Destination Malvan: Day 2 - A Surreal Drive on NH17 back to Pune

Continued from previous post: Destination Malvan: Day 2 - Dolphins and Snorkeling

There were few reasons, why I felt against taking the same route back to Pune - Malvan -> Kankavli -> Gaganbavda ghat -> Kolhapur -> NH4 -> Pune. That route would have been quicker, but nothing is as boring as taking the same route back to your home. Besides, NH4 is not as serenely smooth towards Pune, and on Sunday, tremendous evening traffic, which I had experienced while coming back from Raigad via Varandha ghat, makes it dangerous road to tread on. And there is no driving pleasure due to its one-way nature. You just have to go through the motions and traffic. If there is an accident somewhere, it's even more cumbersome to switch lanes and get going. And believe me, accidents do happen here during rush hours. People are careless thinking they cant have an accident on a one-way and then one unseen pothole, or one unseen animal on the road, or one unseen car parked by some idiot in the night without blinking hazard lights, can lead to a series of high speed accidents/scrapings/heated arguments that can hold up the entire traffic behind them.

Apart from that anti NH4 stance, there were some pro NH17 feelings making their way as well. NH17 is considered to be one of the dangerous roads, at least in Maharashtra, due to its single-lane nature and the high-speed and careless Mumbai-Goa traffic. So for a new driver, it's a challenge he cannot say no to, and also an opportunity for testing the turf before taking on some highly difficult drives like Manali-Leh, later on in life. Other than these reasons, we were also thinking of doing Ganapatipule on the way back. So NH17 won over NH4, despite being at disadvantage in terms of time and distance in comparison with NH4. And we took Malvan -> Kankavli -> Ratnagiri -> Chiplun -> Mahad -> Mangaon -> Tamhini Ghat -> Pune route.

We started from Malvan at around 2:30pm and reached Kankavli, which is about 40km, in an hour. Took our late lunch there and by 5pm started our main journey. It was around 480kms of journey back to Pune on NH17. Out of those 480km, nearly 350kms were on NH17, and it had already started nearing sunset. So majority of this drive would come during stark night, on a dreaded single-lane highway, without any street-lights, alongside bad mannered and careless drivers, and through zigzag ghats, since NH17 is comprised mostly of ghat sections. It was a monumental drive coming up, and god knows I was excited as hell to take on this monster. It's not always that you learn to drive, and then within 3-4months you get to tackle one of the most dangerous highways, during night, all by yourself. Honestly, despite at the risk of sounding like a preacher, I strongly believe and feel that these are the real pleasures of life. I will any time splurge on such drives, rather than spending in malls and multiplexes.

Anyway, so we began our journey at around 5pm. Ratnagiri was 129kms from Kankavli and chances of Ganapatipule started appearing bleak as the drive progressed. But boy, was that an eventful drive! Shortly after leaving Kankavli, towards Ratnagiri, the road started getting better and the daytime views on NH17 are pretty good. It made us drive leisurely without realising how it's going to affect us later. I was driving at around 60kmph, using gear shifts to control the speed, so that the brakes don't get overheated, which can result into a fatal brake-fail situation later on. Suddenly one yellow Maruti Alto overtook us at a blind corner and cut us in, to avoid incoming traffic at the corner. That was a very provocative manoeuvre and I felt like bumping into that guy for overtaking in such a dangerous way. It was a challenge, and though I had stayed away from falling prey to provocations on highway, this time I just couldn't let go. I accepted this challenge and thus began a half-an-hour race on the NH17. Suddenly the speed picked up to 90-110kmph, even in the ghat sections. His was an Alto, painted yellow, with a 1-litre engine; and mine was a Palio with a 1.6-litre engine. So the only way for him to stay in the competition was to take undue risks that I wouldn't take. That's what he did. Overtaking at blind corners was what he regularly did, and got lucky with it every time. I always refrained from doing that. Overtaking at blind corner is a gamble which if goes against you, you don't get to gamble again. Simple as that. So blind-corner-overtaking is a complete no-no. सिर सलामत तो रेसेस पचास.

My advantage, on the other hand, was when there was climb in the ghats. Having a powerful engine helps you climb steep roads without much difficulty. Still, I wanted to race without straining the engine. So I maxxed out at 4500 RPMs, strictly not more than that. I had a long journey ahead of me, and didn't want to strain the engine unduly. So the accelerator was never floored during the race. This game of cat-and-mouse catch-up went on for around half-an-hour. I would catch him, and when I am almost there, he would take his nose out without realising what kind of risk he was taking. Due to this, while he got away, many a times, I got stuck behind some slowwwy slowwww containers blocking all corners for vehicles behind them. But ultimately, I caught him on a moderate climb with some straight road, drove for couple moments in parallel, gave out a war cry and raced ahead at 110kmph. Within couple of minutes, he disappeared from my rear view mirrors.

By the time the race was over, sun had set, and it was getting dark. So I slowed down a little and took it easy. We reached Ratnagiri at around 7:30pm. Ganapatipule was ruled out now, as we still had 350kms to cover till home. So we took a short break, and after filling up petrol at a highway petrol pump before Ratnagiri bifurcation, we carried on at 8pm. Our next stop was Mangaon, just before climbing Tamhini ghat. And it was almost 210kms from our location. So we estimated that by 11pm we would reach Mangaon, and from there, Pune is around 120kms and it will take at least 2.5hrs for us to get to Chandani chowk. So target was Mangaon by 11pm, and then Pune by 1:30am in the morning.

Rest of the journey onwards from Ratnagiri, was not as eventful, though we did have butterflies in stomach, on couple of occasions. It was stark dark on the highway by then, and people were as manner-less as they can get anywhere else. Nobody bothers about the comfort of the incoming driver. People never mind driving with 'upper' all the time. I used to switch between 'upper' and 'dipper' when I saw incoming traffic, but not many were responsive and very few cared. So rather than getting into a sticky situation myself, while trying to save some careless ass from a little discomfort, I stopped doing that. I only responded when somebody switched to dipper pro-actively. To top it all, I also saw some highly irresponsible mofos who were driving with as much as 4 high-power xenons, where even 2-high power xenons can absolutely blind the driver of incoming vehicle. Initially I would curse no end, vehemently. Eventually, it became a norm and I also ran out of my stock of choice-words. So as the night wore on, and the initial bout of highway-night-driving-frustration began to recede, the cabin fell silent.

During the night driving on that single-lane highway, to my own surprise, I was consistently driving at 100-110kmph. The ghats would bring the average speed down later on, but there also, in the ghats I managed to successfully overtake a v-tec, a fiesta apart from other sedans. I also gave a successful chase to an innova in the ghats after Chiplun, on the way to Mahad. I was driving quite good, enough to chase that impressive innova driver, so much so that after some time, we were the only two headlamps seen in the area, without trace of any other vehicle. But at the end, that innova guy was just too good for me. One bad judgement on my part, when I got little stuck behind a truck, and he vanished ahead of me.

We reached Mangaon by 10:45pm, 15-mins earlier than our estimate. Took a short 5-10mins break before we began to climb the lonely Tamhini at that late in the night. We had lots of baggage in the boot, including a costly DSLR gear, and I was really worried about waylaying in the 'famous' Tamhini forests. I told people about the risk, told them that we aren't going to take any break until we reach home, locked all the doors from inside and carried on.

The road condition of Tamhini was absolutely abysmal. It was very frustrating to drive in that area, in 2nd gear, because of the huge potholes. It took us 3-insane hours to cross Tamhini in that speed; and we reached Chandani Chowk by 1:45am and home by 2am. I took a pledge right after reaching home, that I will never ever take to Tamhini again, unless Tamhini is my destination. The roads are just abysmally pathetic after this monsoon, and it's better avoided.

The Malvan chapter closed at 2am in the morning of 27-Dec in Pune, after an eventful and surreal journey on the NH17, where I learned some of the hardest but most essential lessons from a driver's perspective. And thankfully, this learnings didn't come at a fatal price, and we reached home safe and sound.