Road Trip

Rahul bought a new car - a red Hyundai Santro I20. He wants to surprise his wife Ravina and his little daughter Sara. Once he reached home, Ravina and Sara were over-excited to see the car.

As Independence day is falling on a weekday, they have a long weekend ahead. All around them were busy planning for their short vacation. Rahul and his family had no idea where to go. 

Ravina received a call from her parents in Chennai. They called to say that her brother is coming over for holidays and wish she could also join them. She enquired Rahul to book train tickets to Chennai. As he had never been there, he agreed and asked her whether they can go on a road trip in their new car. Ravina wholeheartedly agreed.

Rahul drove his new car with his family to Chennai the next morning. Traffic in Bangalore was more chaotic than usual. It took them almost two and half hours to reach Hosur which usually should have taken about 45 minutes. They enjoyed their journey by listening to music, eating snacks, playing games and chit-chatting. 

Around noon, they stopped for lunch in a restaurant near a temple in Ambur as Rahul was driving the car at a stretch for almost 5 hours. After a halt for 15 minutes, they proceeded on their trip. Despite the GPRS, they got lost just before the destination. Luckily, her brother came on the scooter to guide them the last mile.

They reached the house by evening at 5 pm. There was no rain the entire way, but it started raining heavily at night.

It was raining cats and dogs even for the next day. The ground floor of their apartments is waterlogged. All are in confusion whether to go out to explore the city in the new car or to stay at home. After a few minutes of discussion, they decided to go to Mahabalipuram despite the rain. The rain stopped by the time they reached Mahabalipuram, but now with the sun out, it was quite hot and humid. Everyone had all the necessary items ready to protect them from the sun. 

They parked the car and began to have fun exploring the rock structures, climbing them, and did sightseeing of the temples carved out of rocks, Krishna’s Butterball and lighthouse. It was amazing to see these man-made structures standing there after thousands of years. A group of monkeys were wandering around them and they were careful to hide the food packets. 

There were huge rocks that were in the shape of an elephant, with scriptures on the rock depicting gods, goddess, and animals. All had fun climbing to the top of the rock hill and could see the spectacular sight of the whole city. Because of the humid weather, they couldn’t walk further and planned to return home by evening. Thank God, it hadn’t rained since they left for Mahabalipuram. But after 1 hour, it started raining once again.

At night, they planned to go to a nearby hotel for dinner. Rahul had a tough time driving because of waterlogged roads and foggy windshield. They had a tiring journey and with their energies drained, went off to sleep

Next day, the sun was shining brightly. Rahul and his family again decided to explore the city more. They planned to visit VGP snow world which was located in the city outskirts. Two reasons to visit VGP was Rahul can drive longer on the roads and also the little Sara can have more fun. It was an awesome experience in the snow world and 3D Click Art Museum inside the same VGP Snow world complex. They were motivated to get out of their comfort zone. From VGP, they headed to Besant Nagar beach, spent time there for about 2 hrs and headed back home.

On the last day of their vacation, they started the road trip back again to Bangalore. They took the Old Madras Road route instead of Madiwala due to the inconvenience faced on their way to Chennai. Had a brief halt at Petrol Bunk where the people distributed sweets on occasion of Independence Day. Roads on this route were also good, though it was a two-lane road most of the way. It passes through the Andhra Pradesh border and towards Karnataka and one can drive at around 80 km/hr. After they reached the New Madras toll road, the road became a 6 lane expressway, and one could drive at 120 k.m/hr. Finally, they reached Bangalore by noon.

Rahul and his family had an amazing road trip and can't wait to tell others about it.