[tsangchokla]

Dear BHPians. I am a new inductee into this fantastic forum. Driving has always been the greatest passion in my life and have had the opportunity to drive quite a bit across our country and abroad including a couple of stints in competitive driving. However, this forum has occurred quite late in my life when free-wheeling drives are slowly and "alarmingly" reducing in my life. Perusing through the various posts, I came across an extremely interesting observation by one of the members "ss-traveller", wherein he has likened the driving experience to meditation alongwith a great comparative analogy. I couldnt agree more with him and that probably is the best and most definitive statement on the experience of driving long distances.

However, slowly and "alarmingly", my driving opportunities (qualifying criterion- self-driven drives lasting more than 10-24 hours) are greatly reducing nowadays with rise in professional commitments and incidental stupid positional increments (read - driver being provided with office vehicle). Still, I do take-off at the first available opportunity and have made a few plans to do a couple of routes I am still to do.

I have had the privilege of driving across the north, south and central India (never in the east- though am a Bengali) and also across Sudan, Uganda and Congo in Africa and the famous I-95 in the States (which incidentally I feel was one of the most boring and uninteresting trips I have ever driven). I have done a number of drives on the Himalayan spine particularly in the Ladakh, Himachal and Joshimath Sectors (where had done a couple of competitive drives long back in 2000-2003).

Seeing all the posts and travellogues, I congratulate each member and Team-BHP for the wonderful community you people have created and allowed me to be part of. I will try and upload a few of my old travellogues with pics if I can manage to retrieve the data from my old media. However, it will be my endeavour to contribute henceforth on my next drives.

I love driving - the medium (read-vehicle) doesn't matter much. So wont be able to give much inputs on under the hood issues. One of my fondly remembered drives is of a Shaktiman Truck (Old Army Trucks of the 80s) across the Khardungla Top to Srinagar way back in 1995 with an avalanche thrown in between. Similarly, the drive on I-95 in States in a Nissan Accura (extreme high-end) was probably the dullest and most boring drive I have ever done.

I am driving soon on 28th Feb from Agra to Kolkata through NH 2 and the various posts have really helped in finalizing my plans. Am going to be accompanied by my wife and kids with a two days halt at Varanasi. Would be really grateful if any member can please give a feedback on the latest conditions or any major changes on the route.

Wishing all Happy Driving !!! Will be back with the details of my trip soon.

[GTO]

Welcome Tsangchokla! Boy, you sure have some experiences to share. Look forward to a travelogue or two.

Drive safe

[SS-Traveller]

Welcome to Team-BHP! I'm glad you liked my post, and perceive driving as I do. A Shaktiman across K'La and down to Srinagar, that too in 1995, would have been a remarkable and memorable experience, I'm sure. Too many good roads with too many bad drivers infesting them - takes away from the joy of driving nowadays.

Agra-Kolkata route is good, as per joybhowmik's drive report thread, CCU-DEL covered in early January 2014. Been some time since I travelled the route, but I hope to do so at the end of next month again.

Driving in Africa - now let's have a travelogue-cum-guide from you quickly!

BTW, are you still a serving officer?

[Dieseldunk]

Welcome sir.
Seems that even the title you chose to phrase is quite interesting. More of Tau (tao) from you on the african travelogues are eagerly awaited.

Cheers

[joybhowmik]

Originally Posted by tsangchokla

I am driving soon on 28th Feb from Agra to Kolkata through NH 2 and the various posts have really helped in finalizing my plans. Am going to be accompanied by my wife and kids with a two days halt at Varanasi. Would be really grateful if any member can please give a feedback on the latest conditions or any major changes on the route.

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

Agra-Kolkata route is good, as per joybhowmik's drive report thread, CCU-DEL covered in early January 2014. Been some time since I travelled the route, but I hope to do so at the end of next month again.

Welcome. I feel truly humbled by your experiences. Ref NH2, Feel free to glance at the thread I created recently, and do let me know if you have any questions. You can PM me your phone number , and we can chat.

Other than that, as GTO and SS-T have already said, I wish you many many happy hours of reading on this excellent forum and some gripping travelogues!

[Samurai]

Welcome to TBHP!

You have awesome driving experience on varied places...

Originally Posted by tsangchokla

Similarly, the drive on I-95 in States in a Nissan Accura (extreme high-end) was probably the dullest and most boring drive I have ever done.

What is a Nissan Accura, is that a typo?

[tsangchokla]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Welcome to TBHP!

You have awesome driving experience on varied places...

What is a Nissan Accura, is that a typo?

Dear Samurai,

Thanx for that observation. No it was not a typo, but my stupid ignorance . I had to take the help of my petrol head son (all of 14 years of F1 & Car Zen bordering on fanatic knowledge) to discover that what I had all along thought to have been a Nissan car was actually a 2010 Acura TL developed and sold in the USA exclusively by the Honda. Belonged to my brother-in-law and could drive it thanx to an international DL which I had for sometime (expired now).

Regards

[tsangchokla]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

Welcome to Team-BHP! I'm glad you liked my post, and perceive driving as I do. A Shaktiman across K'La and down to Srinagar, that too in 1995, would have been a remarkable and memorable experience, I'm sure. Too many good roads with too many bad drivers infesting them - takes away from the joy of driving nowadays.

Agra-Kolkata route is good, as per joybhowmik's drive report thread, CCU-DEL covered in early January 2014. Been some time since I travelled the route, but I hope to do so at the end of next month again.

Driving in Africa - now let's have a travelogue-cum-guide from you quickly!

BTW, are you still a serving officer?

Dear SS,

First of all, I would like to acknowledge you & your posts as probably the single most inspiring stimulations for me to have joined this forum. I was trawling the net for some info in the present condition of the NH2 as I have planned a trip at the end of this month when I met your travelogues. It was then that I came across this whole forum and the blogsphere of so many wanderlust people. Have been blogging on my travels too but at a much private space and had never thought that so many others exist who would be interested in one's "travails" (pun intended).

My 14 year old son has become an even greater fan of yours and I have to actually resist him from opening up his own account yet. But he is turning out to be an able co-driver/co-blogger and my chief in-house photographer (since my wife is the best sleeper in a car I have ever seen - which incidentally has a lot of advantages too ).

Yes, I am a serving officer and am moving on posting from somewhere near Agra to Fort Williams and hence taking this opportunity to redo the drive which I had done in a convoy of 70 vehicles (!) in June 1998 the other way i.e. Siliguri to Pathankot in six days.

Will definitely try and post a couple of my travel blogs - but please bear till mid-March after I complete my shifting and settle down with a stable net connection again.

Couldn't agree more with you on our road safety standards. Just a small narration for all of a recent observation. Was travelling from Agra to Delhi on the YEW recently (an almost regular bi-monthly trip I do) with a trained driver on the wheels. After crossing about 15 km from the Mathura Toll Booth, our driver moved to the overtaking Lane on the right to cross another car with all proper indications when a motorcyclist (God knows how he entered the YEW) with his entire family of lady and kids took the u-turn on the lane and drove straight at us. It was a miracle that my driver could leave just that little space along the kerb with the other car abreast (portside) in the act of overtaking. Gentlemen, I strongly feel that just blaming the Govt or the Administration will not help. We need to introspect a lot on our own social responsibilities especially road sense. Sorry for this diatribe - I get extremely agitated on this issue of stupid drivers on our roads.

Will definitely post in something on the Africa trip too. Thanx for your interest.

Looking forward to more exchanges with you

Regards

Originally Posted by Dieseldunk

Welcome sir.
Seems that even the title you chose to phrase is quite interesting. More of Tau (tao) from you on the african travelogues are eagerly awaited.

Cheers

Thanx Diesel for your warm note. BTW, the TAO is a take from Fritzof Capra.

Regards

Originally Posted by joybhowmik

Welcome. I feel truly humbled by your experiences. Ref NH2, Feel free to glance at the thread I created recently, and do let me know if you have any questions. You can PM me your phone number , and we can chat.

Other than that, as GTO and SS-T have already said, I wish you many many happy hours of reading on this excellent forum and some gripping travelogues!

Dear Joy,

It was indeed a great pleasure and "Joy" going through your blog. Extremely informative and has helped a lot in planning. Will correspond on completion of my trip. Your Dad's siesta pic was probably the best and brought in some fond memories of my own. People of that genre probably display almost similar behavioural patterns including admonitions on our food habits .


Regards

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[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by tsangchokla

First of all, I would like to acknowledge you & your posts as probably the single most inspiring stimulations for me to have joined this forum.
My 14 year old son has become an even greater fan of yours...
Looking forward to more exchanges with you

Wow. What can I say... except that 'I am honoured'!

A number of serving officers that are old friends of ours - mostly in the ADC and AMC - keep driving right across the country on transfers, and sometimes I wish I had a job like that (well, the grass is always greener on the other side!). You see, the tolls that need to be paid are a very big component of driving costs nowadays!

I'd suggest that you go through this thread for help on quoting multiple other posts, rather than creating separate posts while responding to multiple members - helps for better readability. Perhaps the moderators can merge your 3 back-to-back posts above into a single post.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by tsangchokla

I had to take the help of my petrol head son (all of 14 years of F1 & Car Zen bordering on fanatic knowledge) to discover that what I had all along thought to have been a Nissan car was actually a 2010 Acura TL developed and sold in the USA exclusively by the Honda.

Oh, that explains it. I did have the Acura 3.2TL myself between 2000-2004 while I lived in New Jersey. So I was curious about the strange model you mentioned. Even I have a 13 year old kid who is only into exotics, but doesn't care about regular cars.

[amitoj]

Welcome aboard Tsangchokla! That is quite a varied set of driving experiences you have there!
Speaking of I-95, I will be driving down that road next month, for nearly 12 hours!

[tsangchokla]

Originally Posted by amitoj

Welcome aboard Tsangchokla! That is quite a varied set of driving experiences you have there!
Speaking of I-95, I will be driving down that road next month, for nearly 12 hours!

Hi, Thanx for the welcome. Wish you a nice and safe drive
Regards