Cycling Mahabaleshwar, Maharasthra thru Karnataka to Guntur, Andhra Pradesh

lifiro

Hi all,
I just got back from a cycle trip in India thought it would be useful to share for anyone planning a trip. I'm a woman and travelling alone was fine, I got a lot of attention, everyone curious about what I was doing and amazed at how far I cycled each day and mostly, fascinated by the gears on my bike! But no hassle. In three of the villages I passed through I was invited into homes for chai and food and photos which was an amazing experience. People were always asking if I had enough food & water, and offering to share, it was very humbling and I wish I'd been able to offer more in return. The only times I saw other foreign travellers were Badami & Hampi. Badami was a real highlight for me, cave temples were amazing. Srisailam was quite overwhelming at the time, but great looking back - it was peak pigrimage time, hundreds of people, many asking me for money and I had no idea what was going on!

Traffic was ok mostly, most of these roads are pretty quiet. You need to know that you never have right of way, and if there's not enough room, you have to get off the road, but that's fine because there's normally wide dirt verges and you get a lot of warning - they'll all beep to let you know they're coming, the engines are super-noisy and the driving's a lot slower than I'm used to. I had a mountain bike, the roads were mainly fine, but on a road bike it would be harder to get off the road regularly, and there were some rough/pot-holed sections. I was on the main highway on the second day, was fine cycling on the hard shoulder, a bit boring though! Cycling into the cities Sangli/Miraj, Kurnool and Guntur was nerve-racking, I stopped and watched the other bikes, caught my breath then either jumped back into the traffic, or walked with the pedestrians depending how brave/stupid I was feeling.... In the big places I was up and on the road very early in the morning to avoid busy traffic.

I tried to arrive in places by 3pm at latest so that I had plenty of time to find somewhere to stay and check the place out, and so that if I couldn't find anywhere/didn't like it I had time to get to the next place! There was only one place I had trouble finding somewhere to stay - Kashtigi, and I jumped on a bus. Mostly I looked for the best place in town, except in big towns and tourist places.

Catching a bus with the bike worked ok, mostly there were porters around to put the bike up on the roof, or someone volunteered to help me. Sometimes I went up too to check it was tied on ok. On the train turn up an hour or so early and go to the luggage office (not parcel office), fill in a few forms and it seems to work out fine. And, you can fit a bike sideways into an autorickshaw - handy for getting to train stations safely at midnight! I didn't have any bike problems on the road, but if you did, you could carry a bike on most of the vehicles passing, I even saw a guy carrying a bike on the back of a moped!

So here's the practical stuff. I arranged for KKtravels to pick me up from Mumbai airport and take me to Sumangal hostel, Pune (great hostel, quiet, out of town) then arranged a taxi to Mahabaleshwar (Tajmin Travel, Mobile 9423233977, Rs2500). My route for the first part was:
Mahabaleshwar - Wai 44k
Wai - Karad 85k (Hotel Shri Annapurna Prasad, Highway, Karad 02164 220364/698021, Rs550)
Karad - Miraj 85k (Rs250)
Miraj - Chikodi 85k (it's not that far, I got lost! Lots of hotels in Chikodi, stayed at one opposite bus station, Rs 350)
Chikodi - Mudhol 80k (Hotel Kolhar Yatri Nivas, Jamakhandi Road, Mudhol, 08350 280022, Rs315)
Mudhol - Bagalkot 65k (Hotel Shiva Sangam Residency, Near APMC Cross, Navanagar, 08354 325666, 9880896321, Rs650)
Bagalkot - Badami 35k
Badami - Kushtagi 80k (bus to Hospet cos I couldn't find accommodation in Kushtagi) and Hospet - Hampi 10k
Hampi - Siriguppa 80k (Chaiten Lodge, Rs175 – only place in town, basic but ok)
Siriguppa - Adoni 70k (Hotel Bheemas Regency, VBS Road, 0851 2252555, mobile 99480 87759, Rs455, great hotel but watch our for the monkeys!)
Adoni - Kurnool 100k (Mourya Inn, Bhagya Nagar, 08518 224999, cybercafe_mourya@rediffmail.co m, Rs1075)
Kurnool - Atmakur 70k
(bus to Srisailam, then Macherla - was advised its unsafe to cycle through forest areas)
Macherla - Guntur 120k

After I got the East coast, I got the train down to Kanyakumari & cycled up to Kochi, I'll do another post about that trip.