A Pilgrimage

Last year(2010)in October WE decided to go on a pilgrimage from Bhopal to the holy city of Ujjain(of course by road and on bikes).
Ujjain is a holy city situated 190km from Bhopal.The most famous temple located here is the Mahakaleshwar Temple dedicated to lord Shiva,apart from this there are about 20 more temples there.

We were four friends and had two motorcycles; one was the old Royal Enfield 380cc and the other was a Pulsar 220cc.We decided to start our road trip in the night.
At about 10 pm we set out from Bhopal via the VIP road on the Bhopal Indore highway.
Our destination was 190km far and there was a whole night between.
We were excited and cautious too, cause driving on these roads in night on bikes can be really dangerous sometimes.

Out of us four one guy didn't knew how to drive.So it was three of us who were to drive in shifts.
It was slightly cold by 12.00 am and the roads were deserted.Sometimes, we heard a loud truck going past us and sometimes we also heard a few cars whizzig past us,but there was not a single motorcycle apart from ours!
We stopped at a roadside stop somewhere at 12.30 am and had tea....the journey was now looking monotonous, but we persisted.

We were driving at an average speed of about 100 km per hour...believe me this was some road.

I love the roads of Madhya Pradesh...they are well maintained and u can speed up to very high speeds here.
Considering that, we are speed freaks it was going on well and we were enjoying.But, one my friend was really nervous,cause he was not sure..of our driving.
Nevertheless, we reached our destination at about 3.00 am in morning.It was cold and we dropped the idea of a bath.

We then tried to be a join a very long queue(about a kilometer long!) to enter the temple premises.
We waited and waited in the long queue and finally entered the premises or the sanctum sortium.
After some times we decided to move out and we left.
Then we decided to move in the city.It is a beautiful city,not planned but holy.
roads are narrow and buildings old.
We chanced upon a temple where the offering of whiskey and smokes are given.My friend got really excited and he purchased a full can of liquor and offered to the lord there.
We then decided to leave the city by 10.00 am.
We started our return journey.Our backs were broken, after the arduous journey and we were exhausted.But we had to return.

The return journey was seeming very long and hot.
Still,as we started the fresh air that I felt in my face rejuvenated my spirits and I was again cruising at 100kph.We reached Bhopal at about 3.00 pm.
It was really exhausting but exciting road trip and i look forward to more this year...