Drive from Delhi to Amritsar - May 14

Last month, we made a trip to Amritsar during a long weekend. We left from Gurgaon, Delhi on friday morning, at 0600. Took the Mehrauli route and hit the Grand Trunk Road towards  Ludhiana. We crossed Sonepat at around 0730 and stopped at  the Pehelwan Dhaba.

Had aloo and mooli ke parathe with dollops of fresh white butter on them. It was delicious and we ordered more than we could stuff ourselves with. This was followed up with lassi, supposedly to wash down the food. But seeing its thickness, it was more likely to coat our gut with a thick layer of fat. After a hearty breakfast, and over an hour of gluttony, we got into the car and proceeded further. Around 0930, we reached the flyover at Karnal. I was going at 120 kmph, when we crested the flyover and saw cops waiting on the other side with speed guns. We were flagged down for overspeeding. Never understood the concept of having 8 lane highways, with absurd speed limits like 60 kmph.

After the pleasantries with the cops, we continued on our journey. The entire Grand Trunk Road, the prestigious National highway 1 (NH1) has flyovers coming up every few kilometres. But there seems to be no construction activity and many of them are overgrown with vegetation. All of them are invariable being used as parking lots. While, the centre of the road has parked vehicles, the moving vehicles have to use narrow bypasses on either side of the construction area. So we really couldnt make great progress. However, we bypassed most of the towns along the way and moved at a brisk pace. We reached Ludhiana at around 1330. However, Ludhiana has grown up to encompass the bypass and it was like driving through the town. After crossing Ludhiana, we stopped for lunch at a small dhaba. Nothing special. Simple roti, dal and subzi.

All along the highway after entering Punjab, we noticed strange shaped water tanks or sculptures on top of the houses. There were footballs, birds, horses, weightlifters, etc. We were told that these sculptures represent the number of members from that house who are settled in US/Canada. It is a kind of prestige issue. However, this is not corroborated as our source admitted that he had heard this story from somebody else and was not sure about its authenticity.

Wagah Border

We had initially planned that we would reach Amritsar by 1600 and proceed directly to Wagah border for the flag lowering ceremony. However, we could not make it and reached Wagah only at 1700. By the time we parked the car, the ceremony was already over and people were walking back. Since we had come all the way, we decided to at least go and see the border gates before heading back to Amritsar. The border was around a km from the parking. As we were walking, we noticed that ominous black clouds were rapidly moving in. However, since we had come all this way, and now had walked some distance, we just decided to continue. Worst case scenario - we would get a little wet. But then we realised that the worst case scenario need not necessarily be the WORST CASE SCENARIO. The wind suddenly picked up. It started raining, big droplets. As we were wondering whether we should head for any shelter, the wind speed further picked up and it started raining heavily. So we headed towards a water tank with cement pillars and stood under it for shelter. The small space under it was soon crowded with over 20 people. Within minutes, it had grown dark, and we were in the midst of a full blown thunderstorm. 

Yes, I managed to take snaps in between the melee. :-)

The wind howled, the rain beat down on us, leaves and branches broke and flew past, display boards broke and flew away. And just when we though it couldn't get worse (refer to earlier realisation), the hail started. We were pelted with hail stones and there was no way to protect ourselves. By now all the kids were terrified and were soon bawling. As the wind subsided a little, we decided to make a break for the car as we were no longer sure if it would improve or get worse. So we ran for the car through the driving rain, pelting hail and howling wind....and on reaching the parking lot, we had to walk to the car, wading and slipping and sliding through the slush and mud. By the time we entered the car, we were dripping wet and caked with mud, all of which we transferred to the plush interiors of the car. Anyways, we changed the kids clothes and waited for the storm to abate. This was followed by waiting for the chaos in the parking lot to reduce as vehicles got stuck in the mud and created jams. Finally after an hour of waiting, we moved out of the parking lot. We were like Generals, planning our movement through an intricate minefield (of slush and hidden sink holes). One of them almost got us, but a last moment dash of power got us out, safe and sound. Meanwhile, most of our luggage in the car, including our clothes had also got wet. My phone had got drenched and was no longer working. 

We then faced our next problem. We did not know where to go as the address of the guest room was saved as an SMS in the phone and I could not call anybody to ask for the details as I did not remember their numbers. Of course, technology always comes to the rescue for situations which were created by it in the first place. I had an app running in my phone which saved all SMS and call logs to my Gmail account automatically. One of the phones in our car was still working and I accessed the internet and found out the address. Of course, with no GPS and nobody on the roads to ask directions due to the rains, it took us some time to finally reach the place. It was nearly midnight by the time we finally settled down in our rooms.

Keeping the twin aims of keeping each post short and churning out regular posts, I will end here.

We will visit the Golden Temple in the next post.