week 9 logs

World's largest Shiv Ling - at Bhojpur - 11th century!

Saurabh at Omkareshwar

Omkareshwar

Saurabh tickling Narmada's navel

Nabi kund - narmada's navel - middle point from Amarkund to Arabian Sea

Party - drums, group and couple dance. 8000 yrs old

Gallery cave - 3 overlays across centuries

500 yrs ago and now. same manual labor

Disgruntled vandal foreigner - cant do the conversion! see note below

well where ppl would jump to escape invaders - who think they commit suicide. but they come out via this route :)

India's first Arabic university-later Asharafi mahal - fat women from the 15000 strong harem would be made to climb up and down 7 floors.

Roopmati's pavilion-erected in 48 hrs for her to see the Narmada.

Jedi asking - for trouble?

rest of the photos as usual on Flickr

Day 57 jun 19 fri
Sendhua – Mhow - Indore
NH3
168 kms
Decision to skip Mandu and head to Indore where we can get cyber café access and ICICI bank. More of crap highway and heat and winds. Stop at bhang shop and gingerly try one glass between us.
Cool stop at mhow and cybercafeing. More cocky boys. Lots of boy/teens loitering around in MP. Electricity cut so travel plans cant be solidified in Mhow. Head to Indore.
Reach Indore and find cyber café. Finalize ananya travel plan to Calcutta and book tickets. Have to repack and reach airport. Find the airport – actually miss the entrance and have to circle back. Only 2 hotels so far in this stretch. Head back and find place near gangwal bus stand. Jedi gives up the books and extra clothes – hopefully should be lighter load. Jedi and ananya both emotional. Leave ananya at airport and return to hotel. Feeling disoriented and unsettled.
Jedi skips Friday moun vrat. Crash early.
Day 58 jun 20 sat
Saurabh will join trip tomorrow morning. Jedi to stay put in Indore. Trip should last another 10-15 days before money runs out. Jedi starts to think about job options; debts have to be repaid and food needs to be eaten. Spends day in hotel, watching films and generally repairing mind and body. Amanya has reached Calcutta/Kolkata. Maoists – police battle on on place which would have been on original Calcutta bound route!
Jedi does photo sorting and log updates.

Day 59 jun 21 sun
20 kms
Jedi waits for Saurabh to come from pune. More photo sorting. Saurabh reaches at 12.30. Finish sorting photos and then go out and eat lunch at Jain Bhojanalaya at Gangwal bus stand. Search for cyber café but most shut as electricity cuts. Go to other side of town and find one. Upload photos and logs. Update titles for photos when comp. crashes. Do it all over again partially when electricity goes off again. Hang around and go eat samosa and sikhanji which here is ras malai ka paste. Go to Indian coffee house! And have coffee. Electricity comes back but cybercafe shut. Gone to watch T20 final. So we return to hotel and jedi starts watching and slowly passes out by 8! Wakes up 12 hours later!
Day 60 jun 22 mon
Indore – Ghat Bilod – Bagdi – Mandu/Mandav
NH59, SH31,
104 kms
Wake up and pack stuff. Bags much lighter. Jedi and saurabh exchange emergenc in case we die contact numbers. Head out on Dhar road and encounter aswewish traffic. Do the mistake of asking for a place instead of a place closerby and get routed to better road at Ghat Bilod. Do the white bumpy roads and jedi does the usual something in the bag is poking me and pushing me bits. Saurabh also finding helmet unwieldy etc. Jedi says be patient. Jedi sees more birds that he doesn’t know. Much excited about the baobab trees.
Reach Mandav and do recce around town. Huge fort with lotsa monuments. Decide that we need to stay here today to see all. Have brunch – aloo paratha. Discuss whether guide or guidebook. Guides who approached said 300 bucks for 22 points. Guide book is 25 bucks. We buy the book.
Find a place and rest for a while. Mandu or Mandav as locally known, gets about 4 hrs of electricity in the day despite being major tourist spot. Hotel owner talks to us and is quite forthcoming with area details. Seems he was senior guide and guide for big ppl like Nehru etc. Shows us a magazine with his name in it. Saurabh takes out his voice recorder and records the stuff the owner says. Good stuff. Also tells how to identify the baobab tree and its history. Read the lonely planet and the guidebook. Fairly confident on what we want to see. Jedi feels sad that ananya is not here.
Somehow electricity comes on and the owner says oh maybe some VIP has come and then runs off. We go to rest and promptly fall asleep and wake up around 4. Go the closeby Jahaz Mahal and buy tickets where a guide approaches. Jedi sees size and scale of place and decides yes guide needed.
Guide shows us around – so much history – from 11th century – Raja Bhoj! To Akbar, across 4 dynasties. Friendly good guide – shows us extra stuff. See Mandu post for details – first attempt at guide-to-place. Golkonda still kicks ass when compared to this, but this has a better love story. As has been the case so far, wherever we go, the rains follow shortly. Andhi type winds start and skies darken. We rush off triples to Roopmati Mahal zone. See Baz Bahadur palace and then to Roopmati Pavilion. See the Narmada amidst body pushing winds. We then fix up with the caretaker via guide to come back at night to photograph the Mewar plateau on this Poornima day – if the skies normalize and we can see the moon. Come back to bike to see left side carrier broken at the joint. Have to find welder.
Go to Rewa Khund and watch the guide – Lalsingh Keer – do his poornima diya across the pond. Go at Sawariya Dhaba – kickass thali.
Head back and wait for electricity due to come one at 9 p.m. Its 9.28 now and still no electricity.

Movie – kinara was shot at roopmati’s pavilion (song – aa laut ke aaja mere meet)

Day 61 jun 23 tues
Mandu/Mandav
6 kms
No electricity whole of last night. Woke up at 9.30, rather woken up by hotel owner. Lots of robins around. Have poha at Sawariya. Found welder right beside but no electricity. Seems something has fallen due to wind. Went to Echo point near Dai tomb and did echo stuff. Walked around Dai maqbara – had kickass reverb? Sound under the dome – almost 8 seconds long. Walked around dai ki choti behen ka maqbara, caravan sarai, lal bagh (non-existent, but being worked on by ASI) – work going on all over – banake ticket katwayenge. Another mosque made from old temple parts. Then went to Jami Masjid, one of India’s biggest mosque and also Hostang Shah’s tomb. Walked inside and around. Lots of photos. Saw lots of baobab trees and bought fruit for amanya.
Still no electricity. Went to Ashrafi Mahal or Madrassa – once upon a time, one of India’s biggest Arabi universities. Met the guard who was very friendly and talkative – turned out he was ex-baba now here because of Mohammedan girl, is also Betul ka Raja, comes from rich family but can’t go with mozzy girl etc. didn’t scam or ask for money. Told us why maqbaras are made etc.
Went to Sawariya and had lunch and came back to hotel to wait for electricity. Had timepass intellectual discussions. Hotel boy came and rambled in his tottla local dialect. Watched the skies turn stormy again. Walked to have tea and saw someone else’s tomb. Almost dusk and light flickered. Sped back to hotel to get bike, only to see light go off. While nearing see official cars speed by – locals say - ab toh batti aa jayegi. People keep calling us Angrez.
Took the bike anyway and went to welder who says come tomorrow at 7. Go up to the resort which has full power. Go back and vent on why if they can lay fiber optic cables, why not also electric cables. Electricity comes at 9 and we charge everything. Work on dumping photos – some 500 odd in 2 days . Work on amanya when power goes off again to come back in 15 mins. Watch the rest of aloo chat before sleeping late. Keep alarm for 7 a.m. Have to tons of panaromas. Today only some 15! Jedi plays civilization till 4 a.m.

Day 62 jun 24 wed
Mandu/Mandav – Dharmampuri – Maheshwar – Omkareshwar – Punasa – Satwas – Khategoan
NH3, white roads, dirt tracks
276 kms
Wake up at 7, then 7.30 and rush to welder who hasn’t come. Ask and find another one who does the work. Also get bottle holder and jutting pieces of carrier fixed. Come back and get saurabh for tea. Met Betul ka raja who treats us to tea and also plays harmonica and sings Purani jeans and another orig comp. Also he explained the importance of gular tree we were sitting under – root is mixed with water to form opaque semisolid liquid which is drunk to negate ‘hormone’ loss. Pipal and Bargad ka trees were also around.

Leave for Dharampuri to see Roopmati’s narmada. Reach and take panorama –what else! When she went to Mandav, she used to see the diya at the Nageshwar temple. We try to see the temple but miss the turn and then say fuck it.
Head across to Omkareshwar in searing heat and bumpy roads. Reach the place and walk to the bridge – see the temple in the distance, stop, buzz off temple darshan touts, and take photos and then leave.
Take money from an ATM in Badwah(in Hindi) and Barwah in English. Take photo just to capture the town name. Make jokes about it.
Target is to reach Karda which is the closest city? To bhim betika caves, but get directed to Satwas which is in the opposite direction. Dusty villages with villagers who warn us to head quickly coz of forest area, and you know what forest area at dark means in MP – dacoity adivasis. Reach a new dam called Indira Sagar – kickass and then ask at the Narmada Nagar whether we can stay. Again yes but sun is still up, so head to Satwas beyond the dam. First ‘track’ in the Eicher Map book taken in 62 days! Road was kickass – newly laid amidst hilly road beset with trees laid by govt. to forest the damned land. But surreal ride, speeding across the curvy road, with the sun setting with almost dry trees in red soil. Also the scare of getting stuck. At an ass rest stop – Saurabh getting introduced to the dark side of roadtripping, Jedi finally takes out the Buck knife and tries throwing it a tree. Knife falls down – hard tree!
We reach Satwas, but Jedi wants to get to Khategoan to see Khate pithe log. Night riding across thin road with tractors – note – when u see two lights in tractor land, steer wider than the lights, coz behind the lights, many tractors have trailors which are wider than the lights.
Reach Khategoan and find lodge – Saurabh lodge! – rate 175! Only with air cooler and TV! Has inverter but only for fan.
Go to have dinner at tava ki roti (ppl ask whether tandoor ki ya tava ki – tava ki is apparently better. Kickass thali for 20 bucks. MP has good food. Hotel man talks and tells us to check out Navi Khund nearby.
Electricity goes off shortly and Jedi passes out under fan.

Day 63 jun 25 thurs
Khategoan – Nabi Khund (Newawar) – Nasarullahganj - Bhim Betika – Bhojpur - Bhopal
NH59A, NH69, NH12, white roads, track
200? kms
Get up, have tea, and head for Nabi Khund, 14 kms away from Khategaon. Reach and talk to someone for directions, who then shows us the spot. It’s in middle of the river and needs to be reached by boat. Take his friend’s boat and go to the navel of the Narmada river (if she were a woman, this would be her navel – basically middle point from Amarkhand to the Arabian sea at Gujarat. Very peaceful – sounds in the distance, people at the temples doing what they do at temples. Bathed in the water – sweetest water Jedi has tasted. Even the ‘health plus’ packaged water (narmada water) has a coconut water after taste. Come back to shore and head back to Khategaon for lunch. Pack and leave for Bhimbetika.

Take track – first kacha rasta so far. Foretaste of baralach la? Again hot hot. Pour water in helmets to have A/C effect. See for the first time, automated iron stamping? Machine which bangs red hot iron rods into sharp edges.

Reach Bhim betika and walk around a bit before asking for guide. 200 bucks. No no. walk around seeing paintings without feeling anything. Old man sitting asks usual kidhar se etc. and then says guide lelo, and we say ya ya – but guide has gone balti leke – he thinks party leke and says 200 is normal rate. He goes on - how he is senior guide and shows photos and then gets up and shows us a few things – 100000 (1 lac) year old man-made holes in the rock. 1 lac! The signs all over say 6 BP, not B.C., or A.D. Guide comes and we head off – 200 bucks. Saurabh gives his Dictaphone to keep in pocket.

Kickass tour – must do place for everyone. White, red, green, and yellow rock paintings, from Mesolithic (10000-5000 BC) and Paleolithic (last ice age – before 10000 B.C – somewhere in the middle is the stone age!). BP meaning Before Paleolithic? need to confirm. Paintings are from different eras – I just used eras in a sentence literally and not figuratively! Also shows how man learnt to paint, draw, use colors, new animals – hunting, dancing, horses, bison, elephants, drums. Evolution. Still get goosebumps as I write this. A 8000 year old man’s skeleton was excavated here. This place is from Pangea times. All this has been carbon dated etc. Vindhyas after all are India’s oldest mountain range and probably the world’s.

Guide ends with headsup to world’s biggest shiv linga at Bhojpur closeby. So we head there. Raja Bhoj had rocked his times. 11th century stuff still around. From Mewar to Malwa (mandav is the border – still defined by the wall erected by Raja Bhoj 10 centuries ago). Raja Bhoj Raja Bhoj aur hum sab Gangu Taili!
Reach the temple and bigass shiv ling. Jedi unsure if Dhyanalingum at Isha Ashram is bigger or smaller. But still – this is 10 centuries old! That’s 1000 years.
All too much to take in one day and we head to Bhopal, and see signs of the 21st century. Though on retrospect the refrigeration for all the thanda pani was very much 20th century!
As we enter Bhopal, spot a storm brewing and speed up but as we hit the outskirts, the heavens open and like how. Buckets, tanks, khunds – a literal vertical river – but we still persist and ask whoever is still on the road for Hamidia road (LP recco for budget places near bustand-railway station), until it starts hailstoneing. Park the bike which is doing willgiveupsoon sounds and wait till hailstones stop. Reach hamidia road and find a hotel and drip into the room. Dinner and Doordarshan follows.

Note: ABout the Shame on India for charging different rates for Indians and foreigners.
Have wondered about it for a long time, right from childhood when I had to take some guests to the Prince of Wales museum. Even as a kid, it felt wrong. But now I think its kind of ok. Imagine asking a western to pay 5 rupees (indian rate) as compared to 100 rupees - its like 10 cents for them. Mentally i had to to pay 10 paise to enter and see a place - what value would i associate with it. and having travelled quite a bit and seeing how some foreigners treat the place, esp. israelis and russians, sorry, but thats how it is. am sure u have ur own gripes abt Indians, I feel the different rates is ok,not right but ok.

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.