We took the exit to Thane and continued our drive. The road was quite good for some time and then there were lots of stretches where road widening work was going on. Little did we know what was in store for us.
The road we thought would take us to Thane, was actually leading to
Bhiwandi and we found out about it the hard way. All of a sudden, the road became terribly potholed. The time was 3.42 pm and we had travelled 24 kilometres from the National Highway. It was absolutely the worst roads that I have seen anywhere! I thought of calling up HVK sir, but decided to get out of the mess ourselves and not to disturb him.
We got directions from some truck drivers and soon reached Bhiwandi town. We again got directions from a policeman, who was smiling seeing our faces!
Maybe we were so angry!!! :-(
The
city of Bhiwandi, known for its textile industry, has the largest number of power looms in the country and is sometimes dubbed as
'The Manchester of India'. Bhiwandi is a trucker's town and a purely commercial hub.
There are more Lorries in Bhiwandi at any given time than other four wheelers!
The lesser said about Bhiwandi, the better! The road had huge craters and was tarred probably a decade back. We got directions from auto rickshaw drivers and finally took the road to Navi Mumbai by 4.18 pm. Our odo read 83,827 kms. We had driven 13 kilometres inside the city, trying our best to get out of the mess.
Once we reached Navi Mumbai, we were destined for a
‘Mumbai Darshan tour’. We drove around the whole city
twice or
was it thrice? I do not know!!!
We finally reached the entrance of the
expressway to Pune by 5.21 pm. Our odo read 83,863 kms. It meant that we had driven another 36 kilometres near Navi Mumbai. That was the most forgettable part of the journey. There were absolutely no sign boards in Vashi to guide us correctly.
We thanked our lucky stars that we were finally out of the chaotic, confusing, congested roads of Navi Mumbai. I was really tired due to the nonstop drive after our lunch break. If it was a highway I could have driven even for 10 hours without a break, but the potholed roads and the frequent gear changes were too strenuous. I must say that our Chevy exceeded our expectations and handled whatever challenging roads were thrown at him, with élan! We didn’t dare to think what our condition would have been, if we had been in a sedan!! My advice to future travellers is to
avoid Bhiwandi AT ANY COST!!
We relaxed almost immediately when we saw the expressway.
I had driven on the expressway hundreds of times and I knew it very well. A funny story comes to my mind whenever I think of the expressway.
Once, some years back, we had reserved tickets for a night show of ‘Chak De’ in a theatre in Pune. The show we booked for, was at 9.30 pm on a Sunday. That Sunday morning, we inexplicably got an irresistible urge to see the sea. Off we went to Alibag and Kashid without thinking twice. We left Pune by 10.30 am, took the expressway and reached Kashid beach via Alibag by 2.45 pm. We took more than four hours to cover 200 kms. There was very heavy traffic on NH 17 and we lost an awful lot of time, tailing trucks. We couldn’t overtake for many kilometres at a stretch.
Well, we finally reached the beach and relaxed for some time. We had conveniently forgotten about the movie later that night, for which I had spent 300 bucks. We then had a super tasty lunch which consisted of lots of fried fish and prawns.
We went back to the beach and it was then that I remembered about the movie. The time was close to 5 pm. It looked impossible to reach Pune in time to catch the movie. My wifey was distraught at the thought of missing her favourite star’s movie. Well, I couldn’t see my wifey sad and I assured her, that I would take her for the same movie the next day, if we didn’t reach on time. Little did she know what I had in my mind.
We quickly left Kashid beach and were almost immediately stopped by two policemen who were out to make a quick buck. I showed them all my documents.
Then they wanted me to tell them the registration number of my vehicle!!! That was probably to know whether I was intoxicated??? God knows!
When I told him the number, he wanted to see the
‘originals’ of my
insurance documents!!! I told him that my documents were printouts sent to me by my insurer and there was nothing like ‘originals’. He still did not let me go. Then I lost my cool and took down his name and bike number. This scared that filthy cop and he let us go immediately!
After wasting ten minutes with those idiots, we quickly made our way back to the highway. We were really frustrated to see the slow moving trucks occupying more than 90% of the road. On top of that, there was a huge block because an Indica car had literally flown off the road at high speed and landed in a big ditch, upside down. There was a casualty and we had to wait till the ambulance left.
After a lot of high speed driving and even more expert maneuvering of our Chevy, we reached the expressway at 8.20 pm. The rest of the story is in fast forward mode. I touched the theatre, in the middle of Pune city, at 9.15 pm. My wifey had enough time to freshen up and we watched the movie at 9.30 pm. That was one hell of a drive!
But this time, we were much more relaxed and did not need to reach Pune very fast. We maintained a steady 100 kmph and soon passed the first toll booth at 5.40 pm. We had covered 34 kilometres from the entrance of the expressway. By then, we were really tired and decided to take a break.
We pulled into the HP pump which was on our left and filled up our Chevy. He drank in 41.92 litres @ Rs. 35.25. We also checked our tyre’s pressure. We had shifted to Nitrogen during our Ooty trip and we had not checked the pressure all through this trip. Amazingly there was a change of only one single point in two tyres. We were thrilled with the reliability of Nitrogen!
We restarted our journey by 6.10 pm. We had relaxed our aching muscles a bit and were ready for the final assault to reach Pune. The expressway was quite empty and we were able to keep up good speeds.
We passed the Khandala ghats, where we encountered some traffic and finally reached the second toll booth at 6.48 pm. We had covered 410 kilometres from Surat and were very eager to finally see Pune after such a long time.
We exited the expressway at 6.54 pm. We had driven another 11 kilometres from the toll booth. We still had to drive another 30 odd kilometres and were very careful not to get too carried away. I have seen many drivers drop their guard when they exit the expressway. But I tell you, NH 4 is a bigger killer stretch than the expressway. There are hundreds of trucks parked on the roadside and big vehicles always swerve into the right lane whenever they see any obstacle in the left lane. So I gave my Hellas a big workout and scared the hell out of vehicles attempting to cut me off! I had to be very careful there as the drivers just stuck their hand out of the window and cut straight into the right lane.
We decided to go to our home via Dhankawdi. It was a simple decision as the NH 4 runs via Dhankawadi junction. If I had taken the Aundh or the Kothrud exit, I would have had to drive inside the city in peak hour traffic. The last thing I wanted was to cool my heels in a traffic jam after spending a whole day driving.
We reached Dhankawadi junction by 7.40 pm and entered Pune City. The traffic was very chaotic there because of the innumerable long-distance luxury buses making their way in and out of the city. I got out of the highway-drive mode and switched to a very sedate city-drive mode. We reached our junction by 8.05 pm after covering 462 kilometres from Surat. We were very thrilled and even hungrier. After a quick visit to our favourite Biriyani outlet, we felt happier too!
We reached our township at exactly 8.20 pm. Our odometer read
84,006 kms. We had driven an amazing
2243.9 kilometres during our trip. The distance from
Mount Abu to our residence was 1009.4 kilometres. We said a prayer of sincere gratitude to the all powerful almighty and switched off our darling’s engine for one final time! Hats off to my dear Chevy baby for protecting us and giving us one brilliant drive all through!!!
One word of sincere gratitude to my dear wifey, who stood by me like the
‘Rock of Gibraltar’, always supporting me and never becoming the
‘Leaning Tower of Pisa’! She has the uncanny ability to warn me of potential traffic hazards in advance, when I drive fast. Without her, I would have lost my sanity at numerous junctures during the trip! She has evolved into a great photographer too! She clicked more than 5000 snaps and each one of them, tells a story! The best part is that she still has the desire to improve her skills!
I was at a loss for words, when she came with me at 6 am, in biting cold temperatures, to the lake to photograph the sunrise. Such was her dedication! And this photo, will forever be etched in my memory!
Finally, a word of heartfelt thanks to all my dear readers, for coming along with us to all those beautiful places and whose words of encouragement kept me motivated to pen down this travelogue and process and post about 2K photos. I hope everyone enjoyed reading my travelogue as much as I enjoyed writing it!
:-)
This trip was arguably one of our best road trips till date! Our
Ooty and Kodaikanal trip was brilliant and is still going strong in T-BHP.
But in
Udaipur, we truly enjoyed a superb vacation, doing everything at our own pace. We tried out the finer points of photography during this trip and at final count, we had clicked
10,015 photos. We have captured enough scenes to last us a life time!!!
I still remember the day my wifey asked me what was so great about Udaipur! It was just two months back!!! Now, after I made her experience the brilliance of that quaint little city,
she swears by the beauty of Udaipur,
a truly heavenly place!!! I would call it the
‘Pride of India’!
We are so happy that we were able to fulfill a longstanding dream of ours!