The Westside Story – XI - Mumbai to Surat

Until now we have travelled NH 206, NH 4, and NH 4A and NH 17. But now onwards, we’re gonna be hugging NH 8 all the way to Delhi!! This seemed somewhat symbolic and slightly disturbing because this marks the beginning of the end of our trip!! L

We still have exactly 7 days to go and this is when we’re going to be doing Rajasthan majorly and as much as we can of Delhi.

We started out of our Nest at 0530 hrs and were quite unfamiliar with the roads at this unearthly hour! I never understood it when my mum, very well in the know of the roads, would lose her way either before sunrise or after sunset!! But now I do, as the roads do look terrifically different!!

We crossed Marine Drive, which is beautiful when it’s lit up!! After heading towards Navi Mumbai, we caught on to the NH 8.

We crossed 3 toll plaza’s on this road, and although the roads are good, the trucks make driving hell! The possibility of zipping past one of them and heading right into another is very high and serves no purpose, so waiting and having an excellent navigator (this time it’s ST and not me!! :P) is important! Although all these trucks and traffic didn’t seem to bother a merc who overtook all of us and zipped passed everyone without a blink of an eye!! :P

We reached Manor at 0727hrs, 109.2 kms and touched the Gujarat border at 0825hrs at 173.8 kms!

Between Mumbai and Surat we had decided to take a detour to Daman and Dandi. Without these two places, we’d have reached Surat in half a day! But somewhere around 7 am we could hear hour horn fade! Danish, defending Waldo (the car :D) to the end) denied any of it and blamed our hearing on our age and growing old and infrequent trips to the ENT!! But soon when the horn faded totally we decided to get it done at the first stop itself – Daman!

We reached Vapi town at 0837 hrs at 187.2 km and Daman at 0855 hrs at 194 kms. We were all ravenous by this time and HAD to stop for grub before any kind of touring! We searched and searched and asked and asked scores of people where “Sea face road” was and no one could tell us where exactly. They’d just point in the direction right ahead of them and vaguely wave their hands about! Even when we were ON Sea Face Road we were told to take a U-turn and head East! But luckily we spotted the words written on the address of some shop and realized we were at the right place!

We stopped over for breakfast at 0915 hrs and 203 kms, at a restaurant called “Daman Delite”, also listed in Lonely Planet as “the best restaurant of Daman”!! And we all agree!!

The breakfast buffet was good, the service was awesome, Danish had 9 omelettes to order and the rest of us just gave way to manners and gobbled the yummy alu parathas, eggs, suji halwa etc!
All for Rs. 49/- only!! Heh heh!

We also visited the Nani Fort which is now a school and Moti Fort which has got a beautiful church in the premises of Infant Jesus.

We were on our way, hornless, at 1130 hrs and stopped at a Maruti Service Station – Car Zone, on Daman – Vapi road to get our horn repaired. This is where Danish’s elaborate planning for this trip came in handy! Danish had made a list of all Maruti Service Stations along the roads we were going to travel on. :D

The horn-less-ness was not low battery or anything serious, but just a lose connection. The mechanic just opened the hood and adjusted something and we were on our way out in fifteen minutes!

After Vapi, we reached Pirdi at 1240 hrs and 239.9 kms, where we realized that there isn’t much between these two places! No shops, no houses!

We crossed Chikhli and turned left towards Dandi at 1330 and 296.4 kms. The road to Dandi is being tarred and resulted in bad roads for the moment! We suspected a flat twice during this 22 kms to Dandi!

We were all so exhausted after tough drive that all we could think of us food! The minute we parked, we headed to a small snack place across the beach. And from there for a dekko of the beach, which is beautiful, and then to a museum! This museum was originally a house belonging to *update later**. Gandhi was around 60 years old when he undertook this 241 mile long march from Amhedabad to Dandi. This was part of the non-cooperation movement against the British, revolting against the tax imposed for Indians on the salt produced here. The information and the sheer experience of just being there is phenomenal!! :D

We then continued on an uneventful journey to Surat. Ok, uneventful is untrue!! We got LOST!!! We were supposed to take a left turn towards Sachin, but we chose to follow the arrows towards NH 8 and landed up on the opposite side of Surat!

This city is loud, brash, rude and dirty! But, the people are helpful..!

Goodnight….