[venuraja]

I did long drives many times at least five times from Hyderabad in my Skoda Yeti ( 2012 model)in the year 2017 on wards to Khatmandu and from Hyderabad to Kedarnath,Haridwar , Badarinath ,Kolkota with my wife at separate times.
And solo journey recently to Somanath ,Dwaraka in my SUV, Hyundai SantaFe ( 2012 model) a year ago, in 2021 .

Only one time of all these journeys a Fortuner fellow hit my ORVM right side of SantaFe and sped away and it was also my fault that I was not very alert because I was driving from Mehasana in Gujarat ( Rani ki VAV ) non stop to Hyderabad and this happened just about NASIK on the hills.

My experience is that

1) You must service the car just a few days before and listen to the service advisor and replace all items irrespective of cost. If there is wife and children along with you and your car stops , or develops a serious problems near Chambal Valley for example , it does not need I.Q. to imagine the situation.

2) In Dwaraka right in front of a hotel where I stayed , early in the morning my SantaFe refused to start. I waited on until 10 am to fetch a mechanic who wanted to look in to engine for which I objected seriously and strongly advised him to bring along a battery to connect and start the car and it worked.

The moment he connected a spare battery the engine roared back to life without problems. I took the car to a battery shop , a small road side one and he looked in to it and said there was no water in side battery and hence he filled saline water and told me not to stop the car for about 4 hours etc., until the battery is fully charged .
And I followed the advise and returned via Rani ki Vav to Hyderabad travelling nearly 1850 km journey in 32 hours.

So moral of the story is to get your battery checked in a battery shop dealer and get it serviced as well as thoroughly checked for Gods sake.

3) You must avoid night journeys for the sake of safety when you are with wife and children.

4) It was also suggested by others that you must have a tire inflator to pump air which uses your cigarette lighter slot or point in your car.
This is a must. Drinking water, fried peanuts ( a kilo of them is better if you are also diabetic ) . Warm water can be made through cigarette lighter point but these items stopped working ( three items I tried ) and they are unreliable as well .

So this time I purchased a butane gas stove which can be packed or fitted back in to a very small suitcase means one and quarter feet sit size small suit case available in Amazon and take along tea kettle and stainless steel coffee mugs .

You must carry a 5 litre can of water along with half a dozen water bottles because you will never know when traffic comes to standstill even on National Highways and it happened at least two times to me , one even on the way to Badarinath after Joshimutt.
If you are diabetic , you need a stove because you can make hot tea or coffee on road side without sugar without wasting time in search of them. And to stay alert is very important.

5) Stop driving car every one hour to be very precise one hour. And wash you face have a cup of tea prepared fresh by you using your butane stove. Use milk powder if needed.

6) Every time you stopped for lunch as well as breakfast you must remember one thing.

Check your tires every bit of them because a puncture on a tubeless tire do not inflate the tire immediately but after 2 hours may be at a very wrong place and time up on the hills or in the middle of a jungle. It happened to me.

I just checked the tire after evening tea just before crossing the check post at Joshimutt on the way to Badarinath. And to my terrible shock the front right side tire had a very big nail driven in to it.
After puncture shop mechanic who is very much nearby worked on it , I had to buy a tire tube as well to be kept inside tubeless tire to make it reliable because that was the kind of puncture. I told puncture shop fellow not to use my car's spare tire. In addition to that Skoda has a dummy or fake screws on tire screws and puncture shop was confused because no spanner could match !!!. And then he pulled them out with cutting player.

7) eat well and try to eat good quantity of curd in your break fast. If you feel tired as well as losing patience , please stop the car for some time. Don't ever pick up argument with anyone even if the other is at serious fault.