Travelog: Seven Jyotirlings and other stuff, 14 days

In summer of 2013, we decided to drive to Seven Jyotirlings and back in 15 days. This travelog tries to capture the drive, experience and anything else that I found interesting. It is divided in 15 parts with each devoted to one day. The trip was done mostly in continuation with few day rest in between. The return journey was done after a gap of 11 days.

1. 06-April-2013 Bangalore to Pune, Part 1/14
2. 07-April-2013 Pune to Aurangabad, Ghrusneshwar Jyotirling and other local sightseeing, Part 2/14
3. 08-April-2013 Aurangabad to Nashik with Bhimshankar Jyotirling on the way Part 3/14
4. 09-April-2013 Nashik to Ahmedabad with Trimbakeshwar Jyotirling on the way Part 4/14
5. 10-April-2013 Ahmedabad local stay, visit to Gandhi Asram Part 5/14
6. 11-April-2013 Ahmedabad to Gir National Park Part 6/14
7. 12-April-2013 Stay in Gir National Park, Safaris Part 7/14
8. 13-April-2013 Gir to Dwarka via Somnath Jyotirling Part 8/14

9. 14-April-2013 Visit to Nageshwara Jyotirling, Dwarkadhish Temple, Bhet Dwarka Part 9/14
10. 15-April-2013 Dwarka to Surat Part 10/14
11. 16-April-2013 Surat to Ujjain Part 11/14
12. 17-April-2013 Car repair in Ujjain and Indore
13. 18-April-2013 Visit to Omkareshwar Jyotirling and Mahakaleshwar Jyotirling Part 12/14
14. 19-April-2013 to 28-April-2013 return trip postponed
15. 29-April-2013 Ujjain to Pune Part 13/14
16. 30-April-2013 Pune to Bangalore Part 14/14

The total journey took 14 days and total of 128 hours of driving time and completed almsot 700 kilometers. The total diesel consumed was approximately 550 litres. The fuel consumption was 12.8 kpl. The total toll amount paid was Rs. 4933/-. Here are the details of the tolls.
In summary, the whole trip was fantastic. We always preferred better road even if we had to travel longer. We found driving on bad road very tiring.

Travelog: Seven Jyotirlings and other stuff, 14 days Part 14/14

01-May-2013 The plan was to start early morning but the fatigue of long drives was finally catching up. We decided to sleep late and could start only by 10:00AM.
The road exiting Pune were really crowded, my guess was probably people who do daily commute and were going to their offices.


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11:05AM We got clear of Pune city traffic.

Sai International

12:52PM Crossed Satara
1:31PM Crossed Karad
2:00PM Reached Yelur. There is a decent restaurant called Sai International here. We stopped here for Lunch.
2:45PM Left the restaurant.
3:15PM Crossed Kolhapur
3:30PM Crossed Kagal
4:30PM Crossed Belgaum City. Just after Belgaum, we filled the fuel and continued on.

Kamat Upachar

5:30PM Crossed Belur
5:45PM Crossed Dharwad
6:05PM Crossed Hubli
6:56PM Crossed Haveri
7:15PM Crossed Renebennur
7:45PM Crossed Harihar
7:55PM Crossed Davangere
8:40PM Crossed Chitradurga
9:15PM Crossed Hiriyur
9:45PM Crossed Sira
10:00PM Stopped at Kamat Upachar just after Sira. Stopped for dinner here.
10:25PM Started from the Kamat Upachar.
11:15PM Crossed Tumkur city.
11:50PM Crossed Neelamangala
11:55PM Got on to NICE road. Because it was just few days before elections, we were stopped on NICE road for a checking.
1:05AM Reached Home.

Travelog: Seven Jyotirlings and other stuff, 14 days Part 13/14

30-April-2013
We started our journey back in morning from Ujjain.
8:00AM We crossed Indore. The route shown by Google Map took us to a wrong path. We landed up on NH59 and the road from NH59 to AH47 did not exist which google map was claiming to exist. We had to take some really bad rural road to get back on correct path.
10:09AM Crossed Dhamnod
11:05AM Crossed Sendhwa
12:25PM Crossed Dhule
2:15PM Crossed Malegaon.
We decided to go very close to Mumbai on AH-47 so that we can take Mumbai-Pune expressway to reach Pune. It was longer route but we just wanted to drive on expressway.
3:45PM We crossed Nashik
5:15PM Crossed Igatpuri
6:40PM Just after toll plaza, turned left to take the Pune Expressway.
7:00PM to 7:30PM We were stuck in severe traffic. Nothing moved at all.
8:20PM We joined Mumbai-Pune expressway near Kalamboli
8:36PM Crossed Bhatan Tunnel.
10:37PM Reached and checked into Holiday Inn in Hinjewadi.

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BMW Service: An experience

I have written about my experience of driving BMW X1 around the country and the tire failure that happened during my trip from Surat to Indore. I had to deal with BMW service in a city other than my home city. This post is about my experience with the service and their handling of it.
16-April-2013 While driving from Surat to Indore, my car ran over a piece of rock. The rock itself was not very large but the way it hit the wheels, it slashed the side wall of my driver side front tire. I did not think much of it when it happened, but 20 minutes later the low air pressure warning came on. As soon as I saw the warning, I feared that most probably this is a case of total tire failure.
I do carry a mini compressor, a tubeless puncture repair kit and a slim spare tire. As I stopped down to inspect the tire, I was hoping that it is probably just a puncture and I can repair it and move on. The tire was completely deflated and I could not see any thing visibly wrong with it. So I though I will just fill the air in it. As I filled the tire with air, I could clearly see the bulge in the tire near the rim. It was clear, the tire had to be replaced.
Since in my view, tire had to be replaced. The spare slim tire that I had has a maximum speed rating of 80 kph and that was also the maximum speed rating of Run-On-Flat, I decided to continue on flat tire and decided against putting the spare tire.
I started towards Indore town without knowing that if they had a BMW show room or not. I called Bangalore service hotline and narrated the turn of events to him and he got me the number of Indore hotline. I tried to call the hotline number in Indore and it came unanswered.
At this time I called BMW company hotline. The gentleman on the other side suggested that since the showroom would be closed by now, it would be difficult to get a tire replacement at that time. He offered to get the car towed to the show room where I have it take care of the next day. But I refused since I could not do anything without the car anyway.
I called Indore hotline again and this time it was picked up. They confirmed that they have replacement tires but they couldn't do anything about it on that day. They suggested that I can stay in the Indore city that night and bring the car next day morning. I also confirmed with the gentleman on the other side of the phone that he would honor my BMW secure insurance and I would not  have to pay for it.
As we reached Indore, we had to make a call whether to stay in Indore, or drive to Ujjain which was our destination that night. Ujjain is where we have relatives so we wouldn't have to worry about hotel etc.
We decided to continue driving to Ujjain that night. Since we could not drive faster than 80 kph, it took quite longer than what we had originally planned.
By the time we reached Ujjain, we had already done almost 200 km on the flat tires.
17-April-2013
Next day morning I decided to change to slim spare tire and went to Infinity Motors. They asked all the details of my BMW secure and then I realized that I did not have details of my BMW secure policy. I called the insurance department in Navnit Motors, Bangalore and they promptly sent the BMW secure policy to my email. The guys at Infinity Motors found another problem, the serial numbers of tires on the policy were accurate but the manufacturer was mentioned wrong.
I got both the Infinity Motors and Navnit Motors guys to talk to each other and they came up with a solution. They said that since policy has to be endorsed with the correct manufacturer of tires. Since that can't be done in a day, I need to pay the money and once the insurance claim is done, they would send me refund.
Since I was pressed for time, I asked them to go ahead with it. They also did engine oil change, since it was due after another 1000 kms.
8-May-2013 I received the check of the amount that I had paid to them.

Considering the fact that there was a mistake in BMW secure and I did not notice it earlier, I was very satisfied with the service that I got with the dealers in Indore and support from the Bangalore dealer.

Travelog: Seven Jyotirlings and other stuff, 14 days Part 12/14

Our original plan was to visit Omkareshwar on 17th-April-2013 and Mahakaleshwar on 18-April-2013. But due to the problem with the car's tires, we had to postpone the 17-April-2013 trip to the next day.
18-April-2013
7:30am Left Ujjain towards Indore, to further continue to Omkareshwar.
9:30am Crossed Indore city


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We took the road that goes to Khandwa for going to Omkareshwar. There is lot of construction going on where this road crosses the A B Road. You can see many colleges on this stretch. I even remember seeing the proposed site for Indian Institute of Technology, Indore on this road.
10:00am Crossed Simrol
10:10am Crossed Baigram
10:15am Crossed Choral, there is a railway station visible.
10:30am Crossed Balwara.
10:50am Crossed Barawah. There is a railway station visible right on the main road.
11:00am Left the main road by turning left towards Omkareshwar. From there the road become worse. It is very narrow and just about drivable.
11:15am Reached Omkareshwar. There are many parking places leading up to temple. One needs to park in one of them. On busy days, one may have to park much earlier and walk. The road leading towards temple is narrow with road side shops for prasad etc.

Omkareshwar Temple

To go to temple, one has to cross a pedestrian bridge over Narmada River. Actual temple is on an island. So this bridge is only way to reach there. There is also a big Shiva statue up the mountain which one can only go by trekking. We did not go there.
As one can see, even god is commercialized now a days. Mobile companies are vying with everybody else to plug themselves at god's place. As ususal, it is a good idea to by prasad from the vendors closer to temple, so you can leave your footwear there. In Omkareshwar, there is a hardsell from freelance pujaris to do some or other puja on your behalf, so one needs to be careful and signup for what one wishes. The temple was not very busy and it took us around 30 minutes to do darshan and get back to parking.

View of the pedestrian bridge from the temple

Here is another panoramic view of whole area.

Omkareshwar Panorama

Since we had started in the morning without breakfast, we decided to drop in the Madhya Pradesh Tourish Corporation run Narmada Resort for breakfast. Here is my review of this place in tripadvisor.

1:05pm We left Omkareshwar back to Ujjain where the next place to visit was Mahakaleshwar Jyotirling.
3:20pm We crossed Indore city
4:00pm We reached Mahakaleshwar Jyotirling in Ujjain. Mahakaleshwar temple is in the middle of Ujjain town which is a proper city so on busy days, it becomes difficult to find parking etc. But on lean days, there is sufficient paid parking.
5:20pm We were out of Mahakaleshwar temple.
This completed seven jyotirlings that we had set out to do. Our return journey was planned after a break of couple of weeks.

Travelog: Seven Jyotirlings and other stuff, 14 days Part 11/14

16-April-2013
Early morning, after breakfast, we left the hotel enroute to Ujjain which was our destination at the end of the day, This was a whole day driving day with nothing else to do.
9:20am We left the hotel. The route planned was first to Dhule and then take A B Road towards Indore. The default route shown by Google Maps goes through Godhra and Dahod but we were not sure of road conditions there, so we went via Dhule.


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Since we got out of hotel little late, we encountered serious traffic Jams. Most seem to be created by innovative drivers who were driving all over the place, but we were stuck for almost half and hour before we moved.
10:18am Encountered a railway crossing but again the same situation, both sides of railway crossing, vehicles occupied every inch of road and even after the gates opened, nobody moved. Finally traffic police showed up and we moved.
12:07pm Railway crossing near Chinchpada, a total mess. Everybody blocks the road on both sides. First we wait for 15 minutes to cross the railway crossing and then we sit in traffic for another 10 minutes because gate closes again and oncoming traffic has occupied the road.
3:30pm We reach Dhule. As you are entering Dhule, there is a nice Hotel called Krishna. We stopped here for Lunch.
4:30pm Crossed Shirpur Byepass.
5:00pm Crossed Sendhwa
5:15pm As I was driving along, I decided to go around a stone but was not successful and the stone hit the tyre. If you look carefully, just before the truck cross the car, there is white stone very close to the curb on right side. We did not notice anything in the car excep a thud noise.
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Cracked Tyre

5:25pm The car sensors gave Low Air Pressure warning. We stopped to see if it was a puncture or something else. On closer inspection, we realised that side wall was ruptured and come off the rim. This was a serious problem, but since these were Run-On-Flat tyres, we decided to drive slowly, within the prescribed speed limit i.e. 80 kph.
6:00pm While we were driving, we called BMW and asked them if there is a way I can get tyre replacement. They offered to get the car towed if there was a problem but they could not get replacement tyre that day since it was already closing time. We confirmed that tyres were available in Indore and decided to worry about it the next day.
6:10pm We crossed Dhamnod.
7:30pm We were in Pithampur.
8:30pm We crossed Indore city. We deliberated whether to stay in Indore city at some hotel or continue to Ujjain. Since the type looked in decent condition even now, we decided to continue to and come back the next day for repairs.
9:30pm Reached Ujjain.

Travelog: Seven Jyotirlings and other stuff, 14 days Part 10/14

15-April-2013
7:50am We left early morning back. The destination of the day was Surat. We started back towards Jamnagar on GSH947 or GSH41.
8:30am Crossed Nandana
9:20am Crossed Jam Khambaliya
9:50am We stopped in a Highway hotel called Hotel Panthi for small break for tea.

10:30am Crossed Jamnagar. We just continued driving. Roads in this area are fantastic. The road surface quality is the best that I saw in whole of Gujarat.
11:20AM We crossed the Rajkot town.
12:50pm We reached at Limbdi, we stopped here for lunch. Hotel Honest, seemed like a decent restaurant.

As we were sitting here for lunch, my Android phone's Google Now service informed me that I am very close to a place called Lothal which is a Indus Valley Civilisation site. We decided to make an impromptu visit to this place. That required making a small detour to our originally planned route.
1:42pm As we were travelling on NH8A, we turned right on to SH 1 which would eventually take us to Lothal.
1:51pm We turned extreme left to take the road that goes to Lothal. It is a small and narrow road and there are sufficient signages to indicate its direction.

There is a museum where the artefacts from the excavation are kept and the actual excavation site is also adjacent to it. There is a Rs. 5 ticket to visit the museum, the site entry is free. The place was empty. The museum was really interesting.

2:55pm Finished with Lothal and then decided to continue our journey. We got out of the place with the help of Google Navigation. At 3:15pm we joined Bagodara Vataman Road or GSH 8.
4:51pm We got into Anand City. The city is in mess and completely dug up. There seems to be a big flyover being constructed on the road that we were taking so we ended up taking quite a few diversions. Eventually we were out of the city and towards NE1.
5:00pm Got into NE1. As soon as we got into NE1, the segment near Anand is under some maintenance so both direction traffic was diverted into one side roads and the traffic was extremely slow.
5:55pm Crossed Vadodara.
6:50pm Crossed Bharuch
7:50pm Crossed Kamrej. City was jammed packed with traffic.
9:30pm Drove across the city and checked into Hotel Gateway at Athwalines. Here is my review of the Hotel on Tripadvisor.
Here is the map of the route that we took.


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Travelog: Seven Jyotirlings and other stuff, 14 days Part 9/14

14-April-2013
The plan for the day was to visit Dwarka town. The first top was Nageshwar Jyotirling.
9:45am We left the hotel after breakfast.

Nageshwar Jyotirling Temple

10:35am Reached Nageshwar Jyotirling
The temple was not very crowded and we were in and out in 30 minutes. We started driving back straight away. The temple was probably most peaceful and if you are inclined, you actually get to spend time with the god. Unlike most other jyotirlings you actually get ample time in the sanctum sanctorum.
11:20am We reached Dwarkadhish Temple. This temple seemed the most security paranoid about security. They won't even let me take the remote for car lock inside. You can leave other things in your car, but what do you do about car lock remote. You basically need to go to two different set of lockers, one that would contain shoes and another one that would contain other stuff like mobile phones.

Dwarkadhish Temple

This place is also full of priests selling their service to you and telling you and the temple is too complicated and you won't be able to reach yourself anywhere. Anyway, I got more a vibe of a good commercial establishment, rather than a place of god.
12:10pm We got out of temple and decided to go back to hotel since it was too hot outside.
We decide to spend good part of afternoon in the hotel.
5:30pm We again left towards Dwarka town. The destination was Bhet Dwarka this time. We had to drive right up to Okha Port from where one can get a ferry to go to Bhet Dwarka.
The road to Okha Port is actually in shamble currently but work is going on. Actually because of work underway, they have completely scraped the road in all the places so that when the it is newly tarred, it sticks better.
You need to continue driving on NH6A or GSH947 to reach Okha Port.
The drive to Okha port is very nice. You can see water bodies on both sides of the road which are full of birds.

7pm We arrive at Okha Port. You need to find a ferry that would take you to Bhet Dwarka island. There are ferries that run on regular interval and you can find a seat in one of those. Since we were short on time, we asked one of the boat guy to just take us and he charged us Rs. 1200/- for that. I am sure general ferries cost much much less and we would have opted for that if we had reached here earlier.

The ferry ride is around 20 minutes to half an hour. We reached around sunset time so there was a magnificent sunset as we were going towards Bhet Dwarka island.
By the time we reached the island, the sun had set and it was dark. The temple closes at 8pm, so we had to be quick to go into the temple.
After reaching the port, there is a 15 minutes walk through by lanes to reach the temple. The temple itself was not very crowded. As usual, you have to leave all your belongings outside, so we took turns going inside the temple.
We took our ferry back around 8:00pm and were back in port at 8:15pm.
We started back towards Dwarka and reached the town by 9:15pm. We decide to have dinner  in Aarti Restaurant in the Hotel Damji. It serves typical Gujarati and Marwari meals. Here is my review of the place.
We started back 9:30pm and reach our hotel back by 8:55pm.

Travelog: Seven Jyotirlings and other stuff, 14 days Part 8/14

13-April-2013
We left Hotel Gateway, Gir Forrest for our onwards journey. The hotel serves breakfast only after 8AM, so we planned to leave early and find breakfast somewhere else. Anyway by the time we got up, got ready and left, it was 7:30am.
7:30am Left the hotel, we were running low on fuel, so the plan was to get some place to fill up, but after asking around, we found that only petrol bunks in Gir are in opposite directions. We were told that if we drive around 10Kms towards Somnath, we would get petrol.
The road from Gir to Somnath, is narrow and not great but motor-able.
8:08am Got the petrol bunk, filled up the car. Did not find places here who would accept credit cards, so had to use cash. The town's name was Talala.
8:45am Reached NH 8E, turned towards Somnath Temple.

Somnath Jyotirling Temple

8:55am Reached parking. On this day, police did now allow up to go to parking near the temple, the place where we parked was around 800m from the temple and then we walked up to the temple.
Somnath temple, probably has the best location of all the jyotirlings. Sits very close to the sea. Temple itself does not give a vibe of a well  constructed old temple like other Jyotirlings. It looks like a modern construction, made of concrete etc.
Somnath temple is also paranoid about security, You have to leave everything (that means everything except wallet) at a storage counter before the temple. If you parked in the parking closer to the temple, you could leave all the stuff in the car, in our case, the car was too far off, so we had to leave the stuff at one of the cloak rooms near the temple.

Restaurant in Lords Inn

The temple itself was not very crowded, we were in and out of temple in around 45 minutes. We tool a walk around the temple and the whole atmosphere is grand.
10:05am We reached the parking and took off, as we were driving towards dwarka, we saw this hotel called Lord's Inn. Appeared decent from outside, so we decided to have our breakfast here.
The breakfast service was over in the restaurant, it seems they close at 10am. But they said that they can make our order for us. Since we reached at an odd time, it took quite some time for us to get our breakfast.
They do accept credit cards, so that is always good thing on long drives.  The rest room facilities are clean in this place, so that was one thing taken care of.
11:10am We left the hotel and continued on NH 8E. The national highway is under construction in many places, most of the places on two lanes are  open but the surface quality is good. We did not find any potholes and broken road along the way. The roads are full of tempo and two wheeler traffic and that makes overtaking extremely difficult. So the average speeds are low in this section.
11:30am We cross Supasi.
11:45am We get on to NH8D.
11:52am We cross Chorwad.
12:10pm We cross Mangrol
12:34pm The road comes very close to the coast line and one can drive for about an kilometer just adjacent to the sea. Looked fantastic.
1:12pm We reach Porbandar. We did not plan on staying and visiting any place in Porbandar, so we just drive on.
2:25pm We reach Barodia, just 7 kilometers before Dwarka. We had planned on staying at Goverdhan Greens Resort. Here is my review of the place.

Travelog: Seven Jyotirlings and other stuff, 14 days Part 7/14

12-April-2013
This day was reserved for Safari. Gir National Park has three Safari Slots per day. We had chosen to go on two safari. One was 6AM and other was 4PM. Our hotel arranged for safari permits in advance but one still has to go for permit for cameras to Sinh Sadan. Fortunately Sinh Sadan is just next doors from hotel, so it was not much of a hassle.

These safaris cover quite a distance. Here is the first safari route.
View Gir Safari 1 in a larger map
This is the second safari route.

View Safari 2 in a larger map

Here are some of the photos from both the safaris. We got to see two prides of lions and many other animals and birds. It was hot but sightings more than made up for them.

Travelog: Seven Jyotirlings and other stuff, 14 days Part 6/14

11-April-2013
With a day's rest, we were raring to go for next stage of our journey. Since we couldn't find a decent place to stay near Somnath, we decided to go stay in Gir National Park for couple of days and then move on to Somnath Temple.
9:15am We got ready, the hotel served Buffet breakfast, so we decided to have the breakfast and leave. We were out of hotel at 9:15am.
Drove towards Ring Road to get on to NH8D & C. I really never understood why most of the National Highways in Gujarat are NH8 with a alphabet as a suffixm, there is 8A, 8B, 8C, 8D, 8E.
9:30am We were on to NH8C, this very quickly turns into NH8A.
10:55am We cross Limbdi.
11:42am We cross Chotila
11:52am We meet NH8B and continue towards Rajkot.
12:15pm We hit Rajkot Byepass and by 12:25pm we completely cross Rajkot city.
1:50pm We hit the town of Jetpur.
2:35pm We cross Junagarh city. From Junagarh we continue on what is called Ivanagar road, but quickly there is a fork in the road and we take the road that doesn't go towards Ivanagar.
The road towards Gir is not really labelled properly but there are milestones that point to Sasan Gir. Anyway if you have reached Junagarh, Google Navigation also points to this road to reach Gir.
This particular highway is very sparse as far as road side eating places and toilets are concerned. They are few and far in between.

3:40pm We reach Gateway Hotel in Gir. This hotel is just next to Sinh Sadan which is the place where one needs to go to get permits etc. Here is my review of the hotel on TripAdvisor.


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Travelog: Seven Jyotirlings and other stuff, 14 days Part 5/14

10-April-2013
This was partly a rest day from the drive, so only thing planned for this day was Gandhi Ashram and rest. Holiday Inn Express is very close to Gandhi Asram and it takes less that 15 minutes to reach the place.
1:00pm Left the hotel
1:05pm Reached Gandhi Asram. Surprisingly there is not fees or tickets to enter the place.
I must say, I really liked the place, it is very well maintained with lots of popular and not so popular stuff about Gandhi. The walk around the place was soothing. The whole place is like a museum for the life and times of Mahatma Gandhi.
Here is an assortment of photos that I took in the place.

4:50pmWe were back in the hotel.
We stayed in Holiday Inn Express, which probably is best suited for visiting Gandhi Asram. But otherwise there is nothing around the place. We walked around the hotel and one couldn't even find a small eatery around the place. Here is my review of the hotel.

Travelog: Seven Jyotirlings and other stuff, 14 days Part 4/14

09-April-2013
We got up early and after a quick breakfast, we headed towards Trimbakeswar Jyotirling.

Trimbakeshwar Jyotirling

Hotel is decent but the breakfast spread did not have much variety. But the food was good enough. It seems the hotel is patronised by many people from the business establishments near by and is very popular among business crowd. Here is my review of the hotel in Tripadvisor.
We left the hotel at 9AM. Hotel Ibis is on the road towards the temple and it took us around half an hour to reach the temple. We were in temple parking at 9:26am.
Of all the Jyotirlings we visited, Trimbakeswar Jyotirling seems to be one of the most popular ones. When we reached there, we found atleast six large buses full of tourists (pilgrims) from Gujarat.
We had to stand in a queue in sun for almost one hour. One could regularly see VIPs directly going to the temple, while the commoners had to stand in queue for a glimpse of the god. It seems like VIPs don't even have time for god, it is the god who has to accomodate them rather than other way around.
Another lesson that I learnt the hard way, again, was that most of these places, the best approach is to delay buying the prashad as late as possible, so that you can leave your footwear there. The official footwear stands are generally too far and walking barefoot on hot road or granite is very painful, specially for children.
Anyway, we were finished with the darshan and out in parking by 11:20am. Our destination for the day was Ahmedabad, we started towards Ahmedabad. One has to be careful though, the route shown by Google Navigation from Trimbakeswar Temple to Ahmedabad finds a shortest route that is not good, it is better to go towards Nashik town and once closer to Nashik town, then plan a route to Ahmedabad. The basic strategy that we followed in finding this route was to reach NH-8 as soon as possible. Google Navigation designed a path for us that went through SH22 and joined NH-8 near a town called Killa Pardi. Here is the route that we finally took to our hotel in Ahmedabad.

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12:15pm We reached SH-22. The road is extremely bad in places and better in some other places. The Maharashtra side of the road is really bad and its gets significantly better once you enter Gujarat. On Gujarat side also the road is narrow, but surface quality if very good and not much traffic so driving improves after that point. On Gujarat Side it becomes SH 186.


1:35pm We continue on MSH-22/GSH-186 combination and cross the Maharashtra border into Gujarat.
The only problem is that this whole combination of road MSH-22 & GSH-186 is completely isolated, you don't find any cities on the way, even finding petrol is hard. There are small settlements and few houses. It is a rocky and hilly terrain with most of the traffic composed of trucks.
2:35pm We hit the national highway (NH-8), drive becomes significantly better from here onwards. Most of the roads become 4-lanes with some even 6-lanes from here onwards.
3:30pm Fuel time, we decide to stop at a Petrol Bunk with huge signage of Sugar 'n Spice. I must say that the restaurant was horrible, the toilets were really dirty and ladies toilet was not even functional. I have never understood the whole point of a highway restaurant that can't even have clean toilets. Food anyway is just about ordinary. We get out of that place quickly.
Another interesting feature of Gujarat is that even on national highways people blatantly, with full confidence, drive on the wrong side of the road in both left and right most lanes. Not that it is only happening in Gujarat, but here it happens more often than what I have seen in other places.
The good thing in Gujarat highways is that people with move away from right most lane if you are coming fast behind then, the bad part is that they will move too late and you have to slow down anyway.
5:30pm We cross Baruch.
6:45pm We cross Vadodara.
6:53pm We enter the NE-1.
7:45pm We exit NE-1 and enter the Ahmedabad city
For a car driver, Ahmedabad city is extremely painful. Most of the road is dedicated to the the city bus system and more than half of the road is cordoned off for the buses. One would not feel bad about it if there were actually buses plying on them. During my drive in the city I could spot not more than couple of buses.
8:30pm Finally we end up in our hotel on Ashram Road.