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| Day 2 - Night at Pench Tiger Reserve |
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7.00am: Hyderabad > Nagpur > Pench :7.00pm
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Uneventful for the large part, barring a small wild boar coming under our wheels as we neared Pench Tiger Reserve where we spent our second night - at Mowgli's Den, a jungle resort. We covered much ground, traversing Andhra into Maharashtra (through Nagpur) and then Madhya Pradesh. As we got out of Nagpur a Kamekaze bird of uncertan species flew into the windscreen - killing itself, but fortunately missing the crack in the glass!
The drive from Hyderabad was relaxed and Omi and Vivek drove at a fairly easy pace, not least because of some bad stretches of road in Maharashtra.
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| looking forward to the distance... |
The Godavari river was a huge disappointment. I remember seeing it as a child while going by train to Jamshedpur and it was awesome. What we saw was after the monsoons, and this is all it was.
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| the godavari disappoints |
The roads in Maharashtra have been the worst so far, and one stretch
just before the MP border slowed us down quite a bit
.Nagpur looks like a very interesting city with lots of character but the hunt for a decent cyber cafe goes on. There were none on the road through the city (we were trying to avoid going into town to save time), and the one Reliance Webworld we found didn't have Internet connectivity, despite having a huge board.
On of the plans we had was to visit the spot in Nagpur which is called the centre of India, but somehow all of us forgot, so it will have to wait for another trip.
Unfortunately, though we saw some cafes in smaller towns in Andhra earlier in the day (thanks probably to Chandrababu Naidu), we were always beating time and postponing it for the next big stop.
Madhya Pradesh is a beautiful state with the Pench Tiger Reserve already bookmarked for a repeat visit when I have time to spend. The monsoons made it a lush and serene drive, barring some patches of bad road.
Mowgli's Den is a fairly decent jungle resort, predominantly used by people from Nagpur getting away for their dirty weekends I presume. The cottages all have cement roofs that tend to keep the heat in, but they are large and spacious and have fans as well as desert coolers. The loos are huge, the size of an average urban bedroom, with a split level bathing area. According to the guys at Pench the tiger count is 23, and hopefully Sansar Chand isn't doing his rounds. You can read more about Mowgli's Den here.
Not much chance of sighting a tiger because we got to Mowgli's at dusk...
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| the sun waves goodbye at pench ... |
Highlights: The green, serene drive through Pench.
Downsides: The roads in Maharashtra, our first bribe of Rs 500 at a Nagpur checkpost. |
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<< | >> |
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| today's route - 612 km |
| day 2 |
km |
odo |
| Hyderabad |
|
180929 |
| Kamareddi |
144 |
181073 |
| Armoor |
65 |
181138 |
| Nirmal |
35 |
181173 |
| Adilabad |
78 |
181251 |
| Karanji |
64 |
181315 |
| Hinganghat |
57 |
181372 |
| Nagpur |
72 |
181444 |
| Mansar |
46 |
181490 |
| Mowgli's Den |
51 |
181541 |
| total |
612 |
1191 |
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