week 8 logs

panoramas coming shortly. enjoy.


diya stand walls. imagine how it would look when fully lit.


ramdas jail and the shaft of divine light

ananya goes to golkonda

india's once biggest university front view.













Day 50 jun 12 fri
Hyderabad
12 kms
At some point last night, ananya wakes up to see a fire in the room. Jedi had fallen asleep while the water to soak his hands was being heated. His tongue cleaner was only metal, the mug melted and burning, and the tumbler heater on the floor. Ananya raises alarm and jedi wakes up, sees the fire and puts it out. And shortly both go off to sleep. Jedi needs a new tumbler heater.

jedi’s maun vrat day so ananya has to do all the communicating for him till 6 pm – Hyderabad traffic sucks, everyone drives like they have poor eyesight and keep bumping into each other, also in any direction and irrespective of traffic signals –Hyderabad traffic hasn’t changed in 10 years – has gotten worse – while Bombay has snarling traffic, it has a sense of order – Hyderabad is terrible – from auto drivers to bikers who swerve from right most lane to leftmost lane – jedi doesn’t like the place. find servicing place and give bike – go to multiplex to watch Angels & Demons – ananya and Jedi kill 2 hours by doing ‘city’ stuff like eating at MacD’s, book shopping, blood sugar check, BMI check, looking at shops and people, drinking hot chocolate and reading our new books on the stairs – jedi gets call from hsbc advocate saying case or settlement –
after the film return to hotel then leave for Roshan’s place in Hi-Tech City – MRT/MNNS? tickets are dirt cheap – an old man opposes the existence of a lady’s line and shouts at the women standing in it - ananya is felt up several times in the dirty crowd and doesn’t want to take the train so we take the auto that asks for the least money (meter allergy runs rampant here as well) –
traffic and rain make it a long ride – Roshan’s mom and dad are over – everyone talks about yoga and health – it’s great to have home made food after weeks on the road.
Hyderabad drops to bottom of cities jedi would want to live in – overall bad energy
his hands are changing shape! - Jedi wants to rest; 50 days nonstop on the road –probably another 30 left before money runs out – hopes we reach atleast padum. Jedi starts thinking of job prospects!

Day 51 jun 13 sat
Hyderabad, KBR National Park
30 kms
wake up, laze, have brunch, and fall asleep again. Wake up afternoonish and get to get the bike. The bike is still not ready at 3.30 pm – was supposed to get it yesterday at 7 p.m. head to a cybercafe nearby and upload logs and photos. Roshan comes and then take the bike. Skip original Golkonda plan and head to KBR National park. Give gyan on yoga and karma during walk amidst peacocks under a setting sun.
Head back to the hotel and do Lord’s Prayer meditation. Want to eat something other than south Indian, so head to Aromas of China which has 30 min waiting- so head off to Mainland China and have a sumptuous meal courtesy Roshan.

Day 52 jun 14 sun
Hyderabad, Paradise, Big Bazaar
12 kms
Wake up, chill, have room service breakfast – jedi falls asleep again and wakes up in the afternoon. Go to Paradise at Secundarabad to meet Karn K. Enroute we get the bag people at Rastrapati Road to make a new bag for the tent, which has seen no use but massive damage! Also get new tumbler (called baby) heater/immersion coil. Meet Karn and have veg biryani! Not bad- well ya. Talk about each other’s trips.
Go shopping in Big Bazaar for the ‘list’ – plastic bags, zip lock bags, teaspoon,clothes scrubber etc.
Jedi watches India lose, while ananya makes South India consolidated map. Jedi and ananya make plan for amanya photo.

Day 53 jun 15 mon
Hyderabad, Golconda Fort
25 kms
Pack our stuff – fed up of all the extra stuff – must dump in Calcutta. Go to Golkonda fort via gullies. Hire a guide who gives a nice tour of the impressive fort. All the sound, light, water and defense engineering. 900 yr old temple still exists. Quite happy. Have altercation with impatient asshole army watchman.
Return to city and have meals at Tehran hotel before stopping by Big Bazaar again for triphala gritham box. Jedi has badam tea. Go back to room, decide to stay over, and promptly fall asleep.
Wake up in the evening and go get the next set of maps scanned. All the maps on this blog and the official map book for Mataozm is the Either India Road Atlas – the best possible road map for India and select cities. Do Internet surfing while waiting for scans. Eat dinner at Kamats – the best food we have had in AP was at Paradise – everything else has been this spicy hot food which we think is the cause for all the hyper chaos in AP and Hyd in particular.
G Rajasekar calls and gives new route to Lonar. We head into Maharashtra tomorrow.

Day 54 jun 16 tues
Hyderabad – Zaheerabad – Bidar - Gangakher – Parbhani
363 kms
NH9, unlabelled road in Karnataka, SH217
Finally leave Hyderabad - get stopped by cop who asks for papers. jedi gives license. cop asks for PUC and insurance. jedi gives PUC and waits. his insurance expired in May and the Bombay bike guy hasn’t done the insurance work. cop sees PUC, says August and says ok go – ride till sadashivpet where beggar girl in school uniform hassles jedi. Does normal stuff, then spastic sounds, laughs at herself. Jedi says drama ke liye paisa nahin. She starts touching and then touches face when jedi blows up and raises hand. Her eyes expand and she moves on –

After breakfast, head towards Bidar. No one knows about any shortcut from sadashivpet; so have to go through Zahirabad. Reach Bidar and see old structures. Had heard about bidar connection to Golkonda yesterday. Swerve into town and see the clock tower chaubasa – the centerpiece of old bidar town. See the huge mosqueish building, which we later learn was the biggest university in India at its time, where ppl from abroad used to come. Finally we enter the fort, which has the same anti-elephant entrances. Have a cool stop, where the enquiring shopkeepers tell us to go check out with help of guard. We enter and wander about and see all locked gates and doors, when the guard?/guide comes himself and says 150/45 mins. We want to see the rangeen mahal so we say yes and after yesterday’s Golkonda guide experience have kinda decided to use guides. We says 30 mins and 100 inr. He agrees.

He opens and shows us the 16 pillared mosque with its unique acoutics. Then the Turkish queen’s palace. The 1000 roomed 7 seven storey (now only 3.2 are standing) with the unique bidri soil – explains the process. The buggy khana (2 wheels are tanga, 4 wheels are buggy). The bidar festival (3 days-feb) area where sonu nigam, kanada actors, hyderabadi qawaals etc. perform. We then go to see the rangeen mahal and see the families of langurs who scatter. See real bidri work. Also see carvings of a dove and peacock in the walls – out of place in mozzy architecture. 3 moats and lots of other things.

We part ways with guide and then have another cool stop. Again the shopkeeper says not seeing cannon? Go see. 40 ft long – among india’s longest. So we go find and see it. LONGGG. We leave the fort and go to see the Narsingh Zarna – apparently u had to walk across chest deep water to do darshan. We went. Saw a lot of people. Walked to the outside and walked back.
We then target Lonar and hope to atleast reach Parbhani. We are in Karnataka and its quite obvious from the roads. Broken, bumpy, bad. So bad that they haven’t put any markers on the road – atleast construction is going on. At some point in the afternoon, some local on a bike stops abruptly, and jedi brakes, honks and bumps into him. Words are exchanged and then after license kisne diya jedi rides away.
We enter Maharashtra and the road becomes better and now is SH217. The deccan plateau is HOT, brown, red, dry, dusty; dust somehow sticks to the helmet; have to wash it off.
We finally reach Gangakher at 6 and try to find a place to stay. Another shithole of a town; the lodges from afar look like nightmares, and the govt. guesthouse is booked full; some mata has come to town. Caretaker suggests Parbhani – this is taluk, that is zilla. We fill petrol at BP (second petrol pump deviation of trip) and gun towards Parbhani, which we reach at 7.10 with the sun just going out. Jedi was shocked to see egret type birds in the dustbowl beside some buffaloes!
We circle the bus stand looking for a good place to stay and finally see one and turn, when jedi bumps into another bike. Says sorry and the other bike goes away pacified. Bike topples and front mudguard is scraping the tyre. Check in. 300 rs place with clean but ‘uncared for‘ toilets.
Jedi feels extremely body rattled and sleeps while ananya goes on tea hunt and brings lassi. Have early/late dinner and pass out. Electricity goes off often.

Day 55 jun 17 wed
Parbhani – Jintur – Mantha – Lonar
140 kms
SH217, SH220, SH171
Wake up and leave around 10. When leaving, old man comes outside hotel and asks for chai pani – jedi says kyon? Man says ‘yeh arrangement kyon? And walks away. He wasn’t beggar type. Jedi replays throughout day thinking was it philosophical statement? Ananya kicks the mudguard into place.
Have powa and missal breakfast at Jintur. Jedi still can’t figure out what thank you in marathi is. So calls chotu and finds out. Take the Bamni road, which 3 ppl have said bad road, but after asking again and again, they say ya ok. 7 kms into the road, we ask a person who says no chance, u have to ride through chest high water at purna. So we decide against and head the mantha way.
Bike is leaking oil, so we try to get 20w50. None at jintur, wont get also, says shopkeeper, try at mantha. So we stop at mantha and ask 3-4 shops for 20w50, no luck. We buy more water. Finishing 1 ltr every 30 kms! One guy stops and asks ‘bag mein kya hain? Jedi gets pissed and says aapka bag mein kya hain? Apna kaam dekho. Man’s face falls and starts bike and heads. Hint – don’t ask travelers whats in their bag!
Head towards lonar drinking water by the liter. Reach lonar and take side road and have first glimpse of 50000 year old hypervelocity impact crater in basalt rock – second largest in world and only in India. Kickass – green color water with trees u wouldn’t expect to find here and hundreds of birds – small, tiny, big.
Head into town and go to bottom of crater and end up in some other temple which has spring gomukh. Go back to Govt. rest house, which has path down but no rooms. So go to MTDC and get a room. Refresh, drink icewater which has icebergs in bottle.
We pack the stuff for the ammanya photo and go in the evening to the crater, walking down the stone steps, ananya doing the same gingerly. We pass a family of peacocks, second in a week, and see another peacock fly across plants. Photograph more birds and then do the ammanya photoshoot. Second use of tripod in whole 54 day trip. Walk along the shore shooting more birds, while thunder and wind kick up a storm around us. Jedi hopes to see peacocks dance, ananya says no chance, need lots of water for that. We start climbing just as the heavens open with level 2 rains. Try yogi technique for climbing easily and find we are back to clavicular breathing! Local boy we had met before is sitting midway and says aap aaye tho bearish aaya. Iske pehle itna thanda nahin tha. Yet another place where the rains follow us. We reach the top and walk to lake view point close to MTDC and wait for sunset. The rains have stopped.
Suddenly we see about 30 youth, male and female, run down a path from top to bottom of crater and beyond. A coach/master type person comes and monitors and goads ppl from the top, and eventually gets on a bike and goes to end point we think.
Sunset happens and we head back to find our room in darkness unlike all other room. Jedi goes to caretaker and talks entire sentences in marathi. Some phase problem.
Have chaha and powa.
Jedi planning to go to nagpur to get bike checked up, while Ananya wonders that we haven’t seen a Stupa. Closest should be Sanchi, and when we check on the map book, it’s a day’s ride away. So plans are made – Nagpur, then Sanchi. Then lonely planet comes out and MP is looked at. 30 mins later, the tentative route is Buldhana, Mandu, Bhimbetka, Sanchi, Khajuraho. Decision to be taken at Kraho whether Benaras or straight down to chilka. Vizag and Borra caves are collateral damage.
Thought for the day has been how this trip has been a demystifying trip. After 3 years of wanting and waiting, lonar is now BTSTWN.

Day 56 jun 18 thu
Lonar – Buldhana –Ajinta - Jalgaon - Sendhua
SH171, SH206, SH176, SH24, SH8, NH6, SH6, SH4, NH3
366 kms
leave lonar northwest heading towards baobab trees in mandu. Take a series of state highways in intense heat – hottest day so far. Dry fields line the highways. All ploughed and ready for the rains. – no 20w50 oil anywhere, buldhana, jalgoan, nowhere. – jedi finally gets noseburn. Skin burning in the heat – see a series of crazy men wandering along highway, one every 50 kms; 6 seen so far.
Bypass ajinta caves, already seen them.
Jedi eats first batata vada. Memories of vada pav lunches
Take the ‘direct’ route till we hit MP, where ghats start and NH3 begins. Trucks, heat, and high velocity winds; almost pushing the bike off, esp. when overtaking trucks. The sudden gust bangs into the bike, strenuous riding. Wrists and shoulders taking a hit.
Scenery changing; similar to tiger territory except flatter and scrub. Losing time. Plan to take white road to bypass 50 km highway, but get warned off by local who says take highway – after persistent why long route, man points at bike and says yeh sab nahin rahega, and then points to tribal standing opp. And aise log milenge. Ananya also supports with frequent robbery area. So take longer highway crap slow route. Just riding in the plateau saps the peace of the ride. Also as we go north, people are changing – more cocky and mocky friendly. No more subtle, whispered convos about us and bike, but audible commentary.
Sendua pink hotel is like godsend and settle into room. Jedi and amanya’s body taken hit.
Jedi sits and watches semi final when ananya sister calls and says her dad has had stroke. Jedi sleeps while ananya does phone call planning and pranic healing.