Nothing great in any way friends, but just wanted to share our share of experience of a really great and memorable drive we once did.
Almost around a year ago when things were a bit different (in all respects) a lot of extra time for all the stupid things, we were thinking of spending that extra bit in a bit different way. What would have we done otherwise? Miramar? Dona Paula? Shapora? I really don’t know. But thankfully someone came with a plan, different plan. “Kolhapur”.
Well I had no reason to say no. The date was fixed, which also happened to be my birthday. So all the things were set (by all I mean absolutely nothing 😉 ). As planned we almost left early that morning by around 6 or so, almost, but some things do crop up in the so called planned trip. Nothing great though. But we did leave our homes.
GG decided to take over the steering wheel of his Alto “let’s Go”. And the first thing was yes, until something made us “oh no”. A sight at Dhargal which also made us have a laugh over it again and again. Check out that truck. Forget the wheels where is the freaking axle? And we continued. Well GG was driving so we had to strap our seat belts coz we had no option left.
Amboli is by any means a fun place to be as well to ride and drive. GG was content about showing off his skills. Amboli again bought us another sight of a land slide, work was on its way as it always is on any road in India. Well Alto isn’t a driver’s delight but surely does the job. GG is a bit un-predictable, but he sure drives well. After reaching the Amboli fall with not much water falling from there we still decided to have a cup of coffee and some “wada” to fill the empty space.
Then it was GG’s turn to take some rest, so I got my hand over the steering wheel. Well the road is file till u take the first diversion from the main road towards the left to lead further. We followed the road we quite knew. So we proceeded via Azra to finally reach Nipani. The roads are not demanding for a car like Alto but u can manage your way out at around 60-70km/h. Now that we hit the national highway I decided to take another switch and let the pro take control of the car.
The highway also got some great and some strange sights again. Did we ever think that a passenger car can be used as a commercial vehicle or at least a sort of carrier? I don’t remember seeing a carrier over a Zen, but this guy surely was carrying some heavy stuff man. I seriously love such brain sucked nuts. Hats off to u “GURU” u rule the roads. Mean while GG was trying to dig the throttle into floor. The sheer excitement of making it stretch a bit more was heavy over my intellect and I lost the shot were GG actually hit 150km/h on his Alto. But we did it.
In Kolhapur, so how could you miss Sri. Mhalaxmi Mata’s ashirwad? That was the first thing we did after we parked our car in a place. After being blessed it was time for lunch. So we got into some place we could just get our tummy filled. We surely were not looking for a stared place but we sure did the food. Kolhapur has a different flavour to its food. Now that the empty places were filled we decided to shop some stuff. Guess what? We bou the “Kolhapuri Chappal”. But still with some time under the clock we were wondering of what to do. It had to be “Panhalgad”
Panhalgad is amongst the great forts in Maharashtra. First built by the Raja Bhoj which then was captured by the Singhana. Later Adil Shah took the fort and got it under the Bijapur dynasty. And after Shivaji killed the ruler of Bijapur Afzal khan Shivaji took over the fort. Some history still followd after this. With all the energy still in the air and the atmosphere around we did a lot of fooling around. And then we left back.
I let GG drive the speed traps and later took over after exiting the highway from Nipani to get back to Goa Via Amboli. But before that we decided to spend some more time about back at Amboli again. Took some great pictures. And some more coffee and then finally left to get back home for some sleep.
Surely of the Drive we will remember for our life. Memories do live…..
-by Vibhav Sawant
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