On Saturday, Aug 11th, we started from Sagar on our way to Hyderabad. We woke up early, took bath and left the hotel by 5.40 am. Its an easy exit from Hotel Deepali back to the national highway. The very first picture I took that day as soon as there was some light –
Our country is so beautiful … thats the first thought you get as you get onto a national highway and get away from the hustle and bustle and noise of any city.
The one thing that we found a little disconcerting was the number of cows on the highway in this trip. We have seen them mostly during our trip back to Gurgaon on the Sagar to Babina stretch, but this time there were hoards of them on every stretch of the highway, even some of the Ghat sections.
The day started off well for me as I had a nice round of shouting and arguing with the toll at Narsinghpur. The car that was two cars ahead of us, refused to pay the toll and the guy just ahead of us told us to back up. We reversed, thinking something was wrong with the counter or the boom barrier. We got into the next lane and two trucks came behind us. Then another guy came and asked us to back up from this lane as it was a Fast tag lane. The trucks behind us refused to reverse beyond a certain point, so I got out of the car and served this guy a plate full of angry shouting in the language that he understood best :). He finally said, it wasn’t his fault but the other guy’s fault and even apologised before putting us in the original lane that we had taken. We lost nearly 20 minutes at this toll gate in all this drama.
By 7.30 am we reached our favourite Surya Tea stall at Partapur, which is 18 kms from the right turn at Narsinghpur. From Sagar to Narsinghpur its 141 Kms and as you are about to hit 141 kms there is a flyover that you don’t take, but go under it towards the right. Within 5 Kms from the turn off you get the Jaitpur toll and after that the ghat section begins. Partapur is just as you complete the ghat section.
We met Ashutosh, the tea stall owner’s son. He spoke of how he has one more paper to complete in his Engineering course and he and his father have become stockists for cement and iron rods that are used in construction. They have also started building homes under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. We had great tea, but the Samosas took time.
We ended up spending almost an hour at the shop and finally got a few samosas packed and left at about 8.30 am. This would cost us big time later in the day as we got caught in a terrible traffic jam as we neared Hyderabad.
As you cover 304 kms from Sagar, you exit the ghat sections completely and there is a beautiful stretch of a couple of kilometres where you have bamboo trees lining the road. Krishnan loves this stretch of the road.
We exited Nagpur with some difficulty as there was lots of traffic and the roads have also been broken up in places. About 75 kms from Nagpur, you take the right turn at Jam towards Hyderabad and just 10 kms from that turn is Hinganghat… the unfinished flyover since 2009. The good news is the flyover is now completed and we no longer have to take a detour underneath it. We were thrilled to drive over the now completed flyover. I took a short video of the rumblers (10 of them) that haven’t been removed still … they are just before you get onto the flyover.
The 107 kms between Hinganghat and Adilabad, where Telangana begins and the super cool highway starts, are mostly good roads.. with some stretches where construction is underway. We crossed those with relative ease. The toll booth just before getting onto the toll way near Adilabad has been removed so the first toll that you get is the Piparwada toll booth. Adilabad to Hyderabad is about 300 kms and the road is excellent. We just had to contend with heavy rains on this entire stretch. A short video that Krishnan shot of the rain pelting down so hard that you can hear it inside the car :).
The last 35 kilometres took two hours to complete and we reached home by 8.45 pm … a full 15 hours of being on the road. Driving time was about 11.5 hours for 855 kilometres and 2 hours for 35 kms !! The total distance we covered on day two was 890 kms.
From Gurgaon to Hyderabad its about 1580 kms in total. We were exhausted but had to clean up the house a bit as we were coming after nearly 15 months. It continued to rain right through the night, so we didn’t bring in all the stuff, just a few bags that we needed.
Also please talk about the clean highway roads of Telangana!!!