So today was a good day – much better than yesterday in some ways, and bad in some.
Had a super heavy breakfast at Nellore, tanked up, and headed out to the highway by around noon again. A dry, hot day, not overly green. Started off well, but as the day progressed, it got hotter and hotter. There were many more breaks today.
Stopped over at a place called Ongola for lunch, and decided I don’t want to continue on the main highway. Took a detour instead towards the Andhra coast line.
An interesting find – I call it interesting cos all you do while riding is think of unusual stuff – well, no matter where you ride, you are always looking to justify your decision to take the road that you took. Even on dry long stretches of highway in the scorching heat, you try and look for something ‘nice’ – something you can console yourself with – to justify ‘well I took this road and it’s great in some way’. Found myself doing it a couple of times today, but what the hell – who was I kidding, the road was boring, until I took that detour.
As soon as I branched off the highway, the roads got smaller (hats off to NHAI though – all highways without exception, big or small, are in very good condition), and there were many ‘real’ villages rolling by. 20 kms on that road brought me to an area where there were literally thousands of acres of shrimp farms (I did not know what they are until I stopped and saw a bunch of people harvesting them). They actually had a refrigerator truck waiting right next to the shrimp ponds to start freezing the shrimp as soon as it was harvested.
Very fascinating, and a very different landscape than I’ve seen so far anywhere in India. The Andhra I’d seen 20kms ago was very different from this one. A very welcome change to the trip.
Another noticeable thing was the linguistic challenge. I found myself making all sorts of hand signs for directions, distances and the sorts. All the while careful not to make any offensive sign language !
Chugged along, reached a railway crossing and had to wait for a couple of trains to cross by. Meanwhile, a crowd around my luggage laden bike was a good ego boost.
The GPS notifications were a little late on most turns, and I had to take more than a few retraces. Kept going deeper into the village roads, and encountered more and more dust. Really battered up buses ferrying people across towns. Stopped to see the sunset, took a couple of pictures and moved on.
Reached a crossing where one road was dusty and non existent for the most part. The other was a properly tarred road. It’s almost obvious which one I wanted to take.. The dusty one ! It was almost dark, and I could almost smell the sea..50kms away. Went on, stopped over at a place, so remote, you would think they would actually stare at disbelief if they saw a vehicle powered by an engine. Stopped there, had a coffee, made my signs, and figured out that where I was headed today, there would be no accommodation. Decided to stop 50kms before that, at a place called machilipatnam. Fancy name ! Gave me a stereotype of a tiny fishing village where I could go walkabout in the morning tomorrow.
All this while, I have had a splitting headache because of the heat , it was a good change to the plan – to stop earlier than scheduled.
Reached machilipatnam, its no fishing village, its a big town, bustling with activity. In the ongoing spirit of optimism, I thought ok, instead of a village experience, maybe I’ll just stay at a nice air conditioned place and eat good food cos I deserve it ! Had made up my mind though, to stay within my daily budget, no matter what.
Asked around, and got directed to a few ‘lodges’, rejected 3 for their pricing, settled for the fourth – got shown 2 rooms, where I WOULD NEVER stay, kept asking for upgrades till they showed me their best room for 1000 bucks. This is their suite. It’s no Michelin rated hotel, but their best room will do. It has a clean bed, air conditioning, and TV – I don’t think I need any more than that.
Dumped my luggage, headed out to dinner, after using my sign language mastery for directions. Imagine this – you make signs that you want to eat – I think that sign is standard pretty much world wide – and they mumble something without pointing at the direction. Then you make a ‘where is it’ sign with your hand, and you get responded to with the words ‘biryani’ – music to the ears, but where the hell is it?? Eventually someone who knows how to point comes along and you reach there.
Anywhoo – after a similar interaction with my waiter – I just asked him for biryani – any chicken biryani he pleases, with lesser spice than they are used to. (Took me almost 3-4 minutes to explain the level of spice – because the words – spicy, medium, less were alien to him ) I felt like a cartoon when I had to do the sign for spicy – sticking my tongue out and moving my hand back and forth while making a sick expression. I almost burst out laughing myself.
Was a good meal, returned to my ‘presidential suite’, and signing off now, off to vizag tomorrow for a chilled something with an old college friend.
375 kms today, sleeping happy and tired.
