Day 11: Manali to Bilaspur

It rained heavy, real havy that night at Manali. Our plans of visiting Rohtang Pass in an Innova had to be called off early in the morning.

It took us a while to decide, but at 1pm, we started out journey down the hills from Manali. It was still raining a bit, and the river by our side had very heavy current! We drove down and in about an hour reached a place where the river is nearly at the road level. The edges of the road had been made safe by a tall wall, which didn't allow the river water to flow to the road. A few kms further down, we however saw a place where the road was submerged in water for a short distance - 20-30 m or so and the road repair works were in progress. I let a local car drive through it and realised it shouldn't be too much of a problem. It was easy, the right side of the car was in water, but nothing too deep to worry about.

We continued our drive further and by evening reached Bilaspur. We found a hotel there and stayed for the night - on Day 11, we drove 171 kms only, but it did take good 5 hours of driving to get to Bilaspur.

Day 10: Panchkula to Manali

Manali was more than 300 kms away and we knew there is significant hill drive involved. So, we started early in the morning at 5:30am on Day 10 of our trip. Given that we were at Panchkula and not in Chandigarh, we decided to take NH 21A instead of NH 21 northwards.

The highway was not too great, but we were happy to be progressing towards Himalayas. After driving for about ~100kms, we reached a point where a bridge had been completely washed away by the rains and the only way to cross the river was the drive through it!

A waited a while and allowed a few trucks to pass through. Of course, I realised that it was not possible to do it in a car - so thought of making most use of it and clicked a few photographs as we saw the trucks drive through the river!

We continued to drive and then reached the foothills of Himalayas. From thereon, it was about 200-250 kms of hill drive. We didn't gain that much in altitude (Manali is just over 2000 meters above sea level), but we had to go deep into Himalayas. With each turn, we were navigating our way deeper behind mountains and the drive was fun and interesting.

This road has a lot of truck traffic too - it feeds a lot of areas in Himalayas, esp. of Shimla. In addition, given that the winter is nearing and the entire region would be cut off from rest of India, Ladakh/ Leh region was probably stocking up its supplies for the winter too.

The heavy traffic with hilly terrain meant I drove a large part of it, stuck behind trucks!

I think, the highway to Manali is extremely safe, no issues with its design - but a note of caution here - I wasn't too impressed with the driving skills of the local drivers. Often we would find cars and taxis overtaking at blind turns - a very risky proposition in deed. I wish I could just speak to all of them and say that with this driving technique, you might get there a couple of minutes earlier, but its not worth it at all. Such undue risks exponentially increases the chances of accidents. All it meant was that I became a bit more defensive at turns, always accounting for an aggressive driver driving from the other side as well. Seriously, I feel very strongly about safe driving and we all need to understand that good driving has to be zero - risk. You don't overtake at turns and over-take only when you are absolutely sure there is no other on-coming vehicle. Instead, I saw many drivers overtaking all the time, unless they see a truck in front of them! This is not great at all - you might be lucky 99 times out of 100 as the on-coming vehicle would brake, but that 1 out of 100 is not good enough, esp. when you consider the number of over-takes involved in a drive and the number of such drives the taxi drivers do in a month and a year. This blog wouldn't do anything, but I strongly appeal to the local drivers to shift to defensive driving, particularly at hills.

Just as we about to reach Manali, we could see sign boards for Leh! We knew it was not possible, but gave it one final try after reaching Manali - we asked around the taxi drivers, tourist centre to figure out that driving Swift to Leh was not an option at all this time around.

Overall, we drove for 331 kms on Day 10, driving through a lot in hilly terrain. It's always interesting to drive in hills - but it drains you out as the concentration levels need to increase many fold!

Day 9: Sri Ganganagar to Panchkula

We took it easy at Sri Ganganagar to recover a bit from first 8 days or travel and the impact the food had had on our stomachs!

We started late and continued our drive on NH 15 and then moved to NH 64 from Bhatinda. Unlike the previous 2 days, we had once again entered the more populated region of India and therefore the drive was a lot slower. We were still not back on the Golden Quadrilateral and thus we only averaged 47 kmph for the day.

Just after sunset, there were heavy showers and decided to stop at Panchkula, a bit before Chandigarh. Given the heavy traffic and our late start, we did about 333 kms on Day 9. From driving point of view, there weren't too many interesting moments this day.

Day 8: Jaisalmer to Sri Ganganagar

We started a bit late from Jaisalmer, enjoying the morning at the Sand Dunes, followed by a round of Shopping at Jaisalmer. We continued to drive on NH 15, again the road was very good. Just as our experience on Day 7, this was also a great road to Bikaner and beyond as it runs all along the border.

As far as driving was concerned, it was a very good day - this was the day when we got the highest average speed for the overall day at 82kmph, well above the 58 kmph for the overall trip. Despite spending half a day at Jaisalmer, we could cover 612 kms on Day 8 - a testimony to the great roads we found all along the way.

Day 7: Morbi - Jaisalmer

We were 675 kms away from Jaisalmer and the idea was to get there by 4pm or so. That would give us enough time to check-in to our tents and then take the camel ride to sunset. To get there, we needed 10-11 hours of drive. We wanted to add an hour of margin to ensure that we definitely get in to Jaisalmer by time.

We realised that the only way for us to get to Jaisalmer was to travel non-stop, with no breaks in between for breakfast and lunch. So, the previous evening, we packed some snacks and bread which would be our breakfast and in the worst case, our lunch too.

Aiming for 4:30am, we could start at around 5am. The road was very good, except for a 10-20km stretch in between, about 100 kms from Morbi where the ground clearance of the car again had to counted to every decimal.

Roads in Rajasthan are amazingly good. It's not a 4-lane road as the traffic is just not there. But, given their strategic importance (close to the border with Pakistan), these roads are very welll maintained and are in good shape. I drove at about 100 kmph all the way through, could have gone much faster, but decided to keep to my 100kmph plan to be safe.

This was truly an amazing drive, great roads and as we got closer to Jaisalmer, the mirages started to show up - a great sight in deed.

We made it to Jaisalmer in quick time and were there at around 3pm, giving us time to have Lunch at a local restaurant. From there it was a 45 km drive to Sam Sand Dunes, our camp for the night!

All in all, a great driving day, covered 679 kms in quick time at good average speed.

Day 6: Jamnagar - Dwaraka - Morbi

As we were a day late, we couldn't afford a break at Jamnagar that we had originally planned. So, we started in the morning to Dwaraka and then drove to Morbi, a small town in Gujarat.

On Day 6, we did most of it on state highways - some stretches were bad, but otherwise the roads were good.

On Day 6, we did 405 kms, much of it on State Highways and spent rest of the time visiting the temple at Dwaraka - for more details, please see the "Daily blog" section

Day 5: Thane -Ahmedabad - Jamnagar

Day 5 was a day of mixed fortunes. Early in the day, we got stuck in Mumbai traffic and lost close to 45 minutes at a traffic jam near an under bridge. From then on, morning was slow, very slow. The Mumbai-Delhi GQ is being upgraded to being a 6-lane highway/ expressway. This is a very good and positive move and there is a lot of traffic on this route. However, for the time being, its a nightmare. Despite paying toll, one needs to be very slow as only one lane on either side was operational. Further, there are many flyovers being made and therefore one needs to navigate through the side of the road which gets tough beyond a point. With very heavy trucks using this road, anything less than a rock solid road would erode off quickly. This is exactly what had happened and there were deep potholes on the road next to the where the flyovers were being constructed.

I don't exactly remember how many such flyovers were being made - if I guessed 20, it would probably be an underestimate, probably 30-40 would be the right number - a great sight for all those investing in infrastucture and cement companies.

As a driver, it was tough. My low ground clearance relative to the trucks meant that I did brush the underbody a couple of times, though there was no damage done.

Once we crossed Vapi, the highway was back to being what golden quadrilateral is meant to be. Some parts had been 6-laned already and the progress was fast. I was driving at about 100kmph consistently and then Papa took the car between Surat and Baroda.

From Baroda to Ahmedabad, there is a world class expressway - it was a great drive. I touched 130 kmph and then got it back to the safe 110 kmph speed. My speed had to take into account the longer breaking distance required with a fully loaded car, so 130 was the max I was willing to stretch it. Fortunately, since this was an expressway, there was little fear of animals straying on to the road or our friendly villager driving on the wrong side of the road!

We took the bye-pass from Ahmedabad and joined the highway to Rajkot. This highway is supposed to be a normal national highway, but it is 4-laned and very well made. Even at night, I probably covered 200 odd kms in 2.5 hours or so. Great highway, far exceeded the expectations and moreover, we only paid Rs. 20 in toll for this stretch! At most other places, we paid close to 60 paise per km - should have been close to Rs. 120 from Ahmedabad to Rajkot.

At Rajkot, we took a dinner break and then headed to Jamnagar. We took a state highway, but I must mention that Gujarat roads are really good. Even a state highway was 4-landed at many places and it was a good drive.

A small bridge at the main entrance to Jamnagar had been damaged, which meant we had to get in to the city from a lesser road. It was very bumpy and muddy there - at 1am at night, we almost had a boat ride experience thanks to the very uneven road where I probably drove at 10kmph. A couple of places, the underbody did scratch through, but there were no problems as such. A bit more of city drive and we found our hotel where we had booked for the night.

A long driving day - we did 836kms that day - highest till then and 2nd highest for the entire trip. In terms of hours on the road, this was clearly the longest. We spent 18 hours and 30 minutes on the road on Day 5!