Tadoba - Part 3

Read Part 1 and Part 2


"Wow.. what a road!!" was the first reaction when we hit the NH7. 3+3 lane road in excellent condition.. what else would you ask for on a road trip? But soon we were presented with the stark reality. There was a diversion on the road. It seems some part of the road was under construction. Still okay. A kilometer long road - to be traveled from the other side - ok.. shouldn't be a problem.. and we were back on the right side of the road, I mean the left side, which is the right side :p All looked okay. 


And then came another diversion, and then another and ...


With every diversion, the road was getting worse and we started to question our decision to take NH7. I was driving at a speed of 20-30 KMPH on National Highway, when there was NO bumper-to-bumper traffic. Forget bumper-to-bumper - there was very less traffic. and still...


We had to drive all the way to Wadki and then took the road going to Vani.




View Larger Map

The road from Wadaki to Wani was comparatively better considering it was just state highway and not national highway. The road was two lane, some rough patches. On way, we had to ask the road to multiple people. Before reaching Mardi - one of the place enroute - a nice old gentleman described the road - "रोड अच्छा है, टार रोड है!!" And we realized how fortunate he was feeling to have a tar road....


By the time we reached Wani, it was close to 2:00 PM and the stomach was asking for it's hafta. At the junction, we were looking for directions to "Moharli" our ultimate destination or at least "Tadoba". No one seemed to have heard about "Moharli". We were told that there's a direct road from Wani to Moharli and one is not required to go to Chandrapur, but everyone was telling us to take the Chandrapur route in order to reach Tadoba. Time to call up our tour guide for concrete information...


He gave us some names of the milestones in between, but he also confirmed that we'd need to reach Chandrapur in order to come to Tadoba. Quickly decided to skip the lunch and to have something directly in Chandrapur, which was just about 60 km from Wani. that is just about an hour... 3 PM - not bad...


And then started the nightmare. The road from Wani to Ghugus is the worst road I have ever traveled on. I haven't driven on the Moon, but if I have to believe the pictures published by NASA, I would say the land on Moon is better than this road. I would have accepted if the road was not a tar road, wasn't wide enough, but at least smooth enough to drive at a speed of 40 at least. No, I wasn't that lucky. I was feeling rejoiced when I could avoid the "खड्डा/गढ्ढा" No matter what, at least one wheel was ought to go down. Given the low clearance for Vento, every time, I had to go through the pits, I was crossing my fingers... If someone would have done video shooting from behind, I am sure, I would have resembled with a drunken driver. In a matter of moment, I had to change the side of the road from left to right and before next moment, I would be turning right again. This continued till Ghugus.


As we approached Ghugus, the reason for such a bad road became apparent. This is the area of coal mines. Lot of heavy traffic flows from this road. Plus, my guess is that the land is also somewhat weakened due to constant excavations. One strange co-incidence struck me while driving through this patch - So beautiful it was - The land was full of all the "black" material deep within (coal) and at the same time it was producing shining white on the top - "Cotton" - All this part of Maharashtra is producing Cotton as well as Coal.. interesting, isn't it?


It took us close to 2 hours to cross those 40 km to reach Ghugus. Once we crossed Ghugus the road again was better and we reached Chandrapur at 4:30PM.


Continued ...
Location: Mumbai Pune Bypass Rd, Kothrud, Pune, Maharashtra, India

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