The alarm rang at sharp 6am and the excitement of the day ahead, I just couldn’t feel lazy. As I was carrying bare minimum luggage, nothing was unpacked previous night, so it was just a matter of getting fresh and slip inside the riding gear. In a record 20min’s time from getting up to getting ready and in between putting the luggage on bike and settling the hotel bill, I was out on road.

As soon as I got on the route, what was my daily commute between school and home, every shop, every roadside object was running in my head and almost nothing has changed – the tank kept on tank circle, sweets shop outside District Court, the tea stall outside Veterinary College, just that the main entrance gate was a newly made one.

As I enter the main gate of Veterinary College, it was as if I’m walking into past. It seemed as fresh in memory as I was here just yesterday and without needing any help, I was able to find my way to the colony where I lived. The temple, that was made in front of me, had grown in its size but the buildings around it still spotted the same yellow paint, trees have grown into full size, though the ‘raat ki rani’ bush that was outside the house has gone away. It being still early morning on a holiday, no one was out yet, as I stop the bike outside the temple. I walk in to find the priest going through the daily process. After spending some time talking to him (he faintly remembers my grandfather), a few clicks were taken and a satisfied I was riding out towards Agra.
Back then the Mathura bypass wasn’t there and as a result the road outside Veterinary College was the one used by all the vehicles. With the bypass now in place, it wasn’t feeling that crowded, the traffic – as a kid we all were scared of venturing out of the College gate.

Soon, I was on the bypass and flew by the point where I took a U turn previous night. The sun finally was visible, making its way through the clouds.

Then for the first time, I saw Mathura Oil Refinery in day time, the place I remembering hearing a lot about, during my childhood.

Enjoying the early morning weather I soon entered Agra city, a bit worried about how to reach Taj and the traffic. Soon I saw one direction board on NH2, specifying to carry on for Taj. From there on reaching Taj was as smooth as hot knife through butter, just look for direction boards and follow them. After parking the bike in parking, I hopped onto an electric powered rickshaw, as vehicles aren’t allowed near Taj anymore.

The rickshaw guy took me to the relocated shopping center (which was years back – closer to Taj) and then to the cloakroom, where I left my entire luggage, except for the cameras. After buying the entry tickets, it was time for the security check. With me reaching a bit early, around 8am, the crowd was still on low side but only until I came close to the Taj.

From here on time was spent trying to capture the beautiful marble structure ala Taj in my camera, using different lens from different angles. Time flew by as if travelling on a supersonic jet.

With sun getting higher and higher, heat and hunger was indicating that it’s time to move on. As I started to come out, tourists were starting to pour in, seems like I was leaving at the right time.

So, at around 10:30am, I started to backtrack till the parking and then soon was again flying on NH2. With small town’s nicely fenced off NH2, it was a nice experience riding in UP. When hunger got a bit too loud, I pulled over into a dhaba, just short of Tundla. It was once again simple dal and rotis accompanied with nice salad (onions & green chilly).

Post brunch break, it was a smooth sailing with nice weather for riding and not too boring scenery to enjoy. I was riding at a slow pace, for that road, and soon I reaped the benefit of doing so. While I was looking around, I passed something strange looking; anchors were dropped and backtracked for few meters, so find a pair of strange looking animals.

After spending enough time clicking them, as I moved ahead, flying birds and lots of them forced me to pull over once again and get busy with the camera.

Spending around 30min’s clicking, satisfied and wanting a longer zoom lens, I resumed the ride. Enjoying the runway like (that’s what I was told about NH2) road and thin traffic, I was enjoying every moment of the ride. It was getting evening time when the gps started to show that I’m moving in the direction of Kanpur and also the distance was reducing to uncomfortable levels (I was supposed to get off this road much before being this close to Kanpur). I pulled over into a dhaba, seeing a good amount of trucks parked, on asking I realized that I have missed the turn some 20km’s back, with LP road atlas also not showing the correct direction I was left with the only option of taking a longer route to get back on the road I missed.

So, at Akbarpur I got off NH2 and after a small ride on some back road, I was back on NH25, a good 20-25km’s away from the actual point – Bhognipur. NH25 was a bit busier than NH2 and at places the construction work was going on.

On reaching Bhognipur, I got off NH25 onto SH46. This was the road I was worried a bit about its road condition but soon all my doubts were blown by the exhaust gases coming out of my bike. It’s a beautiful, wide, two lane road with not too heavy traffic. For first time I also came across some curves where I was required to lean the bike a bit. Finding this road to be so good, my hopes were raised of reaching Khajuraho a bit late in night.

By the time I got off SH46 onto NH86 at Ghatampur, the sun has called it quits for the day and it was getting darker at a rapid pace. After negotiating out of Ghatampur traffic, the road started to get from bad to worse and all my nightmares were gifted to me on a nicely decorated platter. Though the road was very low on traffic, and there was a reason for this – the road surface; full of pot holes, dust & gravel, the progress was a slow and painful one.

Things got scary when I started to see broken down trucks on the road and road side, all the small pocket of civilizations I was crossing were nothing more than big villages. Now, I was worried about not finding help if my bike is eaten up by one of the zillions of potholes or someone decides to rob/murder (having heard enough of these stories as a kid) me in the lonely section of the “highway”. Trucks were too slow to ride with them and they were throwing off lots of dust, making it impossible to see ahead.  After a painful ride for almost 45min’s (covering around 20km’s), I crossed the town of Hamirpur, the road suddenly turned into heaven as I approached the town. With no hotel visible from the road side, I decided to carry on hoping the road will be as good as this.

Soon after crossing the town, road was back to its original state and that was the pattern all the way until I decided to get off this “highway”.

After another 90min’s of painful, scary, torture I deiced to pull over seeing a few trucks parked on the roadside dhaba. My body and bike both needed a break. Talking to the truck owners over a cup of tea, I found that this highway is in this state for a long time now and there is no  hope of it improving in near future – point noted, to avoid it unless want to prepare for some hard core off-roading. Talking to the truck drivers, I got to know a shorter route to Khajuraho but was advised not to venture out on it in dark.

After a small break I resumed the bumpy ride to the town of Mahoba. After a torture that continued for almost 3.5hrs and over around 90km’s, I finally entered the town of Mahoba, at around 9:30pm. I soon asked for directions towards Railway station as not only I was hungry but also was looking forwards to a much needed sleep. As I zipped towards Railway Station, I realized it is located outside city limits, that means I won’t find any hotels there and how correct I was. On reaching station, it had only a handful shops, mostly for food. So I climb the wooden stairs of one such hotel for dinner. There were insects flying all over the places, night time + lights + open hotel, with no better option in vision I decided to keep aside the cleanliness factor and carried on with food.

Post dinner, I was again zipping towards city, hoping to find a hotel and I found two. First one was a decent looking from outside but no one was visible on the reception so I moved for the second one. Without giving a second thought, I parked my bike inside the hotel door and entered the room that reminded me of some location right out of Ramsey Brother’s horror movies, thought it was much better than the room I stayed for a night in Londa (2005). With just a night to be spent and room costing 100 bucks, I decided to not look any further. So, just after 10:30pm it was time for eye shut.