National Highway 63

9th June
We left Goa in heavy rain and had to backtrack some 130kms before heading inland. The trip down the coast was uneventful apart from seeing a dirty big bus sliding sideways across the road towards us, luckily I had time to take evasive action. The buses in India so far are built like tanks, if you were ever to hit one I doubt there would be even a scratch on its bodywork.
NH63 leaves the coast and heads inland over the Western Ghats. We were surprised by an excellent surface that meant we could maybe travel the full 430kms to Hampi in the one day. It deteriorated later but we did get there about 6pm. It was a long day's driving, 10 hours on the road in fact.
What we didn't expect on the highway across was the fellow road users. Apart from the 2 & 4 wheelers we had goat herds, flocks of sheep, a string of camels, water buffalo, holy cows contentedly chewing their cud on the road, ox carts, and pigs. Most of them were well behaved on the road under firm control of their keepers, but the holy cows are something different. At least they move slowly but once they make up their minds to cross over to the other side nothing stops them. The driver has to gauge the animal's MPM (metres per minute) and pass either in front or behind it. Of course keeping an eye out for the trucks bearing down on you, air horns blearing and lights flashing. I have never seen one hit and don't know what the consequences would be if you did.