A Mitteleuropaisch Sojourn - Part 3, Days 4 and 5; Schwarz Wald and the Journey to Munich

As mentioned before, Basel is at the border of Germany, France and Switzerland. And as soon as one crosses the Rhine into Germany, one is at the edge of the famous Schwarz Wald, or Black Forest – the home of the Black Forest cake, and the Cuckoo Clock. Driving through the B roads of the Schwarz Wald is considered to be one of the great driving experiences – and most sports car makers like Porsche regularly offer driving itineraries through this area. In fact, one can rent a Porsche 911 from Zurich, which comes pre-loaded with maps that take you through some of the best roads in this region. 

Well before we left India, I had spent a considerable amount of time identifying possible itineraries through the Schwarz Wald. I finally settled on an itinerary mentioned in the guidebook by Karen Brown. We decided to look for a hotel close to Baden Baden, which lies at the end of the most famous driving road in the Schwarz Wald, the B500 or Schwarz Wald Hochstrasse, which runs along a ridge with beautiful views of the forest on either side. Expedia helped us find the Hotel Rebenhof, located in the small town of Neuweier, amidst vineyards, which was not too expensive, and beautifully located. We Googled the map from Basel to Neuweier, with various waypoints. The distance was 216 km, and Google suggested a drive time of just under 4 hours. This seemed like an easy drive, and we therefore were not in a great hurry to leave.

That morning, Maami, Jayashree and Radhika set out to make Pav Bhaji, which Avinash had been asking for. While they were busy at work, I went out for one long, last walk around Basel. By the time I got back, recovered the car from the Pay and Park, and we were ready to set out, it was almost 11 am. We had planned a relaxed start, but this obviously had become a bit too relaxed.

Our first destination was the town of Todtnau, along the B319. The drive along the B319 was pretty. While the speed limit in most sections was 100 kmph, I often got stuck behind trucks, which were driving at 70-80. Once again, the precision with which the truckers drove was amazing – as this road was not much broader than a single lane old style Indian NH – albeit with much better surface and signage. We got to Todtnau, and took a walk around the centre of town. By this time, we were hungry – and so sat down at an open air café, ordered a completely sinful Schwarzwald Sundae, and also ate the Pav Bhaji we had carried. As we were walking around, we observed a roller coaster like structure on the opposite hill. It turned out that this hill was a ski resort in winter, but they had also built a rail (called the Sommerrodelbahn), on which people could travel in single cars with the speed being controlled individually.

The Todtnau Church

Radhika and Avinash

The Sommerrodelbahn

Radhika and Avinash in the Bahn

We promptly took the ski lift to the top of the hill, and after spending some time taking iPhone pictures of the scenery, took the Sommerrodelbahn down. It was great fun, and after a while, I grew confident enough to take the curves at high speed, until I got too close to the slower car ahead of me, and had to slow down. Radhika and Avinash rode down together – and opted for a slightly slower journey down. 

By the time we finished all this, it was well past 230, and we had covered only a fourth of our journey to Neuweier. We therefore decided to skip our planned second waypoint, the Schulsee, and instead headed directly to Furtwangen, the home of the German clock museum. There were some road closures on the way, which was a blessing in disguise, since we were diverted onto some incredibly beautiful L roads. I struggled to drive faster than 70 kmph on these roads, and was promptly passed by several cars driving much faster.

Cows in the Meadows

Winding L Roads

After spending an hour at the German clock museum, we headed for the town of Triberg, which is considered the best place to buy Cuckoo Clocks. We reached there around 430 – and did not get much time to examine different pieces before the shops were all set to close down.   There are two kinds of cuckoo clocks, mechanical ones and electronic ones. Most of the shop keepers claimed that even the electronic ones were made in Germany, within the Schwarz Wald. We kept one of the shopkeepers beyond her usual closing time, and managed to pick up an electronic cuckoo clock, for a relatively reasonable price. 

Triberg

  

Next we walked down to the Triberg Waterfall, which was quite beautiful. There were long walking trails around, but it was already past 630, and we did not get a chance to spend too much time enjoying them. By the time we got back to the parking lot, the town was deserted, and we suddenly realized that we were still almost 100 km or 2 hours away from our hotel, and were concerned that the hotel may give our room away. We also realized that given the isolated location of our hotel, we should be prepared for the absence of room service – and hence called the hotel to let them know we were late but on our way. They told us that they would hold the room for us, but we would need to make it by 9 PM to get dinner.

 We then routed ourselves through a set of local roads towards the beginning of the B500 or Schwarz Wald Hochstrasse, which took us past a number of small logging towns down roads where we were the only car in miles. The Schwarz Wald Hochstrasse was a fantastic road, with beautiful vistas on both sides, and full of twists and turns. It was posted with a 100 kmph speed limit, which I by and large adhered too – even if I was repeatedly overtaken by cars and motorbikes doing insanely high speeds. Unfortunately, since we were so late, we could not stop too often to take pictures – this is one of the few images we managed to capture.

We reached the Rebenhof around 830 – and after quickly checking in, walked over to the restaurant. While the vegetarian choices on the menu were limited, the chef was nice enough to whip up something special for us – even though it was almost closing time. As we had dinner, we caught sight of an amazing sunset behind us. 

Sunset at the Rebenhof

The next morning, we set out for a long walk amongst the vineyards, and through the town of Neuweier. While we had until 2 PM to check out, we finally decided to head to the town of Baden Baden, and hence left the hotel by 1130. 

The Vineyards of Neuweier

After a quick drive to Baden Baden, we walked around the quaint city centre, and then settled down for lunch. 

As we were heading back to the car to start our journey to Munich, I got a call from a German number on my phone. It was from the Rebenhof – the cleaning lady had found Radhika’s iPod in our room, and they had called my India mobile to tell us about it. Fortunately, we were only half an hour away, and hence were able to drive over and pick it up. We thanked our stars that the hotel staff had been so honest, and considerate – it would have been very easy for them to either keep the iPod, or not bother to call having realized that I had not given them a German contact number. 

We then headed for Munich – this time using the autobahns instead of B roads. We first headed north on the A5 towards Karlsruhe, and then took the A8 past Stuttgart to Munich. 

 

There were numerous sections along the A8 where road work was on – this time I was more confident, and managed to stay on the passing lane with cars (which were going at about 90 kmph against the posted 80) instead of sticking to the slow lane which was full of trucks. The sections where road work was not on were a pleasure to drive on – the lane discipline was fantastic, and I was able to cruise at about 190 kmph. Even at such high speeds (which admittedly was faster than most cars that were doing about 160), there were times when someone or the other came barrelling down towards me, before moving into the passing lane at well over 200 kmph. While Google had predicted about 3.5 hours to Munich, the speeds I did in the fast sections ensured that we made it in just about 2 hours and 45 minutes. 

As we approached Munich, we passed the Allianz Arena (the home of Bayern Munich). Our hotel, the Westin Grand Munich, was at Arabellapark, which is in the outskirts of central Munich, and hence was relatively easy to get to. After checking in, we headed out and had a delicious Lebanese meal at a nearby restaurant. 

A Road Trip to Goa - Part 2

Days 2 and 3 - September 1, 2011 and September 2, 2011

After our long drive the previous day, none of us were in a mood to do anything other than laze around and relax amidst the facilities that the Leela had to offer us. Our room was adjacent to a lagoon, with a number of lotus flowers blooming in it. The lobby area was beautifully done, shaped a little bit like an old South Indian palace. Parts of the lobby (and if I am not mistaken, the usual location of the Coffee Shop) were boarded off, due to the ongoing renovation - and breakfast was served in a restaurant that seemed as if it had been located in one of the conference halls.



Given the extent of rain the previous day, the grounds of the Leela were rather water-logged - very oddly, we had to wade through ankle deep water on the path heading towards the beach. The beach itself was fairly broad and clean, albeit with black traces on the sand. (I was unclear if that was natural or arising from oil spills). The sea was extremely rough, and there was no scope for any of us to venture near it.

Leisurely meals, lazing by or in the pool, long walks on the grounds, reading novels, Ayurvedic massages - what more can you ask for while in Goa?

Day 4 - September 3, 2011

After 2 days of lazing around at the Leela, we decided to visit Colva Beach on Day 4 of our holiday. The drive to Colva took a bit, and frankly the beach was rather disappointing. It was much smaller, and narrower than the quasi private beach near the Leela, and there was not much to do either (at least in the afternoon). After looking around to try and find a place to have lunch, we gave up, and headed for the Taj Exotica, which was on the way back to the Leela for lunch. After a nice buffet lunch at the Exotica, and some time spent walking around on its grounds, we headed back to our hotel, where we spent some time walking down the banks of the Sal river.

Day 5 - September 4, 2011 - The Journey Home

Before we knew it, our brief vacation was over, and we now had to drive back home. Given that the last leg of our journey would be in Bombay (with street lights et al), the imperative to make a very early start did not exist. We got some breakfast packed for us from room service, and headed out by 7:30 am. This time, we did not have lunch with us, and I decided that we should aim to hit the Kolhapur McDonalds in time for lunch. It being early on a Sunday morning, traffic was light (except around Churches, where a number of people had come for early morning mass), and we were able to maintain a good speed through the Goa section. We refueled at a petrol pump a little ahead of Madgaon (I had not bothered to identify "reliable" pumps in Goa, and chose one that looked better than the rest). The journey from our hotel to the Goa border took just 1 hour 45 minutes, as opposed to almost two and a half hours while going the other way. 

Despite bad roads, the section to Sawantwadi was covered in a little less than half an hour, and in the absence of a slow Alto blocking us, we made it to Amboli in a further 45 minutes, reaching at about 10:30. The Goa - Amboli run thus took us almost an hour less than the running time on the Amboli Goa run while going the other way. Just off the main road at Amboli, there is a Vithal Kamath restaurant, and we decided to stop there for some snacks. Amboli was shrouded in mist, and there was a light drizzle - perfect weather for some Batata Vadas and Poha. After a 45 minute break, we headed off again. The drive was amazing - one moment, we had thick fog around us, and the next the mist would lift and we had fantastic visibility. After crossing Ajara, we decided that since the so called quality road through Gadhinglaj had not been that great, we might as well try the Uttur route.

A relatively small pothole

NH4 near Tawandi Ghat

The road towards Uttur was incredibly scenic, with undulating landscapes, and pretty yellow flowers along the way. The road quality also seemed to be much better than the road we had driven on while coming from Sankeshwar. This seemed like a very good decision for us to have taken, and I was mentally passing remarks on how web-sites are not completely trust-worthy. And then, we crossed the state border in Karnataka, and the road disappeared. It was like crossing a minefield or a lunar landscape - with potholes big enough to swallow a small car, and where even SUV drivers have to crawl at under 5 kmph for fear of bottoming out. As I understand it, the stretch of road from the Tawandi Ghat turnoff (which is in Karnataka) to Uttur (which is in Maharashtra) is mostly used by Maharashtra State transport vehicles and people traveling from Kolhapur - hence the Karnataka government does not bother to maintain it. Clearly, we need to work on a better system of dealing with road maintenance. Fortunately, this stretch lasted just 4 km (which took about 20 minutes to cover), and on a net basis, the time from Amboli to Tawandi Ghat was more or less as the time going the other way (even if the distance was 20 km less).

We reached Kolhapur by about 1:20, and after spending 40 minutes at McDonalds, set off towards Pune. The journey back towards Pune was terrible - incredibly heavy traffic, with rows of ST buses traveling at 40 kmph arranged in a mobile chicane,  which in turn were slowed by idiot truckers trying to overtake each other at 25 kmph. My lack of experience in highway driving shone through - and I often ended up getting stuck behind someone or the other for long stretches of time.

Nevertheless, we made it to Pune by about 5:45, and took our final break at a Cafe Coffee Day just off the bypass.

We restarted from Pune at 6:30 - fortunately Sunday evening traffic on the bypass was not too bad, and we hit the Expressway fairly quickly. Traffic on the Expressway itself was very heavy - and made worse by heavy rain. I tend to drive relatively slowly at night, and kept top speeds down below 120 kph (and speeds on the ghat at much lower than that). Nevertheless, the 120 km Pune to Panvel stretch took just 1 hour 40 minutes, and shortly before 8 PM, we thought we were nearly home. As soon as we exited the Expressway, we hit a wall of traffic. We crawled till Belapur, and fortunately for us, most of the traffic continued along Thane Belapur road while we diverted onto Palm Beach Road, which allowed us to drive a bit faster. Neverthless, the  20 km to Vashi had taken us over 40 minutes. After Vashi, we made relatively quick progress till Chembur, which we reached before 9 pm. We were just 6 km from home, and I commented that we should be home by 9:20 or so.

But just after Suman Nagar, we were faced with the worst that Bombay can throw at us, with a massive traffic jam heading towards Sion (at 9 PM on a Sunday night). The next 2 kms took us over an hour, and finally we reached home at about 10:15. It did seem a little surreal - we had covered almost 600 kms in a bit over 10 hours, and then taken almost two and a half hours to do the last 40 km.

Including local travel in Goa, we had covered 1350 km. The NH4 sections were by and large fabulous - and would probably be a lot better if a little bit of driving discipline were inculcated in the heads of our truck drivers. One did also feel that a better system of toll collection, a la the EZ Pass systems we had come across in the US or ERP in Singapore is needed - on the NH 4 stretch between Pune and Kolhapur, toll payment time of 45 minutes (in total) was a ridiculously high part of the total drive time of 3 hours 45 minutes. But all in all, it was a great vacation - and certainly one that has inspired me to consider more driving holidays in future.

A Roadtrip to Goa

Planning

"Drive down to Goa and back? With Radhika and Avinash? Without a driver? In a single day each way? You must be crazy." That was the first reaction of most of my friends when I told them that the three of us intended to drive down to Goa and back during the 5 day break that most Bombayites managed at the end of August / beginning of September this year. The 5 day break was of course made possible due to Ramzan and Ganesh Chaturthi falling on consecutive days (Wednesday and Thursday - hooray for Indian secularism!!), implying that a 5 day break was possible by just taking Friday off. The moribund condition of markets also made it possible to actually disappear for 5 days, without impacting business too much.

As all of you know, I am extremely fond of driving. Ever since I got my Skoda Superb in May 2010, I have been itching to take it on a long road trip. The fun I had driving long distances in Scotland during our holiday in 2010 only whetted my appetite for more driving holidays. When we started planning our US holiday in June this year, I had originally penciled in State Route 1 in California as a must do - only to postpone that once we decided to stick to the East Coast. The fact that Avinash and Radhika also seem to enjoy road trips encouraged me. However, driving on Indian roads is not always pleasurable or safe. The longest distance I had ever driven in India was just 325 km, from Bangalore to Coonoor in Amma and Appa's Santro, back in 2004. And driving to Goa (over 600 kms) would be more than 50% longer than the longest I had ever driven on a single day - 250 miles, or 400 km from Inverness to Edinburgh via the Great Glen, Fort William, Loch Lomond and the outskirts of Glasgow. Hence, before setting off, I started doing detailed research on what a drive to Goa would entail.

My first port of call was a car crazy friend, Ghanashyam, who has done several trips to Goa (and even a couple to Mangalore, his home town). "Driving to Goa. Its a breeze.", he said. "Just start at 5 am, and you should make it there by 330 or 4 PM". Ghanashyam of course is the kind of guy who can take the CR2 parking lot ramp at 40 kmph, do 180 kmph on the Bombay Pune expressway, and slice through traffic like Vettel passing Karun Chandok. So his time estimates had to be taken with a pinch of salt. But clearly if he could make it by 330 or 4, I should be able to make it by 7 pm, I thought. Further research was done on an Indian car freak web-site, team-bhp.com. There was a detailed thread on the Goa route, and it very quickly emerged that the best route to Goa was to take the Bangalore highway (NH 4) till somewhere between Kolhapur and Belgaum, and then divert via Amboli Ghat to Sawantwadi on the Maharashtra Goa border. The direct Bombay Goa road is shorter, but has just a single carriageway, and monsoon road conditions could be quite unpredictable.
View Larger Map

The next question was where to stay. The last time we went to Goa, we stayed at the Taj Holiday Village, in North Goa. But Bombayites plan their long weekends well in advance, and the Holiday Village did not have rooms at anything resembling a reasonable cost. The other major North Goa resort, the Fort Aguada was fully booked as was the Park Hyatt in South Goa. But surprisingly, there were relatively cheap rooms available at the Leela in South Goa (which is usually the costliest resort in Goa) - mainly because the resort is undergoing a renovation. A few quick checks revealed that the renovation was not really intrusive, and hence I made our bookings there. Booking at the Leela when you fly to Goa is a no brainer... Dabolim Airport is in South Goa, and just about an hour from the Leela. But while driving from Bombay, this meant that I would need to drive about 70 kms more than the distance to the North Goa resorts.

The final step in the planning phase was to prepare for the journey. My role was limited to getting the car ready, which involved checking that the tires (including the spare) were okay and inflated, that coolant and brake fluid levels were fine, and that I was stocked with a 1 litre can of Shell Helix Ultra. (The Volkswagen Group's ultra modern, turbo charged, direct injection petrol engines tend to drink oil like old Morris Minors). Radhika as usual had the tougher job, packing for the three of us, visiting Chedda Stores at Matunga to buy snacks for the journey, and with Amma's help, getting hot food (rotis and idlis) prepared for the journey.We set a hard deadline of 5 am for us to leave for Goa, knowing that with Avinash around, we would need to take more than our fair share of breaks, and that we would have to travel a long way through Goa to reach our hotel. My objective was to complete the NH 4 stretch till Kolhapur by 1130 or 12 noon, which would ensure that we had sufficient time to drive through the narrow ghat road from Sankeshwar through Amboli to Sawantwadi, and reach our hotel by 7PM or so.

August 31, 2011 - Bombay to Goa

About to leave

We woke up as per plan at 345 am, and started getting ready to leave. However, despite our best efforts, by the time we were all in the car, it was 520 am. As we exited our building, Radhika realized that we had forgotten our packet of rotis - hence, we had to return to the building to pick them up. Our departure time was thus effective 5:30 am - we had lost 30 minutes even before we started. Long weekends tend to be terrible from a traffic perspective, and this day was no exception. Even at 530 in the morning, there was a lot of traffic on the road from Parel towards Chembur.

We made slow but steady progress (avg 45 kmph) till we reached Vashi, but the drive down Palm Beach Road was a relief. Soon, we reached the expressway, and made extremely rapid progress till the first toll booth at Khalapur. There was a massive crowd at the toll booth, which was a precursor for things to come. The next section of the Bombay Pune expressway along Khandala Ghat follows the same alignment as the old Bombay Pune road. Truck and car traffic was heavy, with trucks trying to overtake each other at under 25 or 30 kph, and blocking faster traffic. Where I got the space, driving was a pleasure - with my car climbing the ghat at 120 kph with the engine gently ambling along at 3000 rpm in D6. But the overall section till Karla was extremely crowded, and we could average only 45 kph on this stretch.

Khandala Ghat - a rare clear stretch

Beyond Karla, the proper expressway resumes, and we once again made rapid progress. It took just 15 minutes to cover the next 30 kms to the Talegaon exit, where we took our first break to eat the breakfast of Idlis that Amma had packed for us at about 725 am. We managed to keep this break down to 20 minutes, and shortly thereafter, we exited the Expressway - at this stage we had managed to get our average speed up to almost 70 kmph, which was the highest that it would touch. Despite the traffic, our Bombay Pune time had not been worse than what we had anticipated.


Even though it was just before 8 am when we hit the Pune bypass, it seemed as if the entire town was out on the streets. The two lane bypass section was extremely crowded. After a quick tank up near Pune, we continued on our way, and it took 45 minutes to cover the 32 km Pune urban section.

Once we crossed Pune, the road was less crowded, but overall traffic was still high between Pune and Satara. The other big issue is the toll booths, which do not have enough lanes, often witness negotiations between MUV drivers and the toll attendants (fortunately, no shootings as witnessed in Gurgaon yesterday), and result in a dramatic loss of time. Between Pune and Kolhapur, there were 5 toll booths, and we lost an average of about 7-8 minutes in each of them. In the second toll booth we came to, at Anewadi, there was a traffic warden directing cars into an extra South bound toll lane (which had been opened by converting one of the North bound lanes). As I tried to get into that lane, a truck tried to close the gap down, and I swerved , ending inches from an ST bus. I stopped, but at that instant, the bus tried to start, and rolled back a few inches, knocking my LHS rear view mirror off. Avinash was distraught at seeing the damage caused to the car - I would have been upset too, but realized that we probably got away lightly - a few inches one way or the other and the car body could have been damaged.  After Karad, the road opened out, and we managed to average 70 kph on the last 80 kms to Kolhapur. We reached Kolhapur at about 1230 pm, more or less on time given that we had started 30 minutes late. We had taken 3 hours 40 minutes to cover 220 kms between Pune and Kolhapur, and at least 40 minutes of that time was wasted at toll booths.

There is a McDonalds and Cafe Coffee Day just off the highway on the Kolhapur bypass, and this is the suggested lunch halt for all people traveling towards Bangalore from Bombay. We, of course, had our lunch - but used the parking lot of the McDonalds to eat it. Since we wanted to use the facilities there, we also ended up ordering some Ice Cream at the McDs, and before we realized it, we had spent almost one hour stationary there. About 2 kms from the McDonalds, we reached the famous Konduskar Petrol Pump, and refueled there. (Given the extent of adulterated fuel found on Indian highways, people driving modern petrol cars in particular are well advised to make note of all reliable petrol pumps on their route, and refuel only at those locations.) About 8 kms from Kolhapur, we crossed in Karnataka, and immediately, the road quality improved dramatically.

Our speed picked up, and the distance to Tawandi Ghat (about 10 km from the town of Nipani), which is the location of the first turn off towards Amboli was covered in short order. We skipped this turnoff (which leads towards a town called Uttur) since the web-site that we had looked at advised against it, and proceeded a further 20 kms to a town called Sankeshwar, from where we turned off towards another small town called Gadhinglaj. The stretch from the Karnataka border to Sankeshwar was probably the nicest stretch of the entire journey - a combination of superb roads and beautiful undulating, green landscape, which inspired Radhika to pick up her EOS 550D and shoot a few snaps. We probably covered this 40 km stretch in about 20 minutes.

Misty Amboli

The web-site we had checked had told us that the Sankeshwar Gadhinglaj Ajra route was the best way to Amboli from Kolhapur, even though it is 20 km longer than the alternate Nipani Uttur Ajra route. (In case anyone uses the map shown above as a reference point, it shows the Nipani Uttur Ajra route).  But the road we were driving on certainly did not feel that way. It was narrow, with plenty of Maharashtra State Transport bus traffic, and had a very rough surface (even if deep potholes were few and far between). The road also runs through the heart of Gadhinglaj town, and progress was pretty slow. After Gadhinglaj, the road quality improved, and we were able to pick our speed up to about 60 or even 70 kmph in parts. Nevertheless by the time we reached Amboli, it was almost 3:45 pm - we had taken over two hours from the Karnataka border to cover 110 km - or 1 hour 40 minutes to do the 70 km Sankeshwar Amboli stretch.

Amboli is one of the many fabulously beautiful but virtually unknown monsoon destinations that abound in Maharashtra. It is famous for its waterfalls - on our way back, Avi counted 15 falls by the road before getting bored. We stopped briefly to see the falls, but there was a large holiday crowd of mostly drunk folks around, and we left after a very short break. There had been a major landslide at Amboli in late June, and shortly after the waterfall, there was a 500 metre stretch where the road was just mud and gravel. But after that, the rest of Amboli ghat was really nice, and oncoming traffic had reduced considerably. The only issue was that I was stuck behind an Alto that was driving along at 25 kph and on the twisty ghat section, I did not dare overtake, even if I could have driven about 15 kph faster. It therefore took an hour to cover the 30 kms from Amboli to Sawantwadi. A combination of the twisty ghat roads, and the long, virtually non stop drive since Kolhapur made Radhika feel extremely queasy, and we therefore stopped at Sawantwadi for some tea even though it was already 4:45 PM and I was not keen on driving for too long beyond sunset. We ended up spending about 45 minutes on this break.

After Sawantwadi, we were on NH 17, the Bombay Goa road. A bypass of Sawantwadi town is currently being constructed, and hence the existing road is heavily neglected. The roads near Sawantwadi were extremely narrow, and filled with deep craters. After about 10 km of this, we reached the point where the bypass construction was on - and to our amazement, the road quality became even worse. The 16 km from Sawantwadi to the Goa border took over 30 minutes. We crossed into Goa at 6 PM. Once we entered Goa, the road surface was super smooth, but the road remained a single carriageway for most part. Further, it had been raining very heavily for 3 days prior to our departure from Bombay, and once we entered Goa, the rain returned with a vengeance. Finally, after over 12 hours on the road, I was tired, and hence chose to stick behind slow moving buses and trucks, overtaking only on double carriageway sections or where the driver ahead took pity on me and slowed down to let me pass.

The sun set shortly after we passed Panjim, and the high beam lights of oncoming traffic made driving even tougher. Further, I was not exactly sure of how we should get from Madgaon to our hotel - hence about 10 km from Madgaon, I interrupted Radhika who was on a long call with Vidu, and asked her to call the hotel for directions instead. The hotel told us to take a turnoff from the highway towards Colva Beach, and that the rest of the way was posted. By the time we reached this turn-off, it was 7:30 PM. We made the turn, and kept going towards Colva, until we realized that we were almost at the Beach. It was pouring, and there was not a soul on the road. Fortunately, there was a lone shop open, and we managed to get directions from the shopkeeper, we had to travel back about 200 metres, and go through a series of narrow roads, before getting to the road heading for the Leela.

I had managed to borrow an old Garmin India map from a friend - but it was clearly useless - it was not aware of even sections of the National Highway, much less these narrow streets. At this point, we turned to the Google maps on my  Samsung Galaxy S, which turned out to be far more accurate, and with Radhika navigating, we got onto the long straight road that leads to the Leela. While it was pitch dark and pouring, someone (I presume the hotels on the road including the Taj Exotica, Holiday Inn, Radisson Blu and the Leela) had ensured that there were reflectors on both sides of the road, and driving was therefore not difficult. Finally, at 8:23, having covered 655 kms in a little less than 15 hours door to door (with about 2 hours 15 minutes of halts on the way), we were at the Leela. It was an exhilarating journey, and I was glad that we had made it with only a minor mishap. 

Our room itself was fantastic - it had two sections, one with a master bed, and a small sitting area where a smaller bed (perfect for Avi) had been laid out. Best of all, there were separate TVs for Avi and us - and Cartoon Network was available.

It would be extremely wrong of me to end the narrative of this day without commenting on Avi's exemplary behavior during our journey. Barring the halts at  Talegaon, Kolhapur and Sawantwadi, he asked for only one other break, and kept himself and us amused with his comments throughout the journey. Clearly, this is one kid who loves the long road trip. 

For those interested in road trip speed stats, one final picture.