Gratitude :
At the very beginning I would like to offer my sincere thanks to senior and distinguished members like Ampere and Ranjitp1; newbie member Subirdas; other members like Ajaybiz, Ravi Yadav, Erlebrito, Shabahmed and all other people from other forums who provided valuable inputs in finalising the whole journey. With all the help and information provided by the esteemed members we had a smooth journey and a splendid holiday in Goa.
Disclaimer :
There are many travelogues on Goa in this forum but most of them are from Mumbai-Pune and Bangalore/Hyderabad and some other from Delhi. I could not find a travelogue from the central part or the eastern part of the country. I have no intention of matching up with any of the innumerable other travelogues on Goa but hope that this travelogue would encourage others from this part of the country to gather the courage and embark on a road trip to Goa.
Prelude :
Being born and brought up in the eastern part of the country, I never had the oppurtunity to visit Goa in my childhood or adolescent days. My wife also had never visited the place. After marriage, whenever the name of Goa came up as a holiday destination, it was discarded mainly because it was regarded (by both of us) as a costly affair. But the urge to visit this quaint little state was always there in the heart and the urge just grew stronger with time. Last year we planned to visit Goa during the puja vacations but was denied leave from my office. This year around the same time we were determined to make this trip and the planning started from the month of June. I know that the best time to visit Goa is from the month of November to February, but our tour plans are restricted by the holiday sessions of the school and thus end of September and first week of October was the best possible time for us to visit Goa. Accordingly the hotel booking was done from 29-09-2014 to 04-10-2014. The mode of journey was undecided at this stage and we frantically searched for discounted flight tickets to Goa for some time before we finally discarded the idea and decided to go by road on our trusted Linea.
This is where this forum came to the rescue and the route was decided with the help of the valuable inputs from the members. A very big
Thank You from the bottom of my heart for all the members for their valuable contribution.
The Journey : a. Bhilai to Pune - My holiday started from 27-09-2014; made all the final arragements in the morning and had a healthy sleep in the afternoon. Had an early dinner in the evening and tried to rest, but due to the excitement could not sleep again. Since every thing was ready, we decided to start the journey at midnight itself instead of the planned three o'çlock start. Finally we started at 00:30 from home.
We encountered the first hurdle after crossing around 8/9 KM when we saw that one side of the four lane highway has been blocked by the police just after Durg town. People from all over the state visit the MAA Bambleshwari temple at Dongarhgarh in Rajnandgaon district of Chhattisgarh and many of them travel bare footed. To ensure the safety of the people going to the temple on foot the administration has shut-off one side of the highway. Also there were several people on two wheeler and cars including some high profile government officials travelling towards the temple. This huge rush created some jams on the road and we could cover the distance at snail's pace. The second hurdle came at the Chichola border checkpost between Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. I should have taken the right side of the road and crossed the checkpost area, but I missed it in the dark and before I could take a decision and reversed I was surrounded by trucks. I had no other option but to follow the queue and lost some forty five minutes in the process.
We reached Bhandara around 4 o'clock in the morning, the four lane construction for the Bhandara-Nagpur portion is complete however, the portion of the road passing through the town is still old style two lane road. We continued ahead and reached Nagpur ORR just after 5 o'clock in the morning. The Nagpur ORR charges a toll of Rs. 85.00 and the operator has maintained the road in good condition till the toll plaza. The condition of the road deteriorated just after the toll plaza, the top asphalt layer has been completely wiped-off for some 5KM and what is left now is some heaps of loose stones on the road creating a rut from the truck tyres. In one such place, where I thought that the Linea would safely pass, the underbody scrapped. Proceeding ahead we rejoined the NH6 at the Nagpur-Amravati section at around 05:30AM. This portion of the NH6 is immaculately maintained without any potholes and I always love to drive through this section. Crossed this section at triple digit speed and made up some of the lost time, reached Amravati bypass by 07:20AM a distance of around 150KM.
Now I'll let the pictures narrate their story.
Nagpur-Amravati section of NH 6.
Note : Most of the pictures during the journey have been shot by my wife and some by my son, if you love the pictures the accolades goes to them and if you hate the pictures, then blame it on me.