How cost cutting by your company can be healthy for you!

Road Trip to Pune

This trip was due since long time. I wanted to vist Pune, to see my only best friend.

I was thinking of making to Pune since October, but could not plan my leaves. As the work load was on lower side I though of taking a day off from work.

Planed the trip for 3 days 29th 30th and 1st Nov 2008.

I almost had to drop this trip cuz of the Mumbai terrorist attack, as my friend didnt want me take risk.

Checked out the route direction on MapMyIndia.com. 575 kms so its gonna be a 10 hour drive.

Booked accomdation on ClearTrip.com.

Woke up at 6:10am on 29th packed clothes and camera.

Started off at 7:15am in my Lady In Red2. It was raining.

Got tank filled up and tyre air pressure checked up and continued my journey.


Had little trouble driving at city ourskirts due to heay vehicles throughing up mud an dirt. As it was raining had to stick to lower kmph. Took almost 2 hours for completing first 100 Kms.

As I crossed 120 or os kms rains kinda vanished, tough it was cloudy. It was time to do "pedal to metal stuff" :P

Entered Karanataka.

Was expecting good roads however there was real bad patch of road for around 4 to 5 kms before Hanumabad. It was realy bad.

Then came Maharashtra

Drive was smooth, but as I travelled 70 kms into Maharashtra observed that my car was reving around 3000 rpm even when my foot was off the accelerator. Thought my Lady In Red:2 needs some rest. So I stopped by and had little shoot.

This was a 20 mins stop. Lady In Red:2 was back to normal as I started off again.

I was curious to know about the mileage and was trying to get tank filled up.

And there was no HP station which had the facility of swiping my ICICI HP card(No surchage on this card :P)

At one of the station I came to know that Sholapur might have HP station which may accept cards.

Crossed few interesting landscapes.

Then there was this little ghat road and Fort(not sure of rhe name of this fort) across it

Then on the way I came across a weird Swift driver who was crossin me and was flashing the indicators right and left alternatively. I slowed down so that he wont bother me any more.

As I reached Sholapur tried my luck at first HP station, was ain't lucky as I started off I saw that people yelling in my rear view mirror. Then I realised that I was one a flat tyre.

I Stoped by and replaced the flat wheel and found that the alloy was out of shap from inside and couldnomore hold the air pressure. Once again checked the air pressure and found out where I can get the bent alloy wheel fixed. I was told that there is a guy who fixes alloy wheels at "Pune naka" I reaced there and asked tha guy to fix and to my shock his method of fixing was ruthless

:( I almost lost the FIAT emblum on that wheel :(.

It cost me 50 bucks to get this wheel fixed.

While he was fixing my car's wheel I tried my hand at panning shots

It was 12:30 and 330 kms away from Hyd as I started off again. SMSed my friend saying that I will be at Pune by 5:30 as it was a 250 km drive from Sholapur to Pune.

Was confident as now I had my wheel fixed.

120 kms from Sholapur I crossed Indapur.

After crossing Indapur road was busy with bullock carts and tractors carrying lot of Sugar Cane.

I was crusing and all of sudden accelerator got loose and engine was backto ideling I was like "mummy ab mai kya karoo" "am so bad that I should have give my baby little rest :( I was almost in tears that I did this to my baby. Managed to drive my Lady In Red:2 off the road. Switched off engine and called Concord Motors helpline. A guy who received my gave me a toll free number(as I was near Pune, Maharashtra) , and my luck that Idea won't connect me to the toll free number. I again called the help line askin them to give me an alternative number. He said that he would look into it and ask the concerned person to contact me.

I thought what might have happend and now I understand why I had the high reving issue that I had few hours back.

Accelerator wire failed and cut off but I was not sure of the reason may be heat or may be I kept it under stress for too long,I shouldn't have reved for so long.
I saw that there was Bharat Petrolum station few meters away across the road. I walked across to find that they were renovating. Saw that there was a servicing station board next to it. Visited there to find out that it was washing station and they don't have any kind of accessorys.

I can back to my car and tried to contact helpline then I got a call from Pune Fiat guys, my luck was so hard that I started feeling that my IDEA is realy gonna change my life. I wont let me call neither it would let me take the incoming calls.

There was little shed across the road with PCO sign. I ran across and tried to call the number that I received call from.

I could not connect even through the PCO, phone was engaged. While I was trying I got their again, luckly this time IDEA let me have the conversation and give out my details and the location where I was stuck. Lady on the call informed that she would contact someone and get back to me in a while.

I thought its better for me to stay at that shed as I wait for the help.

Shed owner said that it was as hotel and its open all night and I need not bother. He suggested me to drive my car across the road so that it would be safe. He managed to get couple of guys from near by village and pushed my car across to safe zone.

I passed my time sipping tea and cold drinks.Informed my friend, dad and the cleartrip that I am going to be late as my car broke down.

Service guys took 4 hours to reach that place and took an hour to fix the car.

Avinash and Mudassir who fixed my car

Avinash at work late night

Mudassir trouble shooting

It was 9:00 PM by the time mechanics left.

I clicked few pics of the owner and his kids.

I had dinner at same hotel and continued my drive.

On the way I felt that something was wrong and checked tyres to find that one of them was low on pressure. After traveling a few kms I got the air for the wheel and reached pune by 12:30.

I need to mention "toll road" of Pune which was awesome. I am willing to shift to Pune just to use this road :P

I had realy bad time to find the route. Contact person was helpless with directions instead he sent me the addres in SMS and you wont believe me the address that I got on the cleartrip.com receipt was totaly different from the one I had in SMS. Spent almost 1 n half hour to find the hotel. Few people were not at all helpful in letting me know the proper directions. Where as there were who very patiently explained.

It was good and well maintained place. I checked in and had good sound sleep after long day on road.

Next morning woke up and visited my friend. Feels so good to meet some one dear to you after long time. Nothing can measure up to that feeling.

Then we decided to go out, she called up one of her friend who suggested some dam. So we started off and then on the way I got my punctured tyre fixed which was loosing its pressure.

We reached that dam

Here I thought I should get some pics to create my first vertical panorama

We felt like it was not enough and need to visit Sinhghad a fort built by Shivaji. It was 8Kms form that place and was visible from the dam.

We back on road towards Sinhghad, road was in pretty bad condition and a part of it was ghat and its condition was pathetic. They charged us Rs 50.

On our way up the hill we came across a "FiatLinea" which they were testing.

After reaching Sinhghad had hard time finding spot for parking. But that plase had stunning view of the surrounding landscape . We had lunch over there the local style (onion pakode, roti baigan ki sabzi, and creamy curd). After lunch we moved on foot to view the fort.

Sky was beautiful, had quite number of pics and a lovely panorama. A few candid shots too

We started off back toPune by 5:00 PM.
I thought of gifting thepics that I clicked at the hotel.
Visited a photoshop and gave 4 pics to print.
We had snacks as we waited for the prints.
Collected prints and droped my friend at her place and had little chat for a while and then left for my hotel at 11:00PM and there I figured out that I forgot one of my sandle at my friends place. It happend that as I was bout to leave a room mate of my friend came over, I had my right leg in car and left leg on the ground as I was getting in. Amid this confusion I left my left slip in on the ground and drove off :P.
I collected my other slip in next morning.
I filled up the tank and waved off my friend and left Pune at 8:15PM.

On my way back I stoped by that shed and handed over the pictures. Owner was on cloud nine as I told him that I got pics for him.

After starting I stoped by couple of time to check tyre pressure and once for lunch after leaveing Sholapur. Had delicious Dal fry and roti and continued my journey back to home.
Reached Home by 7:30PM .

Hyderabad to Srisailam a road trip

Been to Srisailam couple of weeks back. It was quite adventrous trip. Started off at 2pm by the time we reached city out skirts it was 3:30. Stopped by and had chai and then were back on road by 3:45pm.
Road was pretty neat with greenery on both sides and almost negligible traffic. There this particular spot with was pretty good with trees forming an arch.



We came acorss a small resorvoir on the way and stoped by to shoot :D



A lill "Ru Ba Roo" gang of our own :P



we missed a turn and had to take a pretty bad road and on this road I managed to hit a rock and damage my car's front wheel. It was 6:00Pm. We managed to change the wheel before it twilight was gone and started off again.
The road lead to a ghat road of Nallamala forest. Its know that this forest is center of naxal activities in Andhra Pradesh.
But I had great time driving the car at night in the ghat. It was thrilling, you just dont know whats around the corner and no traffic to bother about, and then keeping the eyes open hoping to spot a deer or fox or a Tiger :p. Road was in good condition which was a plus and helped me to cruise at 80kph.
After the ghat section we had to stop at the checkp post.Thing about this check post is that they wont allow any vehicles after 9. We reached there by 7:00pm. Signed the register at the check post and continued our journey. All of us kept our eyes wide open on road expeciing few wild animals. None of us were disappointed as we got to see few mungoose and rabbits yeha dogs too.
By the time we reached Srisailam dam it was 8:15Pm. I never saw anything like this before . Next moment I parked the car I was running to fetch my tripod and here is what I got with 30 sec exposure shot.



After spending some time and admiring the beauty of the daw, we started off and reached Srisailam by 9:00pm.

Had dinner and then signed off for the day.

Had pleasent sleep and wokeup at 8 and visited the temple by 9:00Am and startedour way back.
To enjoy this awesome view. It was just crazy I was goin bonkers hopppin here and there to click. I was just to not satisfied no matter how many pictures I clicked. Felt like clicking again and again.





Advantage of having a 500mm lens:



Video toothanks to Praneeth who shot this:




Pheww. I simply love the shot below.I stoped the car and shot this hanging out of the front door window :p



Then stopped on the bridge that crosses the river. It has got pretty good views:





Had quite some activity too



Cudnt resist and create a HDR :P



After crossing the bridge I stopped again to click this:



Blast of water:



Water curtains:



We hit the road again, didnot stop till a place called MallelaTheertham. They said there was a lill waterfalls some 8kms away from the mairoad. So we took the turn and headed towards the waterfalls.

It was dirt road whole 8 kms



After reaching the place,parked the car and we had to climb down 200 steps:



and we were here:



HDR version:



Point to be noted, there was a sign board which states "Swiming and bathing prohibited"

Video shot by me:




Won't believe me guys I almost lost my camera gear phone at this place. i was crossing the stream and sliped but some how managed to keep my camera bag outof water:P. Had a cut in ankle and my leg was shivering like crazy. Went thru hell as I climbed those 200 steps :(

One we started off we continued journey for about say an hour or before we stopped to experience the "Tiger Safari" and what we find in the so called forrest:



Near by villagers collecting leaves and firewood LOL and they call it a danger zone and tiger safari.
Good part is we managed to spor a wild sheep, wild dog and whild hog. They didn't bother to wait for a shoot:p

There was view point at the end of the safari road which was worth watching:



isn't that view worth 100 bucks?



Back on road and stoped by at a dhabha to have lunch n it was 5:30Pm. Spent some time shooting while table was gettin ready:



HDR:



After lunch at 6:22Pm. Last shot of the trip



By the time we reached Hyd it was 9:00Pm.