LA-Vegas, Thanksgiving 2008...
Monday, 24th of Nov, 2008, I returned to US in the afternoon after a hectic trip to India, and hit straight to office. Just 2 more working days and then we have the 4 day long thanks giving weekend!!!! But I have no plans, as I was not sure if I will be back in US for this weekend or not. Wednesday evening, I came back from work around 7. The holidays have begun, I have no plans and now I am wondering what to do!!!! Before I went to India, Phalgun (who was in Houston those days) had called up and told about his LA-Vegas trip for the holidays and had asked me to join. But at that time I had refused, as I was not sure. At 7.15 PM I give him a call. These guys already in LA and partying around. He says "Aaja be..." and I say "OK. I will be on my way soon."
So this is how this crazy trip started!!! At 7.30 PM I left my home in Santa Clara in my Mustang and headed alone to LA, some 350 miles away. Hardly 40 miles towards my destination for the day, as soon as I crossed Gilroy and took CA-152E, the road that links Highway 101 to I-5, there is a traffic jam!!!! Although it is quite late for the weekly traffic on this route, but its the holiday rush which is causing the jam. The vehicles are crawling on the road and it took me almost 2 hrs to cover this 40 mile stretch before merging onto I-5. Once on I-5, the rest of the journey was smooth, I managed to reach the hotel just before 3.
The next day was spent on the beaches of LA and just driving on the roads of LA without any specific thing in mind. In the night we decided to hit a pub, but the day being the eve of Thanks Giving, most of the places were closed :( Finally we found one on Sunset Boulevard. The place looked a bit weird, but we were all too desparate to get drunk to bother. At the entrance, the bouncers told us that this is a 'Gothic' club, but still none of us got it!!!! As soon as we entered, we were all shocked!!! Its the weirdest place I have ever been to, the weirdest people with the weirdest hairstyles and make up!!!!! (I guess the others there considered us the weirdest people out there, as we standing out in our 'normal' clothing!!!) Anyways we had a couple of drinks, struggling to see each other and our drinks in that exceptionally dark place and headed back to the hotel.
The next day, Friday was the time to leave LA and head towards Vegas :) Left around 10 and drove as close as possible to the famous 'Hollywood' sign. then stopped at some vista points and people tried their hands on the camera to do some tricks with the Hollywood sign. Just before hitting I-15, we again get a bad traffic jam!!! But this time I was not alone and we were 4 of us in the car, so time passed relatively easily. Finally around 6 in the evening, we are in Vegas, The Sin City :P The next ~40 hours in Vegas were crazy!!! They were filled with lots of drinking, lots of loosing money, shows, clubbing, much more drinking, more gambling (read "loosing money"), roller coaster ride in New York New York and crazy rides on the 70th floor of Stratosphere.
In Vegas, you just need 2 things: Money and Time!!! And you run out of both rather quickly, generally the former vanishing at a much faster rate!!! Even I ran out of both pretty fast. The others had extended the already extended weekend and had taken Monday off, but I had to be back at work on Monday. So I stretched the limits on both, my wallet and time, and kept on drinking and gambling till 7 in the morning on Saturday/Sunday night. Slept at 7.30 Am and woke up at 10.30 AM and started my 550 mile drive, back to home all alone at 12 noon.
Within 5 minutes of starting, I am in the worst jam I have ever witnessed or heard about in the US!!!! For the first time in US, I saw people driving on the shoulders, at times even jams on the shoulder, people who have given up and pulled over, people with trucks with off road capabilities driving on the almost non-existent roads, roads worse than most village roads in India and unpaved roads!!!!! For the first 4 hours, every time I was able to put my car in the 2nd gear or touch a speed of 20mph, I felt like celebrating!!!! Finally the jam relaxed and I managed to reach Barstow, 150 miles from Vegas, around 6 in the evening, taking 6 hours to cover the distance which is a 2-2.5 hour drive in normal circumstances!!!! Phewww!!!! Had my first break at Barstow and refueled both myself and my Mustang.
But it was still not over!!! The ~150 mile road from Barstow to Bakersfield is mostly a farm road going though a valley and has a very dense fog on some days in winters. Today was one of those "blessed" days!!! After 7-7.30 pm, the fog became so dense, I was hardly able to see anything. The road was deserted and looked like I was the only one travelling on that road. This was both good and bad. Good because my chance of ramming into someone was very less and bad because I could not follow anybody. One good part of US highways is that you can be almost certain that there will not be any vehicle standing in the middle of the road and the other good thing is that the lanes are always marked. So I kept on moving, following the side markings, just managing to avoid going off the road.
I had been driving for about 10 hrs, the time it should normally take to reach home from Vegas, and was totally exhausted by now as I had not slept properly in the last 4 days. I thought that there is no way I can make it and decided to stay at a motel for the night. But I was in the middle of nowhere!!!! There was no sign of life around. I am sure, even if there was any motel right off the highway, I would have missed it because of the fog. So with no other option, I kept on moving. Finally I crossed Bakersfield and then hit I-5 around 12 in the night. Once on I-5, it was much easier. Although the fog was still quite dense but the flow of traffic was quite heavy. So it was all about just following the vehicle in front of you and pray that it won't stop suddenly.
Found a rest area, within 30 minutes of hitting I-5. I parked in the area and slept in the car for half an hour. This was all I needed. After this power nap my batteries were recharged and the rest of the journey home was uneventful and relatively easy. Finally relieved to reached home at 4.30 AM after these 4 crazy days. It was a crazy crazy trip and I enjoyed it quite a lot.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
How it all began!!!!!!
Sometime in Nov-Dec 2004...
As far as I can recall this trip was the very first in the whole list of my crazy trips....
I was in Bangalore those days. It was a Saturday evening and we had no plans!!! Me and Anshul were at home we had been getting bored the whole day/evening. Around 9-9.30 pm, we were hungry and Anshul asked me, "Khane ka kya karna hai???". I was like "main yeh normal kahin khane nahi jaa raha... thodi door drive karke khane chalna hai to chal." There was this one restaurant some 15-18 kms from home, on the outer ring road, and I suggested that to Anshul. But Anshul was not interested in that place!!! Roughly the following conversation happened after that.
Anshul: ek jagah bolun, wahan chalega??
Me: Haan bol..
Anshul: nahi chor.... tu nahi chalega...
Me: Arre bol to kahan...
Anshul: Mysore chalein????
Me: (kinda surprised) abhi!!!!???
Anshul: haan...
Me: Chal!!!!!!!
So we quickly packed up a bit and around 10 pm we started from Bannerghata road on my Pulsar. Once we were outside bangalore, we stopped for dinner at some road side shop near a college. The food was decent and we were back on the road soon.
Around 12 in the night, we were near the halfway mark, when the cops stopped us!!! They asked us where were we going at such a time and when we told them that we are headed to Mysore, they were like are you crazy!!! They told us that this area is not safe in night, and that night was coincidently the night of a local festival in Karnataka, when people gamble and get drunk and kinda go insane. So the cops were trying to convince us that specially on that night, people being in such a condition can stop you and loot you. After may be 10 mins of discussion, we told them we will stay at the next hotel we find and continue in the morning. (But we had no such intentions :D :D).
We kept on moving and safely reached Mysore City around 1-1.30 am. But Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost!!!! We had to go to the Infy campus in Mysore and that was 10-15 kms outside the city. We asked for the way to Infy campus and all the people scared us like anything and told us not to go at that time in the night. This time we really got scared and were actually thinking of checking into a hotel. But then both of thought "sala jo hoga dekha jayega!!! Yahan tak aa gaye hain pange leke to ab to jayenge hi!!!!" So we decided to go ahead. Anshul was wearing a jacket, which had a zipper where the hood can be rolled and packed in. We took almost all our money from our wallets and hid it in that zipper!!!! Then we decided that if anybody tried to stop us, we will not stop!!! We asked for the directions (which were not really straight forward), memorized whatever we could and started again.
Halfway from the Mysore City to the Infy campus, we saw a man coming towards us, with a torch in hand, trying to stop us!!!!! Scared!!!! As already discussed, we decided not to stop and opened the throttle and just zapped across him. On passing him we realized, it was a cop!!!! And just after this thing happened, there was a fork on the road which nobody in the city had mentioned about!!!!! Not sure which way to take, we came back to the cop. When we told him that we work in Infy, he became supportive and gave us the directions. Finally reached the campus. :) Happy, relieved and tired, we met our friend and hit the bed around 3.
In the morning, after taking a tour of the Infy campus we were ready to hit the road at 11 am. We asked about the places to visit in Mysore, and our friend told us about 4 places. Mysore Palace, Chamundi Hills, some temple and Brindavan Gardens. What he didn't tell was the relative locations of these places!!!!! So we planned to visit the hills, then the temple, then Gardens and then the Palace. It turned out to be the longest possible route to cover these places!!!! Anyways by around 4.30-5 we were done with all these places and thinking that all the excitement is over, we hit the road to Bangalore.
But there was more excitement in stores for this trip!!!! We had hardly covered 15-20 kms from Mysore, when it started raining heavily accompanied by very strong winds. There was a petrol pump near by, we went there to get some shelter from the rain. I parked the bike on the side stand (which makes my bike tilted at quite an angle). The winds were so strong that my bike was thrown on the other side by the wind!!!!! We just couldn't believe that!!! I mean the bike was on the side stand tilted towards one side, and it fell on the other side!!!! In the accident, the rear view mirror also crashed.
We waited for some time. The rain and wind slowed down a bit. It was getting late and we had no other option, so resumed our journey in the rain. So practically the whole distance from Mysore to Bangalore was covered in rain, that too on a highway which was under construction, so after every couple of kms, you were on different sides of the median.
Finally reached home at around 10 pm after covering 400 adventurous kms in exactly 24 hours.
As far as I can recall this trip was the very first in the whole list of my crazy trips....
I was in Bangalore those days. It was a Saturday evening and we had no plans!!! Me and Anshul were at home we had been getting bored the whole day/evening. Around 9-9.30 pm, we were hungry and Anshul asked me, "Khane ka kya karna hai???". I was like "main yeh normal kahin khane nahi jaa raha... thodi door drive karke khane chalna hai to chal." There was this one restaurant some 15-18 kms from home, on the outer ring road, and I suggested that to Anshul. But Anshul was not interested in that place!!! Roughly the following conversation happened after that.
Anshul: ek jagah bolun, wahan chalega??
Me: Haan bol..
Anshul: nahi chor.... tu nahi chalega...
Me: Arre bol to kahan...
Anshul: Mysore chalein????
Me: (kinda surprised) abhi!!!!???
Anshul: haan...
Me: Chal!!!!!!!
So we quickly packed up a bit and around 10 pm we started from Bannerghata road on my Pulsar. Once we were outside bangalore, we stopped for dinner at some road side shop near a college. The food was decent and we were back on the road soon.
Around 12 in the night, we were near the halfway mark, when the cops stopped us!!! They asked us where were we going at such a time and when we told them that we are headed to Mysore, they were like are you crazy!!! They told us that this area is not safe in night, and that night was coincidently the night of a local festival in Karnataka, when people gamble and get drunk and kinda go insane. So the cops were trying to convince us that specially on that night, people being in such a condition can stop you and loot you. After may be 10 mins of discussion, we told them we will stay at the next hotel we find and continue in the morning. (But we had no such intentions :D :D).
We kept on moving and safely reached Mysore City around 1-1.30 am. But Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost!!!! We had to go to the Infy campus in Mysore and that was 10-15 kms outside the city. We asked for the way to Infy campus and all the people scared us like anything and told us not to go at that time in the night. This time we really got scared and were actually thinking of checking into a hotel. But then both of thought "sala jo hoga dekha jayega!!! Yahan tak aa gaye hain pange leke to ab to jayenge hi!!!!" So we decided to go ahead. Anshul was wearing a jacket, which had a zipper where the hood can be rolled and packed in. We took almost all our money from our wallets and hid it in that zipper!!!! Then we decided that if anybody tried to stop us, we will not stop!!! We asked for the directions (which were not really straight forward), memorized whatever we could and started again.
Halfway from the Mysore City to the Infy campus, we saw a man coming towards us, with a torch in hand, trying to stop us!!!!! Scared!!!! As already discussed, we decided not to stop and opened the throttle and just zapped across him. On passing him we realized, it was a cop!!!! And just after this thing happened, there was a fork on the road which nobody in the city had mentioned about!!!!! Not sure which way to take, we came back to the cop. When we told him that we work in Infy, he became supportive and gave us the directions. Finally reached the campus. :) Happy, relieved and tired, we met our friend and hit the bed around 3.
In the morning, after taking a tour of the Infy campus we were ready to hit the road at 11 am. We asked about the places to visit in Mysore, and our friend told us about 4 places. Mysore Palace, Chamundi Hills, some temple and Brindavan Gardens. What he didn't tell was the relative locations of these places!!!!! So we planned to visit the hills, then the temple, then Gardens and then the Palace. It turned out to be the longest possible route to cover these places!!!! Anyways by around 4.30-5 we were done with all these places and thinking that all the excitement is over, we hit the road to Bangalore.
But there was more excitement in stores for this trip!!!! We had hardly covered 15-20 kms from Mysore, when it started raining heavily accompanied by very strong winds. There was a petrol pump near by, we went there to get some shelter from the rain. I parked the bike on the side stand (which makes my bike tilted at quite an angle). The winds were so strong that my bike was thrown on the other side by the wind!!!!! We just couldn't believe that!!! I mean the bike was on the side stand tilted towards one side, and it fell on the other side!!!! In the accident, the rear view mirror also crashed.
We waited for some time. The rain and wind slowed down a bit. It was getting late and we had no other option, so resumed our journey in the rain. So practically the whole distance from Mysore to Bangalore was covered in rain, that too on a highway which was under construction, so after every couple of kms, you were on different sides of the median.
Finally reached home at around 10 pm after covering 400 adventurous kms in exactly 24 hours.
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