First sighting - Hoogly - Diamond Harbour

September 19, 2019

Apologies for not posting yesterday. Google sent me on a patience trip. Must be because I made fun of it's timing on a google database. Well, I am going to do it again, state facts.

Departed 0542 at 5152 ams on the odometer.

Absolutely brilliant drive. Great weather. Rain seriously coming down in places. Empty roads. Crossed multiple rivers, some wide, some not so wide. But beautiful. Green all around.

Had breakfast at a roadside dhaba. Eggs and polkas. That should be stale breakfast diet hereafter.

Made great time till I got near Kolkata.

Till I stopped and set the hotel as the location on google maps. The drive took me off the national highway thru narrow village roads, branches whipping the windscreen, with bridges that were just wide enough to allow the Thar to pass.

I was okay, as the end of the road showed me the Hoogly. First sighting was made.

I drove along the river on a dirt path till I saw a couple of kids playing.

And, the little boys laughed. It is always the little boys. All those years back in Mysore, it was a little boy pissing who redirected us.
UPDATE : This is at Geonkhali. It actually is a Ferry point that takes people across to Nupur.

The hotel was on the other side of the river. Google had sent me to a non existent ferry point !!!!! I could cross, I was told. But not my Thar.

So, I backtracked. Set google up again. And, this time just to make sure, I asked a human. He laughed at my direction. Said I was 50 kilos off. So I checked with the police. They laughed and said I was in Uluberia. So I called the hotel. They gave me a landmark. The Diamond Harbour police station. I set that on google. It was in the same direction as humans had pointed. An hour later, the lady at the fuel station laughed. I was way of mark again. Closer, but still way off. I was in Budge Budge.
UPDATE : At a place called Parbangla on BBT Road.

My will to get to the hotel wavered, as I called my friend with whom I was to stay the next day. Fortunately, he was tied up.

I went totally human. Battled Kolkata. Terrible road and worse traffic on Tarotolla Road, and Diamond Harbour road, and all the one ways. Little did they know that we have all done the Pondy-Cuddalore-Chidambaram run multiple times. Buses up our backside with horns blaring do not faze us. Especially when transition to the Thar is complete !!

Got to the outskirts of Diamond Harbour, full of water. I set Google up 3 kilos out of Diamond Harbour, to navigate the town roads. And, it screwed me again. Took me across a water body, wanted me to swim. Went manual again.

Took me a while even on manual to find the hotel, as roads in Diamond Harbour are barely wide enough to be house lanes. You miss them if you are being normal. You have to crawl, tolerate Bengali curses and look hard.

Got in by 1730. It was worth it. Totally. Hotel with parking. Room with a view.