Where does one start – the scenic beauty of our land or the bad road conditions; the punctures or the people we met; the traffic jams or the road races; the nights we slept in the car or the drive through the flood waters; the expressways (Pune-Mumbai and Baroda-Ahmedabad) or the winding roads (of Himachal, Uttarkhand); the things we learnt on the way or the efforts taken in preparing a map; the lonely night drive (with a car full of sleeping passengers) or the one through rain, with music at full blast; the ecstasy and joy at reaching a destination or the sense of achievement and the realization of being blessed and protected at the safe completion of a journey. To make matters easy let’s mention samples our adventures. The most memorable of our drives was the one we undertook to Goa in August 2006. We happened to read an article titled “10 great reasons to travel to Goa in the monsoons” and so booked a weekend at Royal Palms, Benaulim, Goa. Unfortunately, that was the year the Gods blessed western India with an abundance of rains and this meant that when we began our drive from Hyderabad, we were in dire need of information on which roads were open to traffic. We travel on a Maruti Esteem diesel car and, in those days, preferred to drive to Goa via Sholapur and Kolhapur. From Sholapur, we normally took the road to Mohol and then diverted through Pandarpur through Sangola, Nagaj and Miraj to Kolhapur. As you approach Pandarpur, there is a low lying bridge over a normally dry river bed – this place has a temple and is crowded with pilgrims. For this trip, we were sure that the river water would be over the bridge and hence taking this route was out of the question. We anticipated delays and in order to enable us to make an early check-in we commenced our journey at 2:30 am. We made good time to Sholapur, covering the 300 kms in 4 hours. Over breakfast at Sholapur, we confirmed that the Pandarpur route was closed. We were told to try the route through Belgaum and hence went to Bijapur from Sholapur and from there to a place named Chikodi. However, the road ahead was closed and the police were not allowing any traffic through. We then met a bus driver who asked us to follow him as he would show us the way to Miraj. He said the road to Kolhapur was open from Miraj. The road to Miraj was bad as rain had rendered the road wet and muddy. We made it to Miraj safely though and then on to Kolhapur. But as we left Kolhapur behind, we saw that the road was flooded. All jeeps were coming to this point and turning back. There was no road in sight, only a vast expanse of muddy water. And to convince the bravest driver not to cross, there were 2 trucks, swept off the roadside, standing up to bonnet level in the fast flowing waters. It was about 3 in the afternoon and the locals advised us to spend the night at Kolhapur as the waters were expected to recede by the next morning. A brave Sumo driver however, dared to think differently and decided to take a chance in crossing the waters. He had his passengers disembark and they walked in a line feeling the edge of the road with their feet. They then guided the Sumo driver as to where the road was. Seeing him about to cross, we decided to follow him. We were soon in the middle of the waters and, to make matters worse, a truck came in from the opposite direction and there was a stalemate as the truck and our little convoy met head on, with no one ready to backtrack. Fortunately, better sense prevailed and the trucked backed up as he was the heavier vehicle and less likely to be swept away. We inched our way forward through the waters and passed the trucks that had missed the road and were hanging over the edges. Later on crossing, we found that we had been so close to one of these trucks that a light scratch ran the entire length of the car. For once we were proud of the scar on our car though, for it reminded us of the day when we had biblically “parted the waters”. We thought the worst was over but that was not to be. When we came to the ghat section, we realized that we now had to drive through thick fog, with visibility down to a few feet. Necessity taught us that it was best to drive with the windows down and both front indicators flashing. And that it was better to check the road and oncoming traffic through the side windows rather than the windscreen. And finally came the third element – after the water and misty air – landslides. The locations could be easily identified by the debris on the roadside and the spot that had collapsed – which should earth color compared to the neighboring greenery. We finally reached our resort at 11:30 pm – a trip which was normally 800 kms had now stretched to 925 kms due to the multiple diversions and a 13 hour drive had consumed 21 hours. On the whole it was a worthwhile drive as we had conquered the 3 elements – water, air and earth and had learnt that, like the spider one should never give up as success follows persistent efforts. The following interesting coincidence occured during our latest trip to Goa. Our onward trip (from Hyderabad to Goa) was a first of its kind in the sense that the rear seat was empty for the first time on a long drive. Ruby and Allan had proceeded to Goa by tain in the end of April. Bernard and myself then went to Goa in May end to pick them up. As I say, Ruby never gave me any dowry when we were married but now she gets it in kind in installments. Let me explain - when in Goa, we stay with Ruby's mother in Bodiem, a remote village off the main road from Tivim. Her mother keeps desi hens and there are a lot of coconut trees in the garden. My mother-in-law collects the desi hen's eggs for Bernard and Allan and also the coconuts (for Ruby and me?? :)), which means that on our return trip we have a trunk full of eggs and coconuts, jostling with each other for space - that is the dowry in installments. And I suggest you judge my driving abilities on the fact that we have always reached Hyderabad with all eggs intact - and there must be about a 1001 speed breakers between Bagalkot and Raichur. That was a diversion - sorry. As i was saying, Bernard was now promoted from critic to navigator. And I should say he did a creditable job - we lost our way only twice. More of this later. Now onto the strange coincidence, which follows. We (Bernard and self) started from Hyderabad on Saturday at about 5 am and decided to drive to Goa via Raichur, Bagalkot and Belgaum. We had just left Raichur (220 km from Hyderabad) behind when we were overtaken by a red Volkswagen Jetta, bearing an AP registration. The Jetta was easily identifiable because the Jetta had the J missing and appeared as etta and also the model was TDi with the "i" missing and hence appeared as TD. Within a couple of minutes, we were then overtaken by an Innova. The Jetta was still in sight ahead and the Innova caught up with the Jetta in no time and we could see that the Innova did not overtake the Jetta. This led us to conclude that the Jetta and Innova were travelling together. This pair of vehicles were much faster than our Esteem but the guys were making more frequent stops and so we passed each other quite often on the way (a case of the hare and the tortoise??). We finally concluded that both their cars were also headed for Goa, when we saw that they were heading back from having taken a wrong fork on the road and then overtook us for the final time on the way to Goa. On reaching Goa, we promptly forgot about them. The reason why this story is strange is due to the fact the we encountered these very cars on our drive back to Hyderabad. Their return journey date and route again coincided with ours. We were tanking up with fuel at Molem, the last petrol bunk before the Goa-Karnataka border, as diesel is cheaper in Goa, when we spotted the red Jetta again, but were not sure it was the same one as we were in the petrol bunk and the Jetta was on the highway. However, we confirmed this soon thereafter, as we saw the Jetta and Innova parked by a dhaba. The cars overtook us just before Bagalkot and we noticed that they again took a wrong turn. We then stopped for lunch soon after and both those cars stopped at the very same dhaba for lunch. There were 10 guys in the 2 cars and they were having beer with lunch. We naturally finished our lunch before them and as we left the dhaba, I thought that they were likely to have trouble with the route as they seemed to be unfamiliar with the route and soon after the dhaba, there was a tricky turning to be taken and if this was missed, it could be a real long drive to Raichur. We made the turn easily and then as time passed, we realized that the 2 cars had indeed missed the turn. We then passed Raichur and there was still no sign of the 2 cars as we stopped at Mahboobnagar for tea, some 4 hours after lunch. My elder son was still on the lookout for the cars and just as we left the hotel after tea, he shouted that the Jetta and Innova were ahead of us. It had taken them about 5 hours to catch us. And we did not see them again till we reached Hyderabad. Moral of the story: Do not drink beer if you are not sure of the route you are driving :) There is another story to tell from our return trip which is not so long. We were on our way back to Hyderabad and had just passed Belgaum. We noticed a Scorpio behind us. The Scorpio driver was trying his best to overtake us. As our car was quite heavily loaded, we were unable to go above 100 kmph. Eventually the Scorpio found a clear stretch of road and instead of overtaking us, he was driving abreast (side by side). As I felt that the overtake maneuver was taking too long, I glanced sideways and found that the driver of the Scorpio and its occupants, a couple of nuns, were having a hearty laugh. My sons then said that the Scorpio driver had seen my long hair and was wondering how a lady driver was driving so nicely but when I turned my head towards them, they saw my beard and then started laughing. It was really amusing :) "God puts obstacles in your path – and then he also provides the solution" I would like to begin this section of our travelogue with the above statement. I believe you will not find this to be someone else’s quote, so probably I can claim copyright for this :-) As the reader can guess, this section is dedicated to chronicling the problems we faced during our drives and travels, and we faced plenty and how providence helped us find a solution. One should realize that a long drive is not always a bed of roses and one should be prepared for emergencies. So let me start at the very beginning and take you through our travel blues, which also have been the high points of our memories. It was the Christmas season of 1999, and Allan was a month shy of his second birthday. We owned a second hand Maruti 800 in those days and it was the 1985 model. We had purchased a luggage carrier from Bombay and had mounted it on the roof of our car. My mother was staying with my youngest brother Joel at that time and so we decided to pay them a visit for Christmas. As we stayed at Sunabeda, in Koraput district of Orissa, it meant an 800 odd km drive. We had a map of India hanging on the walls and used a piece of thread to measure out the distance – primitive, I agree but we were just beginning our drives and did not realize that one needed map books or a GPS system as in modern days. We only had a rough plan – drive down to Jagdalpur, in Chattisgarh, from Sunabeda, a distance of approximately 130 kms, stay there overnight and then do the rest of the journey the next day. Accordingly, we commenced our journey at about 4:30 pm and the first memorable moment came at Jeypore, 40 kms off our start point. We stopped the car to find out the road to take to Jagdalpur and a man came forward. When we asked him the route, he told us to hang on a minute and went to collect his luggage. Seeing this, we just “beat it”. We reached Jagdalpur at about 8:30 pm and were at the reception desk, when a person walked up to us, enquiring if the white Maruti 800 was ours. When we confirmed it, he told us that he felt that, from the beat of the engine, one of the cylinders was not firing. I related this to the symptoms we had faced earlier – a vibrating steering wheel, reduced mileage and the smell of petrol in the car cabin. Our good Samaritan even volunteered to take us to a mechanic he knew, so I told Ruby and the boys to stay in the room while I attended to this problem. So we went to his mechanic and after checking the spark plugs, the mechanic isolated the defective one to be the central cylinder. He then sent his helper, a young boy, to collect a new spark plug, after calling the spare parts distributor on the phone and giving him the specifications. When the boy came with the spark plug, the mechanic enquired about the quote for it and when told, he was outraged. The quote seemed to be about 50% higher than his expectation and so he told the boy to return the plug. Here I was standing shivering, and I can assure you that it was not out of the cold but from the fear of being stuck at an unknown place, with a car going nowhere, in the dead of the night. The mechanic then called up the distributor to inform him about his decision and they then struck a deal over the phone, so the boy returned with the spark plug, to my immense relief. The mechanic assembled the spark plug and did a test run of the car to his satisfaction and then came his explanation. He said “You do not know the actual cost of the spark plug and you would pay anything now as you are in an emergency. However, you will eventually find out and at that time you will think that I too was party to the fraud”. The next day, while driving along to the now smooth and rhythmic hum of the engine, I thanked God for keeping his small band of helpful and honest people alive and functioning. Long live the tribe of such people who take that extra step to be helpful to complete strangers and have a high sense of moral values. We had another incident as we reached Nagpur at about 9:00 pm – we now realized that we need to find out the route to my brother’s house. With a letter bearing his address in hand (it was blessing that the majority still used our good old postal department to correspond in those days), we found a motorcyclist who was heading in that direction and he asked us to follow him. As we were doing so, we noticed a bus turning in from the left in front of us, between us and the motorcyclist. So I stopped the car to let the bus pass. The front portion went through but the rear portion, from behind the rear wheels, being a cantilever (for those engineers reading this), swung around and hit the left front side of our car. The bus driver did not even realize that he had hit something. We immediately got out to survey the damage and found out that the only casualty was the front left side indicator which was in pieces. Maruti built the 800s really tough in the early days. We then realized that it was not ideal to follow someone in the city traffic – at best the driver should concentrate on the road and traffic and one of the passengers should follow the one guiding you. And if possible, try to get a similar vehicle to guide you – in city traffic a two-wheeler can weave its way through the traffic which makes following difficult. Each drive is a learning experience and on our return journey from Nagpur, we reached Jagdalpur at about 10:00 pm and stopped for dinner. The plan was to take a night halt there again and start for home after a refreshing night’s sleep. We need to tank up too and after dinner, we found a petrol bunk that was still open. Having tanked up, we now changed our plan – why not drive home? After all, there is no place like home. So we set off and then I found that I was dozing off. The road was absolutely devoid of traffic and only added to the sense of calm. A full stomach is a good catalyst for sleep. We then discovered the benefits of a cup of tea and thanked God again for the men manning the small tea shops, sacrificing their sleep in order to provide service to the night travelers.