07-Feb-2004 -- Our Expedition to the Discovery of 18N 77E

Date: Saturday, Feb 07, 2004 at 0945 hours
Visit by: Praveen Goggi and Chandra Dasaka
Place: Near Belur Village, Basavakalyan Taluka, Bidar Distict, Karnataka, India
Visit tourism-of-india.com/bidar.html for details of Bidar district.
Distance: 6 Kms from Belur Village and 17.5 Kms from Basavankalyan Town.
Earlier Visits: Please click on the respective names to view earlier visits.
Expedition dedicated to: Guenter Walser, Austria.

Myself and Chandra are equally crazy about confluence hunting. We never let go any opportunity to hunt for a new point every weekend. Chandra visited 18°N 78°E last week enroute his hometown near Rajahmundry. In our spare time, we discuss a lot of confluences and plan for visiting couple of them each possible week.

Meticulous Chandra chalked out an excellent plan to cover two points in one day. These points were in the neighboring state (Karnataka). We planned to do it on 7th Feb (Saturday). I was excited and could hardly sleep the earlier night.

As usual we started before the break of dawn (5:45am), this time in Chandra’s car. We were required to drive 160 Kms towards West of Hyderabad, to reach our first point 18N 77E. Chandra drove good and we raced through couple of towns (Patancheru and Sadashivpeth) in Andhra pradesh before we reached the state border. After passing thru Humanabad and Matala in Karnataka, we stopped at a tri-junction to take few direction and also to consult the GPS, which showed 20 Kms to our right. Chandra’s detailed maps also helped us identify the correct crossroad to take, which led us to a town called “Basavkalayan”.

Excitement rose as we passed Basavkalyan on the road to Hulsur, we were just about 4 Kms from our destination. We hoped to find the confluence point just below our car (in middle of the road!), and our wish came true! We found it just below the car (well just one meter side of the road, to be precise). It was just 0945 hours and we were well in time to visit the second one (17N 77E) in next few hours.

Contact Info:
Praveen Goggi, +91-98851-98951 or +91-20-2295-3090
Chandra Dasaka, +91-40-3090-2105