Bengaluru to Pune (Part 2)

21 March 2010

Read the first part of the journey first! ;)
http://shantanugadgil.blogspot.com/2010/05/pune-to-bengaluru-part-1.html

The plan was simple while traveling from Bengaluru to Pune; just get home! It was a Sunday morning and I had hoped that the traffic would be quite minimal. Going back was going to be a much relaxed ride, as the road home is always simpler! I had been careless enough to not fill up the Apache; a quick dash of fuel and I was off on my way way home!


The route was the exact same; no variations, so there was nothing much to be worried about. I was seeing lot of things I had not seen during my late night entry into Bengaluru.

I hadn't had any breakfast leaving Bengaluru, so I was on the lookout for a “breakfast stop”. I soon found a “Kamath Upachar” at Haveri. Not much that can go wrong with “idli-chutney and coffee”, so that was what I decided to have.

The road had been quite jarring leaving Bengaluru, so the pain was already setting in! The road upto Chitradurga was quite nice and uneventful. The view of the windmills at Chitradurga from the South side is even more breathtaking! (In hindsight, I really should have clicked a photograph of this. Words just do not capture the "awesomeness")



All this ended as the horrid diversions began. This time though, I was prepared, mentally at least. The worse was yet to come; Davanagere and beyond. The potholes seemed to be unending as the back pain was gradually increasing. They were adding to the agony of the ride...slowly and surely!!! Past Davanagere and approaching Ranebennur was even more agonizing … the traffic had brought the speed to a standstill! Snailing through the traffic under 20 km/h under the hot sun was very frustrating. The other end of Ranebennur seemed to be very far away.

As I made my way past the traffic and I was outside Ranebennur, it was time to refuel; only the bike this time, though! It was a quick splash and dash. The experience on this road while coming to Bengaluru hadn't been exciting at all, and I was only focusing on the riding, nothing else!!!


The next stop was at a place called Yamakanmardi, and this time thankfully I remembered to ask if they accepted payment by card. They did, which was a huge relief as I was kinda low on cash! (Yes, just like the fuel, had been careless not to withdraw money in Bengaluru!!!)


By this time the pain has got me quite a lot and all I was waiting for was to pass Hubli, Dharwad and just get to the “good” road! Soon I was past Kognoli/Kagal and into Kolhapur. Just past the toll booth, I spotted a tea stall. Took a very necessary back-break, guzzled down a few cups of tea and had some biscuits! Called up home informing that I might be a bit late (21:30) reaching home as I had slowed down my pace.

From Kolhapur to Karad was fast, as usual. Outside Karad, the back pain got so agonizing that I wondered for a moment if I should just hail down a truck and ask for a “lift”! I quickly put away “such” thoughts and just rested for a few minutes and drank some of the “lovely” (very warm) GluconD. That seemed to do the trick as I was back on the bike in no time and on my way home.

The Sun set soon which made things really bad! I always seemed to be in a melee of trucks and buses! Soon after Karad I saw that I had traveled 795 kms so far. That meant I had only ~75 more kilometers to go before I was “home”. I decided here that every 5 (five) kilometers would be “mental milestone” and I was going to take it “5 kilometers at a time”. The last part of the ride was quite mindless as I was only thinking about the next “5 kilometer” mark!!! (I know, the things people do to get through pain!!!)

Things seemed familiar only as I passed Shirwal and onto the viaduct at Katraj. I was finally on the home stretch and in very familiar territory. I was home at 21:35 (just five minutes late), very tired, dehydrated and totally drained of energy. As I reached home, I was on the floor, resting my back! Nobody was going to make me get up for the next half-an-hour. Made a few phone calls informing people that I had reached home safely. Compared to the backache, rolling on the floor seemed really really nice!

The journey had been very tiring and very painful because of the potholes and the diversions that I had caught early on in the return journey. While going to Bengaluru, I had “suffered” the potholes for only about 3-4 hours. While coming back home I had suffered them for nearly 10 hours!!! It was time for a hot bath, warm food and good night's rest as I had to go to office the next day!!!