Day 2 : Continued

As we were reaching Sagar, the Google maps was still showing the Mahoba NH34 route for us to get into UP since the Jhansi route on NH27 was a 15 mins slower than NH34. So, we decided to take the NH34 route to enter UP and then take the NH27 late without touching Lucknow. Now, that we decided to move away from NH27, there was no choice but to reach Gorakhpur because we will not be hitting any other City before Gorakhpur.

We stopped at a Roadside Dhaba in MP for lunch.

As we were in the later afternoon, the Sun was burning and Tanning Amit. Thanks to the government regulation of “No Cooling” on the glasses, Amit had to be innovative and stick his handkerchief to the glasses to avoid the burns.

We entered UP at Mahoba early evening and realized the roads here were not at their best, it would for sure drag us into a late night drive. As we were pushing through the highway, we could witness the heavy truck traffic heading towards Kanpur, the raw material for the Leather Industries and particularly the trucks were avoiding the long route through NH27 only because of the Toll charges (may be). Particularly the industrialization around Kanpur and Lucknow had pushed lot of trucks from south India carrying raw materials into these cities.

It was dark already as we entered the NH27. As we entered NH27, it was 8:30 PM and we were 200 kms away from Gorakhpur. From here on it is the busy NH27, which will lead us to Gorakhpur by 11:30 pm. For some reason, the distance and the busy highway did not make us hungry, so we stopped for some tea and continued our trip. We crossed Faizabad at 10 pm and as we were on the bridge crossing the mighty Ganges near Ayodhya, we were heading towards a Traffic Jam. We had crossed 80% of the bridge and it was then we were behind the huge traffic Jam and it was only Trucks all around. Behind us were some taxis and private cars. With all the head lights switched off, me and Amit were realizing that people are planning to have a sleep over the bridge and there is no evidence of the Traffic Jam getting cleared. It did make us nervous since we needed a good sleep and ready to cross the border to Nepal the next day. As we started quizzing the other Truck drivers, we realized that Traffic Jam on the bridge is a very common occurrence and it happens most of the days. (NH27 is one of the Lifelines of India, since it connects the Indian Mainland with North East part of India; hence, it is supposed to be one of the busiest highways in India).

As I started gazing through the lights sparking in Ayodhya and the reflections on the Ganges, took some pictures and whatsapped the same back home. Me and Amit had planned to take a dip in Ayodhya when we drive back from Nepal. Now that I was sitting on the bridge in the dark, Amit quickly vanished in between the trucks in the front and came back after 15 mins, giving a ray of hope for us to move to the other side of the highway (opposite) since there was curb shoulder which was connecting both the sides of the Highway and the few trucks that were between us and the shoulder were clearing to move to one side (thanks to the good Samaritan, taxi drivers). We got our space to move forward and climb over the curb, the terrano ground clearance helped climb with ease and we were quickly on the other side of the highway. By then, the clock was showing 11 pm and we were in the other side of the highway, the flashers switched ON and the vehicles head on shying away after we flashed the headlamps.

As we were reaching the outskirts of Gorakhpur, Amit started hunting for a stay through our another companion Google (Google is both a trouble maker and a helper). In this case, Google could not help us much. We were dragged into the interior of Gorakhpur and ended by in streets where the Ganesh Murthy was glittering in the spot lights and the streets were so narrow that in some cases we had to stop and ensure we do not hit a wooden pole that held the shaamiyaana above for the Ganesh Visarjan.

And finally we could see some hotels in a street cluttered with plastic bags and we landed in one hotel where there was a security guard that was awake. It was 1:30 am and we had to wake up the hotel caretakers and enquire for rooms. As we unloaded some essential luggage from the hotel, I witnessed that the right side rear tyre was completely flat. Sure that it was a nail that could have hit in the narrow streets of Gorakhpur. As we parked the vehicle to the side of the road close to the open mori, I was thinking about the next exciting day when we had to cross the international border and oops now that we had some puncture fixing work before we hit the road again.