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Annual Winter Migration : From Nainital To Goa and back by road

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Onward to Goa This year we decided that I will drive down to Goa for our Annual migration in late November. We usually hire a car for the period we are there, a boring grey Maruti Swift. But this year we would have our distinctive turquoise blue Tata Nexon with us. I was a little hesitant to drive down all the way, nearly 2500 without a co-driver so I asked my friend and colleague Satish whether he would consider coming along with me for the drive. Satish and I had taken a couple of driving tours for work in the last year, and he had shown an interest to go on a longer drive. Satish agreed and the planning began. It was agreed that Susheela would also drive down and they would have a small holiday with us in Goa before they returned. Jashodhara unfortunately couldn’t come with us because of earlier engagements, and she flew down to Goa and was there to welcome us when we reached. Our route down to Benaulim in Goa was straightforward. We left Buribana on the 28 th of November 2024 and ...
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From the Mountains to the Sea

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Day 1 - Buribana to Indirapuram, Ghaziabad We would be leaving for nearly four months so we didn’t want to be in a hurry. The plan was to leave at 9.00 and after loading up we left 9:13. Since fuel was low we filled up at the first petrol pump near Bhimtal. A symbol popped up on the display near the Ranibagh bridge. Checking the tyre pressure we found it was low and so filled up air, and the symbol disappeared. It was much later near Pantnagar when the symbol came up again we realised it was a puncture. At our regular place Udup iwala at Kathgodam we had some Lassand Chach and too a comfort break.  At 12:00 noon we set off for Delhi via the Haldwani bypass. The new highway through Lalkuan and Pantnagar was now ready and we decided to take that instead of the regular Tanda route which goes through Haldwani.  Here we stopped for puncture repair, and we realised two Phillips screws had embedded in the tyre and to be screwed out. The Highway between Rudrapur and Rampur is still ...
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Day 4: Catching up with old friends

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Today's drive included a stop over at Vedchi near Surat in Gujarat where our friends Umadi and Surendra live with their daughter Dua. We left Hill Zill a little before 9 am because they couldn't provide us breakfast before that. We drove back the way we came for some distance. At some point we quietly slipped in Gujarat. Then we merged back on to the Ahmedabad Mumbai Highway but a little further north from where we had left it last evening. In the morning the Highway was less cluttered with lumbering and thundering trucks weaving across the lanes so we were able to drive at a steady clip. This portion of the Highway was in better repair than what we had driven through yesterday. We drove for 75 km on this Highway. The next 35 kilometres was through rural Gujarat. First with mangoes and sugarcane. We drove through state highways, major district roads and some of the drive was through even smaller village roads. But I must admit even the village roads were in good shape. A little...
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Day 3 : Bhaja – The Hidden Jewel

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The day could be divided into two clear parts. The first was our astounding visit to the Bhaja caves. We had to choose between Bhaja and Karla, and Diya reminded us that Dalrymple had described the beauty of Bhaja as rivalling that of the caves at Petra. Since the caves opened at 9.00am and our room came with complementary breakfast, we asked for an early breakfast and went off to see भजे लोणी as it is called in Marathis. Both Bhaja and Karla caves are roughly 10 kilometers from Lonavla and on either side of one of the several Mumbai – Pune highways. At a place called Karla (not the caves) we turned off the road towards Bhaja caves, We reached the Bhaja village around 9.30 am. There were several cars travelling with us and we thought they too carried tourists visiting Bhaja, but that was not so. There was a temple in the Bhaja village which drew more visitors than the caves. We knew we would have to climb some distance from the road, but we were not sure where the path began because ...
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Day 2 : In search of the Buddha

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  Our plan to visit Lonavla was partly due to my desire to see the Buddhist caves that were close by. I had read about Karla, Bhaja and other less well-known caves in William Dalrymple’s newest book The Golden Road and was keen to check them out. We were expecting a 6 – 6.30 hour journey and we were out of the MTDC Ganapatipule resort by 7.15. The map read 296 km to destination and estimated arrival was 1. 21 pm. If we were in around that time we could probably make it one of the caves that day itself. The first stretch of 20 kilometres was on a flat plateau. It was later when I was reviewing the route that I came to learn that we had passed by a couple petroglyphs . We had seen petroglyphs at Usgalimal near Rivona in South Goa and the prehistoric rock carvings from 8-10000 years ago were very impressive.   At Jakadevi, a village where businesses had already opened and children were turned up and on their way school, we turned off towards a more rural road. The area became m...
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Day 1 : Samudrapath : Coastal drive

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We had been wrapping up our flat in Benaulim the previous day so were packed and ready to leave at 7.20 am. The car was gleaming as I had taken it to the car wash a day earlier Now it was free of all the sand that had collected in the crevices over the last four months. Since we were driving back, we were carrying back a lot of stuff we wouldn’t have if we were flying. The car slowly filled with the many big and small bags. Two of the bigger suitcases and a duffel bag were enough to fill the boot. Three suitcases that had the stuff we would use on the trip were put on the rear seat. We had packed biscuits, namkeen, energy bars, the makings of coffee and some fruits so that we were not stranded for food anywhere. We were now ready to leave and I was excited with a tinge of anxiety as I pressed the started button and we slowly moved forward. A short visual presentation Our first point of interest was Malvan, a coastal town in southern Maharashtra. We had been told that the Malvani cuis...
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Terceira: A Jewel in the Mid- Atlantic

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Since Diya started to study and later work in the lovely island of Faial in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, we have visited the Azores, an autonomous region of Portugal, on several occasions. Comprising small volcanic islands, the Azores are nine tiny specs of green in the vast blue expanse of the Atlantic, midway between Europe and North America. This time Diya planned a small holiday for us in Terceira, or literally the ‘third’, but in fact the second largest among the nine islands. At 8 am sharp the Atlanticoline ferry left the Horta terminal, with holiday makers as well as locals. Horta and Terceira are part of a cluster of five islands that also include Pico, Sao George and Graciosa and our ferry stopped at Pico and Sao George before terminating at Pria de Vitoria in Terceira.  The six and half hour journey was leisurely but spectacular with the 2300-metre-tall Pico forming a backdrop for most of the way, and small boats and birds keeping us company from time to time. The f...
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