10-Jan-2004 -- After two unsuccessful attempts at this confluence idea, finally I've got my first successful confluence visit.

Me and my cousin Saurabh Sathe made this visit. In India, it's very hard to get good maps with latitude longitude lines drawn on them. Fortunately I had one very old (1989) newspaper supplement map that had these lines. Consulting that, I figured out that the only closest confluence from my native place, Pune, was the one that lies about 15Km south of the town of Indapur. Other points were taken by other visitors.

We left Pune early morning yesterday, 10th Jan 2004. The road leading out was thankfully empty because of the morning hours. It was chilly, and riding a motorcycle, it feels even more so. fortunately, of all the roads that go out of pune, this one has no hills along the way. so no difficult turns, no engine strain.

After making frequent stops to let the engine cool down and our hands warm up, we finally reached the vicinity of Indapur. Just before town, a road leads south towards Akaluj. This road is so ideal for spotting the confluence that every time you feel like "now if only this road turns a bit to east", you see the road actually doing so.

Hence, the actual confluence of 18N and 75E is barely 600m away from the road.

There is a unpaved road leading from the main Indapur-Akluj road towards the confluence point. This unpaved road forks off the main road right next to Mr. Koratkar's house. This is probably the closest house to the confluence. The road leads you into farmland. there are farms and Babool trees on both sides.

The actual confluence point lies very close to a electric supply transformer. once we were done taking photos, we reached the Koratkar's house, to find that the whole family had gathered. one of their sons works in Pune, from where I come. So we exchanged business cards, and talked shop for a while. His name is Pratul Koratkar who can be contacted at pratulk@cybage.com

After that, we returned home just to find that my digital camera, which is a cheap Kodak DC3200, was unable to capture close ups with clarity. so we waited till today when the film photos were available. I'm uploading those photos here.

BTW, it was my dad's 60th birthday yesterday, so I'd like to dedicate this confluence visit to my dad.