Woke up at 7 am and stepped down for a cup of local tea along with Vj. It was pleasant outside and the tea tasted OK. Came back to the hotel, took bath and was ready by 8:30 am. But surprisingly the other folks were not ready yet. Usually, I am the last one to get ready. Started writing about the previous day’s events by the time these guys took bath.
We stepped down for breakfast at 9:30 am and before having breakfast dude ensured that he met Madhu and worked his charm. She was all smiles and was blushing:such is the effect of our friend: effortless for him.
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| Just before leaving Shimoga |
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| Just before leaving Shimoga |
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| Route for the day |
Rice Bowl had a decent spread: idli, wada, puri bhaji, tomato rice, toast, fresh fruits and water melon juice. Though the options were limited, the idli-wada was the best we had tasted in the whole trip.
Finally we checked out at around 10:30 am and started our day long journey back to Pune. Butts was doing the driving and the morning was more or less uneventful, except for a quick bio break in a papaya field. Most of the plateau was green on both sides with lots of paddy farms, banana and papaya orchards and few coconut trees. Butts commented on how large our country is and how self sufficient we are and I couldn’t agree more.
We reached NH4 by 12 pm and the roads got much better than SH25. Hubli was 1 hour 45 mins away and we decided that it would be a perfect place to break for lunch. There was a KFC in Hubli and it seemed to be a good option considering that our lunch break needed to be quick. We reached the Urban Oasis Mall which housed the KFC at 2 pm. The service at KFC was extremely slow and by the time we left Hubli after buying some Dharwad Pedha from Mishra Sweets shop, it was already 3:15 pm.
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| Urban oasis Mall, Hubli |
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| KFC, Hubli |
Dude took the wheel for the next stretch till Kolhapur and ride was smooth. I went to sleep in the car and managed to surprise myself again. Around 6 pm , we stopped at Vitthal Kamat restaurant on NH4 roughly 5 kms after Sai International Hotel. Vj asked me if I was still waiting for a miracle:)). We had seen good Kamats and bad Kamats, but I can tell without any second thought that this Kamat was the worst of all. The dosa was burnt, the wada was stinking and the missal was shitty. Thankfully the tea was ok.
Finally we started the last stretch of our journey. Pune was 190 kms away and Butts promised that we would be there before 9:30. Guess what, we were in Shivar Restaurant in Pimple Saudagar at 9:25 pm.
...Epilogue:
Between drinks and dinner we reminisced the experiences of the last 6 days and had a few hearty laughs.
Turns out that I was wrong about the miracle. Miracles do happen. This 6 day trip itself was one! We had driven for more than 40 hours in 5 and a half days and covered 2240 Kms spread across 3 states!!
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| Route map for the whole trip |
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| Koi Shak? |
Amazing videos created by Vivek that capture the essence of the trip!
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