Chennai - Vishakapatnam

 06112021 on 07112021 @ 1800 Location Sterling Resorts Puri

Yesterday was a long day. Not the longest I have done, but, long enough. The longest was on the same road. Puri to Chennai !!

Departed home at 0500. 29425 Kilometers on the odometer.

I knew the run out of Chennai would be a bitch. And, it was. Maps from the great “G” confused the hell out of me. But, hit the highway to Andhra in less than an hour.

Traffic was not bad. It was a slight drizzle. Hate this state of the road. A good rain coming down keeps the windshield  clean. A drizzle whips up all the dirt from the truck on to your  wind screen. But, this was heaven to what was to come.

Never complain. You have NO clue what is coming your way.

Crossed Nellore comfortably. Got a good look at the place I had breakfast in 2019, down the flyover past town. As the road closed in to Ongole, it started getting a bit on the sad side. Bikes were getting on the road. Pot holes were appearing. But, that was not the worst of it.

Round a left curve, Maps freaked. The map showed NH16 going right. The four lane curved left. Decision time. Maps suddenly went on the blink. So, I followed NH16, turned right, into hell. The road developed more craters than the moon. It passed thru every tiny village and town. It was at that time of the day when people wake up and head out to do what ever they do. Meant I crawled , at times.

To be fair, Maps tried to turn my left onto a few tiny roads. Dismissed the choices automatically. Can’t expect me to check the reasons, can you ? In retrospect, maybe, it was sending back to the other road. Who knows ? All I know is that when we finally got a decent enough road, about a 100 kilometres from Vishakapatnam, still called NH16, there was no major road joining in.

The inbound for Vizag was worse than Mount Road on a busy day. Took me an hour to do the final 20 kilometres.

Got into the hotel at 1645. Odometer reading was 30230. The vehicle is filthy, except for the front windshield. Hopefully I’ll find a place in Puri to get it washed. Need visibility, all sides.

The other thought in my mind during the last hour into Vizag was the hotel. The resort I had booked, had cancelled a day earlier. Had refused to pay an advance !! So had picked the first decent looking place on NH16. Got this place called Ambicas Jewel. Sounded shady, but, what the hell. Had a restaurant. Pictures looked clean. Turned out to be an attachment to a Convention centre, primarily because of the kitchen. Great basement parking. Good room. Not too many, but, clean sheets, good showers. Only negative was no attached bar. But the guy at the reception offered to go buy me my choice. Picked up a quarter, for instant consumption.

Showered, drank, ate, and hit the bed by 2030.