After finishing the snack, we resumed the journey and reached Belgaum around 4PM, had a light lunch at the same hotel again. Asked the hotel manager for an alternative route to Bijapur. He said most people take the route Belgaum->Yargatti->Jhamkandi->Bijapur.
Now the real drama starts. For some reason I wanted to try the GoogleMaps/GPS on my G1 phone. It gave me a route from Belgaum to Bijapur and I have decided to try that.The road was ok in the beginning, but started deteriorating as we moved ahead.
Bad road. But we thought not too bad. that was the mistake
We saw a lot of patches where there was no road. We knew something was wrong but somehow drove in the same direction and covered a good 25km until we reached a railway crossing. The gates were closed giving way for the ‘Deccan Odessy’ train.
I saw a taxi stopped in front of my car and decided to talk to them about the route. Taxi driver said – you should not have taken this road. there is an excellent road through yargatti->jhamkand. I felt like an idiot for not listening to the hotel manager
. Google maps can give route from anywhere to anywhere, but it does not know the present conditions of the roads. That’s the limitation of GPS technology specially in a place like India.
Taxi driver told me the next 5km stretch is even bad ( roads were washed away by rains), but he said – since we had already covered 25km, we should some how cross the 5 km stretch and there is a road that connects to the yargatti->jhamkand road. We did that and the locals directed us to proceed towards a town called “Nesargi” where the yargatti->jhamkand road passes thorugh. Now this is the drive I remember forever in my life.
The moment we entered the road to nasargi, we saw a notice board on the side saying “state road project”. We thought our badtime is finally over. But that's actually a practical joke played by the government. What we had seen can not be described by words. Pathetic roadless-road lay infront of us and we had no choice but to drive. We were so frightened - eyes glued to the road - that the thought of taking a picture of that road did not cross our mind.
But here is a pic [1] that comes close to what we have seen.
I had only one thing in my mind – to reach the highway before the sun sets. But it was looking like an impossible task as I was driving in 2nd gear at lowest speed possible. Then we reached one small village and I heard some sound, my wife looked in the mirror and said we have run over a “Hen”. I did not want any twist in the tale, and I drove as fast I can and exited the village before any one could catch us. God knows how, but we finally reached the highway just as the sun was going down. What a relief. The highway was flat, brand new and inviting. We cursed ourselves for our badluck and also loosing precious time because of the detour.
Road marked in Red is the road to hell. Road A-B is the correct route.
I thanked my Getz for surviving the torture, and from there on I don’t remember applying brakes till we reached bijapur
. This is definitely a better route then athani, chikkodi to reach Belgaum from Bijapur.
Reached bijapur 2 hrs late – at 10:30PM and took a room at Hotel Madhuvan International. Quite expensive 900 for an A/c room for early checkout. Had dinner at the hotel restaurant and retired for the night.
[1]
A rough road ahead photo - T.R. Nickel photos at pbase.com