Saturday 29 October 2011

The Black Day

Day 16: 20/09/2011

We left from Jhansi early in the morning and targeted reaching Nagpur today. We chose the route that went via Saagar and were not too disappointed with our choice either. The roads were over all good with little bad patches from time to time. But everything was manageable until we reached Lalitpur in Madhya Pradesh (about 100 kms from Jhansi).

Wounded Kunal
Bad luck struck us at Lalitpur and one of our team members, Mr. Kunal Vora had an accident. We flagged down a small truck and it helped us to get Kunal from Lalitpur to Saagar, which was about 200 kms from there. Luckily, Dr. Chandresh Pasad's father has extremely good business relations around here and so, one of them, a kindly Mr. Naradji Jain helped us immensely with the situation at Saagar. He arranged for everything from the visit to doctor to X-Ray to arranging Kunal's return trip back to Bombay. Kunal had fractured his wrist joint and hence, unwillingly he had to go back home. We couldn't risk waiting for 10 more days and letting the condition worsen.

Joking at the time of adversity makes the troubles look small :)
Nagpur: 314 kms. Narsimhapur: 65 kms

The memorable Hotel Atithi
However, the show must go on. So, after having reassured ourselves that Kunal will be well taken care of and okay, we moved on. However, we couldn't reach Nagpur since we lost almost 4 hours of driving time in all the chaos. So, we decided to go upto Narsimhapur via Kareli on NH7 and stay the night there. Once again, another one of Dr. Pasad's father's business friend, Shri Ramuji Lunavat helped us a lot there and he welcomed us extremely warmly in his own hotel, Hotel Atithi. It was clear that we were "atithis" in the real sense of the term and were served with a lot of respect and love. Mr. Lunavat's son, Atul was also very friendly, appreciative of the trip and dined and chatted with us for a long time. We enjoyed a very memorable hospitality here and were kind of glad that we couldn't reach Nagpur. :P

A Symbol of Love: A Wonder of the World

Day 15: 19/9/2011


The Monument that renders everyone speechless

Like mentioned in our last post, we had reached Agra the previous day. So, early in the morning, we went ahead to go, have a look at the greatest symbol of love in the world - The Taj Mahal. It is a monument that has now become a parameter of love in many senses. The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan spared no expense and left no stone unturned to proclaim his grief on the death of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. (Yes, that is right. The Taj Mahal, in reality, is nothing but magnificent mausoleum.)

The Taj Mahal is built out of white marble, which came from Makrana in Rajasthan and it has many precious stones embedded in it, which were imported. These precious stones give out wonderful effects in light and increase the beauty of the Taj Mahal manifold. It is rightfully considered as one of the wonders of the world since such architecture can rarely be found anywhere. It has perfect symmetry and no matter which side you see it from, it will look exactly the same. At a time when gold cost merely Rs. 15 per tola, this structure cost approximately Rs. 385000. Also, one of the other specialties of this structure is that it's base is made of ebony wood, which is found in Kashmir. Ebony wood gets stronger with water. Which means that the base of this structure automatically keeps getting stronger every passing minute since it is built on the banks of River Yamuna. At the same time, the wooden base automatically makes it earthquake proof. To add to the caution, all the minarets of the structure also lean outwards so that in case of any natural calamity, the minarets will never fall on the structure but outwards.

The monument is so beautiful, we could have stood there and stared at it for hours on end. But the time restrictions beckoned us and we had to move on. We drove on until Jhansi on this day. The claim to fame of this route was that we crossed three states - Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh - on this day. :)
Chilling at the Taj Mahal

We wanted to reach Saagar in Madhya Pradesh. But the road conditions were extremely bad. Also, we were quite confused about the route . Two routes were suggested to us, which would take us to Nagpur faster: via Saagar and via Shivpuri. But we couldn't decide which one to take. So, we decided to rest our confusaddled minds and bodies in Jhansi and move ahead the next day. We stayed at Apna guesthouse in Ivory chowk, Jhansi. 

Thursday 6 October 2011

Three States and the Capital

Day 14: 18/09/2011

Today, we were all quite excited as we'd be finally visiting the Capital of the country. We had undertaken such a long and Trojan adventure. We were traversing the whole of our country. The capital lay right on our way. It'd have been not only foolish but quite disrespectful if we hadn't paid a visit to the capital. So, early in the morning, we set off from Karnal towards Delhi.

The Samadhi
Luckily, it was a Sunday. So, we didn't face much traffic in Delhi city when we reached there at around 11 am. We had decided that we'd only visit India Gate, salute the monument and get on with our plan. But Universe had something else in store for us. Something even better, that is. :) On the way, we came across Raj Ghat, the memorial to the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi. Of course it's impossible that we come across this awesome monument and not visit it. So, ahead we went. And only after paying our respects to him did we go ahead to India Gate.


The beautifully maintained gardens

India Gate and the Bike Riders: Delhi - Success
Finally, after all the excitement about visiting Delhi, we moved on towards Agra on the fabulous National Expressway. We crossed Mathura and finally, reached Agra, where we stayed at Hotel Vimal, by 8pm.

A drive to remember

Hello, friends. We are sorry for the lack of updates after we reached Manali. We had very little time and very long distances to cover. Hence, the negligence towards our blog. But, now, we have finished our target, reached our goal and also reached our homes. So, we will now endeavour to upload all the information and pictures as soon as possible.

Day 13: 17/9/2011:

Waterfall on the way from Manali to Chandigarh
We started from Manali at around 7 am after having our breakfast and changing the spark-plug for one of our bikes that needed some mending. It was a lovely morning and we decided that if the weather and roads support us, we should try and reach Delhi, which is about 500 kms from here. So we set jet-setting off along the lively river Beas, enjoying the most beautiful, scenic and picturesque environment ever! The early morning fog swirling on the river was an arresting sight. Kullu is 40 kms from Manali and the river stilled and slowed down a bit here.

Finally, after crossing Bilaspur, the ghats gave way to the National Highway and we crossed the border to enter Punjab from Himachal Pradesh. Thankfully, it wasn't raining at all and we could move faster. Until now, we had enjoyed the wonders of nature in it's full glory: the high altitude desert, the rivers, the valleys, the various-coloured mountains et al. Now was the time to enjoy the wonders of man's innovations. The National Highways were so good, we just zoomed past everything in a jiffy. We crossed Chandigarh, ther capital of both, Punjab and Haryana states (Manali-Chandigarh: 310 kms) and continued towards Ambala.

Lunch-break!
Lovely roads! :)
We reached Ambala at around 7pm. So, we had already entered Haryana by now. Amabala to Delhi is 200 kms and since the roads were fantastic, we thought we'd probably finish it and reach Delhi tonight. We started towards Delhi and crossed the holy ground of one of the most important battles ever fought, Kurukshetra.One of the imporatnt things about this road is that on this stretch of road, there are lots of Vaishnav (ergo, vegetarian) dhabas which are open all 24 hours a day. We had a brilliantly fulfilling dinner at one of these dhabas.

However, after dinner, we were quite tired. So, we decided to call it a day and stay at Karnal (85 kms before Delhi). Here, we stayed at Hotel Star near the bus depot.