get this ... was that we were wearing a helmet and had all the biking gear!!! ROTFL!!!

* In hindsight, the jacket-and-helmet getup might have seen dubious, Solapur being one of the flash-point areas! :(

P.S.
The pictures of the trip have been uploaded at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/shantanu.gadgil/Pune2Puri

Pune to Puri - Bike Trip: Day 7

Vijayawada to Hyderabad

Nothing much happened during our trip from Vijayawada to Hyderabad. The trip to Hyderabad just as horrifying as before ... both of ready to pull our hair out with the oncoming traffic! Aaaargh!!!

We managed to make the outskirts of Hyderabad (Ramoji Film City) by 15:00 hours. Reaching the place where we were going to stay in Secundarabad was a different story altogether. The traffic is something that we can write stories about!!! (Tee hee hee) Being used to "crazy two wheelers" it took about 25 minutes to adjust to the traffic.

The pictures of the trip have been uploaded at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/shantanu.gadgil/Pune2Puri

Pune to Puri - Bike Trip: Day 6

Vishakapatnam to Vijayawada

As we are getting ready to leave, we ask the desk clerk for directions to get back to the NH5 and this is where the reason for the cattle using both sides of the road was answered. He gave us directions to get back to the “double road” ... yes thats what he called it, a “double road” !!!
"Mystery solved", I thought !!!

I cannot stress this enough ... the NH5 is the "bestest" stretch of road we got but please WATCH OUT for the FOUR-LEGGED and the TWO-LEGGED cattle on the road. Even more dangerous is the MECHANISED CATTLE (read TRUCKS) heading down the fast lane!!!

By evening we had reached Vijayawada, taking our return journey at a much slower pace than what we had done before. At Vijayawada, just like Vishakapatnam, we stayed at the APTDC hotels. Two thumbs-up from us for the excellent way the APTDC hotels are maintained. At Vijayawada we even got a complimentary breakfast of "all we want to eat" :) Yay!!!

The pictures of the trip have been uploaded at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/shantanu.gadgil/Pune2Puri

Pune to Puri - Bike Trip: Day 5

We tried to get the sunrise at the Konark beach, but we were out of luck. No sunrise ... just clouds! :( “Not too keen to show us His face”, we guessed and we headed off to the Sun temple.

[rant]
The date with the Sun at his temple was something we had to keep no-matter-what as he had been so gracious with the weather and minimal rain during the past three days!!!
Usually Most of the time, people try to strike deals with their gods; “You do so-and-so for me and then I will do that-and-that”.
The good weather for the past four days had obliged us to keep our date with the Sun god!
[/rant]

Sun temple visit done, we headed for Vishakapatnam ... back to Pipli market and off onto the NH5 to Khordha via Jatani. We stopped at the A1 Plaza at Khordha for grub. Only later did we realize that we should have had a much heavier breakfast at Khordha as we couldn't find any good places till Vishakapatnam, but all that is "hindsight 20/20" :)

The NH5 was by far the best road that we had got. We realized that we had left Orissa and entered Andhra Pradesh only when we noticed the rickshaw and taxi numbers were "AP" instead of "OR".

The dream of the excellent highway was short-lived though, because as we entered Andhra Pradesh, we got oncoming traffic. YES !!! Oncoming traffic on a “four-lane highway with divider”. Figure that one out!!!

The "cattle on the road" was bad enough in Orissa, but this was something else ... oncoming bicycles, two wheelers and even trucks heading down the wrong side and in the FAST LANE! ACK!!!

We got to see the beautiful "Lake Chilka", but only from far, didn't go up to the lake. Even the small part of the lake that we did manage to see was so beautiful that I am definitely thinking of going to the lake again ... ONLY to the lake, that is! :)

Three near-deaths experiences later; one two wheeler zapping across the highway from left to the other side without any signal, one two-wheeler crossing into our side and heading straight for us down the FAST LANE and one near hit with an overtaking four wheeler, we managed to reach Vishakapatnam!!!

In Vishakapatnam, the entire beach road is quite a beautiful sight, in case you are interested in "being a tourist" :) :)

The pictures of the trip have been uploaded at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/shantanu.gadgil/Pune2Puri

Pune to Puri - Bike Trip: Day 4

Monday the 10th was not starting too well ... "Orissa bandh" was being issued by some party! Wasted a good five hours of our time ... we were cooling off our heels till about 13:00 hours. At least we got to have an amazingly tasty lunch waiting for the road to clear.

Post lunch we were off to Konark and Puri. The NH5 is excellent and no complaints whatsoever. We took the Puri diversion from the highway heading off to Pipli. The road to Konark turns left from inside Pipli market. This turn (as they usually are!) is also quite “miss-able”. The road to Konark is all two lane and quite narrow inside the small villages, so maintaining high peed was not possible.

We halted at Konark to keep our bags in the hotel room, to head off to see the Sun temple and then Puri. That day being "Orissa bandh" meant that the Konark temple was
closed for the day.

The drive to Puri was very memorable ... 40 kms of amazing road ... no lights on the road expect the headlights of our bikes ... hearing the waves crashing on our left and hoping that we don't bang into the cattle that might be sitting in the middle of the road.. :)

The road right up to Puri village is like this, but once you enter Puri village, you know you have reached a typical "devasthan".

The ride back to Konark was not as scary knowing we had made it to our destination in four days and everything had been good so far!

The pictures of the trip have been uploaded at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/shantanu.gadgil/Pune2Puri

Pune to Puri - Bike Trip: Day 3

The next day we had to catch Cuttack; not too far, so we had time to visit the Hirakud dam. An awesome sight, the dam! The slues gates and the gurgling water was an awesome (yes, again) sight!

The Hirakud dam is about 15 kms away from Sambalpur, the road is pretty easy to find from the main road! The booking office for the dam is about one-and-a-half before the dam. Its near a Shiv-temple, quite miss-able. As you approach the dam, you can ask the rickshaw drivers or the tourist drivers for directions.

There is "No Photography" at the dam so we too, did NOT ;) :D take any photographs near the dam!

Note: In Sambalpur we managed to get a Bajaj Service center open on Sunday, which was a very good ting for us, as Amod's bike had a nut missing in the fork (or something ... don't remember the details)

The road to Cuttack was very scenic and we were also taking it easy as we had only about 320 kms to travel. The road story was pretty much same till Cuttack; bad roads near villages, excellent otherwise.

The villages along this road are much farther apart from each other than what we had seen so far. The in-between roads are also quite desolate. We were able to make it to the outskirts of
Cuttack by 16:00 hours.

The roads outside Cuttack are very bad. Entering Cuttack we saw the Mahanadi the second time, one bridge across the river as one-and-a-half kilometers wide ... Whew!!!

The pictures of the trip have been uploaded at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/shantanu.gadgil/Pune2Puri

Pune to Puri - Bike Trip: Day 2

We started at about 06:00 hours, visited the "Zero Mile Stone" of India. The petrol pump behind it is no longer there, thankfully, less of an eye-sore, me thinks!!! The road exiting Nagpur was quite good, no jarring. The road through Buldhana up to Gondia is excellent, only had to slow down as we approached the dhabas along the road; never know when some vehicle OR someONE can shoot out onto the road!!!

Soon we entered Chattisgadh (yes ... I'll spell it the way :) ) and very thankful that we were on bikes and not four-wheelers, especially at the forest check posts. There were long queues of trucks on either side of the check post, but we were able to get through quite quickly. At about 10:00 hours and we were in Rajnandangaon and also we had been able to do 1000 kms on our trip. Yaayyy! :)

Another 10 kms and we we reached the Durg bypass. Another stretch of road to write poetry about!!! :) First time I have paid toll for a two-wheeler, quite worth it, by the way!!! The next 40 kms to Raipur were excellent, some intermittent "kamikazes" on the road.

We had lunch at Raipur, ready to move to Sambalpur. While asking for directions to Sambalpur, the truck-driver urged us to “move along” quickly if we wanted to reach Sambalpur in good light. Not something we wanted to hear, knowing about the "Naxalite Area" stories. "Gulp!".
The road till the place called as "Daheli phata" (at least that what we think the spelling should be. Not too sure, though) was good albeit a horrid amount of traffic. The road from "Daheli Phata" and out seemed to have deteriorated a bit, but nothing too bad. The area around Mahasamund had some good scenic views, but we were not stopping much ... trying to reach Sambalpur in good light remember! :) :)

At about 16:00 we were at Saraipali, very happy with the distance we had been able to cover. Asked the local people if there can be any trouble along the road and they assured us that it is all OK till 12 at midnight. Yeah ... right ... 12 at midnight ... we were thinking 16:00 hours would be too late and this guy is telling us not to worry!!! The roads here were nothing great, especially the sections near the bridges were bad.

As we neared the Orissa border, the scene at the Chattisgadh border and the forest check posts was repeated, but this time in wide screen; eight lanes of trucks, each at least about 15-20 trucks long. Yikes!!! Man ... was it nice we were on bikes and not fourwheelers!!!

Moving on, the roads were bad in general, worsening near the villages; potholes
and stuff. As we approached Sambalpur, we crossed the Mahanadi, and the question as to why she is called the “Mahanadi” were answered!!!

Entering Sambalpur, we were acquainted with more "kamikazes". Also, the traffic mostly consisting of trucks, one should quickly get to wherever on is going, else it gets quite tiring behind one truck after another.

Once inside Sambalpur, strictly stick to the main road, do not get onto the back roads as you never know which of these roads could be crossing a train track and you are very likely to get stuck in a traffic jam.

Pune to Puri - Bike Trip: Day 1

We left Pune at about 04:00 hours. The rains decided to accompany us. Not exactly something that I enjoy when I am on the bike. It was dark as but the street lights were there to see us out of the city. The Nagar-Road is undergoing “four-laning” and the the diversions were not too visible, but somehow we managed. The rains also seemed to have let up a bit, but only till we reached the state-highway.

Once on the highway the rains were back and the infinite darkness coupled with the oncoming blinding high-beamers, the trip already started to seem really really long! As we neared sunrise, the rain didn't seem to be as irritating as before and the lack of traffic heading out of the city was also a relief.

It was about 07:00 hours and we were nearing Ahmednagar when we got some traffic. We thought we'd stop for tea or something but the first stop at a hotel got us a yawning waiter who informed us that the hotel was only a “lodging only” and that we should try our luck about a kilometer ahead near the bus stop. Having already wasted 15 minutes we decided to skip Ahmednagar altogether and take a halt at Aurangabad.

The traffic out of Ahmednagar was minimal and we managed to make it to Aurangabad in good time for breakfast. From Aurangabad it was off to Jalna. The road was just bearable with the asphalt being chipped off over the entire stretch of road till the National Highway. The increasing number of villages also seemed to be getting in the way of the biking experience. We reached the highway (NH6) at Khamgaon, where we stopped for lunch.

After lunch we had hoped to reached Nagpur in good time but the powers that be (read Road Authorities) had something completely different in mind. The road, if it can be called that, was just potholes till Amravati. Luckily there was no rain and no left-over puddles to complicate the drive.

Maintaining decent speed was also possible as the potholes were not too wide. Pulling “zig-zags” was quite easy. The bad roads seemed to be never-ending until we reached the Amravati bypass. The Amravati bypass is what poetry is written about, well ... not really ... but probably the Akola-Amravati stretch had my head still spinning and looking at the amazing road was making me feel like a kid in a toy-store ... run all over the place screaming!
The dream road was soon over and we were back to reality ... at Tiwasa. A few kilometers from Tiwasa and the "ass-hurt" started again. It didn't stay bad for too long though once we hit the “four-laning” section till Nagpur.

Boy, is this road great, and when the road construction does finsh, it is going to be truly amazing. The diversions near the villages were something to watch out for, the rain had made inches of sludge. It was quite a surprise that our bikes didn't slip in that stuff.
The ongoing “four-laning” continues till about 50 (fifty) kms outside Nagpur city. We were at this point at about 18:00 hours. The traffic was quite crazy entering the city, especially the last 35 (thirty-five) kms. The roads in Nagpur are excellent. We reached my cousin's place by about 20:00 hours.

Note: The pictures of the trip have been uploaded at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/shantanu.gadgil/Pune2Puri

Pune to Puri - Bike Trip: The Players

Shantanu Gadgil : TVS Apache 150 cc

Amod Gokhale : Bajaj Pulsar Classic 180 cc

Day 1: Pune - Ahmednagar - Aurangabad - Jalna - Chikli - Khamgaon - Akola - Amravati – Nagpur. [771 kms]

Day 2: Nagpur - Durg - Raipur - Saraipali – Sambalpur. [~ 590 kms]

Day 3: Sambalpur - Dhenkanal – Cuttack

Day 4: Cuttack - Bhubaneshwar - Pipli - Konark - Puri - Konark (night halt)

Day 5: Konark - Jatani - Balugaon - Ichhapuram - Srikakulam – Vishakapatnam

Day 6: Vishakapatnam – Vijaywada

Day 7: Vijayawada – Hyderabad

Day 8: Hyderabad – Solapur

Day 9: Solapur – Pune

The pictures of the trip have been uploaded at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/shantanu.gadgil/Pune2Puri

Do you get what you deserve?

Hah! That was a trick question! Huh? What? Let me explain.
See...I asked "Do you get what you deserve?", implying that what one deserves can somehow be determined beforehand. Well, if you haven't realized it by now...it can't be determined beforehand!!!

There can be a "I would like to have that..." but "I deserve ...." come on...who decided what you deserve?
Is there some rulebook which decides what you "should" and "should not" get in life?

All that one can do is work towards a goal. In time, possibly even achieve it as planned. But, ultimately what one did end up getting is what one deserved to begin with! :)

So, next time someone starts a sentence with "I/he/she does/doesn't deserve...." tell him/her to stop, as whatever is going to follow is going to be senseless.

Also, remind them...its not about "getting what you deserve" but "deserving what you get".