Day 107: Sharapur to Vallonné Wine Estate

A day of authoritarian waiters

Breakfast was interesting. We wanted dosa, a South Indian breakfast that’s like a big pancake, but our waiter kept insisting we have toast and jam, and definitely no “omelet.” In the end we had a little time out and came back to it and it was all fine. Nice dosa. 

Then we continued plodding up the main road. It was mostly uphill and mostly into a headwind, so tough going.  

The big hill of the day had the trucks in first gear barely passing us in our lowest gear. The gradient was only four or five percent, but it went on for many kilometres and sapped our strength. At one point we were passing the trucks again as the gradient bit, but the the 35°C day started to have an impact and we had a stop under a tree for a while to let our engines cool down. 

A stop under a tree to cool down.  

The hill in the middle made us hurt

Lunch brought a new waiter who also had strong opinions about our diet. His “suggested sells” were so forceful that, even after we’d decided what we wanted, he was still trying to talk us into other options. The meal was lovely though, our standard of daal fry plus another dish, this time bendhi marsala, with a stack of paratha. Yum. 

After lunch we turned off the main road and got to see a bit more of the countryside. There are some amazing rock formations here. It’s not quite Monument Valley, but it’s pretty cool. 

A slightly extraordinary photo op with a washing powder salesman  

Finally we made it to our beds for the night at the Vallonné Wine Estate, which we’re looking forward to discovering tomorrow.