Lucknow to Jhansi
Finally the day has arrived and I and Shweta were very excited to drive back to Bangalore in next two days. We got up early in the morning; it was very difficult to make my mom agree to the idea of starting without having anything. But then she realized we have to travel a very long distance and it may save some time for us if we start the earliest. We had some tea and biscuits though.
Lucknow-Kanpur: We started in the morning at 5:05 AM in the morning from Lucknow. The Journey meter was set for zero with this fresh start. The roads were empty as it was early for the lucknowites after the Sunday. We raced very quickly to Kanpur road. Near Amousi we got another Ritz racing toward Kanpur, as per my trip rules I caught it and started following it and it was much easy to follow a car then heading all alone. The car also helped in one more thing, there was some reputed person in the car and he showed a pass on a toll booth between LKO-KNP which is not fully functional, as I was following him closely when I reached there I hinted the toll booth that I am with him and raced away. That saved Rs 20 I think. I avoided paying here while coming alsoJ. We reached Kanpur pretty quickly as our average speed was 110-120 KM per hour on this stretch. As everyone know this is one of the best roads in UP. Four lanes with proper divider, so it’s a pleasure to drive. We crossed famous Ramadevi Chauraha of Kanpur at 6:15 AM and covered 89 km in this time.
Kanpur-Jhansi:
By the time we hit the Kanpur Jhansi highway crossing Kanpur Shweta started feeling sleepy and reclined the seat and immediately caught a sleep. Now I was free to race away as she was sleeping. I started hitting the higher RPMs and slowly reached 130 km speed. I had lost the Ritz somewhere while crossing the town and all of sudden it appeared on my rear view mirror hitting the same speed, I thing he also tried finding me and started on a steady speed again. But as we reached the junction point of NH2 and NH25 near Barah the ritz went towards Etawah and we took our journey towards Jhansi. The roads till now were amazing and they continued to be amazing till Jhansi except few small towns where flyovers are under construction. Such small towns are on the Kanpur side and as we reach near to Jhansi the flyovers are ready.
While crossing Orai we took a road which was supposed to be the old by pass of Orai as new By-pass is under construction and this was a big mistake. The road was broken on one side and the other half was also bad and mostly I had to drive on sides of the road. After covering some distance we saw a JCB going ahead of us and breaking the road. I raced to overtake before he brakes some more. Somehow we crossed that area and joined the main road again. It was time for a small break and we had two full glasses of fresh sugarcane juice. Stomach was full for the time being and legs were little relaxed after that by pass. We started rolling again towards Jhansi.
The road is mostly good to fantastic till Jhansi so there was no problem in touching 140 in this stretch as Shweta was again sleeping fast after the stomach was fullJ. She only got up when we had reached the Jhansi Hotel and I decided to take a break and have a proper breakfast.
At 9:30 we had reached Jhansi Hotel in Jhansi and covered 328 kms till now. To move ahead from Jhansi need to cross through the city so it took some time to clear the city. The breakfast at Jhansi hotel was good but costly they charged Rs 120 for a 2 Alloo Parathas and a pot of tea. It was OK as the ambience of the hotel is of last century and we could imagine how the life was in those days.
Next was Jhansi to Nagpur