[aryasanyal]

This is an excellent travelogue, sir!
Congrats for the well planned and executed trip. Looking forward to your experiences along the way. Maybe I can plan a similar trip later when our baby boy comes to a manageable age.
Travelling with your family alongside you is a different experience, and extremely enriching for the kids. I have learnt things the same way in my childhood - lots of travels - and would love to give the same back to our kid.

Your travelogue is inspiring and enriching, at the same time.
Bring on the next stage...

[BurningHeart]

RR,
I am glued to this. Fantastic!
Kudos to your family. I am sure children would have loved the experience. And they would have so much to talk when they are back with their friends at school. Poor blokes at school would not know what had they missed.
BH.

[Ranga]

As mentioned by all , i am glued to this Travelogue . I am adding this on my Twitter account so that more people who are not Team BHP Members or Fans to come and read this kind of travelogue.

U have so much content , to write about . What amazes me or inspires me is that even i own a Scorpio and this is making me to think - " Why have we not thought about doing a trip like this before " Kudos Team BHP . We Indians have so much to see India and India states & have the right platform to share it ......

As some one said Go east , Go west there is lot of things to see in India itself . Lets first discover our country . All those Las Vegas , New Yorks Grand Canyons Germanys , Swizz , Londons can wait ( No Hard feelings to any of these countries here ) What i want to mention is that there is so many things to discover ourselves .
Incredible India ......

[aryasanyal]

Originally Posted by Ranga

As some one said Go east , Go west there is lot of things to see in India itself . Lets first discover our country . All those Las Vegas , New Yorks Grand Canyons Germanys , Swizz , Londons can wait ( No Hard feelings to any of these countries here ) What i want to mention is that there is so many things to discover ourselves .
Incredible India ......

I agree. And to think of it, the GQ is just the tip of the iceberg - it doesn't touch most of central India, the extreme north, the southern tip and the north eastern corner of the country at all.

[hallik9]

The pictures are simply outstanding.This is one the finest travelogues I've ever read.Just so that you are aware,I had booked bus tickets to Kundapur over the weekend.After reading the first installment of this last week,I cancelled my tickets and have decided to drive down along with my wifey.
Waiting for the next post!

[unni.ak]

Lovely read. The amount of detail is amazing. We are planning to do the same with toll receipts. Take a xerox and laminate the original. Worth a place on the wall!!

[akaush]

For me.. famous personalities of Pune would be.
1. Pu La Deshpande
2. Rahul Bajaj
3. Bedekar Misal wala.. ( I used to love his misals)

[roamingrao]

Originally Posted by StarVegabond

It appears that your daughter was your navigator+record keeper during the trip.

For me some of the famous personalities of Pune undoubtedly (not in any particular order)

Yes Starvegabond, each one of us had a role during the drive. Apart from the record keeping / documentation, we had the Manorama Year book for state information / statistics, the Eicher Map ( for general lookup - despite its shortcomings / mistakes ) and of course the google / wikipedia ( wherever we had internet access ). Except me, ( ! ) the roles were rotated for convienience. The seat right behind me was much in demand - to handle toll tickets and money ! For me though, it was only driving and lot of explaining terms like GDP, per capita income and economic / social terms that came up in the year book.

Thank you for the compilation of eminent personalities from Pune. Each contribution has made us look at Pune in a new light ! Thank you, again. Gudiya asks, anybody from sports ?

Originally Posted by aryasanyal

This is an excellent travelogue, sir!
Congrats for the well planned and executed trip.I have learnt things the same way in my childhood - lots of travels - and would love to give the same back to our kid.

Thank you. Same here - travel as much till capable. You are on the way - enjoyed reading your coastal karnataka trip.

Originally Posted by BurningHeart

glued to this Fantastic!
Poor blokes at school would not know what had they missed.

Thank you. Yes, their classmates are yet to believe this.

Originally Posted by Ranga

I am adding this on my Twitter account so that more people who are not Team BHP Members or Fans to come and read this kind of travelogue.
Indians have so much to see India and India states & have the right platform to share it ......

Thank you. So true...

Originally Posted by hallik9

Waiting for the next post!

I had set last sunday for completing a major part of this travelogue. No amount of Khul ja sim sim could open this site!!

will resume later today.

Originally Posted by unni.ak

Worth a place on the wall!!

You said it.

Originally Posted by akaush

For me.. famous personalities of Pune would be.
1. Pu La Deshpande
2. Rahul Bajaj
3. Bedekar Misal wala..

Bharat Ratna Maharshi Karve and Pu la Deshpande are both associated with Fergusson College, Pune. Great !


Members, please help me with this - i'm unable to embed youtube videos here. As instructed, i cut and paste the embed code - but the post just shows the code. any feature to turn on here ? Thank you.

[StarVegabond]

Originally Posted by roamingrao

Gudiya asks, anybody from sports ?

Famous sportspersons from Pune

Cricket: D. B. Deodhar (Deodhar Trophy) , Chandu Borde (Captain, Umpire), Hemant and Hrishikesh Kanitkar,

tennis : Gaurrav Natekar

Chess : Grand Masters Abhijit Kunte and Pravin Thipsey

Hokey : Dhanraj Pillay

[Umesh D]

Amazing!!
I am so glad you have a family which shares your passion for road trips and storytelling.. I have already put the GQ loop in my bucket list..10 things to do before I die!
Keep travelling mate...and keep writing!

[roamingrao]

Originally Posted by StarVegabond

Famous sportspersons from Pune

wow ! Is'nt that impressive ? Thank you.

Originally Posted by Umesh D

Keep travelling mate...and keep writing!

thank you. doing just that. Day 2 continues :


Day 2 : Ranjangoan - Shri Shani Shingnapur - Shirdi - Nashik - Mumbai - near Surat at midnight.

Large industries have come up on the Pune - Ahmednagar Road and abruptly stops after Ranjangoan MIDC. I guess, the next big MIDC on this route is only at Waluj, Aurangabad. Why do I mention this here ? The Pune - Nagar road is excellent and maintained well. The Nagar - Aurangabad SH 60 is also a good toll road comparable to any toll road in the country. Is this the only route for all the mega industries in Waluj to access the rest of the country ? any good roads beyond aurangabad ? or is the road done only for the tourist circuit of Ajanta - Ellora - Aurangabad ?

Pondering over these, we speed past Shirur and Ahmednagar after a 3.30 am start from Nikhil Resort, Shikrapur. At Ahmednagar, take the SH60 , pass the hillock, enter Ghodegoan and look for the left turn to Shingnapur. Narrow, but good village road take us to the temple town at 5.00am, still dark. Nobody around on a saturday morning ! surprised ( the temple is open 24 hours ).

Shri Shani Shingnapur ~ 132 km, 5.00am

Jumping out, wrap myself in only a towel, stand beneath the overhead tap ( specially arranged for the custom ) to achieve madi ( sanctity in English ) despite a bath earlier at the hotel. Wet and shivering, I run to the pedestal and begin smearing the gingelly oil on the idol, chanting slokas. Wife and kids watch me from outside the pedestal barricade. I take 10 minutes to complete the abhisheka, come down, wipe all oil, dress up and start out towards Shirdi at 5.40am. Our 40 minute stop at Shingnapur has been most satisfying.

Attaching old photographs of the idol and gateway arch on the the Ahmednagar - Shirdi Road.



A few diversions on the road towards Rahuri - bridge construction on a rivulet and we were on the Ahmednagar - Shirdi road. Day break saw us following a convoy of volvo buses from Hyderabad - not letting in to overtake.



Shirdi ~ 207 kms, 6.45am

Not much traffic on Shirdi roads - may pick up later. The parking attendent in front of the mandir ( called baba mandir here ) says
" bheed nahi hai, jaldi jao, bees minute mein darshan ho jayaga " and turned out exactly as that - ran towards the temple queue complex, zig zag through the barricades, empty queue halls, up the staircase and lo - infront of baba in 15 minutes !! What more could we ask for ? " Baba, bless karo, please guide us on our trip of our lifetime " Gudiya stood there in front of the samadhi, crying, with folded hands !

Walking straight into Sai Siddhi restaurant inside Hotel Sai Sahavas ( beside Hotel garodia - andhra bank lane ), we feast on some extraordinary puri baaji, follow up with some strong coffee while Gudiya and Titli get complimentary ice cream scoops. Had found this restaurant on our trip three years back and frequented since then - small hall, enough to accomodate 35-40, service may be a tad slow, but taste - no words ! Enough to see us through the entire day, we leave shirdi at 8.45am.



Pass through Zagade Phata, Vavi and Sinnar against onslaught of cars and buses from Mumbai. Progress is slow on the narrow road. Road conditions improve from Sinnar ( NH 50 ) and continues till Nashik. At Nashik Road, we get down from the flyover, and park in front of the Railway station - run to Sri Ram Dryfruits - drool over some 8 varieties of Nashik Kishmish ( raisins ), Nashik chewda ( of course not to beat poona chewda - is it chitale ? ) and Anjur ( Figs ). Are Figs cultivated around Nashik ?

Nashik ~ 287 kms, 11.30am

Turned left towards Mumbai. Massive flyover / road widening work on NH 3 - traffic crawled, lot of dust, followed huge trailers. The hour long crawling continued till the industrial area, Ambad MIDC ( road towards triambak ). Unable to take a right turn here, the jam / delay also cost me an oppurtunity to click a photo of our gaddi in front of its maker ( The Mahindra Factory ). Sad !

An inspection visit to Manas resort at Igatpuri - chalo, abhi bhi theek hai ! A train crossing on the bridge behind the resort is always sight to behold - not so lucky this time !









Driving down on the new Kasara Ghat road, we spoke to hvkumar "you are at Kasara Ghat ? we will meet in Thane at exactly 3.30pm"
His prediction on time came true down to the last minute - There he was, immediately after the 90 degree flyover, his black scorpio behind him, blinkers on.

Hellooo sirrr ! How was that for time ? Was completely taken aback by his simplicity, soft spoken and unassuming nature. Hats off, sir ! Spent the next few minutes discussing the route, possible trouble spots, Police / RTO stopping and of course, some shopping tips to my wife. Me .....Grrrrrrrrrrr !



Thats HVKumar, Roamingrao, Titli, Gudiya and Gudiya ki maa


Mumbai ( Sion ) ~ 457 kms, 4.30 pm

Had to be fast paced. Our 'must visit' list came down from five to just two. Right turn at Sion circle, BKC road, Bandra flyover and onto the sea link bridge, Prabhadevi - Veer Savarkar road and right on the very next signal - searching for parking space on the road behind Sri Siddivinayak Temple. Being saturday - not much traffic, and very few inside the temple. Had darshan / meditate within 20 minutes, ran back to the car.





Coming back, past Nehru planetarium, a quick gulp at the Haji Ali Juice centre and left towards worli sea face when this man came in front of us..... Tall, Fair, smart, extremely handsome, dark glasses.. straight from a bollywood flick... guess.

[unni.ak]

What a way to stop a post!! Hats off!! Keep it coming. And by the way, this is the first time I've seen HVK in half sleeves! The frail man looks even more so now!

[StarVegabond]

That is a very efficient day for you. Shinganapur-Shirdi-Nasik-Thane-Mumbai all in one day. Efficient and effective planning i would say.

You seems to be very savvy with roads in Maharastra as well as lot many small things. Were you staying in Maharastra (Satara, Pune, Mumbai etc) before ?

Two Chewda brands from Pune are famous among punekars viz. Chitale and Laxminarayan.

[dhuli]

Absolutely amazing trip! Hats off! Most of all - you made it seem so easy, even so far. I conclude from your travelogue that there are those who travel on google maps (yours truly) and those that really touch the road. The best advice I have heard from a person running India's largest online gaming play is - to start a journey, get onto the train. (metaphorically).
I hope to emulate your feat in 2011-12 time!
Meanwhile, I am glued to your thread.
Thanks for sharing!

[roamingrao]

Originally Posted by StarVegabond

Were you staying in Maharastra (Satara, Pune, Mumbai etc) before ?

We have been on mumbai - Shirdi route for the last 5 years, first two by bus / train and the rest by car. Each year, apart from Mumbai and Shirdi, we have added a new place - nashik, ajantha, Mahabaleshwar, ganapatipule, etc. all in dasara or xmas holidays, each trip lasted 6 to 7 days. Satara and Pune come enroute to anywhere in MH.

Originally Posted by dhuli

Absolutely amazing trip! Hats off!

Thank you.