Pilgrimage-Five states-6000km-16days-5 Jyotirlinga temples and more

[rkg]

With success of the last year trip of 3000 km, I have planned this trip. It was to happen in Dec but due severe winter condition this year it was postponed to March 2011. The problem of leaves got it postponed in March. Finally got the required leave in April. Little hesitant to undertake the trip due to the summer heat but finally did it. Brief details

Start : 22nd April
End : 6th May
Odo at the start: 39413
Odo at the end:45413
Vehicle: Indica Vista QJD 2008
Persons: Myself, wife and 9 year old son. Solo drive


Places visited

Pandharpur-Shirdi-Trimbak-Lothal-Palitana-Junagadh-Somnath-Porbandar-Dwarka-Patan-Modhera-Sabarmati Ashram-Dakor-Ujjain-Mandu-Maheswar-Omkareswar-Lonar-Aundha Nagnath-Basar

Route:

Day 1:Bangalore-Bijapur
Day 2:Bijapur-Pandharpur-Tembhurni-Karmala-Shirdi
Day 3:Shirdi-Yeola-Nashik-Trimbak-Jawahar-Vikramgarh-Chiroti-Vapi-Surat BP
Day 4:Surat BP-Vadodara BP-Borsad-Tarapur-Lothal-Bhavnagar-Palitana
Day 5:Palitana-Amreli-Bagasara-Junagadh
Day 6:Junagadh-Sasan Gir-Somanth
Day 7:Somnath-Madhavpur-Porbandar-Dwarka
Day 8: Dwarka-Jamnagar-Rajkot-Limbdi
Day 9:Limbdi-Ahmedabad BP-Mehsana-Unjhe-Patan-Modhera-Mehsana-Ahmedabad
Day 10:Ahmedabad-Dakor-Godhra-Dahod-Jhabua-Dhar-Indore-Ujjain
Day 11:Ujjain
Day 12:Ujjain-Indore-Mandu-Maheswar
Day 13:Maheswar-Omkareswar-Burhanpur
Day 14:Burhanpur-Khamgaon-Lonar-Washim-Aundha Nagnath-Bhokar-Basar-Nizamabad
Day 15:Nizamabad-Basar-Nizamabad-Hyderabad
Day 16:Hyderabad-Kurnool-Bangalore

[rkg]

Day1

Started around 5.30 AM. Took the route via Hirayur-Challakere-BelleryBP-Hospet-Kushtagi-Bijapur

Planned to reach pandharpur by night 7 to 8 PM

But road condition between Hospet-Bijapur spoiled it.

Road condition till Bellary BP is excellent.

Bellery to Hospet occasional potholes are present. could manage a max speed of 60 km

Hospet took a lunch break for one hour.

Road condition is worse between Hospet- Bijapur till Nidagundi. From there on one lane is complete. Four laning work between Hospet and Bijapur is going on. GMR is the contractor. We can hope it will be done faster

Reached Bijapur by 6 PM.

Total distance traveled 524 Km

to be contd..

[spadix]

Interesting trip, rkg!

6k kms (exact figure, surprisingly!) in 15 days in the summer with wife and son in tow means credit must go not just to your car and yourself but also to your family for supporting this endeavour. I look forward to the rest of the account.

Originally Posted by rkg

But road condition between Hospet-Bijapur spoiled it.

Road condition is worse between Hospet- Bijapur till Nidagundi. From there on one lane is complete. Four laning work between Hospet and Bijapur is going on. GMR is the contractor. We can hope it will be done faster

This caught my eye.

I drove the horribly messed up Gadag - Gajendragarh - Kushtagi - Sindhanur stretch on April 28 while returning to Hyderabad from Goa and I can only imagine your pain. The roads around Kushtagi are especially bad.

Regards,
spadix

[rkg]

Originally Posted by spadix

Interesting trip, rkg!

6k kms (exact figure, surprisingly!) in 15 days in the summer with wife and son in tow means credit must go not just to your car and yourself but also to your family for supporting this endeavour. I look forward to the rest of the account.



This caught my eye.

I drove the horribly messed up Gadag - Gajendragarh - Kushtagi - Sindhanur stretch on April 28 while returning to Hyderabad from Goa and I can only imagine your pain. The roads around Kushtagi are especially bad.

Regards,
spadix

In the entire trip the bad stretches are

Hospet - Bijapur ( 150km)

Zalki-Mangalveedhe ( 25 km)

Jhabua - Indore (200 Km, there is no road at all. they just ignored the old NH59 altogether as they are making it 4 lane. I feel 4 lane in this stretch is a waste as traffic is very less. It took me 6 hours)

On the way to Mandu some 4 Km stretch

Small patches around Amreli on the way to Junagadh

From Trimbak i took the road via Jawahar-Vikramgarh-chiroti(Nh8) based on local advice. the road reasonably good ( 90%) instead of Trimbak-nashik-peint-pardi road.
The Jawahar road is not shown in Google maps

[hvkumar]

That was perfect route planning and execution, great show!
Yes, for the distance travelled, the extent of bad roads is not much although NH59 must have easily the worst.
Please let us know your assessment of facilities en route and places where you stayed and ate.

[rkg]

Originally Posted by hvkumar

That was perfect route planning and execution, great show!
Yes, for the distance travelled, the extent of bad roads is not much although NH59 must have easily the worst.
Please let us know your assessment of facilities en route and places where you stayed and ate.

Coming from You , I take it as a compliment. Thank you very much. I will update with in a day or two all the details

[Fauji]

Originally Posted by rkg

Day1

Started around 5.30 AM. Took the route via Hirayur-Challakere-BelleryBP-Hospet-Kushtagi-Bijapur

Planned to reach pandharpur by night 7 to 8 PM

But road condition between Hospet-Bijapur spoiled it.

Road condition till Bellary BP is excellent.

Bellery to Hospet occasional potholes are present. could manage a max speed of 60 km

Hospet took a lunch break for one hour.

Road condition is worse between Hospet- Bijapur till Nidagundi. From there on one lane is complete. Four laning work between Hospet and Bijapur is going on. GMR is the contractor. We can hope it will be done faster

Reached Bijapur by 6 PM.

Total distance traveled 524 Km

to be contd..

Good going RKG!!

Last year we planned to come back from Pandharpur via NH13 and was advised by HVK not to take it and we reversed our complete plan and came vis Shirdi - Pune.

I was expecting this road would have become OK by now and was planning another trip via Indore - Sholapur - Hospet - Bangalore on NH13. Now i will look for alternates.

[rkg]

Day 1

Original plan was to reach pandharpur by 6pm and stay overnight there. But due to the road condition between Hospet - Nidagundi, i could reach bijapur only by 6 PM. around Ilkal the left front tyre was bent as it went over a pothole resulting in flat tyre. So i had to stop at bijapur, to get the bend corrected and spare tyre in condition. Just took the first hotel we saw on the main road. It was just bang opposite Gumbaz. it was neat and clean. Ac room 800 + tax@4%. Food was not great. Kamat was down the same road

Day 2

Started at 10 AM form Bijapur. Road upto Zalki was good.

From Zalki till Maharashtra border was bad to worse.

Bijapur - Zalki 53 Km took 58 Min

Zalki - Mangalveedhe 53 KM took 81 Min.(last 20-25 Km in Maharashtra was very good)

Could reach Pandharpur by 12.30PM. Went to temple. had a peaceful darshan without any touts. I have tried, but this time none of them are willing to do the needful even with payment. Surprisingly darshan through the Q took less than 20 min.

Left Pandharpur by 2.30 PM

Pandharpur to Tembhurni road is in average to good condition. Reached tembhurni Junction by 3.40 Pm Took a break for lunch at the first dhaba we have seen. it was a mistake as there were good dhaba's( at least by poutside appearance within 200 meter so the the junction. reached ahmednagar by 7 and shirdi by 9 PM.

Road condition was very good.

From Thembhurni to Shirdi 240 Km took 4.40 Hr with three breaks of 5 min each.

Day's Total distance traveled is 419 KM

Since it was late and also being Saturday all the hotels are full ( called some of them on way before reaching shirdi). as i do not want to take chances took the first hotel with AC . I have paid the max per day only at shirdi in this entire trip. Rs 1400/- double room for an average room in terms of maintenance. It has all the facilities but upkeep is not upto the mark.

There were no photos taken in the trip till now. Hence i have uploaded any. Further no camera/phone is allowed near the temples both in Pandharpur and in Shirdi

[amitk26]

Any updates on this thread , I think you could have covered Ghrishneshwar Jyotirlinga ( Near Aurangabad) and Nageshwar ( some where near to Dwarika) in Gujrat as well.

[rkg]

Originally Posted by amitk26

Any updates on this thread , I think you could have covered Ghrishneshwar Jyotirlinga ( Near Aurangabad) and Nageshwar ( some where near to Dwarika) in Gujrat as well.

Grishneshwar does not fall on the route i have taken. My aim was not to travel on the same route AFAP. Anyway I have visited grishneshwar in 2006

I did visit nageswar at Dwarka and also at Aundha. there is some controversy regarding three of the jyotirlinga temples. these are
1. Bhimshankar ( one in Maharashtra and othe competing one some where in assam)
2.Nageswar ( dwarka and Aundha ) At somnath temple they have listed the replica's of other dwadasa jyotirlinga temples . Where they stated Aundha is the one not dwarka. Similarly the plaque at Ujjain mahakal temple also lists Aundha as the nageswar jyotirlinga.
3. Vaidyanath ( one in Parli and onther in Bihar/chattisgadh)

I will be updating today or tomarrow with rest of the details

[ukderebail]

Nice travelogue in the offing waiting for the rest of the trip descriptions, i have visited Somnath, Srisailam ( Mallikarjuna ) Ujjain ( Mahakaleswar ) Bhimashankar, Banares ( kashi vishwanath ) Trimbakeswar ( nasik ) Parli Vaidyanath ( beed ) Rameshwar & Grishneswar ( Ellora ) balance 3 more to go OR 4 more in case Parli is disputed one.
I believe NH 4 and a deviation from Hubli to Bijapur would have been ideal instead of Bellary route. The route to Nasik from Talasari check post via jawahar was in existence in 1995 itself, you could have checked in from Surat to Navapur and into Nasik too through Satpura ranges.

[rkg]

Originally Posted by ukderebail

I believe NH 4 and a deviation from Hubli to Bijapur would have been ideal instead of Bellary route. The route to Nasik from Talasari check post via jawahar was in existence in 1995 itself, you could have checked in from Surat to Navapur and into Nasik too through Satpura ranges.

I thought of going to pandharpur( first destination) via NH204 form Kolhapur. But i could not get any update about NH204 hence decided to go through known route.

Iam going from Trimbak to Surat not vice versa , hence the route via Navapur was not taken. Actually i had planned to take Trimbak-nasik-peint-pardi route. But the travelogue by Gajadonga mentioned that peint route was bad. By the time i had left Trimbak it was already 4.30 Pm . Hence took a risk as per local advice and taken Jawahar route.

The jawahar route may be there since 1995 but google maps does not show it. but my MIOMAP did show the route correctly till chiroti junction ( except Jawahar bypass which was not mapped)

[drvikasagrawal]

Hey RKG
I was also planning a grand trip of south India EX Delhi by road with wife and 2 kids 7 and 5 yrs old,in december last year.Due to some reason it was postponed to decembber this year.Right now I am planning on that.Incidently vehicle is same indica vista qjd aura 2010.I want to know how does car perform in the whole trip.And more importantly,did you ever feel in the trip that "Kahan phas gaye yaar"? Please tell honestly.Because I feel children can have and can create some problems in such a huge trip.

[rkg]

Originally Posted by drvikasagrawal

Hey RKG
I was also planning a grand trip of south India EX Delhi by road with wife and 2 kids 7 and 5 yrs old,in december last year.Due to some reason it was postponed to decembber this year.Right now I am planning on that.Incidently vehicle is same indica vista qjd aura 2010.I want to know how does car perform in the whole trip.And more importantly,did you ever feel in the trip that "Kahan phas gaye yaar"? Please tell honestly.Because I feel children can have and can create some problems in such a huge trip.

Hi! Dr Vikas Agrawal

Wish you a very happy trip in south. if i can be of any help let me know

To be frank car never made me think "kahan Phas gaye yaar"

only thing that troubled me was AC. which was not sufficient esp for summer heat in north india. Car was just like ok during mid afternoon's. One feels it is AC car only after he/she steps out of it.

out of the 16 days three daus i was traveling upto 11-12 PM. No problem.

[Rajesh1968]

Hi RKG, It was nice to come across your route and plan. Please let me know the road conditions from Trimbak to Vapi.