Yesterday, I came across this very beautiful sunset picture in a photoblog that reminded me of a wonderful sunset we had witnessed almost an year ago.
5th of May 2011.
We were rushing through the wide expansive plains of Madhya Pradesh, the largest and centre most state of our country. Destination – Agra- the city of The Taj Mahal in Uttar Pradesh.
Remember the time we shifted from Hyderabad to Delhi last year? Yes, that is the road trip I am talking about.
It was day two. We started from Betul, a town in Madhya Pradesh where we’d halted for the night at a serene little guesthouse, at around 8 AM. With a goodnight’s rest and a light breakfast behind us we were all set to negotiate the 720.5 km on National Highway 3 to Agra. ‘Google maps’ told us we should be there in about 10 hours 29 mins. But we knew that would easily come to just over 12 hours. From all the road trips that we’d taken, we have learned one thing. Google maps always seemed to assume you are a Nascar driver on a Nascar track!
Anyway, it was a lovely day. Bright and chirpy with clear blue skies for miles.
Madhya Pradesh is India’s largest state located right at the heart of our country. Home to the highly endangered Tigers and a very large variety of beautiful wild flora and fauna, this state is breathtakingly beautiful. As we drove through large open plains which were actually National Parks (Click here pls), we did hope to come across some.
But except for the huge packs of different species of Monkeys, we hardly came across any other form of wild life.
I guess we should be thankful and not disappointed because it meant they are all safe far deep in the wild.
It took us the entire day to reach the outskirts of Gwalior.
Gwalior – a city with a rich heritage dating back to the days of the kings and Maharajas. As much as we wanted to explore the beautiful palaces that are a signature aspect of this old city, we just couldn’t afford to.
We still had nearly 130 kilometres to cover before we could retire for the night. That easily meant 3 hours.
The road gets better from this point on. We would be finally on the multi lane express highway after having driven through two way roads the entire day. But it was twilight and the blinding headlights of the heavy approaching traffic would significantly cut down our speed..
Added to that, the heavy traffic mess we were certain to encounter as soon as we entered Agra would ensure that it will be way past midnight before we reached the hotel we had booked for the night.
It made sense to keep on driving and not take a break now. To try and cover as much distance as we could before it got really dark.
But we were all rather tired. Buddy in particular. He’d never rested, preferring to be on all four paws for most parts of the day. He now looked weary. Ginger, my serene little girl was as quiet as ever. But she too seemed exhausted. Shadow surprisingly was doing the best. He had slept away most of the journey - on his back with all four paws kicking the air. Now, as the day drew to a close, he seemed wide awake and well rested. At just 10 months of age, he was doing rather well. Except for the fact that he refused to eat anything and just drank a lot of water, he was just fine.
We just had to take a break.
And suddenly, as if by sheer force of our wish we came across this beautiful, almost idyllic little railway station.
It was so lovely, so peaceful. There was this beautiful orange glow behind it, the hint of a magnificent sunset. This was our cue to stop and stretch our legs and paws before we hit the Expressway.
It was worth it. I managed to capture memories of one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever witnessed. Memories of an exciting road trip that will stay with us all forever….
The last picture was taken through the windshield. I had sprayed it with water to just try and see how it would look had the sunset been captured through a drizzle!
