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Jhansi-Lalitpur:
We were back again running towards Lalitpur at 10:30 AM. Lalitpur is 90 kms from Jhansi and as far as I remember road is as good as we saw while reaching Jhansi. This allowed me to handover the ‘kaman’ to Shweta. But unfortunately my memories were wrong and moment we exited Jhansi bad roads started and Shweta Started lagging due to tow way heavy traffic of trucks and it forced me to take the control back in my hands. This caused lot of stare and I was scared of getting some strong treatment from her. After some distance good road came and at the first instance of good roads I handed over to Shweta. It was a stretch of 40 km as far as I remember. She took it with another stare and suspicion that would I take it back if bad roads come. Thanks to god and NHAI that it was last stretch of bad roads till she was happy and satisfied with the distance she drove. The roads were more or less very good but had some diversions and construction was underway at some places. Since the traffic was very less rather there was hardly any traffic, Shweta could easily sail through at a constant speed of 100 Km/hr. We crossed Lalitpur via the bypass and it was 12:00 PM and meter was reading 420 Kms. So by noon we had cleared half the distance. We filled some diesel en route.
Lalitpur-Sagar:
In another one and half hour we were reaching close to Sagar and Shweta was looking for rest. She handed over to me and in some time we reached the worst stretch of the whole route. I had a short nap in this time so was fresh to face all those potholes. 12 kms before Sagar when the construction of the NH has stopped due the construction on Bina River (I think). This is the worst I should say again. We also saw a very old construction of a fort on the left side which was actually a ruin of Seesh mahal. We reached Sagar at 1:50 PM and now we were really hungry whatever we ate in Jhansi was consumed. We started searching for food and to our surprise such a known place was not having any decent eatery in one of the busiest cross road. Finally we got one sweet house and they served one of the best foods on any of our travels. It was not costly; it was tasty and above all was served with good hospitality. All this searching, eating and refueling ourselves and our machine costed us lot of time and when started again it was 3:00 PM and still some 400+km journey was left.
Sagar-Narsinghpur:
I started again with a commitment of not stopping anywhere now as we started lagging although till now we had covered the distance at a very good speed. The roads are good now but still there are many diversions and sometimes we need to drive on one side of the road. But since it is not very busy, it was easy to manage a speed of 100 but not beyond that. We reached Narsinghpur at 5:20 PM, which is almost 140 km from Sagar. It had started showering now. We missed the highway here and went towards the town but realized it pretty soon and came back some 5-6 kms to join back the highway. The meter was reading 674.1 kms when we exited Narsinghpur.
Narsinghpur-Lakhnadon:
Sun was getting red now and we realized that very soon it will be dark hence tried to rush and reach Lakhnadon at the earliest. The terrain in this stretch is hilly in some places and gives very good scenery at some places. The site of setting sun in those fields and the hills will always be there in my memory. It was 6:10 PM when we reached Lakhnadon. We could cover these 70 kms really fast. The meter was reading 744.2 kms now when we entered Lakhnadon.
We were feeling little tired now and as the upcoming stretch was required to be covered in dark. We decided to take a tea break. Stopped at a road side ‘Thela’ and asked for two special teas, he prepared with lot of patience and filled one big glass. We were happy. He made it half and distributed in two glasses we were surprised now. I immediately asked him to make one more cup of tea. But it was nice to have that break. That guy also recognized my car that I came on this road few days back and had tea from his shop only. That was probably a nice gesture of recognition which I find in small towns only.
Lakhnadon-Nagpur:
When we started again at 6:30 PM and it was already dark and road was good. There was some small bad stretch otherwise road was amazing till Seoni. Well equipped with sign boards and reflectors, it was pleasure to drive on this road. In next one hour we reached Seoni and covered a distance of 60 kms. Thanks to the bad patches and night, driving had become difficult. After Seoni we entered the real bad patch which falls in the Pench National Park area. This area has single road full of potholes, swirls and turns on road and lot of truck traffic. There were many cars also on this road and we started following one Swift. I missed the road at one instance but could recover immediately, this caused a big Thud sound and we both felt sad for the car. This forced me to drive little more carefully because road was full of surprises. Finally we reached Ramtek and then roads improved a lot. It was already very late then our schedule and we were damn tired now. The wait for Nagpur was very eager now. Finally we reached Nagpur at 9:40 PM and now the meter was reading 934 KMs. Last 190 kms were covered in 3 hrs and 10 mins which was not bad seeing the road conditions.
Finally the day was over and we checked in a hotel where I stayed during my onward journey also. We checked in quickly and ordered for food and slept.
Day One: 16 hrs and 35 mins and covered 935 kms.
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