Samara Goes to Goa

On Thursday evening, Samara left on her maiden visit to Goa, her longest trip so far. We had decided to take a halt at Kolhapur, and so took an evening start, leaving from Pune by 5.00 pm. The weather was beautiful, dark clouds, but not much rain. The chilly weather and the gradually undulating terrain was perfect for the 250 km drive. With Sanam sleeping peacefully on the back seat, my friend and her cousin ensconsed in their blankets on the middle seats, watching Twilight on the DVD, wifey and I enjoyed the drive immensely. We reached Kolhapur by 830 pm, after a 30 min break for bhajiyas and chai at the Sai International, half an hour from the city.

I did miss my Fiesta, though... the agility of the car enabling better power driving on the highway. Another thing you have to be careful of in the Endy are sudden jumps on the road, those uncomfortable speed bumps, which don't harm the front seat passengers, but can be pretty bad for the passengers in the rear. Thankfully, the super efficient ABS brakes on the Endy ensure you can avoid the impact to a large extent.

So round 1 was a tie, power driving on the highway went to the Fiesta, although the Endy made up through it's better in-car entertainment and stressless long driving experience.

Day 2 began at 545 am, with a slight drizzle, the last hour of the night yet to pass. By the time, we hit the Nipani-Uttur-Azra-Amboli-Sawantwadi stretch, both the car and her driver had sufficiently warmed up and found their rhythm, ready for what was expected to be the biggest challenge - 100 km of second class road, narrow and twisty, through fields and jungles, and the Western ghats. This has always been my time guzzler on all speed record attempts, the Fiesta needing to slow down on the potholed stretches, having to follow the lumbering STs and trucks, having to slow down to a crawl to let incoming traffic pass. And this is where the Endy proved it's worth, easily managing to stay at an average 100-120 kmph, effortlessly handling the potholes, scaring half the incoming traffic off the road long before we came to a head, and easily stepping off the tarred surface when needed for those tight squeezes.

The eye-opener was on the ghat. We were taking a hair pin bend at a decent speed when we suddenly saw this truck broken down right in our path, requiring emergency brakes and a tighter turn to pass the parked truck safely. The ABS kicked in, enabling unbelievably smooth and safe passage, and my respect for the Endy went up a level of magnitude.

Immediately after the Amboli ghat, a mostly-kuccha road takes you directly to Banda, saving around 20km and half an hour of frustrating single lane traffic in the Sawantwadi area, and we had tremendous fun throwing the Endy at the huge ponds of water, splashing through, the delugu splashing onto the windscreen and blinding the driver for a brief moment, before the wipers take over.

We reached Goa by 830, well in time for our first chai of the day!

Goa has been a lot of fun offering unlimited offroad opportunities. Wait for some cool pictures and videos, to be uploaded as soon as I reach broadband land.