[ajitkumarlb]

I am planning a 3000KM trip from Bangalore - Pench - Nagpur - Shirdi - Goa - Bangalore.

Planning this trip between 27th Nov 9th Dec, with wife and 2 year old daughter in my Santro AT + Lovato LPG Kit.

Bangalore to Nagpur (Pench), I will be taking NH7.
Pune to Goa to Bangalore, I will be taking NH4.
Both are probably India's best highways as of today so no worries there.

I was worried with Nagpur - Shirdi - Pune route, and the BHPians have helped we fix the route:

Nagpur-Wardha-Pulgaon-Karanja-Malegaon-Mehekar-Jalna-Aurangabad-Gangapur-Vijapur-Shirdi-Ahmadnagar-Pune

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-...ur-trip-4.html

Here is the actual trip plan:
27-Nov-10 Drive to Hyderabad with a brief stop over at Ananthpur
28-Nov-10 Drive to Pench
29-Nov-10 Pench Stay (2 Safaries)
30-Nov-10 Pench Stay (1 Safari) and Drive to Nagpur
01-Dec-10 Nagpur Stay
02-Dec-10 Nagpur Stay
03-Dec-10 Drive to Shiridi
04-Dec-10 Darshan and Drive to Goa
05-Dec-10 Goa Stay
06-Dec-10 Goa Stay
07-Dec-10 Goa Stay
08-Dec-10 Goa Stay
09-Dec-10 Drive to Bangalore

Will keep this thread posted as the prepration to the trip and the actual progress of the trip.

[ajitkumarlb]

Ok finally, here is the summary of the trip!

I travelled with my wife and two year old daughter in my Santro AT (2008) which is retrofitted with LPG.

Total distance covered 3800KM, Touching 5 states (KA, AP, MP, MH, GA).

Except for a four minor incidents (more about these in a later post) on the road the entire trip was overall very good!

Got an average FE of 9KM (in city it averages at 8KM). Except for about 3KM the enter trip, I managed to run only on LPG, thanks to a lot of planning. Used about 460 liters of LPG at a cost of about Rs.15500.

Looking at the road condition for the entire travel, except for a total of about 400KM rest of the road was really good to drive on (more about the bad roads coming).

Most, well almost all of the roads have toll, I paid exactly 40 tolls and the amount ranging from Rs.2 (yes Rs.two) to Rs.85 and a total of Rs.1328 for the entire trip.

Made use of the technology to the max on the trip: Used the Blackberry GPS with Google Maps to locate myself and find my way around both on the highways and within the cities I visited, and it worked out very well. Also used the voice notes on the mobile to capture much of the trip details on the go, it’s quite funny to hear those recordings now .

The trip spanned over 13 days covering the following places:
Day 1 – 27 Nov: Bangalore – Ananthapur – Hyderabad Stay
Day 2 – 28 Nov: Hyderabad – Nagpur – Pench National Park Stay
Day 3 – 29 Nov: Pench Stay (Sad could not see any Tiger)
Day 4 – 30 Nov: Pench – Nagpur Stay
Day 5 – 1 Dec: Nagpur Stay
Day 6 – 2 Dec: Nagpur Stay (Wedding)
Day 7 – 3 Dec: Nagpur – Amaravati – Karanja – Malegaon – Mehkar – Jalna – Aurangabad Stay (thanks to team-bhpians for this route)
Day 8 – 4 Dec: Aurangabad – Shirdi – Shinganapur – Aurangabad Stay
Day 9 – 5 Dec: Aurangabad – Ajanta – Ellora - Aurangabad Stay
Day 10 – 6 Dec: Aurangabad – Ahmednagar – Pune – NH4 – Belgam – (Via very good road) – Goa Stay
Day 11 – 7 Dec: Goa Stay
Day 12 – 8 Dec: Goa Stay
Day 13/14 – 9/10 Dec: Goa – (NH4A Bad one) – Kittur – Dharwad – Davanagere – Bangalore (back home)

More about each of the road trips & four incidents coming shortly!

[kartikk]

Wow a nice marathon of a trip, pls do share road reviews, places where you took a halt, local attractions, local laungage support, getting lost and as many pics, if you can do share the GPS logs too. I'm hooked

[Surprise]

3800 kms with a small kid on board. Waiting to hear your experiences and tips for traveling such journeys with family

[kannan666]

Yes, bring it on ! And more the pics, the merrier ! And especially of Goa !

[ajitkumarlb]

@karthikk: working on the road reviews & stay will post in a day or two and photos too here is one for a starter... I am not sure if I can get the GPS logs from blackberry device, I had that on for the entire trip, that will be good, will check...

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pi...&id=1092116663

@Surprise: my wife did all the planning and we executed all things related to my daughter during the before & during the travel. Will sure get her to write about the planning. We planned and worked the kid stuff for over 3 months, and thank god we were back home without even one issue or concern with the girl.

[ajitkumarlb]

Very minor issues with the car:

1. The back/dickey door was making a metal rubbing sound (really annoying one especially on rough tar roads) and again the service guy at Hyundai fixed it by just adjusting the rubber bush on the door
2. The over enthusiastic room service boy trying to help me load the luggage on to my car carrier at Atithi the hotel we stayed at Aurangabad broke the left rare window wiser
3. Left front door lock stopped working on the last day of the trip and Trident Hyundai on Inner ring road Bangalore fixed it, it’s funny the spare part they used cost only Rs.3.50 and service charges to fix it was Rs.150.

Left side front & rear wheel rim bend:
This was entirely my mistake, I was at around 90+kmph on the way to Shirdi from Gangapur (was in a hurry to join the relatives for the darshan).

I hit the concrete of a bridge - the tar had worn out and a crator was there right beside the concrete and both front (big) and back (comparatively small) wheel rim had a bend and the tyre bloated up a bit as well, I could hear a “tuck” sound every time the wheel rotaed while driving. Drove almost 1600KM with that got it fixed again at the service center in Bangalore.

I run on tubeless tires, I am sure if I had a similar impact on tube, it would have burst!


Now to the interesting ones...

Biker tries to stop us:
This was on the way from Nagpur to Aurangabad on 3 Dec about 30KM before Jalna around 8PM. A biker, I think I overtook him just a few kms before, overtakes me and starts doing stunts infront of the car. Then as we approach an oncoming truck, he slows down and stops his bike in the middle of the road, as I had suspected it, I had slowed down and waited for the truck to pass by and I took off going to the other side of the road.

He again comes on to my side on the other side of the road and starts shouting “roke”. I lowered the glass and asked him “kown hi thu” (spare my hindi spellings) (thinking maybe he is trying to say something - benifit of doubt) he replied “roke” again and I could get a glimps of his face, could make out he was drunk. Just closed the glass and started speeding, fortunately the road was good and no traffic and I lost him for good!

My initial plan was to drive all the way to Shirdi and stay there, after that incident did not want to drive in the night any further, so decided to stay in Aurangabad. So when I got to Jalna at the Gas filling station thanks to blackberry internet, found this hotel Atithi, booked a room and in about hour was in the room.

Looking back on the trip, the stay in Aurangabad though not planned initially worked out very well as I could visit Ajant & Ellora.

Police extract Rs.100 from me!
At Limbe-Jalgoan Toll just outside Aurangabad towards Pune, on 6 Dec around 5:30 AM. The police at the Toll plaza stopped me saying that having a carrier and language on the car needs a permit and asked me to show it. Well never heard of such a permit so obviously I don’t have it.

I go to the inspector there and talk to him, he was also not reasonable, then finally it came down to me raising my voice and telling them I have this on for over 2 years and have travelled in KA, AP & TN and on this trip itself I have travelled 4 states and some 30 toll booths and already 800KMs in MH itself and interestingly I had passed that very toll booth twice earlier and no one had stopped yet, then why are they asking me now.

Now the inspector realizing I am hard to crack, he asks the constable in Marati “were they wearing seat belt”, well we both had belts on and even my daughter was in the car seat with belts on. Now he asks does he have papers, well I had those and they were totally cornered.

Now a third guy takes me to the side and says, sir these guys will not leave you, give them something (in hindi).

Well as I wanted to reach Goa early and had started early (5AM) so did not want to lose more time, so took out the purse and saw the lowest denomination I had was only Rs.100 gave it to this guy and was on my way! (I am sure if I had Rs.10 they would have taken that and left me as well)

Well this post turned out longer then expected, now that is over, over to the more useful ones...

[ajitkumarlb]

Ok figuring out how to add photos - will post more along with actual posts :

[ajitkumarlb]

Good roads all the way


My daughter sleeping cozily in her car seat! (Hyderabad to Nagpur)


Yes! my wife drove... (to be honest & fair to her, she drives well, but I dont have the confidence to allow her to drive)


Lunch time for my daughter, there are these bus stop kind of things all along the NH7...


Zero KM in Nagpur


Just outside Malegaon one the way from Nagpur to Aurangabad


Not sure what this place it, but it was on the way to Ajanta


At Ellora infront of the main cave


On the way back from Goa, had to stop over to tie the lugauge again!


Well sorry for the diaper but thats how we lived for the 13 days

[MX6]

That last photo reminds me of my trips! Fell off the chair laughing. Every place we change the nappies, my wife will ask me where to dispose it.
And I go crazy. Is that a question to ask? Search for a dustbin. Else our car is one till we find an actual dustbin!

By the way, good you didn't stop for that crazy biker. Some buggers are really crazy.

Sad that you couldn't spot a tiger. Is your daughter sensitised off animals in the wild? My little one has no fear whatsoever. Hence I'm waiting for her to understand that she can't try to yank a tiger's tail, which she's very much capable off. She tried her antiques on monkeys, elephants, horses, dogs and cats already.

And develop confidence in your wife's driving. I've been pushing my wife to take over the wheel. She doesn't want to "wreck" my car it seems. So I stopped trying after 1 year of persistance. Anyway, I do all the driving and don't let anyone except my brother touch the wheel when I'm around. But in a tight spot a second driver comes handy.

[sami316]

Hi Ajit, first of all I wish you an your family a very happy new year. Was just checking out the travelogue and came across your TL. This trip of yours really seems to be good. The pics are good, especially the one with the boy on the cycle with the sun in the foreground. Waiting for more.

[DrVjy]

I just ran into your impressive thread, ajitkumarlb, when looking for updates on Bangalore- Nagpur route.

First, hats off to you for demonstrating what I still can't believe is possible:- Santro on a 3800 km round trip in 13 days. Your car is an SUV (Santro, U are Victorious!)

I would have been really shaken by the bridge crater incident where the tires took a bad blow. Amazing you were still able to do another 1600 km before fixing it! Personally feel you should have stopped at the nearest Hyundai service for that.

Anyway, your drive will be an inspiration for drivers like me. Keep it up, and safer next time.

Bye
DrVjy

[ajitkumarlb]

I am sorry folks, last few weeks have been crazy busy time at work and at home, could not respond or update the travelogue earlier!

@MX6: My daughter though very adventures, is the cautious kind, she would perhaps pull the tail, if she knows one of us is holding her... So that way we are safe.

And yes I need to build my confidence about my wife's driving, she is very confident and wants to drive, it just me!

@sami316: Thanks and wish you and your family happy new year!

@DrVjy: Thanks for the new definition of SUV I really like that and this car has shown it truly is Victorious!

I run on tubeless tyres, that was my confidence, as even after 100KM that day itself, I was able to drive through with no difficulty and the tyre pressure had not come down. Co-incidental there was a Hyundai service center, right opposite the hotel I stayed and I did go there around 9:30AM the following day, unlike Bangalore where these centers are open by 7:30/8AM no one except the security was present. so had to proceed with my plans.

[ajitkumarlb]

Its very dark inside the caves and flash is not alowed, so had to use night mode, so the quality of some of the photos are not so good, but glad that the night mode worked and did get some photos in the dark...













Dongi Baba!

[traveloholic]

Originally Posted by ajitkumarlb

Dongi Baba!

Lovely Ajit & this pic reminds one of my childhood pic's at the same location. I still remember enacting the same thing what your daughter is enacting. The moment we see these kind of places, we tend to get dhongi.