Whatever...

Happy new year 2015 to you! Hope you spend hours and days on roads without traffic in the coming years. I had a dream new year eve - on the road, going home. After numerous previous road travels on this route (read here  and here ), this time I decided to travel by my Royal Enfield Std 350. I was short on any sort of planning time, so decided to use my experience and just take the route taken before.  Google maps says it should take about 14 hours to do this journey. However, we took a night halt at Raichur and including the halt, completed the journey in 29 hours. Our itinerary , roughly, was: 30.12.2014, 16:00 - Depart from Lingampally, Hyderabad 30.12.2014, 21:15 - Reach Raichur, Karnataka  Night Halt at Hotel Kubera Palace @ INR1400 per night including complimentary breakfast Better option is Hoten Kritunga which we took last time 31.12.2014, 08:30 - Depart from Raichur, Karnataka  31.12.2014, 09:30 - Puncture in rear tyre about 40 Kms from R...

This is my Nth trip to Kenya, primarily Nairobi in the last 6 months. I have spent 90% of my time till date in this beautiful country. The experience has been amazing and enriching. I have met people from various countries across the globe, observed the life of a Kenyan closely, basked in the natural beauty of this country and as a result changed for the better, as a human being. Like always,  I am planning to write a series of posts about the experiences I have gathered, Inshallah ! Time will tell, whether, like always, I will fail. :-) But, like the journey of an engineering degree starts with the first back, I will start with this introductory post, my first step. This one is just about how to prepare for a trip to Kenya, from India that is. If you are travelling for the first time to Africa, your trip preparations should start at least 45 days in advance. This is mainly for the yellow fever and oral polio vaccine that one needs to take before coming to this country. Mi...

This is is update to my previous post on travelling from Hyderabad to Goa by road . I did this trip again on 28th March 2014. But this time I took a different route. This is a pretty decent road except for the road from Raichur to Belgaum. There are unmarked speed breakers that make it really horrid to drive on. We (I had a co-driver) did the distance in 12 hours with all breaks. Remember NOT to take the Khanapur --> Anamod route when going from Belgaum to Goa. Take the Chorla ghaat. And if you are taking the route for the first time, try to make it in the day time. Happy driving!

Yesterday (23/12/2011) I came from Hyderabad to Goa by our car (Ford Figo Diesel). I took the following route: Gacchibowli (Hyderabad)-->; Gulbarga --> Bijapur -->Athani --> Chikodi -->Belgaum -->Anamod --> Ponda (Goa) View Larger Map The drive till Bijapur is really smooth. The original route on my mind was Via Jamkhandi--Yargatti after Bijapur to get to Belgaim. However, locals advised me that Athani-Chikodi route is shorter and the road condition is better. Well, they are so wrong! The worst part about getting from Bijapur to Belgaum via Athani is that there is loads of Sugarcane traffic . So in no time you are coming from 100 Kmph to 20 Kmph, very frequently! I did the total distance of about 700 Kms in 12 hours 45 minutes . I left Gacchibowli in Hyderabad at 12:00 Noon on 23rd and was at my home in Ponda, Goa at 00:45 hours of 24th. There were 2 major (30 minute) breaks, one each at Bijapur and Belgaum. And there were 2 more 'butt breaks' of ...

Last evening me and Shveta visited the city. It was the first time we were in an explorer mood since we shifted base to Hyderabad. Unlike Pune, which was our last bastion, Hyderabad has fewer places worth visiting at an hour's drive. By 'places' I mean places like Mulshi, Lonavla, Sinhgad and places like that where you can find spot just to sit and relax in the company of nature. So we decided just to head straight to some place in the city and just have an evening exporing the place. We decided to take the train to Begumpet and explore that part of Hyderabad. Although Begumpet is mostly to do with shopping for pearls, huge apparel malls, Westside, Landmark and other big stores. After disembarking the MMTS train at Begumpet, we walked past the newly built flyover, the ITC kakatiya and reached Landmark. It is really difficult to walk past a bookstore if you really dig books or movies. So we entered Landmark and spent a good hour and half there, looking for books and DVDs. Ca...

The long weekend X'mas vacation presented a beautiful opportunity for a family trip to Aurangabad . Being the historically endowed town it is, Aurangabad has ample tourists spot to fill up three days. Yours truly, accompanied by parents and wife drove down to Aurangabad in a Santro . We left Pune at 6.30 AM on 25 th December'08. The total distance of 250 Kms to Aurangabad was covered in 4 and 1/2 hours with a break for breakfast. Once at the destination, finding the right accommodation was the biggest pain. Aurangabad does not have clean economy hotels. The place looks more like business place and most of the hotel rooms are indecent to say the least. Good accommodation is available at MTDC , but it is always overbooked. Other good places are very very costly which include, The Taj , The Ambassador, Hotel Amarapreet etc. Minimum tariff at these places is close to INR 3000 for a couple per room per day. So we took the easiest way out. We paid an autowallah 20 rupees ...