2009
1
Starting back
The plan was simple. Get from Kolkata to Kharagpur (spend somehow less time at Kolaghat), hit the GQ to Balasore, continue till Puri and do a night hault. As we know, plans are plans and reality is something totally different.
3 AM Start
Wanted to have a similar pre dawn start, but saying bye bye to everyone and packing the extra luggage that we accumulated in Raurkela and Kolkata took a while. We got out of the house at 4AM. An hour late and yet not too shabby. 5.10 AM we reached Kolaghat, this time I was hell bent upon avoiding and smarting the traffic there. Turns out the approach to Kolaghat Bridge from Kolkata side has very little shoulder space, and we were stuck. The time it took for us to reach the next gap in the median was a staggering 4 hours. The moment I got that, was on the opposite lane like a regular cabbie and crossed the next 4 Kms in a giffy. Yes, we were stuck behind 4 Kms and 3 Lanes of Truck traffic.
Looks like I am praying for the Jam to clear. (actually killing a mosquito)
The Kolaghat Bridge - Or the lack of it
Crossed Kolaghat.
The roads were a bliss till we were about to cross into Orissa. A local boy had assaulted a local girl and the local population had blocked the roads and blaming the truckers and cars. huh!!. To me it seemed like a publicity stunt being pulled off by the local youth to get on TV. No sooner the TV channels left after the reporting, the blockade was off and we were on as well.
Orissa
We were stopped at the Orissa border and a man came and demanded for the DL. The illiterate government employee had a look at the Karnataka License and said, “Don’t give the Credit Card, give DL”.. At this I said “It is the DL, if you please, read.”
It seemed every vehicle passing through Orissa had to pay a 6 month temporary road tax. They said they were collecting it because other states like AP, TN and Jharkhand were doing that too. I quietly paid the 800 Bucks and moved on. I hope governments in these states become more organized about such things instead of treating everyone line “Criminals”.
Stop at Cuttack
After the two hold ups we decided we would rather spend the evening and night in Cuttack than venture into Puri.
Places to stay in Cuttack
We got off to a great start in the morning and headed straight to Puri. The next 20 Kms from Cuttack to Bhubaneswar was shrouded in heavy fog. Thanks to great roads, good fog lamps, we did nit have to step down from 80 – 90 Kmph.
The fog thanks to Mahanadi. Was enjoyable drive though.
Puri came up early even after 3 long good stops to enjoy the Green Orissa Countryside.
Green green Orissa
Puri beach
After spending quite a few hours in Puri we headed to Konarak. The road from Puri to Konarak is easily one of the best I have been on. Its a simple highway with perfect banking, perfect surface and it has the sea on one side.
Puri - Konarak highway. Without dispute the best place I have ever parked the car in
Konarak - Puri road. And the sea right next to it.
We left Konarak at about 6 PM and took the state highway till Khurda to get onto the GQ. Chilka was our next stop. The 5 hours that we lost at Kolaghat and 1 more at the blockade bundled our plans to get till Vizag. We stopped at the ‘now usual’ Pantha Nivas and prepared for Vijaywada the next day.
Vizag
No one asked for road tax when we entered AP. Just that I think AP should really ask for taxes as they have the best roads. Vizag came up fast. Lack of signage in the city costed us enormous amount of time. We were disappointed by the quality of service available at beach side food joints as they had easy access to hungry tourists who would almost always eat anything.
Target. Vishakhapattanam. Incidentally, this was the road where we had the puncture while going to Chilka 2 weeks back
Roamed around a little, got out of there soon after and headed to Vijaywada. But we did lose 4 precious hours trying to find things in Vizag. At this point we were seriously considering Rajahmudri as a night halt instead of Vijaywada. On reaching Rajahmundri we decided otherwise, the city seemed shady and avoidable even in the evening and we continued straight till Vijaywada.
Oversized beauties on the road
To Chennai
Roads in AP are the best, (I have not been to Rajasthan lately but heard they are good as well.)
Started at 2PM. Chennai came up easy at about 10PM, navigating out of Chennai was still a pain given the colossal lack of signage. With generous stops after every 100 Kms (literally) we were home in no time. Although, the Krishnagiri – Chennai highway does seem a bit irritating in the night, the overuse of ‘Cat Eyes’ just does not allow you to see anything else on the road, not even the oncoming traffic.
Overall
A great trip. Now that the east coast is done, really looking forward to hitting the west coast.
After a break though.
Photographs: Shubhodeep Das, Aparajita Ghosh