Got up again at 4 AM, its so difficult. When I go back, I will sleep, put some light instrumentals and sleep, just sleep. Soon the excitement got into me, it was still dark outside , took the bike and on the road. Driving on an empty road in dusk is something to experience. Its there every day while I am asleep. There are many things like this which we just miss, while they are right withen our reach. And we complain about a monotonous life. When I get my cycle, I will try to experience this more often.
After about 20 mins we reached Hospet, most of the ATMs were not working, some without cash, so we pushed along, decided to have breakfast in Kostagi. Soon we caught the highways and the drive was as pleasant as it could be. We were quite fortunate to have very nice weather all through the journey, it was the in between kind of weather, not raining, overcast, not humid either, just perfect for a drive. Soon it was just the roads and the trucks , empty fields all around and we were maintaining a constant 70.
Reached Kostagi around 7 AM, after inquiring around a bit, Krishna restaurant seemed to be the place. For the last two days we didn't have a proper breakfast, so feasted on the Vada and Dosa and coffee. From Kostagi Badami took about 2 hrs, we didnt take the highway, so asked around a bit and finally we were there. On the way visited the Banshankri temple, offered prayers, these days I am getting a bit religious, felt good about it, confident about the journey ahead and off we went to visit the Badami Caves. The sculptures here are awesome, unlike Hampi where the sculptures lacked any emotions, here you can sense some personality on the sculptures, they had expressions.
The first breakdown, Sumeet's bike had a clutch problem, good that it happened near Badami, managed to fix that, took about half an hour though. We were running a little late by now, the initial plan was to start for Hampi by 2 PM max. It was about 12 PM now and we had two more places to cover. When you plan a trip like this, especially with bikes and all, you should always leave some legroom, cause breakdowns will and often happen. We were on our way to "Patta ******", on the way the bike didn't felt right, it was wobbling after some time it was apparent that I had a flat tire, I honked for the other guys to stop but they were a bit ahead, anyways they came back after some time, when they didn't find me following. Fortunately we were about 2 kms from "Patta*****", another 45 mins,the puncture got repaired and we were at that difficult to pronounce place. It was already 1PM, we gave ourselves 1 hr to explore this site have lunch and then return for Hampi.
This place was the site where the Chalaukiyans had experimented with different temple formats, The best of the lot was the Virupaksha temple, the carvings on this temple were the best so far. After spending about an hour had the jowar roti lunch, which was really good, besides we were hungry like anything. We finally decided we are going to visit Aihole and then return, the logic was, if we miss it now, we wont again come here for Aihole itself, so we will miss it forever. We planned to start for Hampi by 3:45 at any cost.
Aihole was a disappointment really, or maybe we were in so much hurry, just visited the Durga temple and frankly was a bit tired too. Sumeet in the mean time was following a cute looking girl who was traveling with her mom and dad. This fellow in between visits to the temple, managed to find out her name, She is from bellary, her father works in a hydel project there, exchanged telephone numbers almost managed to get an invite for diner with them.
3:45 and time to start for Hampi, for once our timing was right , after we caught the highway maintained constant 70 the 100 cc bike was really pushed to the limit, I have a Pulsar 150 and you really feel the 50 cc gap, wonder how a 220 cc bike would feel. The road was pretty good, except for the occasional potholes, which were quite big. When you are maintaining 70+ riding on a bike over a pothole is a bit risky, especially while nurturing a fracture injury. Sometimes you just don't have any options, trucks will not give way and push you off the road.
Anyways pushed along reached Kostagi around 5:30, had snacks again at Krishna restaurant. It started raining a bit, didn't look good at all , we still had around 60 odd kms for Hospet, thankfully the rain subsided. Through the whole trip I didn't have a helmet, I know its a stupid thing, but no other option really. Insisted on a helmet from the bike vendor, he got an helmet all right, which someone had mistakenly tried to clean with Kerosene. So it gave that constant stench , had to leave it back in Hampi. So without visors I had to put on my goggles and it was getting dark. Have to have to get a pair of driving glasses when I get back to Hyderabad. There were some hiccups, especially when it became quite dark and I had to take off the goggles. But we reached Hospet safely and from there Ravi drove to Hampi.
We had missed the evening return bus to Hospet, so got an auto to Hospet bus stand. Had dinner after a long wait for the bus, got in, and the best sleep so for in a bus.
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