Day 2 (1st February): Pune - Gandhinagar
We had already set the alarm for the next day to be at 4am so that we can avoid the early morning traffic and cover as much as possible. The destination for the day was Gandhinagar because we had already booked the accommodation for the night. So, as planned, we got ready as soon as possible and got out on the highway by 4:45 am. It was chilly as usual and I was shivering with cold, but on the other hand, the roads were completely new for me as this was an unknown territory for me, so feeling cold was at the back of my mind and watching out on the road was always my priority. In no time we crossed Pune and were on our way towards Lonavala. The road condition improved considerably the moment we crossed Pune and it was delight to increase our speed on the highway. We crossed Lonavala during sunrise and hence none of us could control stopping for an early morning shoot. Pictures from this day are again from my and Tapabrata's cameras.
After a short stop, we carried on towards Khandala. Khandala is just a viewpoint from where you see the Pune-Mumbai expressway. With the rising sun at the backdrop, the scenery looked beautiful which made us stop one more time for taking pictures.
We did not want to waste any further time and continued on our way towards Mumbai. Since this was our first time on the highway and we had this thing on our minds that we should never get into the expressway (where 2 wheelers are not allowed), we always kept checking the maps for the right road. However, the stretch after Lonavala that was part of the expressway gave us a taste of it and we were happy about it. Who knew though that we would have another proper taste of the expressway, but at the cost of paying fine. Anyways, we reached Shedung and it was already 7:30 am in the morning, and with the chilly breeze around, our souls were craving for some hot tea. We pulled over bikes near a junction and rushed to a local tea stall, who along with hot tea agreed to prepare vada pav, fresh for us, especially when he came to know where we are coming from and where we are headed.
Filling our tummies with yummy vada pavs, from the junction, we took the road that said Panvel bypass. This however, was the wrong route which we ended up taking and within few kms, we entered the mumbai-pune expressway, heavily guarded by cops. We immediately realized that we are into toast and we had no other option but to pull over and show our IDs to the cops. As usual, after some casual inquiry like where we are coming from and where we are heading to, the cops took our DLs and asked us to take them from the court the following day. We immediately request if this matter can be settled right there, and within fraction of seconds, one of the cops said: "Give 1500 bucks and leave". I started arguing about we travelling since yesterday and not knowing this fact of 2 wheelers being banned on the expressway, to which one of the cops came forward and mentioned to me, giving back our DLs: "You people seem gentlemen to me and you seem to speak the truth. Do one thing, give 1000 bucks and make sure you do not stop anywhere on the expressway. Your vehicles seem like fast bikes, maintain a speed of 100 kmph on the expressway. Have a nice trip.". We did not argue further, there was no point of doing it. We paid him the money and rushed into the expressway. All three of us sped past the vehicles as fast as we can until we reached Navi Mumbai.
Although, it was early in the morning, but there was still healthy amount of traffic on the wide roads of Mumbai. We turned our GPS on from here on to take the road to Thane and in 30 minutes time, we were out of the city. Starting here on, it was again the straight highway and we knew it was going to be a boring 400 kms long ride for us till Vadodara. We again decided to take break after 150 kms each and started our leg, next destination being Vapi. The road was smooth again and we sighted hill ranges on both sides of the highway. By the time we reached Vapi, it was 11:30 am and we took a short break for few minutes at a tea stall, just to give our butt some rest. We were getting a bit hungry but we decided to push ourselves till Surat and have lunch. We noticed a sudden increase in the traffic, especially of the tucks and trollers and they kept on testing our patience all throughout the highway. As a result of which, we started losing considerable amount of time braking, overtaking and accelerating. Another 50 kms and we pulled over for lunch as it was already 1 pm and things were not looking good on our side. We took some seconds of rest and then pulled over to a decent enough outlet to have lunch. I pulled out my camera to take a picture.
We took ample amount of rest and have good lunch which lasted for an hour. The main intention was to let the traffic settle down a bit and hence, after an hour we got ready and resumed our journey. The road has almost emptied up and we turned our accelerator to full. All three of us avoided heavy lunch so that we do not fall asleep and to be very frank, all of us felt a little bit of sleep, such good was the road and on top of that, it was almost empty. We reached Surat in no time and continued our leg towards Vadodara.
We heard a lot about the infamous traffic of Golden Bridge, Bharuch and when we neared the bridge, traffic was at its peak. The farthest we could see, we could see only trollers and tucks and buses. All three of us knew that very moment that it is going to take quite some time now to pass the bridge, but we did not have any other option but to wait. Slowly, steadily the traffic started clearing up, and by the time we crossed the bridge, we had already lost an hour. It was almost 5pm and we did not waste much time and headed towards Vadodara. The temperature had gone down significantly and we started enjoying our ride again. Though, in few moments, we could see the sun setting down the horizon, but we chose not to stop and cover the lost ground. By 6:30 pm, we were at the outskirts of Vadodara.
We pulled over our bikes at a tea shop beside the highway to take a much needed break. From here onwards, we had to take a diversion because 2 wheelers were again prohibited on the Vadodara-Ahmedabad expressway and we could not do the same mistake twice in a single day. Hence we had to continue on the national highway, which did not seem to be in right shape from Vadodara onwards. In the meantime, I called up my friend Eshwari to check here whereabouts because she was to meet with us at the hotel at Gandhinagar. I passed on the address of the hotel to her, just in case she reached before us. After few minutes of much needed break, we continued on the national highway. With multiple diversions, hundreds of speed breakers, added with terrible traffic made our leg hard. And all these are due to the 8-lane work in progress on the national highway. Our pace reduced considerably again, and the speedo was loitering somewhere around the 40-50s. We somehow managed to cross Anand when all three of us halted and decided not to progress on the national highway. We pulled out the GPS and started looking for alternate routes. The only other doable route for us was to take the SH 75 from Anand to Nadiad and thereafter take the SH 3 to Ahmedabad. Although from Anand with the new route, it showed Ahmedabad to be only 75 kms but we never knew how the road condition will be, but without thinking twice, we took this diversion and continued towards Ahmedabad.
Sadly for us, the road turned out to be well below average with some deadly potholes along the way. It was one of these potholes where my steed fell and I lost my tail light assembly, Ashish lost one of his rear view mirrors and two cree lights. Overall, it was a disastrous stretch for us and it took us close to 3 hours to reach the Sardar Patel ring road of Ahmedabad. I already got call from my friend Eshwari that she has already checked into the hotel and is waiting for us since 8:30 pm. The moment we reached the ring road, all three of us heaved a sigh of relief. Such was the feeling seeing the well laid tarmac! It was around 9:30 pm already and we still had 30 more kms to cover and reach the guest house at Gandhinagar. So, without further delay, we rushed on the final stretch of the day. By the time we reached our hotel, it was past 10 pm and we hardly had any energy left in us. After depositing our luggage and getting freshened up in the hotel, 4 of us went in search of dinner, and luckily, we did find one near to the guest house. In the meantime, I called up Sunil to know his whereabouts and discovered that his bike has broken down near Mumbai and hence, his meet up with us would be delayed by another day.
The bad day ended up in a good note after we had tasty food in the night. Our topic of discussion was how our day went and all three of us were telling stories to Eshwari, who, ended up laughing at each one of the stories we told, making our moods swing on the brighter side. Before we crash, we took information about local mechanic who can fix the broken tail light set of the thunderbird and the mirrors of the ZMR and luckily we located one pretty much near to our guest house. That was our priority for the next day, so we need not need to wake up early from bed the next day, good news for all three of us.
Accomodation Information at Gandhinagar:
| Hotel Name: | Hotel The Grand Pritam |
| Address: | C-Block, Swagat Rain Forest-2, Near Infocity, Air Port Road, Kudasan 382010 |
Tariff: 875 per person including breakfast.
End of Day 2, Day 3 to follow soon.
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