Road Trip - Day 4: Back in Bang

(Read about the previous day - Day 3)

Undoubtedly the saddest day of the road trip - the final day. The plan for the day was simple - get back to Bangalore.

We got delayed by an hour or so before we finally left Uchila. But not before we'd taken enough pictures of the beautiful beach posing for each and every one that was snapped. No breakfast yet though. The plan was to drop in at Mangalore, have breakfast, pick up cash from the ATM and head home to Bangalore.

We got to Mangalore without any incidents, again passing NIT Suratkal on the way. The institute only reminded us Smitsonians of our revered lecturer in college - "CJT" as he was affectionately (more often than not) called.

Mangalore was hot as expected. We reached there at about 9 am and witnessed a town waking up to a lazy Sunday morning. After some asking around, we located the ICICI bank ATM and headed to the nearest restaurant for breakfast. As luck would have it, we landed in a vegetarian restaurant - that too South Indian. So it was early morning dosa and idlis for breakfast. No, we were not complaining. "Food" in the broad sense of the word was what we needed - and we were definitely not fussy!

After breakfast, we were back on the road. Full 380 kms lay between us and Bangalore. It was gonna be a hell of a drive, that was for sure! It was NH 48 all the way for us, and just before Bangalore we'd switch to NH 4 to enter the city. That was the roadmap.

The road till Hassan was uphill, and bad. Under construction roads they were with a lot of dust added for good measure. My poor Alto did a lot of climbing that day, what with 5 "hatta-katta naujawans" on board! And yeah, the AC was turned on too because it was pretty hot, and the dust made it impossible to keep the windows open. But I've got to say that the Alto is indeed a very fine vehicle, and it responded amazingly well citing the circumstances. Though the road was pretty bad, the view was nice. I later learnt that Sakleshpur, a town we passed on the way to Hassan, was a popular tourist destination in Karnataka given its hilly atmosphere.

Lunch was at the town of Hassan. We were surprised to see the number of cars lined up in the town. It looked like the whole of Bangalore had come to Hassan for lunch! It also felt nice that we'd not be the solitary ones heading out to Bangalore.

Immediately after Hassan we were faced with a huge intersection point. Confused as to which road to take, we asked a friendly traffic policeman for directions. He pointed his finger straight. We thanked him (by this time Ashok had learnt to say "thanks" after somebody guided us on our way!) and took the road straight. The road looked surprisingly small for a highway - however we kept on. About 2kms down that road, it was Anant's keen observation that saved the day. He pointed that we were on the wrong road! Guess how he found out? Well, on state highways the milestones are marked in green, and on national highways they are marked in yellow. The road we were travelling on had green milestones - so we were on the wrong road. We needed to be on NH 48, not on some state highway! That was some information for all of us in the car! We then asked a passing tractor-wala. It was U-turn for us, back to the Hassan intersection, one spiteful look at the traffic policeman who had guided us earlier, and then taking the correct road to Bangalore - NH 48. Quite unexpectedly, the last day was turning out to be pretty eventful!

On and on we went. The roads were amazing after Hassan and we were zipping at speeds of 90-100kmph. There was this one time when I actually did 110 kmph - my personal best! :-) It's a beautiful drive, the green fields just zipping by, the soothing flight of birds overhead, the cruising car - felt really good. On and on we went.

It was about 40 kms ahead of Bangalore that the accident took place. We were zipping comfortably at about 90 kmph. There was an intersection ahead and I could see that an auto was waiting for us to pass so that it could cross the road to the other side. Behind the auto was a white car, later turned out to be a Maruti Suzuki Zen. I slowed down as I've been taught to slow down at intersections. From the corner of my eye I could see that the Zen driver being very impatient was getting in front of the auto and coming on to the road. As I watched, the Zen driver brought his car on to the road and we were headed straight for it! Brakes screeched as both cars came to a grinding halt... thankfully, there was nothing to worry about. We stopped inches short of a fatal accident. The only damage done to my precious Alto was a scar on the left side. We were furious - it was clearly the Zen driver's fault. Anyway, after a verbal showdown (Ashok was the most active one from our group) both cars headed out to our common destination - Bangalore.

When I braked and avoided a head-on collision with the Zen, I watched in my rear view mirror as the car behind me simply reversed and went on its way - not stopping once to enquire about us. What can I say...people!

We reached Bangalore outskirts without any further incidents, thankfully. The traffic jam on the outskirts welcomed us with open arms. After driving for three days on free roads at high speeds, a traffic jam can be nerve wracking! It took us two hours to cover 10 kms from Bangalore outskirts to my place in Cox Town! It was terrible!

Back home, it felt good to finally get to stretch my legs. The comforts of my house seemed very inviting - especially the bed where I just wanted to crash as soon as I was done with my hot shower.

The road trip had been wonderful. Better than what we'd planned. A lot of impromptu decisions, a lot of incidents, a lot of adventure and a whole lot of good luck with us to bypass the could-have-been-bad incidents! With fond memories of the last four days to last me my lifetime, I changed and stepped into the warm, welcoming stream of water from my shower.

For more pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/rahul.pradhn/RoadTripDay4