[XtremeTorque]

Hello folks, My name is Jijo and I have been a silent member of the forum for about 5 years now. I had to come back to forum again for planning the dream trip of everyone - Pan India Round Trip.

I am planning to set out for the longest drive in my life on April 20. Along with 3 other friends, taking our faithful Ford Endeavour 3.2 4WD (2019 model) on a 14000 Kms round-trip covering 22 states and almost all historical landmarks.

We have a lot of time in our hands, so not planning a hasty drive, rather an expedition drive exploring all places with time to spare. Will possibly take about 60 days to complete the trip and we are starting from Kochi.

The route plan is as follows:

Kochi - Mangalore - Udupi - Gokarna - Karwar - Goa - Mumbai - Surat - Vadodara - Ahmedabad - Udaipur - Jaipur - Chandigarh - Shimla - Manali - Leh - Ladakh - Shimla - Dehradun - Delhi - Agra - Lucknow - Nepal - Dargeeling - Shillong - Nagaland - Manipur - Guwahati - Siliguri - Kolkata - Cuttack - Visakhapatnam - Vijayawada - Chennai - Pondicherry - Rameshwaram - Kanyakumari - Kochi

Yes, visiting Nepal is in plans and planning to drive through Nepal for about 3-5 days.

Since this is the first attempt of us doing a pan India trip, need some precious inputs from valuable members here who had done this already.

Have few queries to sort out:

1) Is our route plan correct? Is there a better choice to cover most places?

2) How bad is AMS and considering the fact that we are all adults above 30 and had never been to such high altitudes before. What all precautions should be taken for the Shimla - Manali - Leh - Ladakh route to avoid high altitude health problems and what all medications to be carried along for the same?

3) Is there any problems or restrictions in our chosen route for taking a KL registered private car?

4) Any pitfalls to avoid?

We will be driving daytime only, usually from 8am to 5pm and will be staying and exploring for extra days at significant places like Rajasthan, Shimla etc.

Preparations done so far:

1) Vehicle serviced and added new battery and tyres are new

2) Bought all essential items for car like tyre inflator, jumper cables, tow rope, spare fuses, jerry can, car fluids etc.

3) Checked for good budget hotels for night stay, while didn't pre-book anything as our dates are flexible alongway

4) Clothes, Medical kit and processed foods are in order

While our preparation is done at a novice level, we would like to have suggestions and inputs from experts who had done long drives

Will be starting a thread once we start the journey with photos and details updated daily

[ColAjayDrives]

Originally Posted by XtremeTorque

Hello folks, My name is Jijo and I have been a silent member of the forum for about 5 years now. I had to come back to forum again for planning the dream trip of everyone - Pan India Round Trip.

The route plan is as follows:

Kochi - Mangalore - Udupi - Gokarna - Karwar - Goa - Mumbai - Surat - Vadodara - Ahmedabad - Udaipur - Jaipur - Chandigarh - Shimla - Manali - Leh - Ladakh - Shimla - Dehradun - Delhi - Agra - Lucknow - Nepal - Dargeeling - Shillong - Nagaland - Manipur - Guwahati - Siliguri - Kolkata - Cuttack - Visakhapatnam - Vijayawada - Chennai - Pondicherry - Rameshwaram - Kanyakumari - Kochi

Have few queries to sort out:

1) Is our route plan correct? Is there a better choice to cover most places?

2) How bad is AMS and considering the fact that we are all adults above 30 and had never been to such high altitudes before. What all precautions should be taken for the Shimla - Manali - Leh - Ladakh route to avoid high altitude health problems and what all medications to be carried along for the same?

3) Is there any problems or restrictions in our chosen route for taking a KL registered private car?

4) Any pitfalls to avoid?

Am feeling most jealous!
1. From Jaipur, suggest follow this route:-
Jaipur Delhi Pathankot Srinagar kargil Leh Manali Shimla Chandigarh Dehradun Delhi....
2. From Darjeeling, suggest follow this route:-
Darjeeling Gangtok reverse to Silliguri Kaziranga Dimapur Shillong Guwahati back to Silliguri Kolkata ....
3. AMS. If you are driving up via the route I suggested (gains altitudes slower compared to the anti clockwise route), you needn't worry about Acute mountain sickness. But do spend a night at Leh, it will help reduce AMS.
4. There is no medication for AMS other than acclimatization or reversal to lower altitudes. You can carry Praceptamol if you feel like (for headache).
5. No restruction on KL number, just keep a couple of proofs that you are a transit traveler, like hotel bills etc.
Enjoy your journey!

[Tgo]

Wishing you all the best!

Originally Posted by XtremeTorque

While our preparation is done at a novice level, we would like to have suggestions and inputs from experts who had done long drives

Here are some inputs for preparing the vehicle and yourself.

[rajivr1612]

Itenerary is not my area of expertise, but I would suggest to install a good dashcam, front and rear, if not already done so.
All the best for your trip, something which most of us can only dream of.

[shreehari]

All the best for one of its kind trip.
My only suggestion is since you are doing such a long trip so you might as well do the entire leh-ladakh circuit. As suggested by ColAjayDrives get to Leh via Srinagar- Kargil side & then from Leh do Khalsar, Diskit, Hunder, Turtuk come back to Khalsar then do Panamik & if you have some references from army try to getto the Siachen Base. After that get back to Hunder/Khalsar and do Pangong Tso ( Pangong lake) , Hanle, Tso Moriri & reach back Manali- Ofcourse we are taliking atleast 10 days or more here to complete this circuit. But since you mentioned time is not a factor then I would strongly suggest you to do this entire loop.

[DrVardhan]

First of all kudos to you for planning such a dream trip.
Here are some suggestions from my side.

1.Itinerary - Not the best person to answer it. But it looks all good, just add SPITI in it. You just can't afford to miss spiti when you have so much time in hand.

2.Number plate - Make sure it is HSRP.

3.Lights - Make sure all your lights are glowing well. And if you have any after marker high beam auxiliary lights installed in your car, please cover them and use them only when it's really necessary. Big uncovered lights will be forfeited by the police.

4.AMS - Acute mountain sickness hits you when you try to accent rapidly. And Manali-Leh is quite a steep climb, so try to go slow with frequent breaks. Keep DIMOX(acetazolamide) with you, it will be of great help. Make a few boxes of camphor and keep sniffing them during your accent, not scientifically proven but it keeps your breathing in check and prevents ams. And don't overeat at all during the climb.

That's all the things I can think of. And every time i talk about Leh I automatically go and scroll through my gallery. Here is a pic from my Bihar-Leh ride i did six years ago.


Pic courtesy - my phone gallery

[rhsakarp]

hey Jijo, great plan, wish you an awesome drive !
Few things I can recall from our Bangalore to Ladakh road trip

1. Before you enter/cross a state boundary, check on the state rules...like in Gujarat, you need to have a strip of yellow tape across your headlight, some places need a black sticker on the headlight etc.

2. Do carry originals and physical copies of ID proof + passport photographs of all travelers

3. Carry enough cash

4. Prefer to also have a BSNL sim, it is the only working service in few areas

5. Carry 15 liter jerrycan of good quality in case you need to carry fuel for some part of the route

6. Essential medicines plus your prescriptions if any

7. Disposable cutlery + garbage bags to dispose waste responsibly

8. Small pillows, ear plugs, eye patch to catch some shut eye on the move

9. Snacks + water in the car

10. Portable tyre compressor + jump start cables + puncture repair plugs

11. The yellow anti glare glasses in case you plan to drive at night

12. Spare fuses + headlight bulbs

13. Basic tools like a cutter, screwdriver, zip ties etc.

14. ICE cards (In Case of Emergency)

[rhsakarp]

Also recommend a dashcam (if not there already)

[PistonRing]

The plan is really nice. Let me add some data for you to consider.

From Darjeeling, as already suggested by someone, add Gangtok. The drive from Gangtok to Siliguri along the Teesta is nice. There is also a lovely place called Mirik with a fantastic steep downhill descent from there to Siliguri. East from Guwahati, I would recommend going till Parshuramkund on the banks of the Lohit river. You can halt at Tinsukia and do it from there. Recommended stay at Hotel Ballerina and do sample their Betki Curry. South of Shillong there are two road forks to explore, one goes to Cherrapunji and the other all the way to the Bangladesh border at Mawlynnong. All these roads are doable in any car. The Endeavour will only make it more comfortable.

If you really want to sample the capabilities of the Endeavour, you can try Walong/ Kibithoo ahead of Parshuramkund, Bomdila/ Tawang from Tezpur and Changu from Gangtok. But you may need to check on tourist permits and road conditions/accomodation to drive to the first two places. My info is more than 10 years old but the places are second to none. I’m sure a lot of things would have changed and road conditions would’ve improved but please try to get latest updates before committing time and effort.

[XtremeTorque]

Originally Posted by ColAjayDrives

1. From Jaipur, suggest follow this route:-
Jaipur Delhi Pathankot Srinagar kargil Leh Manali Shimla Chandigarh Dehradun Delhi....
2. From Darjeeling, suggest follow this route:-
Darjeeling Gangtok reverse to Silliguri Kaziranga Dimapur Shillong Guwahati back to Silliguri Kolkata ....
3. AMS. If you are driving up via the route I suggested (gains altitudes slower compared to the anti clockwise route), you needn't worry about Acute mountain sickness. But do spend a night at Leh, it will help reduce AMS.
4. There is no medication for AMS other than acclimatization or reversal to lower altitudes. You can carry Praceptamol if you feel like (for headache).
5. No restruction on KL number, just keep a couple of proofs that you are a transit traveler, like hotel bills etc.
Enjoy your journey!

Thank you for that valuable tip. That was a good suggestion. While everyone raves about Shimla - Manali - Leh route all the time, your suggested route makes more sense considering the fact that AMS is not a childsplay and can become a trip-stopper or worse if not dealt accordingly. And especially since we are from south and not used to such extreme weather conditions.

Also we don't need to follow the same route twice (ascent & descent) if we go to Srinagar first instead of Shimla - Manali

So we had updated route now as per your suggestion:

Jaipur - Sirsa (Haryana) - Ludhiana - Amritsar - Pathankot - Srinagar - Kargil - Leh - Manali - Shimla - Chandigarh - Delhi

The reason we skipped going through Delhi enroute was for 2 reasons:

1) We are planning to stay at Delhi for about 3 days once we return from Leh-Manali-Shimla to take some rest at normal temperature at Delhi after being in chilling weather for more than a week.

2) To avoid driving through the capital city traffic and rather we would like to explore Punjab more and get to JK by that route through Haryana.

However we still need to finalize this route after checking the road conditions through Haryana and if there is any problems with this detour, we will stick to Jaipur - Delhi - Pathankot route.

Thank you for your inputs, and nice tip about keeping the hotel bills while transit. We almost never asked or kept bills from hotels.

Originally Posted by Tgo

Here are some inputs for preparing the vehicle and yourself.

Thanks for sharing the thread. I had already gone through this thread and got lot of useful info.

Originally Posted by rajivr1612

Itenerary is not my area of expertise, but I would suggest to install a good dashcam, front and rear, if not already done so.

Yes brother, we had already installed premium dashcam for both front and rear. This one comes with backup battery and has sufficient storage to last a month or two worth of data. We set it to continuous recording though, not just motion-activated recording.

Originally Posted by shreehari

My only suggestion is since you are doing such a long trip so you might as well do the entire leh-ladakh circuit.

Yes brother, we are planning to explore the Leh-Ladakh area more. We were initially planning to spent like 5 days atmost at Manali - Leh area. But after going through numerous travelogues, we found that we will be missing out a lot if we don't dedicate quality time up there.

Anyway we are driving all the way up from South to North and it's not like every time we are attempting something like this. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So better not let that be a boring ride.

We now have 10-12 days at our disposal at Leh-Ladakh area and planning to visit most passes and exotic destinations like Diskit, Turtuk, Tso Moriri etc. While getting permissions to visit some of these places are a bit tricky, we will be trying our best to get passes and explore a lot more JK.

Originally Posted by DrVardhan

Here are some suggestions from my side.

Thanks brother.

We have spiti in our itinerary. We just mentioned a route outline, not the entire places we will be covering. We will be exploring a lot of places than just driving from one state to another.

And Yes, number plate is HSRP and we don't have aux lights of any kind. We do have white led's for foglamp which we will be replacing with stock ones before the trip. Also planning to get a pair of Hella foglamps installed incase needed.

Got the Dimox with the medical kit and also good tip about camphor. Will definitely try that while up there.

And gorgeous photo in black and white

Originally Posted by rhsakarp

Few things I can recall from our Bangalore to Ladakh road trip

That was very helpful. Never knew about the yellow strip thing in Gujarath. Will search for state-wise rules and prepare accordingly. Thanks brother.

And we have all the things mentioned in your checklist. 20L jerry can, jumpstart cables, tyre repair kit, portable compressor, spare fuses, bulbs, oxygen cans, pillows, disposable cutlery and yes ofcourse garbage bags. We do not like to litter on road. Even got a full-tools kit with screw drivers, pliers and spanners, wrenches etc.

Have sim cards from all available telecom networks in India and also portable wifi modem from Jio and Vodafone which has better signal reception compared to mobile phone.

Originally Posted by PistonRing

The plan is really nice. Let me add some data for you to consider.

That was very good suggestion bro. Our North-East leg is the least planned one, mainly because it is an unfamiliar territory for us and there are little travelogues about that side compared to other common tourist spots. So we haven't finalized the North - East route and places to explore. We definitely want to visit Meghalaya after seeing the Dawki river on YouTube.

We will include the route and places you have mentioned, in our itinerary.

[thirugata]

HI Jijo,

I am currently undertaking a similar trip. You can check the link https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route...road-trip.html (Route query about an All-India road-trip)

Guess some of the path you are working on matches. Do check if this helps. Will also leave a PM with my contact details.

[MS_Auto]

Originally Posted by rhsakarp

hey Jijo, great plan, wish you an awesome drive !
Few things I can recall from our Bangalore to Ladakh road trip

1. Before you enter/cross a state boundary, check on the state rules...like in Gujarat, you need to have a strip of yellow tape across your headlight, some places need a black sticker on the headlight etc.

Yellow stickers are not required in Gujarat. I had travelled last November to Rajkot and did not face any issues without the yellow stickers.

https://twitter.com/gujaratpolice/st...253760?lang=en