Today's route: Ahmednagar-Aurangabad.
Weather: Sunny, no wind.
Cycled: Left 11am from the city office of Snehalaya, accompanied to the highway by 2 of Girish’s staff. After some 20km of a very nice, flat and relatively new road we stop for lunch at a dhaba and quickly make friends with its owner and his family. As always, the questions are what, why, where to/from, followed by ‘wows’ and being asked for pictures. The boss - slightly drunk - is a very friendly fellow who makes Wiebke the owner of the dhaba for the time of our stay. We’re presented with ripe tamarind right from the garden tree whilst waiting for our orders to be prepared. Delicious stuff, these things.
Didn't cycle: The family of the dhaba negotiated with a lorry driver they know to take us the rest of the way for 100 rs. Kalyan feels feverish and it’s the first time, he doesn’t feel up to riding the rest of the day. After all, we still have some 91km ahead of us and it would be nice if we arrived in Aurangabad as accommodation between the cities is said to be scarce. The lorry driver was very nice and despite being in a hurry, he stopped for one of our favourites - fresh sugar cane juice - as soon as we asked.
And back on the cycle again: The driver lets us out some 10km outside of Aurangabad. We call the people from the Journalist College we met at Snehalaya as promised and let them know we arrive soon. A meeting place at a busy crossroad is being fixed and shortly after our arrival Jaypal who we met previously and 2 other “youngsters” picked us up on one (1!!) motor bike to guide us the remaining 5km or so to a hotel outside their campus through Aurangabad’s crazy traffic. One of them has to jump of the bike at every major intersection where police monitor the traffic and are just too ready to hand out hefty fines for any wrong doing. Sure enough, they still get caught at one. When the officers see us on our bikes, with all the equipment and the journalists holding up their camera, we manage to charm our way out without much problems. Lucky again...
Ate & drank:
8:30am: A last meal at Snehalaya’s kitchen, a last meal prepared by women with HIV/Aids. Upma, chai and water, followed by Amino’s for the cycling and H2O.
inbetween: H2O mixed with the oral hydration solution kindly provided by Snehalaya’s hospital as we had run out of our favorite lemon-flavored Enersol.
1pm: dhal mogulai (dhal mixed with eggs, some sort of Mogul recipe), Alu mutter (potato something, roti, lots of H2O
7pm: chicken biryahni, lassi, thumbs up, H2O
Highlight of the day: Handover as in being accompanied by the Snehalaya team out of Ahmednagar and being received into Aurangabad by the journalist students. They checked us into a nice hotel, had all tips on where, what, how and organised everything we just mentioned for us.
Health Check: Kalyan feverish. Wiebke fine.
Stayed at: Sahara hotel kindly letting us stay in an AC room at the Non-AC rate of 900rs/night. Nice room, hot running water (if you let it run just for long enough), TV and clean sheets & towels.
Photos of today
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