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!
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