Mission Road Trip: Completed

Well, it was over a few days back, but some kind of a crazy lethargy set over me not allowing me to post for atleast a week. The road trip to Bangalore was finally completed and our sub-mission was to complete the distance in less than 10 hrs, something that would give us a a good average speed.



We kicked off our journey early on 14th at about 5 am and took off at a mighty speed. The initial 120KM were way too good to believe and we covered a great amount of distance in no time even after traveling a little cautiously.



By 8:30 we were in Kurnool and we stopped to have breakfast. The traffic in the town was terrible and a simple breakfast took an hour to finish. The entire average was killed here, but we made an attempt to make up for the lost time. The roads from here on were just not on our side and we had to keep taking detours every few kilometers, sometimes driving on the opposite lane and sometimes having vehicles coming from the opposite direction in our lane. A whole stretch of about 400KM was just this. There were 2 separate lanes everywhere but the whole thing was under construction. Bypasses are under construction around most of the towns and villages, something that would save even more time in the future. Some hilly parts had very narrow roads and constant rail-road crossings, all of which contributed to loss of time.



This journey to be completed in less than 10 hours was looking like a distant dream. Finally a stretch in Karnataka was again well built and we went back to hitting speeds of about 140-150 Kmph and covered up a little for the lost time.



After a long travel which didn't really feel that long thanks to Srikar's Linea that tricked us into assuming we were sitting in an aircraft, we arrived at Bangalore exactly at 5:00 PM. The whole thing took us 12 hours of which we wasted nearly 90 minutes for breakfast, water and occasional flexing of muscles. The travel time came down to 10.5 hours which we thought was a good achievement. The funny thing though, was, after entering Bangalore, we took more than an hour to reach Karthik's house maneuvering through all the traffic and one-way roads.

Our stay at Bangalore was supposed to be for a single day but we extended it to 3 days for some relaxation. That night we slept like logs, as we forcefully kept ourselves awake during the travel cuz sleep is so highly contagious. Though we did roam about a bit in The Forum and stuff, we didn't really do anything much. The last 2 days were washed away with heavy rain and power cuts and all we could do was sit at home, watching the cats and dogs..



Finally came the return journey to Hyderabad. We started off similarly at around 5:00Am and took off at a great pace again. This time we were travelling more aggressively taking detours at almost 80Kmph, and Sanjeev came close to losing his mind, though he kept it up with some funny memory games and stupid jokes which we willingly laughed at to keep the atmosphere active. The Linea was performing like a beast, rubbishing all those claims of 'being under-powered'. It was accelerating madly and reaching speeds of over 120 with no effort and we were doing this dangerously on the roads filled with detours and oncoming traffic. We dared not to stop anywhere, and the whole journey we survived with a tiny cup of coffee and and a packet of chips. We stopped at Kurnool for lunch when we got there at 11:30, but it was only time waste as lunch would start only at 12:00. Determined not to waste time, we took off immediately though the whole thing wasted 1/2 hour and we still had no food. We thought, "..let's hold our hunger and reach Shamshabad and dig in on the Hyderabad House Biryani". And we did just that. We cruised away from Kurnool and stayed over 100 most of the time though there was considerably more traffic than last time. We finally hit the good roads and let loose all the horses, touching 160 though we could've attempted more. In no time, we reached the airport and the time was only 2:45 PM. It was a feat successfully accomplished. And throwing aside the 1/2 hour we wasted, we were travelling for only 9.5 hours. We finally did 600 Km in less than 10 hours and 1200 Km in about 20 hours.. We ate greedily at Hyderabad House and started for home. It was a bit not-so-exciting to be coming back home after all the fun we had on road..

Unfortunately such a thing can be possible only in a few cases as most of the other Highways in India are yet to be constructed, including huge parts of NH 7. A few years' wait could turn things around but if the newly-elected govt is too lazy thinking, "hey we have another 5 years to chill out", then the connectivity in India may always remain to be a thing of the future. Vision 2020 anyone? India might take the 20-20 Cup a second time or even more but I don't see good connectivity by then..

But for once, we were the true Roadies, skipping breakfast, lunch and every possible break just to clock those miles and achieve 600KM in less than 10 hours, judging by the condition of the roads and traffic..


Long Road to Ruin...