Visakhapatnam-Guntur

Sunday, November 13
Having a rest day doesn’t mean we are rested for the next day. Usually it’s one party too many and too late, especially when there are a lot of friends and family around.
We had hearty breakfast of more than one choice. It was pretty much everything south indian: idly,vada, dosa,uthapam and good strong coffee. By the time we had breakfast I was ready for a nap. My elder brother Ram and a few friends were leading the way out of town in a car. They were joinng us for the next 2 days. more partying!
The road out of Vizag was super.. 4 lane highway with a divider separating on coming traffic. After the ass whipping we received the previous few days, this was a runway. I was comfortably cruising between 100-120 kmph.
We stopped after about 2 hours for a cup of coffee. But the local shop did not have any, only tea instead. Interestingly, the chai guy was reading the local paper and our photo was in it with a write up. He recognised us and was quite thrilled. The chai was good and we carried on very comfortably. Navroze and I stopped off at another town to take some photos. With in 5 minutes there were quite a few onlookers around us who also recognised us from the paper. it was quite trippy hearing them call us by our names. What amazed me more was that they all read the paper and were quite informed.
Stopped in a town called Tanuku for lunch. An old friend of ours G.V.Ramana’s brother in law hosted us to a terrific lunch. By the time we got there I felt quite exhausted. I didn’t know if it was because of fatigue setting in or if it was the light in Andhra. The sun was very bright and squinting while riding does tire the eyes. I took a quick shut eye before lunch and we were taken around the compound of the house where he had various birds and animals. One of the most outstanding animal there was this bull (see photo) which stood over 6 feet tall and was just picture perfect. Amazingly beautiful. We were very apprehensive about going any closer to take the picture.
From there we headed to Guntur which was another 150 km or so further. we reached the town just as it got dark.The road was fabulous from start to finish with hardly a pot hole. All signs were clearly marked in English, Telugu and in Hindi languages. We were put up in a private guest house which was very comfortable. My younger brother had driven down from Hyderabad to meet us there. He was going o join us in the car till the next day to Chennai.
Navroze and I had decided to have an early start and Dinesh would catch up with us later, as he would be riding much faster. So we got to bed earlier than the others at midnight.

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