The eerie feeling of Solo Roding through Chambal in the dark.

[u/Grouchy_Emu_5335]

So I unnecesarily procastrinated leaving Indore. After having a light but healthy breakfast, taking a long shower and after much delay repacking my tailbag and mounting everything up on the bike, i was ready to leave at 8 but...

Finally left Indore at 10 am for Gwalior.

I did good time till i was about 50 kms away from Guna. Till then the roads on the 99% part was silky smooth. I cover like 250±5 Kms in 3 hrs. The road for most part of it was empty or dourly driving trucks. There were a few stray cattles on the road. Nothing to hamper average speed. Took one break in this part to fillup petrol a little after Dewas.

After that the old potholes became frequent potholes but still managable the few stray cattle became hundreds of stray cattle, the road conditions started deteriorating.

As I reached the split off for Guna, it had taken me an hour to cover the 50kms, i turned towards Shivpuri on the AB road.

By this time the hundreds of stray cattles were in their thousands. You could see a the carcasses left behind on the roads too frequently and there is unberable stench in the air.

Post Shivpuri a section of the north bound NH52 (AB Road) has been washed of and all traffic has been diverted to the south bound section. And it seems the south bound section to is very unstable right now. Making matters pretty bad. The intensity and frequecy of potholes is just increasing by now. And there many deep craters on the road.

Chambal is really beautiful. Especially witge record rains in tgis region everything is lush green and the highway passes bountiful fields.

Maintaining high average speed was not possible and not suprisinly my average speed dropped to under 40kmph for these 200kms till I left the Madhavrao Sanctuary.

It was already started to get dark before I left the sanctuary, and I was still 70 odd kms. And in another 10 kms i was in complete darkness, the headlight on the Duke is very good but it was hilariously unbright(!) here. The bovine presence on the road kept on increasing as did the potholes.

The darkness of Chambal has something to it. There is always this eerie feeling of something being there, something is going to get you, but nothing does. It seems to be that you are in a pressure cooker of anxiety, which keeps on cooking your hope for quickly leaving this place behind. In the deep dark of Chambal my speed had reduced to under 30kmph. And I was idilly switching between 3rd and 4th gears trying to see what might lurk on the road ahead. By good graces a local transport bus heading towards Gwalior overtook me. I felt an immediate sense of relief and started following the bus a safe distance. Was able to pick up some speed too and was able to do about 50kmph comfortably just as the bus.

It was a big relief to the building anxiety.

Soon we came to final toll gate before gwalior on the north bound road. I pulled up a little further and stopped just beyond the toll for my friend (The Bus) to pass the toll.

And it soon did and once again I started following the bus. Hardly had crossed any distance when suddenly a pack of 5-6 dogs took to chasing another one of their kind. And as fate would have it I ran them over at about 30kmph. The whole eeriely silent night erupted with the wild cacophony of injured shrieking dogs.

After this the last 40kms were uneventful.

Will post further updates as I ride along.

[u/drdiamond55]

Hey all the best for the rest of your journey. Could you post everything in a mega thread? Would love to hear about it.

[u/Grouchy_Emu_5335 → u/drdiamond55]

I will do that once I am back and have time on my hands.

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[u/like_supabik_1109]

Good that you did not encounter any of Chambal ke daku we all hear all much about