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!

Day 4: Davangere to Thane

Now that we were on GQ, the drive from Davangere was easy. For the first 50-60 kms, it was a bit slow as the highway was under construction, but beyond that, it was very fast. We took a Brunch stop and from there on, I drove non-stop to Pune - the road was good and swift had finally started to eat kilometers. This drive in someways restored back our confidence of completing 10,000 kms on this trip. We got good roads all the way through to Pune.

At Pune, we took a snacks break and took a few pics with the wind mills around.

Closer to sunset, we reached the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. It's always a pleasure to drive on this expressway. It's a tough terrain and the expressway has made life very easy here. It used to take 6-7 hours to drive from Mumbai to Pune, now it takes just 2.

I was doing this drive for the second time in Swift and third time overall. I thought, the quality of the expressway had probably dropped a notch. It could just simply be a result of heavy rains this year, but the expressway wasn't that smooth as it had once been. Given that it was dark and raining, I kept to my 90-100 kmph for most of the drive.

We wanted to bye-pass Mumbai and thought of a few different options. Finally, a call with Abhishek (K) made things clear and he suggested we drive through Thane, make a night halt there and then continue to Vapi next morning - very good advice in deed as we figured it out on Day 5.

Overall, a good driving day - we did 711 kms and overall it was very comfortable.

Day 3: Palghat to Davangere

We made a post-breakfast start from Palghat and headed towards Coimbatore. It took us sometime to get through Coimbatore as we had to cross the city to get to NH 209. After half an hour of city drive, we made it to NH 209.

NH 209, like all other 200+ national highway numbers is relatively narrow, but we could maintain 70-80 kmph speeds as it was relatively empty and not so bumpy. After doing some distance, we reached the ghats. There, in time, we climbed up through 27 hair pin bends - a great experience. We did those 27 hair pin bends in about 10 kms or so, which means rapid climb up the mountain. This was the first real test for Swift - it faired very well, at so stage did it feel power deficient despite being fully loaded. Driving though the hair pin bends was an experience in itself!

The funny part was once we reached the top of the ghats, there was almost a plain road - and we are still to figure out how we got back to sea level as there was no major down hill drive at any stage. :-)

We continued our drive, the trip navigators teamed up to find the best possible way to avoid Bangalore and we found that taking a state highway to Tumukur would probably be the best bet. Again, this state highway took a lot of time to travel, 70 odd kms in 2.5 hours or so, all thanks to poor roads with tons of potholes.

Beyond that phase, we entered golden quadrilateral for the first time and the drive was a breeze. It had been post-sunset and head lights had come on, but we could maintain a comfortable 90-100 kmph from there on. I personally like to keep it slow at night and therefore didn't go any beyond that magic 90-100 kmph. At this speed, the engine is at its peak performance - the drive felt like a glide!

Shortly thereafter, we made a night stop at Davangere - we had to reverse the cycle somehow - for the first two days, we had been driving till late at night. Now, we thought of stopping by early evening - 8-8:30pm or so and then having an early start next morning.

Overall, we did 609 kms on Day 3 - a lot of it on not-so-great highways and now we were probably 3/4th of a day behind our original schedule - our target was to get to Pune by Day 3.

Day 2: Madurai - Kanyakumari - Palghat

We were a bit behind our initial plan on Day1 - the idea was to make it up on Day2, which meant we had to go to KanyaKumari, then cross entire Kerala and reach Mangalore by night.

We started off from Madurai and the highway to Kanya Kumari was a beauty. We covered 200 odd kms in just over 2 hours and then slowed down near Kanya Kumari to take a few pics with the windmills. We got to Kanya Kumari in quick time, thanks to the 4-lane highway, which is a part of the north-south corridor.

After doing touristy stuff at Kanya Kumari, we headed north-west-wards to Kerala on NH 47. I had decent memories of NH 47 - 15 years back, I had travelled on this highway and it was fast back then. Unfortunately, it was absolutely slow and clearly didn't look anywhere close to be a national highway. Kerala, is a state with end-less towns - one town ends and the other starts and thus there is absolutely no gap in between. In the last 15 years, clearly the traffic has increased a few times, but the road has not changed at all. This meant that on a national highway we were driving at around 30kmph - it took us hours and hours to get from Kanyakumari to Trivandrum to Allepy - at Allepy, we had a typical Kerala dinner and we headed off again towards Cochin, Alwaye, etc. Given our slow progress through the day, we made two decisions which in many ways changed our entire plan:

• There was no way we could reach Managalore - it would have meant driving all night - we wanted to play safer than that!
• Doing the same 30kmph through Kerala for another day didn't inspire us at all. So, we decided to change our route and head towards Tamil Nadu side (Coimbotore) and stop where ever we could

At 1:30am at night, we reached a small town before Palghat and found a decent place to stay. That was it for this long day, a day when we travelled the first 200 odd kms in very quick time and the next 400 at very low average speed of ~30 kmph. A frustrating day, leaving us with plenty to think of for the next day. The pressure to "make up" lost time had started to weigh on us.

Day 1: Chennai - Rameswaram - Madurai

Day 1: Chennai - Rameswaram - Madurai

The first day of our road trip had to be exciting. It started off in an interesting way. We (Aditi and me) were supposed to land in Chennai on Thursday evening by 10pm, get home by around 11:30pm and sleep for 4-5 hours before starting off at 4-5am in the morning. However, our flight got delayed by nearly 4 hours and we reached home at 2:30am. We had two options - either to start right then or start by 7-8am. The second option would have made the day-1 target impossible to get to. So, we decided to start right then after freshening up a bit.

Early in the morning, we got to NH45 quite soon. It was a bit dark, a bit of early morning drizzle and it had been some time since I had driven Swift - so I took good half an hour to get used to the car, the gear changes, get a measure of the brakes and how the car was behaving with a truck load of people and baggages inside! It was doing well frankly, I didn't notice any major difference in the way it was picking up. Additionally, the car had undergone some repair, but it felt good - the clutch was adjusted wrongly, but otherwise everything else was fine.

We drove all the way to Trichy (about 300 kms) and at 9am had a breakfast stop. The first part of the journey was done in quick time. The end goal was to reach KanyaKumari that day, so I thought we were reasonably on target.

From Trichy, we got on to NH 210 and we had about 200 kms to go for Rameswaram - a distance that I thought should take 3 hours 15 minutes on a lesser national highway. However, it took a lot longer, it took us good 5 and half hours to reach Rameswaram. NH210 clearly doesn't deserve to be termed a national highway, the maximum I would call is a lesser state highway. The road isn't good, its very narrow and goes through lots of towns where the speed drops to 10kmph from an otherwise impressive 30 kmph :-)

On NH210, I took a wrong turn somewhere and within a km or so we realised we were heading down the wrong way. I parked the car to understand the maps and GPS to see where we need to be heading. I realised I had to take a U-turn and get back to the previous crossing. I took the car further to the left to give myself space to take a U-turn.... and that's when, the left wheel dropped more than a foot down and the car was stuck. All of us got down the car and the right rear wheel was in the air. People around came to help us readily and it was so very nice of them. Seriously appreciate their concern and help as they lifted the front left part of the car and I powered back the car in reverse - the car immediately rolled out and it was a sigh of relief for us. Big thanks again to the people in that town - you made a rather difficult situatio easy for us.

On our way back, we started from Rameswaram at about 6:30pm. We had heard of a new 4-lane highway that had been constructed linking Rameswaram and Kanyakumari. Unfortunately despite our numerous attempts we couldn't find it. Finally we decided to take the long route to Kanya Kumari, through Madhurai.

I had not slept for more than 36 hours and at around 10-10:30pm, I started to feel the heat. So, I handed the car to Papa and peacefully slept thereafter. At around 11pm, we reached Madurai and realised that we all were tired and going further wasn't the greatest idea. Therefore we called it a day and were 200 kms short of our original plan. Thanks to the various detours in between, we had still done a good 751 kms for the day.