Showing posts with label roadtrip. Show all posts
Showing posts with label roadtrip. Show all posts

Sunday 10 January 2021

Zen and the Art of Driving from Mumbai to Goa

Planning a trip from Mumbai to Goa? Drive. It’s more satisfying than flying.

Our family drove from Mumbai to Goa and back last week. It’s a long drive - about twelve hours each way. It was worth the effort because Goa looked so much more beautiful on this trip than on the many earlier trips when I’d just taken a flight into Dabolim.

Why?

Robert Pirsig explained this effect in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

“To arrive in the Rocky Mountains by plane would be to see them in one kind of context, as pretty scenery. But to arrive after days of hard travel across the prairies would be to see them in another way, as a promised land.”

Similarly, to get off a flight, pick up stuff from the baggage carousel, find the coach sent by the beach resort, and then notice the pretty sunset while sipping a welcome drink is one kind of experience.

To leave home early in the morning, drive on to the Eastern Freeway overlooking Mazgaon docks, across the Vashi bridge from Bombay island to the Indian mainland, through the concrete jungle of Navi Mumbai, and then to zigzag up Bhor ghat to Lonavla, spot Duke’s Nose across the range in Khandala, trundle through the anonymous urban sprawl of Pune and then past acres of sugarcane fields in Satara, the railway bridges across the Krishna and Koyna rivers, the brick kilns at Karad, the movie studio signs in Kolhapur, and to then cross the border into Karnataka, zigzag back down to the plains through the waterfalls of Amboli ghat, drive through the buffer zone of the Radhanagari National Park while troops of monkeys bound across the road, get lost on a kuccha road, meet young water buffalos who won’t give way to a car, discover an unexpectedly lovely temple tank at Sawantwadi, reconnect with National Highway system and discover that NH66 is still a kuccha road because of construction work, get off the highway to drive through banyan tree canyons to get to our villa just before dark, and to then notice the sunset on the water while swigging a welcome drink; that is a totally different kind of experience. Goa does objectively look so much more beautiful, more unique, after that experience.

Here are some pictures we took along the way:

Up Bhor Ghat towards Lonavla


On the Mumbai - Pune Expressway

Across the Koyna River

Service Road along NH48


Highway pitstop (desi-jugaad style)


Ghat roads


Ghat roads - will be a tough drive after dark


School @ Ajara


Vista @ Amboli Ghat

Down Amboli Ghat

Monkey Troop @ Amboli

Entering Sawantwadi


Sawantwadi Talao


Sawantwadi Talao


Kalash @ Sawantwadi Talao in the evening light

Next time, maybe we’ll do the scenic route through Harihareshwar and Ganpatipule. Maybe we’ll do that route on a motorcycle that we actually know how to look after, like Pirsig did in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.