The night travel was a revelation , we did want to take a deviation to Mahabaleshwar but I guess it had to wait for some other day , the pain in my next started to descend towards my right elbow and finally I had a throbbing pain all along the shoulder , the highway was a beauty and the car was flying , I did not want to interrupt the flow and we stopped for a tea near Kashil , by this time I had tried different postures to reduce the pain and Arun was down to 60 from 140 KM’s per hour , a tea and a roasted corn did
not thing to raise the spirits and we decided that we should drive till Kolhapur and rest for the night , but 30 kilometers in to the travel , the pain was unbearable and the night pitch dark , my thoughts wandered to the discussions me and my manager used to have about driving hazards on highways and with me sleeping we decided that a halt was of primary importance , after knocking at a couple of inns we found our self at a small hotel , and parked ourselves in a dingy room ( was A/C of course ) . When we woke up the next day, the sun was beautiful and there was a small stable next to the hotel, the view from the fourth floor was nice and I had a good time capturing some of the moments of my life on the D40x.
The pain was very less compared to previous night and having rejuvenated ourselves with a cup of coffee, we hit the pedal at 8:30 towards Kolhapur, it was bright and sunny and all indications were for another hot and humid summer day , 20 kilometers in to the drive , just before entering to Kolhapur we were surprised to find thick fog covering the road reducing the visibility to 10 meters or less , Nikon time’s again , we stopped to admire the beauty it was ( not that we could see anything ), but fog on a summer day and with no indication made us halt and think about the Munnar days from the past .
9:30, breakfast time and we obliged the angry growls from the stomach, Dosa in Kolhapur 800 miles north to its birthplace, the Sambhar was sweet and I could not find out the ingredients of the chutney, but we were famished and lassi made sure that we forgot the breakfast and drove ahead. The Sun was on his way to his destination as we put miles behind us, welcome to Karnataka was not where to be seen , but thanks to Airtel I got to know where I was, the only strange thing for me in this travel was that, as far as I could see on both sides of the road, there was not a single tree to be seen, it was a red sand desert.
Nothing exciting happened for another two hours and I dozed off, only to hear a swear word and to be jolted out of my comfort. A Lorry driver had put on his left indicator to change lane and somehow at the final moment decided to go right and we had to abruptly break , that was the closest brush with disaster we had till then , the sun was sweltering hot by this time and the engine was grumbling. The fuel indicator got me worried, but Arun was said it was safe for another 50 kilometers, let us hit Hubli. 5kms in to the journey, the fuel indicator was on and we had to turn back to fill the tank, Strange enough the service man at the fuel station did not understand Hindi, then Arun tried Kannada and we were not brave enough to use Tamil, National pride some other day, once the fuelling was done for 2000 rs, the Service Man started to say two words which got me worried, very worried indeed, No Card only Cash and we had about 1 percent of the cash with us. We suggested that one of them come with us to a nearby ATM and we would drop them back here, I guess this one had watched too many English horror movies and instead suggested that one of us stay back while the other got the money. Thus I got to know close up how a petrol pump works; I even filled tanks for a couple of passing by tanks and learnt how to program the machine in terms of both money and quantity of the fuel.
The owner took pity on me when he knew that I was a software engineer and enquired on my health and how much I bleed my industry per month, I was getting restless with his English and he with my Tulu, but magically enough we understood each other, after all we are Indians, Arun came back and we hit the road again with a moong dal packet the owner gifted me. I did not eat it then, My mother had always cautioned me against eating biscuits from strangers in a travel, though this guy was a owner of a petrol pump I could not quite come over that feeling, out it went through the window once we crossed a safe distance
At 2:30, we passed by a college on left and to the right stood huge statues of Mahaveer Jain, I do not remember the place, but the statues were astounding, standing there, in middle of now where , we got down the car and went in to the dhabha nearby for lunch , this particular dhabha will always be etched in my mind , no not for the food , but for a dog I saw there , it was easily 3/4th of my height , and my dog enthusiastic friend wanted a photo with it , I was sure that one of his hands or leg will stay forever in that dhabha and I had to drive the rest of the distance , but nothing of that sort happened , the dog turned out to be one lazy creature , it just posed for the camera . I maintained a safe distance just to be very sure. Arun had to take break and we stopped by a small village deviating the NH and finding a tree , I climbed on to the tree and sat on it gazing at the ongoing traffic and not even a single bike passed by without stopping to have a look at me , this particular feature of people always amazed me , no wonder how much ever hurry we might be in , we would always stop to stare , we are one enthusiastic bunch ,when it encounter something strange , I guess that is why PDA is less in India as opposed to other nations.
The blazing heat gave away to a pleasant evening the nicest I have seen for months now, we had reached Chitradurg by around 6:00 in the evening and the sunset was beautiful, I was unlucky not to have caught a single sunset in KanyaKumari. The colors today was beautiful, I was never good with art and one picture which I always drew good was Amoeba and the other was that of a sunset, be it with a background of an ocean or the a hill, this was my favorite piece of art and the colors that surrounded the sun on this particular evening just blew me away, I had to be quick the sunset was fast and I almost missed it, a couple of shots turned out to be good, amateurish but a good. A few more miles and we saw a bush fire raging through whatever shrubs it could devour on a nearby hill, the journey from here on was arduous as NH4 turned out to be horrible for around 90 kms and it took us a good three of hours to reach Tumkur. We finally hit Bangalore at 11:30 our looks resembled those of the rider in the cowboy movies, muddy boots, unkempt hair, tanned skin. The journey took us almost 18 hrs at an average speed of about 60 with pit stops, but it was fun, it gave me lot of insight of what to expect in northern Karnataka and would serve as my first long trip on a single day.
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