A tryst with NH 7

When I was young, my Dad used to do a lot of road trips in one of those oldie Jeeps, much of the trips were on Highways, ever since I have always been fascinated with highways, the so called NH Always wanted to go for a long highway drive, but some or the other thing did let me know. This sunday was watching TV with my roomie KDB, it was well past 1 AM, and suddenly I decided go for a bike ride the next morning. Where was the next question, quickly browsed through my TTK India Road map and found a small place Basara some 220 kms from Hyderabad. Off I went to pack my bags for the trip, I was really surprised when KD came up to me and said, “Bro m also coming”, he doesnt like bike trips much, and that too a 450 odd circuit and he has to get back and go to office !!! But he was determined, so we packed our bags and went to bed.

Dont want to write down a lengthy travelogue on it (KDB has already written one here). Next morning we started at sharp 6 am and reached Basar at around 10.30, had a quick darshan and back at HYD by 4.30 PM.  The 450 km circuit was done in approx 10 hrs with stops for tea, breakfast and lunch and a 1 hour break at Basar. Statiscally the circuit was done with an average speed of 50.88 kmph and that too on a bike Max speed reached was around 105 kmph.

Here is some road and route info:

The route is quite straight forward, Hyderabad to Medchal, get on the NH7 from Medchal continue through Tupran, Ramayampet, Kamireddy to Dichipally. Take a left exit from Dichipally and head towards Nizamabad, cross Nizamabad and go upto Jankampet. Take a right exit at the Gandhi Statue there. Basara RS is around 12 kms from there and Basara temple is around 2 kms from then on. The road (NH7) from Medchal to Kamireddy (10 Kms or so from there), is excellent, balack top 4 lane (6 at places) and very good signage. The road from Kamireddy to Dichipally (same NH 7) is a two lane, undivided, balacktop road, the road quality is good but lack of a road divider slows you down. The rest, I guess its a SH is good but not excellent. Loved the NH7 all the way, named this post as a tribute to it

What I liked about the trip:

The sense of you and you bike on an open road is an un-expressable feeling, there is a sense of freedom and an unknown sense of peace that sets in your mind when you drive on a NH. Bike trips do teach a very important thing in life, they harden your patience, at time your arse will go numb, and you will feel like speeding away quickly to your destination, but the road wont allow you to. You ought to remember one very simple rule “On a road trip the road rules and you follow… “. I beleive one is on a learning curve for the first 100000 kms, and I have just completed around 60k, there are still some miles to go …

And it goes on ...

Good going …

One of my new year resolutions  was to visit 10 new places this year. This post is a mid year review of how much has been achieved and how is the next half gonna be executed I have not been posting my travelogues online, so the world doesnt know yet where have I been.

Whats acheived ?

Warangal/Yadagirigutta – One day trip in the month of March , wanted to make it a bike trip but went by train and bus. I liked this trip, it made me feel like a real traveller. The trip was decided at 23:30 in the night and off we went at 05:30 hrs. Research for the trip was made only using google and the internet This trip was never planned but it happened so there were lots of minor and major mods done to the trip, like Yadagirigutta was never on the list but it happened, found a good trav buddy Nitant on this trip.

Guntur/Vijaywada/Amaravati/Kotapkonda — Made this trip in april, courtsey dear friend Sasi. It was during Ugadi, when sasi invited us to his hometown Sattenapalli. Some of  the places visted on this trip are Narsimha swamy temple at Mangalgiri, Ma Durga temple at Vijaywada, the huge 32 feet shiva linga at Amaravati, a quite evening on the banks of river Krishna and finally a short bike tripa and a trek to the top of Kotapkonda. All these places are within the radius of 200 kms and we covered it in 2 days. Oh yes almost forgot to mention it, on this trip we somehow managed to get into the river-side farm house of a billionaire in vijaywada which had a discotheque, an open air bar and a motor boat in it, it was sort of the things you see in TV

Srisailam — This was a very quick 1 day trip to the Lord shiva temple at Srisailam in the month of April. Much of the trip was in an hired Innova, and the heat in the month of April stopped made the trip a very tiring one. Something that made this trip special was it was my first outing with my wud be in-laws !!!

Medak/Pocharam wildlife Sanctuary — Finally a bike trip after a long wait of 6 months with my roomie KD Bhai. There is nothing much to do on this trip,  The destination was just an excuse for the ride Medak has an old but beautiful chruch and a boring Bird santuary. But 250 kms in 8 hrs … nostalgia !!!

Indore/Bhopal/Ujjain – This was the most recent one, last week of june. A trip to remember, not because of the places I visited but because of the people I met It was my first trip in Central India, Indore was much to my expectations, lotsa shopping malls and cute gals, spicy food and hustle bustle of an upcoming metro. Bhopal was an utter dissapointment, better not talk to about it. Ujjain is a beautiful temple city, really enjoyed it.

Whats to be achieved ?

Six months in the year and 5 new places/trips added to the list, good going, perhaps this is the first new year resolution I would be keeping up to.. wooohoo. Research has begun for a trip to Pondicherry and Mahabalipuram sometime in August, and also a bike trip to Nagarjun sagar in Sept. In the pipeline is a bike trip to Bidar too! Would like to go on some adventure trips in the later part of the year.