[Surprise]

Hi Super 5's -

In the entire drive is there any close calls encountered?

Is there a situation where your heart beat has stepped up due to some reason (while driving)?

Felt uncomfortable driving/sitting and eagerly noting the distance to cover that days destination?

[khan_sultan]

Originally Posted by Surprise

...In the entire drive is there any close calls encountered?

In safari it was one, where hrag after being tired thought that a parked lorry was a moving one.

In scorpio -- MJ/Ramky/HVk will comment for first hand views :-)

Is there a situation where your heart beat has stepped up due to some reason (while driving)?

He he.. I think MJ is the best person to comment on that followed by Ramky -- both passengers with HVK.

Felt uncomfortable driving/sitting and eagerly noting the distance to cover that days destination?

NO. never. It was what we went for.

[Surprise]

Originally Posted by khan_sultan

In scorpio -- MJ/Ramky/HVk will comment for first hand views :-)

To correct a bit on the word "driving", I meant while the vehicle is on move and not necessarily in the driver seat. I knew the chances of driving esp when HVK is around

[khan_sultan]

On our Kolkatta - Vizag section, we saw quite a few Ambassadors on the GQ. They do look good -- especially on a foggy morning.





And yes, we did encounter bad roads in Orrisa. Do notice the Swift Dzire in one of the pictures below. That car & HVK's scorpio were involved in 'cat & mouse' relationship for some 50 odd kms IIRC.



Cheers,

[mjothi]

So, on day 6, we all 3 got up when we had a "alarm". How we got up was already mentioned by our friends.

We get up, got ready and we ALL were down, but our HVK was the last person to join. Hehehe...

We get in the vehicle and the engine started by 3:15am. We joined the NH and started our journey towards Bangalore via Chennai. First there was a Tea break, then Coffee break. All immediately granted by HVK when asked by HRag. Previous days effect.

Then we keep driving in a good pace, on good roads and suddenly we see HVK entering into a town. What happen to him? We were wondering if he was going to take us to new site seeing spot. We also spoted a beautiful temple in the same direction as he was going. For a moment, we thought he was vey cool today due to early starting, and spending leasiure time.

Then he stops near a turn and informs us that he was searching for breakfast. Come on man, you should not have told that right in front of the temple. Infact, we were afraid if he would ask us to get the prasadam as breakfast from the temple. Hehehe

Luckily, he did not. We went to a restaurant, which seemed to be the only good hotel. The crowd over there proved it.

Then we again started to drive to the NH, nellore and reach chennai. The roads in Andhra was really very good.

Once you enter nellore, you see all greens, greens and greens. The landscape was so great.

We crossed one place (HVK, place name please!!!) which is famous for the cold storage. He mentioned that most of the tobacco business is from here. He also mentioned about the cotton processing units over there.

All through the Andhra, we were blessed by Hanuman-ji. Almost every town and road had atleast one statue.

We were able to do good speed and entered Chennai at 4pm. The traffic was less than over expectation. We could cross Redhills, lucas-padi, Thirumangalam and got stuck in Maduravoil.

After some struggle we touch the GQ and from there it was a breeze. We get into the Motel neat Ponnamallee. Call our Srikanth and wait.

Our guy joins in his WaganR. Had good food. Only problem was my Sambar Idli was looted :(

We come out and had a small photo session near the neatly washed vehicles. We notice the IDENTICAL Dicor standing opposite to our Dicor. Only difference was it had a flag in front. Then we start from there around 6-6:15pm.

It was begining to become dark. Then we notice this Safari zooming to front. We had a doubt if that will mislead our Scorpio team, so called them and informed about the mis-leading Safari.

Things was clear, and drive was smooth. We reach the Roshini, had hot coffee and continue to Bangalore. We reach Marathahalli bridge at 11:45pm and what happened was already mentioned.

From here we say bye to our Guru, commander, BOSS [did I miss anything!!!] and roll towards Hebbal. Reach Hrag's apartment, get our car and zooom to our House.

How long we slept after that is a million $$$$ question.

Now back to Pics....

Nice landscape of Andra


What is this?


And this?


Duck, Duck and Duck


Why do people write the number upside down? See left board -63386


Different Gopurams!!!




Jai Hanuman, here, here and everywhere



Nice roads - Look at the cotton spread in the first pics




Atlast - Reached Nellore


All green after Nellore


TADA - For cutting trees!!!


Just before TN in AP


Chikku Bukku Railu


Namma Chennai Maanaga Perundhu (Our Chennai Metro BUS)


Its Black & White


Ah, I guess I am done with the Day 6 reports.

Now, for others and then the countdown can start for S vs S... You know what I meant!!!

Cheers.

[gowda79]

Atlast MJ has finished the Journo, Snaronikar it is finished before the next Christmas

[khan_sultan]

Originally Posted by mjothi

...We went to a restaurant, which seemed to be the only good hotel. The crowd over there proved it....

The restaurant was super crowded and we did not get to sit together on a table. So self, HVK & Hrishi were somehow on same/nearby tables and MJ/Ramky on separate 'family section' tables. Till today it is a mystery as to what these 2 ate for b-fast.

But yes, the b-fast was sumptuous.

Cheers,

[hrag]

Motel Rosin, not Roshini. Unless you meant the tubelights there.

Originally Posted by khan_sultan

MJ/Ramky on separate 'family section' tables. Till today it is a mystery as to what these 2 ate for b-fast.

Yes, their bill for 2 was the same as our bill for 3. Or was it higher? Maybe they expanded their 'family' and paid for some others.

That sambar vadai was so good, I would have looted the next one as well.

[mjothi]

Originally Posted by hrag

Yes, their bill for 2 was the same as our bill for 3. Or was it higher? Maybe they expanded their 'family' and paid for some others.

Got it. Now I understand why you looted my Sambar vada in poovai

Atleast, we ate what we ordered. Not like the precious "old" you got after a long search that you guys wasted in Allahabad.

[khan_sultan]

Oh, one thing i forgot from this GQ experience.

We would have crossed some 100+ tool booths and ONLY in U.P. did we see that EACH of the gate had armed folks. If the tool had 5 gates, each gate had a person with a rifle and atleast 2-3 extra man to take care of any situation and some 1-2 just loitering around each gate.

Folks, did we notice this anywhere else?

Cheers,

[khan_sultan]

My personal set of GQ Awards:

Best Roads: U.P (After Agra till Allahabad b-pass), Bihar/JH
Best Scenic View: Rajasthan

Best Dhaba Food: Rajasthan/Western U.P
Worst Roads: Gujrat/Orrisa

Worst Jams: Allabahad bypass/Durgapur

Worst Traffic Sense: U.P -- nothing even comes close. Even dogs don't move.

Worst Cops: U.P. We were really lucky not to be harassed by cops there. We could have been easily stopped at 10+ places in UP

Best Moments: Pissing in 12 of the 13 states by the side of the GQ over 6000 kms

Cheers,

[anujmishra]

Originally Posted by Sudipto-S-Team

The English word is palanquin. But I suppose it's okay to call it palki. I hope I don't sound like an English teacher.

@ Anuj - please tell me something about that region - we saw a line of streetside shops on the side of the road selling swords, kripans and spears and other forms of iron arms. It seemed the shops have Sikh (possibly truck drivers) as target customers. Could you please throw some light on this? Because such a cluster of streetside shops seemed very unique and strange. I have never seen such a cluster. Is there any Sikh pilgrimage spot in that area?
There were some 40/50 shops on either side of the road. Not a single customer.
I regret I didn't stop to find out more because by the time I thought I would stop, the shops had disappeared. It was kind of in the middle of nowhere before Dumri (from Kolkata side) on the highway.

The sells those Kirpans, Spears etc for two purposes

1. Moharram: In moharram cavalcade people display their art with these swords, spears etc. This is very popular over there. The picture that khan_sultan posted is for this purpose only.

2. For Sikh Truck Drivers: On NH2 most of the truck drivers are from Sikh Community. So sometime they shop for these kirpans etc.


There is no Sikh pilgrimage place is there in that region.

[hvkumar]

Originally Posted by Surprise

Hi Super 5's -

In the entire drive is there any close calls encountered?

Is there a situation where your heart beat has stepped up due to some reason (while driving)?

Felt uncomfortable driving/sitting and eagerly noting the distance to cover that days destination?

Had 3 close encounters:

The worst being the dog-fight with the Swift Dzire in Orissa after Bhadrak, which almost resulted in a serious accident during one of those skirmishes. Quite uncharacteristic of me to do such racing, but sometimes such things do happen.

The other 2 occasions were caused by scooters suddenly darting across, resulting in lot of rubber being deposited on the GQ.

[hvkumar]

Originally Posted by mjothi

Then we keep driving in a good pace, on good roads and suddenly we see HVK entering into a town. What happen to him? We were wondering if he was going to take us to new site seeing spot. We also spoted a beautiful temple in the same direction as he was going. For a moment, we thought he was vey cool today due to early starting, and spending leasiure time.

Then he stops near a turn and informs us that he was searching for breakfast. Come on man, you should not have told that right in front of the temple. Infact, we were afraid if he would ask us to get the prasadam as breakfast from the temple. Hehehe

That was the Mangalagiri Narasimha Temple between Vijaywada and Guntur. We could not find any decent hotels to break our fast on NH5 in Vijaywada town.

We crossed one place (HVK, place name please!!!) which is famous for the cold storage. He mentioned that most of the tobacco business is from here. He also mentioned about the cotton processing units over there.

Guntur - famous for its tobacco, cotton and chilli markets. Those warehouses were for tobacco and chillies, I think.

Very interesting, all those lorries carrying those cattle were TN registration which seems to be that they must be transporting them from AP/ Orissa to Kerala, which is where all old cattle go to the abottoir (beef).

[hvkumar]

Now that MJ has said his piece, let me give you my version of Day 6...

We were approximately 8-10 hours late when we got up that morning, the original plan being to stop over at Nellore, which was still 680 kms away!!!

So we had the stupendous task of not only making up the deficit but also to drive the balance 775 kms from there to Bangalore. Yes, we had a target of 1,200 kms that day, and a timeline to reach Bangalore before 12 midnight.

So, it was with a great sense of urgency that all were hustled out of their beds in fine team spirit, and we moved out of the hotel in Anakapalli at sharp 3 am.

The first 2 hours, but for a minor tea break and a minor traffic jam at Annavaram - one side of the road was closed - and we were crawling for around 20 minutes, were smooth but not very fast. The team cheered up as we entered the East Godavari District to be greeted by some of the most fertile greens in India around Rajahmundry town. A great sunrise over the Godavari's distributories Gautami and Vashishti saw some great photographers in action. And some super-models like Scorpios and Safaris flaunted their muscles as Ramky virtually kissed the dust to get the AT and HT tyres that had served us so well so far, onto digital media.

Cruising into Vijaywada town - is it a bypass or has the city outgrown it, I can't really say - we searched for restaurants, but could find none. So we had into Mangalagiri town to find one. Luckily, I did not have MJ's thought, else I would have headed into the temple and savoured the prasad!!! And since that was the famous Panaka Narasimha Temple, some paanaka also.

From Guntur onwards, the road was total bliss, and the folks were contented after a decent breakfast of poori baaji/ dosas to clip on what was a blemishless road.

Nellore came very fast, at 145 pm. By that time, we had covered our 680 kms in 10.30 hrs. I could see hrag's Safari quicken its pace as he found himself back on familiar terrain heading back into TN. That morning, as we crossed Guntur, we had told pykmsrikanth that we were targeting Madras at 4 pm, and so we did - the Famous Five rolled into the Madras bypass at Madhavaram at exactly 400 pm (by my watch, MJ's was 4 minutes faster).

MJ forgot to mention about the automatic dispensing machines for condoms - where are the photos, MJ? - which line the highways, presumably for the truckers. AIDS is a big message on the highways, most toll tickets have a AIDS message. But like I saw in a cartoon 2 decades ago, "Saar, but I can't read"

Madras City drive was fine, we making it text-book style across the city in exactly 1 hour, and reaching teh rendezvous point (meet with pykmsrikanth) at exactly 5 pm. Reaching Madras meant we had covered 840 kms in 13 hours, and that was an occasion to relax - Bangalore was not too far away.

Traffic was very high as we left Madras till at least Vaniyambadi, after which it was empty all the way. The Madras-Vellore leg sees some crazy traffic, and I wonder how you guys do it in 4 hours all the way to Bangalore. hrag is an expert on this route and I was content to trail him for a long distance, before I lost patience with his eco-driving techniques and speeded up after Ambur, all the way to Hosur.

Reaching Hosur at 1045 pm, hrag decided to take the Attibele-Sarjapur-Vartur route into Bangalore, and we reached Martahalli at 1145 pm, and Ramky and I entered our sleeping pad for that night at 1155 pm (near the Old Airport).

....and for the Bombay/ Ahmedabad guys, the journey had not yet ended, we had our final day left to drive on to Bombay. And another 3 hours to sleep before we were on the road again.

I must say this was one day of great satisfaction, we set off with a huge distance target and managed to complete the day well, and both Ramky and I got our night's sleep before we got going again.