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Solo Ride - Hyd to Parli-Vaijanth
I have finally completed my solo trip from Hyderabad to Parli-Vaijnath and back. Covering a distance of 716 Kms in approx. 38 Hrs.
04-03-2011 14:30 --> Started off from Office, Madhapur (Hyd)
Trip Meter Reading : 26.6 Kms (Reset it at home and kept going)
15:20 --> Reached Sadasivpet (via. Patancheru) --> Four Laned road with Dividers as well till Sangareddy, and then looks like they've ploughed the road from then on till the Karnataka Border. Don't even think of calling this a National Highway. Roads in my locality are much better than this.
Dist. Travelled --> 56.8 Kms (50 Mins)
16:30 --> Stopped at Zaheerabad for a Smoke and a phone call back home. Was warned by the locals that the NH9 was in a pretty bad shape in Maharastra.
Dist. Travelled --> 35 Kms (1 Hr)
17:30 --> Reached Homnabad bypass and stopped for a Tea and Cigarette. I was doing pretty bad here, I was expecting to reach this place by 5 PM. Roads from the Karnataka Border till here were okay. but not yet upto NH levels.
Dist. Travelled --> 55 Kms (1 Hr)
18:30 --> Reached Umarga (Omerga) in Maharastra. Now, had to travel approx. 70 Kms to reach Latur. Tea was cheap but damn sweet. A diabetic would surely die if he had one glass of tea here. I normally have tea/coffee with a little more than normal sugar, but this was too much even for me.
Traveled a little further from the town and stopped for a leak. Got a phone from my bloody TL. This asshole either doesn't understand English or is plain stupid ( I am guessing the latter). I had clearly sent a mail to the whole team that I'd be riding and would not pickup any calls. This fellow has called me around 10 times and is pissed off that I didn't pickup the phone. Apologized after a good dressing down from me.
It was getting dark now and I had already spent 15 mins speaking to the silly fellow. Considering the state of NH-9, I was a little worried about the condition of the road further ahead and my fears were not unfounded.
Dist. Travelled --> 60 Kms (1 Hr)
Took a right turn from Omerga and the roads had a few potholes, but there was not much traffic and I could cover a distance of around 20 Kms in around 30 mins. And now, the real trouble started.
Asked a person for the route, since there were a couple of cross-roads and no sign boards. His accent was the typical Mumbai slang that we hear in movies...
Idhar se straight jaane ka. ek village aayega, udhar turn lene ka. Road thoda kharab hai. phir bhi jaa sakta. He used a few Marathi words in between which I am unable to replicate here and hence used English words. But I was sure he wasn't abusing me
Time : 19:15.
Distance remaining till Ausa : 15 Kms
Roads in this part of Maharastra are the worst ( I am not sure about the other parts). I believe these roads were laid when Asphalt was invented and in all probability, the authorities forgot about them. My bike was gangraped by these roads and I could only be a mute spectator to all the abuse my bike was taking.
These 15Kms were covered in around 90 Mins and there was not a soul in sight. It was just me, my bike and it held up pretty well. I was under constant fear that there would be several pieces of my bike missing by the time I reached Latur.
The roads were better from Ausa to Latur, but still not devoid of potholes.
21:30 --> Finally reached Latur. Asked a couple with a kid for a good hotel and he suggested one called Anjni at Sivaji Chowk in Latur.
Had an embarassing experience in Medak, when a friend of mine had asked a stupid guy for a good place to stay and found out that the place suggested was a Brothel. So, I was particularly looking to ask only a family with the opinion that they'd atleast tell me a normal place.
The hotel was quite good for 600 Rs. for a Standard Room with double bed.
Asked the bellboy for a good bar and he suggested that he'd get whatever I wanted to the room and I can drink in the room itself. Asked him to get a quarter bottle of whiskey and he said they sold only in 90mls.... So ordered for two 90 mls and finally that fellow brings up two quarter bottles. He was looking at the cost and not the quantity I guess.
I was pretty tired by that time and managed to complete all the whiskey and went to sleep.
Was woken up at 5 AM by a friend who was in Madikeri (Coorg) who wanted to know the places nearby that he could visit. Told him whatever I knew and went back to sleep and finally woke up at 7:30 AM
Got ready and checked out and first visited the Ashtavinayak Temple. Was asking for directions to the temple when a guy on a bike with a Press sticker accompanied me to the temple and wanted to know if I was from Andhra. When I said Telangana, he was pretty interested and wanted to know more about the agitations that he was hearing about. Told him a little bit about the history and informed him that the name of the State was "Andhra Pradesh" and Andhra was one of the three regions of the state. He found nothing wrong in calling the state "Andhra". I asked him wether he called "Madhya Pradesh" as Madhya or "Uttar Pradesh" as Uttar, so, when you can call other states with their whole name, you can do the same to mine. I was atleast happy that he didn't call me a Madrasi.
Even my colleagues from the North of India still think that The whole of South India is in Madras (I swear to god this is true). One of my colleagues from Noida wanted to know wether I spoke Madrasi. I told her that there is no language called Madrasi, just like there is nothing called Chinese. Madras has been renamed to Chennai years ago and that's the capital of a different state. We don't share the same language or culture as well and she was truly impressed with my geography
Checked out the Trip meter. Reading was 318 Kms. So, I had travelled approx. 292 Kms the last evening.Almost Immediately, I was running on reserve.
Filled up 200 Rs. worth of Petrol, which is cheaper in Maharastra (~61 Rs. per litre)
Asked a few people and found that going to Ambajogai and then to Parli was a better option due to the better roads.
05-03-2011
10:30 AM --> Reached Ambajogai. Checked out the diversion from Latur towards Parli but one look at the road fixed me up.
Visited the Yogeshwari Devi Mandir and found that the whole town just had rocks strewn over on places where there should have been tarmac.
Dist. Travelled --> 55 Kms (2 Hrs)
11:20 AM --> Finally reached Parli-Vaijnath. Had a quick darshan and came out and called Home.
I had finally reached my destination after travelling for 350+ Kms on some of the worst roads possible.
Was feeling pretty hungry but thankfully there were no after-effects of the alcohol last night. Was not sure of the quality of food here and had a sprite and went ahead.
The route from Ambajogai to Parli and from Parli to Ghat-nandur was beautiful. It was harvesting time here and there was very less greenery. Rice and Sugarcane were the major crops that I saw here.
Lots of ghats, but again, the only dampener was the Road.
Dist. Travelled --> 25 Kms (50 Mins)
12:30 --> Reached Ghat Nandur and had a highly sweet tea.
Dist. Travelled --> 19 Kms (45 Mins)
14:00 --> Reached Amhadpur and had a cool Pineapple Juice with terrible as usual.
Dist. Travelled --> 43 Kms (90 Mins)
15:30 --> Was running on Reserve again and filled up 200 Rs. Worth of Petrol. The Trip meter read 385 Kms now.
The roads improved around 10 Kms before Udgir and the whole town had completely concrete roads.
Had another glass of juice and a cigarette and started off to Bidar.
Dist. Travelled --> 42 Kms (90 Mins)
Now, I had to travel around 80 Kms to Bidar and it was getting pretty late as well.
5 Kms after Udgir is where the actual fun started. The remaining 70-75 Kms were the stretch I rued having a 125cc Bike. These roads are the best I've seen, apart from the NH-7 Stretch from Hyderabad to Kurnool.
There were only 4 curves. and pure straight roads for atleast 15 kms at a stretch. I could see as far as my vision goes and couldn't find a curve on the road.
Kept the bike at full throttle and was able to touch triple digits on the speedo (Which I am sure is inaccurate). I managed to cover this entire distance, with a 20 min. break in between in less than 90 mins.
16:50 --> Reached Paapnaas Temple at Bidar and had a darshan and then reached Narsimha Jharni at around 17:30 and finished Darshan there as well.
Reached a Dhaaba kinda thing on the outskirts of Bidar. Had a full bottle of Water, a glass of tea and two cigarettes. The time was now 18:00 and I had just around 100 Kms to go.
I hadn't had anything to eat since last night and the heat, fatigue and dehydration had got to me. Rested for a while and called up a Friend in Sangareddi since I had promised to meet him on the way back.
Roads were still good and I was on full throttle for most distances. I wasn't worrying about the throttle or speed, since there was enough traffic enroute to ensure that I slowed down every dozen or so kms.
Suddenly noticed a sign board and slowed down to look. Found that by going straight, Zaheerabad was 6 Kms away, but taking a left turn at the sign board made it 7kms away. Practically, I had no business in Zaheerabad and I had to take a left from there. So, a split second of reasoning went in favor of the small road and at the end of 4 Kms on that Road, I found myself on NH9 again with Zaheerabad 3 Kms to the left. I had saved approximately 5 kms here. No big deal, but any amount of traffic would delay me further.
19:40 --> Reached Sangareddi. Had a couple of cigarettes and had Dinner with my friend. The hard roti was a little tough to chew, but ate it up in a couple of minutes, since I did not have any solid food since the previous night.
Spoke to him for quite a while and the time was already 21:15. Said good-bye to him and then started back home.
Checked the Trip meter a little before Patancheru and found the reading to be 690 Kms. I was surprised that the 200 Rs. worth petrol filled at Udgir was stretching up for so long, when realization suddenly struck me. I was running on reserve as soon as I started off from Narsimha Jharni in Bidar. I had travelled more than 80 Kms and was not sure of the mileage of the bike. Slowed down to a sedate 60 and kept going ahead in search of a petrol bunk. Finally found one on the outskirts of Patancheru and filled her up again with 200 Rs. of petrol.
The reason I had filled up less was due to the fact that the recent news of the Oil mafia in Maharastra made me unsure of the quality of Petrol.
After enduring a terrible traffic jam at Kukatpally, finally reached home at 22:30 with the Trip meter at 742 Kms.
All the alcohol, heat, dehydration and lack of food had screwed me up. Went to the bathroom to piss and it was orange in color, not even yellow. Checked out my eyes in the mirror and they had turned blood red. Looked as if I was having a bad case of Conjuctivitis.
A good night's sleep solved all that. Woke up late on Sunday and all is well....
Managed to click only a few photographs. Will have to learn to upload them and will do that in my next post.
04-03-2011 14:30 --> Started off from Office, Madhapur (Hyd)
Trip Meter Reading : 26.6 Kms (Reset it at home and kept going)
15:20 --> Reached Sadasivpet (via. Patancheru) --> Four Laned road with Dividers as well till Sangareddy, and then looks like they've ploughed the road from then on till the Karnataka Border. Don't even think of calling this a National Highway. Roads in my locality are much better than this.
Dist. Travelled --> 56.8 Kms (50 Mins)
16:30 --> Stopped at Zaheerabad for a Smoke and a phone call back home. Was warned by the locals that the NH9 was in a pretty bad shape in Maharastra.
Dist. Travelled --> 35 Kms (1 Hr)
17:30 --> Reached Homnabad bypass and stopped for a Tea and Cigarette. I was doing pretty bad here, I was expecting to reach this place by 5 PM. Roads from the Karnataka Border till here were okay. but not yet upto NH levels.
Dist. Travelled --> 55 Kms (1 Hr)
18:30 --> Reached Umarga (Omerga) in Maharastra. Now, had to travel approx. 70 Kms to reach Latur. Tea was cheap but damn sweet. A diabetic would surely die if he had one glass of tea here. I normally have tea/coffee with a little more than normal sugar, but this was too much even for me.
Traveled a little further from the town and stopped for a leak. Got a phone from my bloody TL. This asshole either doesn't understand English or is plain stupid ( I am guessing the latter). I had clearly sent a mail to the whole team that I'd be riding and would not pickup any calls. This fellow has called me around 10 times and is pissed off that I didn't pickup the phone. Apologized after a good dressing down from me.
It was getting dark now and I had already spent 15 mins speaking to the silly fellow. Considering the state of NH-9, I was a little worried about the condition of the road further ahead and my fears were not unfounded.
Dist. Travelled --> 60 Kms (1 Hr)
Took a right turn from Omerga and the roads had a few potholes, but there was not much traffic and I could cover a distance of around 20 Kms in around 30 mins. And now, the real trouble started.
Asked a person for the route, since there were a couple of cross-roads and no sign boards. His accent was the typical Mumbai slang that we hear in movies...
Idhar se straight jaane ka. ek village aayega, udhar turn lene ka. Road thoda kharab hai. phir bhi jaa sakta. He used a few Marathi words in between which I am unable to replicate here and hence used English words. But I was sure he wasn't abusing me
Time : 19:15.
Distance remaining till Ausa : 15 Kms
Roads in this part of Maharastra are the worst ( I am not sure about the other parts). I believe these roads were laid when Asphalt was invented and in all probability, the authorities forgot about them. My bike was gangraped by these roads and I could only be a mute spectator to all the abuse my bike was taking.
These 15Kms were covered in around 90 Mins and there was not a soul in sight. It was just me, my bike and it held up pretty well. I was under constant fear that there would be several pieces of my bike missing by the time I reached Latur.
The roads were better from Ausa to Latur, but still not devoid of potholes.
21:30 --> Finally reached Latur. Asked a couple with a kid for a good hotel and he suggested one called Anjni at Sivaji Chowk in Latur.
Had an embarassing experience in Medak, when a friend of mine had asked a stupid guy for a good place to stay and found out that the place suggested was a Brothel. So, I was particularly looking to ask only a family with the opinion that they'd atleast tell me a normal place.
The hotel was quite good for 600 Rs. for a Standard Room with double bed.
Asked the bellboy for a good bar and he suggested that he'd get whatever I wanted to the room and I can drink in the room itself. Asked him to get a quarter bottle of whiskey and he said they sold only in 90mls.... So ordered for two 90 mls and finally that fellow brings up two quarter bottles. He was looking at the cost and not the quantity I guess.
I was pretty tired by that time and managed to complete all the whiskey and went to sleep.
Was woken up at 5 AM by a friend who was in Madikeri (Coorg) who wanted to know the places nearby that he could visit. Told him whatever I knew and went back to sleep and finally woke up at 7:30 AM
Got ready and checked out and first visited the Ashtavinayak Temple. Was asking for directions to the temple when a guy on a bike with a Press sticker accompanied me to the temple and wanted to know if I was from Andhra. When I said Telangana, he was pretty interested and wanted to know more about the agitations that he was hearing about. Told him a little bit about the history and informed him that the name of the State was "Andhra Pradesh" and Andhra was one of the three regions of the state. He found nothing wrong in calling the state "Andhra". I asked him wether he called "Madhya Pradesh" as Madhya or "Uttar Pradesh" as Uttar, so, when you can call other states with their whole name, you can do the same to mine. I was atleast happy that he didn't call me a Madrasi.
Even my colleagues from the North of India still think that The whole of South India is in Madras (I swear to god this is true). One of my colleagues from Noida wanted to know wether I spoke Madrasi. I told her that there is no language called Madrasi, just like there is nothing called Chinese. Madras has been renamed to Chennai years ago and that's the capital of a different state. We don't share the same language or culture as well and she was truly impressed with my geography
Checked out the Trip meter. Reading was 318 Kms. So, I had travelled approx. 292 Kms the last evening.Almost Immediately, I was running on reserve.
Filled up 200 Rs. worth of Petrol, which is cheaper in Maharastra (~61 Rs. per litre)
Asked a few people and found that going to Ambajogai and then to Parli was a better option due to the better roads.
05-03-2011
10:30 AM --> Reached Ambajogai. Checked out the diversion from Latur towards Parli but one look at the road fixed me up.
Visited the Yogeshwari Devi Mandir and found that the whole town just had rocks strewn over on places where there should have been tarmac.
Dist. Travelled --> 55 Kms (2 Hrs)
11:20 AM --> Finally reached Parli-Vaijnath. Had a quick darshan and came out and called Home.
I had finally reached my destination after travelling for 350+ Kms on some of the worst roads possible.
Was feeling pretty hungry but thankfully there were no after-effects of the alcohol last night. Was not sure of the quality of food here and had a sprite and went ahead.
The route from Ambajogai to Parli and from Parli to Ghat-nandur was beautiful. It was harvesting time here and there was very less greenery. Rice and Sugarcane were the major crops that I saw here.
Lots of ghats, but again, the only dampener was the Road.
Dist. Travelled --> 25 Kms (50 Mins)
12:30 --> Reached Ghat Nandur and had a highly sweet tea.
Dist. Travelled --> 19 Kms (45 Mins)
14:00 --> Reached Amhadpur and had a cool Pineapple Juice with terrible as usual.
Dist. Travelled --> 43 Kms (90 Mins)
15:30 --> Was running on Reserve again and filled up 200 Rs. Worth of Petrol. The Trip meter read 385 Kms now.
The roads improved around 10 Kms before Udgir and the whole town had completely concrete roads.
Had another glass of juice and a cigarette and started off to Bidar.
Dist. Travelled --> 42 Kms (90 Mins)
Now, I had to travel around 80 Kms to Bidar and it was getting pretty late as well.
5 Kms after Udgir is where the actual fun started. The remaining 70-75 Kms were the stretch I rued having a 125cc Bike. These roads are the best I've seen, apart from the NH-7 Stretch from Hyderabad to Kurnool.
There were only 4 curves. and pure straight roads for atleast 15 kms at a stretch. I could see as far as my vision goes and couldn't find a curve on the road.
Kept the bike at full throttle and was able to touch triple digits on the speedo (Which I am sure is inaccurate). I managed to cover this entire distance, with a 20 min. break in between in less than 90 mins.
16:50 --> Reached Paapnaas Temple at Bidar and had a darshan and then reached Narsimha Jharni at around 17:30 and finished Darshan there as well.
Reached a Dhaaba kinda thing on the outskirts of Bidar. Had a full bottle of Water, a glass of tea and two cigarettes. The time was now 18:00 and I had just around 100 Kms to go.
I hadn't had anything to eat since last night and the heat, fatigue and dehydration had got to me. Rested for a while and called up a Friend in Sangareddi since I had promised to meet him on the way back.
Roads were still good and I was on full throttle for most distances. I wasn't worrying about the throttle or speed, since there was enough traffic enroute to ensure that I slowed down every dozen or so kms.
Suddenly noticed a sign board and slowed down to look. Found that by going straight, Zaheerabad was 6 Kms away, but taking a left turn at the sign board made it 7kms away. Practically, I had no business in Zaheerabad and I had to take a left from there. So, a split second of reasoning went in favor of the small road and at the end of 4 Kms on that Road, I found myself on NH9 again with Zaheerabad 3 Kms to the left. I had saved approximately 5 kms here. No big deal, but any amount of traffic would delay me further.
19:40 --> Reached Sangareddi. Had a couple of cigarettes and had Dinner with my friend. The hard roti was a little tough to chew, but ate it up in a couple of minutes, since I did not have any solid food since the previous night.
Spoke to him for quite a while and the time was already 21:15. Said good-bye to him and then started back home.
Checked the Trip meter a little before Patancheru and found the reading to be 690 Kms. I was surprised that the 200 Rs. worth petrol filled at Udgir was stretching up for so long, when realization suddenly struck me. I was running on reserve as soon as I started off from Narsimha Jharni in Bidar. I had travelled more than 80 Kms and was not sure of the mileage of the bike. Slowed down to a sedate 60 and kept going ahead in search of a petrol bunk. Finally found one on the outskirts of Patancheru and filled her up again with 200 Rs. of petrol.
The reason I had filled up less was due to the fact that the recent news of the Oil mafia in Maharastra made me unsure of the quality of Petrol.
After enduring a terrible traffic jam at Kukatpally, finally reached home at 22:30 with the Trip meter at 742 Kms.
All the alcohol, heat, dehydration and lack of food had screwed me up. Went to the bathroom to piss and it was orange in color, not even yellow. Checked out my eyes in the mirror and they had turned blood red. Looked as if I was having a bad case of Conjuctivitis.
A good night's sleep solved all that. Woke up late on Sunday and all is well....
Managed to click only a few photographs. Will have to learn to upload them and will do that in my next post.
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