RRRs Konkan Trip -1

A road trip suddenly became a reality for me when a Konkan trip of Husband – Ramanujan Raju’s (RR) batchmates was getting finalized…

Sutradhar of this adventure is PBR – Pankaj Barman Roy (first R) who has taken his car with his wife to various road trips. PBR ‘s wife is RBR – Ruby Barman Roy (second R) an unassuming lady, who laughs out loud at silly jokes but remains vigilant on the roads. PBR never stops singing songs of RBR, appreciating how she has stood by him for all the road trips they have taken. RBR keeps her eyes open, sensing roads, turns, her attention unwavering. These people have been on the roads for the last 25 odd years crisscrossing India for various reasons. Once it was to take their mother from Bhilai to Bangalore – they converted the back seat into a bed and the elderly lady travelled happily 1300 kilometers. They are our good friends and we have been hearing the stories of their trips all along. .. PBR loves telling these stories.

So along with these RRR’s I was fortunate to join as a stepney 😀

Our trip to Amboli (small village in Konkan, Western ghats) by road from Bhilai got finalized in early July while other friends were reaching by flight or train. PBR decided we will take our car – Venue (clutch free) for this trip. I had to pinch myself to believe this. For the past 7-8 years, I have been pushing RR for a road trip but he would give me silly reasons to avoid. RR would never drive his car above 40-45 km/hr in the city, chill maro ! So you get me, why I am thrilled to bits ! A road trip, after monsoons, to Konkan is a dream come true ! Yahooo!

The travel Itinerary looked like this:

Day 1 – Durg to Shirdi – 800 km approx

Day 2 – Shirdi to Kolhapur – 425 km approx

Day 3 – Kolhapur to Amboli – 115 km approx

I had heard so much about ” Samruddhi expressway ” – car would be flying – I was eager to reach this Expressway. The plan was to reach Nagpur as early as possible, Bhandara being a bottle neck – PBR and RBR both kept fingers crossed. Drive from Durg to Bhandara thankfully was covered as per plan.

We had started at 6.40 am from our place. I got up early, cooked sabudana khichdi, made appams. Previous day I had made cakes. RBR had some more snacks. So a large box sat on the back seat, between us with all these eats – taking one seat !!! One major decision we took – we will not buy bottled water on the roads. Hence we filled our one liter, two liter, five liter bottles and never bought water on the way – filled water whenever we could. If you look, seriously there is no open source of water – you are bound to buy water while we are away from home – even at home most people are buying bottled water – kya jamana aa gaya h ! There were some more rules we followed.. will tell you soon! Let me show you the beauty first…. 😀

It is exactly one month now, as I write this, after our Road trip started and I can still feel the thrill of sitting in the front seat, in a car going at 120 km/hr and the clear blue skies with the white clouds bundled together … The road is straight.. amazing greenery on both sides, vast blue skies in front of us – as if we are running to touch them.

Sharing the joy of a ride here … The driver here is RR, my husband, you can see PBR and RBR and I am the one who is recording … to share my joy 🙂

Driving with friends I realized, this cocooned space makes you free to talk your secrets out. All of us shared so many of our sad stories, happy ones, and the naughty ones – ofcourse you will not get to hear about them “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” ;-D

At times you will see the road dipping down and then coming up – very clear. Traffic is very limited, no two wheelers and rules are very clear – 120/100/80 is the speed limits for the three lanes – mostly trucks on 80 km speed lane . You will not see a cow or buffalo or a dog. For people like me who have never been on the roads this grand, Samrudhi expressway is an experience. It was a luxury to just drive. I wished many times – can we please stop and enjoy a bit the scene – but that was strict no ! We cannot stop unless it is at designated pit stop -petrol pump or exits, all clearly marked. We saw exits for Amravati, Jalna, Aurangabad on huge sign boards, giving you the approaching exits too. Our exit for Shirdi was IC no 20.

Only sad part of this part of the day was poor toilets on Samruddhi pit stops. One was so bad we couldn’t even enter the loo area … thankfully there was one neatly maintained by the Petrol station people. On this stretch of nearly 500 km, we ate the snacks we had carried and bought tea at the pit stops. One rule we followed – no heavy meals thru out the drive. The driver is bound to feel sleepy after a heavy meal which is a very costly mistake on a long drive. Other rules are fill your car petrol tank and check the car tires air pressure to be between 30- 32. Fill nitrogen in the car tube is also another new rule.

PBR was telling us how much time it took for them to travel to Shirdi before the Expressway was commissioned, crisscrossing the single lane roads, the traffic, signals. I realized this Expressway has come at a huge cost. We did save on time, feel proud to be on the modern, smooth 500 odd kilometers. The reality is it got created after clearing a huge forest full of trees – cost we have to pay for the development!

Good Roads are the life line of a nation – have a look at this map to see this work done !

We took the exit for Shirdi from the Expressway, and reached Saibaba temple premises by 7 pm. Nagpur to Shirdi is nearly 570 km covered in 6-1/2 hours…

Will continue about our interesting Konkan trip ….