Bliss

We really need a 24X7 rock channel. First MTV started and gave into Bollywood. Then VH1 began and they went pop… and rap and RnRs…

We really need a hardcore Rock TV where,
Legends can come back alive,
Cult of freedom can thrive,
Where Taylor Swift can go else where to cry,
And hang all the Bielebers to dry…
Where Nicky Minaj can understand black people cannot be blonde and she doesn’t have to try!

Let there be a world where no one has to sing “Girl let me love you.. until you learn to love yourself”
For it wants me to throw up all morning and ask you to go fuck yourself.

There are rock stars on the road with a decade old guitar and singing their last with a hope to last, and there are producers who spend to learn “Friday Friday, then Saturday and Sunday comes afterwards!”.

People aspire to be Rock stars. Not Rapstars or Bluestars.

Lets the kids be raised to a song that has deep words and not just three words.

If you want to give them a better planet to live… please, first give them a reason to live.

So, sorry I forgot to write about the last leg of the trip. Actually there is little to say in this part.

I started out from Mumbai early morning again after couple of days rest and left to Jaipur. The road was kind of same as the previous mostly 3 lanes and 2 lanes. Just gotto be careful, but otherwise not too bad. This ride was fairy simple. Got stopped by a cop close to Udaipur after she saw a TN registration coming her way. Paid her ?100 and moved on…

Reached Udaipur before sundown and got into a little shack referred by Vineet. Stayed the night and once again left early before the sun rise. I’ll tell you one thing. When your driving from Udaipur to Gurgaon, you go east. And its b.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l to drive on that road at sun rise. The whole scene is Yellow! Sorry dont have a photo, but you’ve gotto try that road on early morning.

Reached Gurgaon much before sun down. By 6:30 I was in the room already!

Observation:

1) One road accident near Jaipur, a lady (pillion rider in a bike) was crying by the side of the road as she lost her leg when a truck ran over it. Blood everywhere. The patrol were there, the ambulance was there and the traffic was held up for about 1/2 hour. Apparently when the rider tried to overtake the truck from the left and a bus tried to overtake the rider from his left. The biker was caught in between like a sandwich! They fell down and the pillion rider went under the truck.

2) The road from Jaipur to Gurgaon is extraordinarily bad. Actually there was no highway! Only mud roads and service lanes. The service lanes are not even capable of handling the kind of traffic there was.  There are nice take diversion boards to take you off the highway as NHAI is actually building the roads, but there are none to bring you back into the road. You could go lost in that town going round and round without reaching the highway at all. Also I dont think those town has even seen roads before. All mud roads and such steep ups and downs that at least at 2 places I doubted that my car will make it. But it did! It took me about 5 hours just covering that 220 Kms. But they don’t fail to stop you at every toll and drain your money even though there is no road to drive on. I mean who the hell decides to work on the entire stretch all at once?

3) After Udaipur, there is a 20 km stretch, that is just a single lane and you will have to share it with oncoming traffic as well. And mind you, its part of the National highways and people drive like that!

Interesting observation:

1) More road kills as I approached Gurgaon than any other place.

2) People have no sense of keeping distance between each vehicles. I mean in front, back, sides, everywhere. In a blink of an eye you could get your car scratched. FYI, my car made it un-scathed.

3) I realized I drove through 7 states. TN, a bit of AP, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Haryana!

4) There is one lone Cafe Coffee day between Udaipur and Jaipur. Rest of this highway has only hotels that have no food and hotels you don’t want food from.

5) Oh yea, caffeine is so important for these endurance rides I tell you. I packed up so many red bulls that I didn’t feel the need to have coffee anywhere. And believe me, that saves a lot of time.

6) Don’t fool yourself there is enough music to keep you company for this 2700 kms journey. My last leg was completely on repeats.

Hello people, so here comes the story of my road trip from Madras to New Delhi. This part of the story starts from Chennai and reaches Mumbai.

The Story: The D-Day had arrived for the trip and I felt good that morning, mentally prepared for the 2700 Km drive. I gotta admit didn’t know so many people around me would be worried. A lot of ‘em were scared I should say. Anyway, the plan like I had mentioned earlier, is quite simple, Chennai to Bangalore, then Bangalore to Kolahpur, Kolapur to Mumbai. Just that there was a small change. I initially hadn’t planned to halt in Bangalore, but as it turned out I had to.

So on Day 1, I drove the familiar roads from Chennai to Bangalore and stayed the rest of the day at Anoops. I was a little tired at the end of the say after the drive, but I’ll tell you, it was just the pressure. Not the drive. I’ll tell you why later. So, the next morning, I leave Bangalore at about 5:30 am and headed straight to Kolahpur. The roads were pretty good, mostly 3 lane roads, and huge median in between. As long as you could drive your vehicle well, you needn’t worry too much.  If you’re driving alone, I’ll tell you music is the best company. Make sure you have loads of ‘em. With about a couple 5 minute stops just to stretch my legs, one lunch break and 20 minutes power nap, I reached Kolapur by about 3:00 pm. Didn’t stop, just continued to Pune. Reached Pune by about 6:10 pm.  Filled my tank at a bunk and again took a power nap for about 1/2 hour.

I was really trying to decide if I should continue to Mumbai or find a place to stay in Pune and leave tomorrow, because trip until Pune was quite good. But about 50 km out from Pune until I reach Pune the traffic was as busy as a normal main road traffic in a city. Really! And one more ting, For about 20 kms from Hubli, its a normal single lane driving with no median in between. You gotta b carefull driving that stretch. Coming back to Pune, so the last 50 kms of entering Pune was a bitch. However, I had the eye on the prize, that is to reach Mumbai and I know I can take rest for an extra day once I reach Vineet’s place. It was kind of a good and a bad decision.

As per Vineet’s advice I took the Mumbai toll expressway when driving from Pune to Mumbai and boy was that Awesome! The Mumbai Pune Express way is an awesome road with FIVE lanes and very less traffic. I breezed thru that 120 Kms in about 1 hour 15 minutes. They’ve thrown in a few nice curves, couple’a tunnels and made it an interesting drive. Reached Mumbai City by about 10:30 pm.

And then finding Vineet’s house took me a good 1 and 1/2 hours. I got lost at least twice, but I’m not going to going to those details and bitch about it now. But you just need to know, this happened because I initially drove past a turn, that brings me into the right direction because Vineet was taking a bloody Dump! He wasn’t answering my phone when I called him about that turn. Anyway, I reached his place by 12:00 am and well, drank for the total 1,300 km drive so far!

Observations:

1)  A total of about 2 accidents on the road. a)  A truck was kind of hanging by a single wheel(front right wheel) while the rest were outside the road. Not sure how the driver managed that. b) A straight forward car hitting a car from behind right in front of a speed breaker.

2) 2 Road kills, both of ‘em dogs.

3) Idiots come in all sizes and shapes. Trucks not using indicators, cars not following lanes, bus drivers thinking they are driving a a mini van. As long as we are have a eye out on all the vehicles within our proximity thats all that matters.

4) One advice – You could drive on the highway at any speed (completely dictated by your confidence), however make sure you don’t overtake a vehicle with over 110/120 kmph. This is basically to make sure you can bring down your car to under 20kmph immediately if need be without causing much or any damage to anyone. Also there is no need to overtake anyone driving over that speed anyway. Also if you don’t have ABS, don’t even try long distances. It really does save life! Twice for me.

Interesting Observations:

1) After Bangalore, mine was the only TN vehicle on the road until Mumbai!

2) BMWs and Audis easily get intimidated when you take them over or keep up with them for a long time. They try and look at you when they overtake you. He he…

Hello People, some of you might already know that I’m planning a road trip to New Delhi from Chennai. I’ve been bragging about it for a while now anyway

So why this road trip you ask?

IndiBlogger is opening a new office in Gurgaon and I’m moving there to take care of things. Since I’m moving and the taking the car with me, thought why not drive the whole way? I mean how many times does this option show up? Also its much cheaper than me flying into Delhi and shipping my car in a truck.

This will be my first 700+ km road trip. And this is the checklist I’ve put together and planing to stick to it.

1) Got my car (Honda City i-vtec) serviced and checked.

2) First aid kit – Good to have.

3) Nitrogen/air filled spare tyre and tool kit

4) Mobile Charger

5) Pillows and towels – I’ve been told long drives could cause discomfort or neck aches, etc.

6) A 6 pack Redbull cans and Nutri bars – Caffeine is good, isn’t it?

7) A laptop and a data card – Gonna be a 3 days trip, better have it than regret.

8) Water bottles and tissues

9) Loads of songs on USB – Like I said 3 days of driving.

10) ID cards/Visiting cards- In case of emergencies or if I come by a girl…  you know for lift or a passer by etc.

11) Google maps

12) And some cash of course – For tolls, food, occasional coffee on the road.

13) Last but not least.. my Swiss army knife.

Other optional stuff I’ve learnt would help are

1) A Camera and batteries

2) Car DC to AC converter to charge laptops, phones, players, etc.

3) Sunglasses – would make the day drive a little easy.

And the time table for my trip.

Day 1:

Chennai 4:00 AM – Banglore 9:00 AM (350 Kms)

(Break)fast

Bangalore 10:00 AM- Kholapur 7:00 PM (630 Kms) Of course including a couple of coffee breaks and lunch.

Find a hotel in Kholapur and rest the night.

Day 2: 

Kholapur 5:00 AM – Pune 8:30 AM (230 Kms)

Pune 8:45 AM – Mumbai 11:00 AM (150 Kms)

Lunch

Mumbai 12:00  - Ahmadabad 8:00 PM (530 Kms) Again including breaks.

Rest the night in Ahmadabad

Day 3: 

Ahmadabad 5:00 AM – Jaipur 3:00 AM (670 Kms) Including lunch and coffee breaks.

Jaipur 4:00 PM –  Gurgaon 8:00 PM (230 Kms)

Check into a hotel and step into a coma!

So the offer still stands.. Anyone interested in joining me on this trip, let me know soon.

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Haven’t been around this place for a while… slightly guilty.. but will try and keep this going for rest of this year. From now on…

So came across this interesting relaxation video in Neatorama by a Dalek. After all you must obey a Dalek if you don’t want to be exterminated! You’d be familiar with this if you are a Doctor Who fan ofcourse.