13th Nov : Chennai to Hyderabad

13^th Nov : Chennai to Hyderabad

We were aiming for something big today. I was aware of the condition of roads till Vijaywada, which is on the highway that connects Chennai and Kolkata, part of the Golden Quadrilateral and hence four laned. But then, what about the roads from Vijaywada to Hyderabad?

For once, we somewhat stood by the time we had intended to leave. I say somewhat as we were running just one hour behind schedule as compared to 2-3 hours normally. Leaving out hotel at around 7:30am, it took us a good 30minutes to ask and negotiate our way out of Chennai’s early morning office going traffic. It was worse as the hotel where we were staying was at the other end of the city and we were paying the price for it. Once on the outskirts of the city, roads didn’t seem good at all, with pot-holes and muddy water everywhere. I knew this wasn’t the Golden Quad at all and it wasn’t long before we were riding on single lane roads, with little towns coming our way every few kilometers. On enquiring from some locals we got to know that we had taken the wrong road and missed the bypass to Vijaywada. Ended up loosing an hour and riding uselessly for 40kms before we managed to hit the main highway again and what a relief it was! This was what we had been waiting for – super smooth 4 lane roads. But there was one hindrance, dark clouds loomed in the horizon and rains would definitely play spoilsport. I carried on at a constant 90km/h on the Blaze with Ashish following me closely. We were been cautious as the roads were wet but Sunny and Sunil started gaining distance as their bikes had much better brakes and tyres for such road conditions.

It wasn’t long before we came across a small junction leading into the city and I had this Ford Fusion in the rear view mirror. I was also keeping a track of Ashish and then suddenly in the rear view mirroe I saw something red, may be a red two-wheeler, hit the Ford Fusion and being dragged for a while. I feared the worst (even our Blazes are red) and thought Ashish had a fall. I braked as hard as I could in the wet, turned around and raced back just to be relieved to see Ashish slowing down on the Blaze. The red two-wheeler was a Bajaj M-80, which had suddenly come out of nowhere in the path of the Fusion. The rider was an old man, who did suffer lot of injuries. Answering a prayer, we carried on, being more cautious because of the road conditions – wet.

On roads like these, you have to have machines which will keep you awake. The Blazes may be fine on single lane highways and cities but on roads like these, you will sleep due to boredom. At the most we used to zip past 105km/h once in a while but definitely missed a powerful machine between our legs. I killed time by thinking about roads in India. Isn’t it quite contradictory that where there are more vehicles, where the roads should be smooth for traffic to flow smoothly, we have bad roads. We had been thru so many cities and everywhere the roads inside the cities were nowhere as good as the highways leading into the cities, except for a few exceptions like highway leading to Mangalore from Goa side and highway leading to Mysore from Mangalore side.

We were riding on the Golden Quad and reaping the benefits of crores of rupees which had been spent (and still being spent) to develop world class roads. I always thought highways up north were the best but here it wasn’t the case. Imagine super smooth wide traffic free highways combined with awesome scenery, little hills and curves every now and then. Highways up north too are fast but they are boring when it comes to scenery.

We left the Chennai-Kolkata highway at Vijaywada but before taking the Hyderabad highway, we stopped at a cool resort, just off the highway for lunch. Sunny had managed to find this place around an hour back (he being fast on the Fireblade on roads which do justice to such machines) The resort had a lot of big birds like ducks and turkeys, and I wonder if they served them for meals too!

We left the place at around 4:30 and headed to Vijaywada city to ask for directions. Vijaywada seemed full of devoties and we could see the line up on the ghats next to the river and once outside the city, the highway seemed fabulous. It actually seemed better than what we had just ridden but our joy was short lived and soon we were on single lane roads. Ashish had told us the highway would be four lane till Hyderabad but when we asked the locals, we found out it wasn’t the case. It was dark by the time we were still 150kms from our destination and as if things weren’t over for us, we came to know this area was naxalite dominated. There was too much traffic sometimes and the lights from the oncoming vehicles blinded us completely, leaving us to our luck. We decided to stay in a group and soon traffic ceased but even if a single vehicle would come from the opposite direction, we would be rendered blinded and as a result I crashed into a couple of big potholes, which really shook up my already tired body. Enough was enough, as the gang stopped for water, I decided to wait for a couple of fast cars and once I found them, I started chasing them. This helped me a lot as they became a shield for me and moreover there were so many isolated patches on the highway where naxalites could easily hold up any one. The Indica and the Zen, the cars which I was trailing were holding quite good speeds and me being on the comet, it was possible for me to easily keep up. But as we approached a city, I left them behind and took a Volvo as my shield. But being big in size, it could keep up good speeds and it was back to the cars.

As a result I reached Hyderabad quite early and waited for twenty minutes before Ashish caught up on the Blaze, which had dropped its exhaust from the cylinder head! It was a headache to follow the screaming Blaze thru traffic and we waited for Sunny and Sunil at a major intersection. Ashish and I were just lazing around when we heard a scream of a man. As we turned around, all I could see was a bike skidding and a man going the other way, his head hitting the road first and then, everything was silent. A truck had hit him (it wasn’t known whose fault was it) and the person wasn’t moving at all. Another life lost due to not wearing a helmet. What a shame…

Some members arrived and gang reunited and left for Ashish’s place in Secundrabad, another 25kms away. It would be the longest day in the GIR, we had done 790kms from Chennai to Secundrabad, including getting lost in the villages. We are dead tired to the bone but it was a relief to be at Ashish’s house and stuffing our stomachs with biryani, we are now headed to the beds to retire for the night. The back-up vehicle in the meantime was having a tough time locating the address of the place and if it hadn’t been for Ashish’s friends going back home, I don’t think the back-up vehicle would have made it here. His friends had managed too see the vehicle on the road and got it here!

Signing off, its press time tomorrow.