[aaggoswami]

I am planning a two day tour of M.P. this Weekend.

09-12-2017 : Vadodara-Dewas, finish off the meeting and travel to Ujjain for night halt.

10-12-2017 : Leave at 8 am or so, visit Nagda, attend meeting and back to Vadodara.

My queries :
1) Any reasonably good hotels for overnight halt in Ujjain ? Online search gives too many results, any experience shared would be helpful to me.

2) Which route is best for reaching Indore ? The route via Jhabua is good ? Food Joints ? I will leave Vaddoara at 8 am, so probably be in Jhabua at noon time.

Any feedback on Nagda-Vadodara route ? Should I come back via Nagda-Ratlam-Banswara-Limkheda or Nagda-Ratlam-Petladwad-Dahod ? Once into Gujarat, its a known territory.

Night travel in MP on Dewas-Ujjain-Nagda is safe ? Hotels in Nagda are scant and want to stay at Ujjain and reduce travel the next day.

I am a bit apprehensive for traveling out of Gujarat on the day of election i.e. 9th (voting in Vadodara is on 14th).
Planning to take my Swift for this duty along with chauffeur.

[kotirajendra]

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

I am planning a two day tour of M.P. this Weekend.

09-12-2017 : Vadodara-Dewas, finish off the meeting and travel to Ujjain for night halt.

10-12-2017 : Leave at 8 am or so, visit Nagda, attend meeting and back to Vadodara.

My queries :
1) Any reasonably good hotels for overnight halt in Ujjain ? Online search gives too many results, any experience shared would be helpful to me.

2) Which route is best for reaching Indore ? The route via Jhabua is good ? Food Joints ? I will leave Vaddoara at 8 am, so probably be in Jhabua at noon time.

Any feedback on Nagda-Vadodara route ? Should I come back via Nagda-Ratlam-Banswara-Limkheda or Nagda-Ratlam-Petladwad-Dahod ? Once into Gujarat, its a known territory.

Night travel in MP on Dewas-Ujjain-Nagda is safe ? Hotels in Nagda are scant and want to stay at Ujjain and reduce travel the next day.

I am a bit apprehensive for traveling out of Gujarat on the day of election i.e. 9th (voting in Vadodara is on 14th).
Planning to take my Swift for this duty along with chauffeur.

2) Which route is best for reaching Indore ? The route via Jhabua is good ? Food Joints ? I will leave Vaddoara at 8 am, so probably be in Jhabua at noon time.

Route is good and you can buy fresh fruits like jamfal. I couldn't spot any good hotel on the route. However I usually carry own food and keep snacking on the wheel to prevent myself from feeling sleepy. Redbull and chakna all the way

Any feedback on Nagda-Vadodara route ? Should I come back via Nagda-Ratlam-Banswara-Limkheda or Nagda-Ratlam-Petladwad-Dahod ? Once into Gujarat, its a known territory.

Didnt travel Nagda-Ratlam-Petladwad-Dahod but my route had Petlawad-Dahod. I was doing the Bhopal-Dewas-Ujjain-Baroda route. The route throughout is pretty good. I guess after Petalwad the state highway merges into national highway. That merge was quite scary for me. The NH is still under construction and parts are one way. Be very very alert in those sections. I missed a head on collision with a sleepy Petrol Tanker who wasn't expecting anyone on the wrong side of his stretch.

Good luck.

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by kotirajendra

1) Route is good and you can buy fresh fruits like jamfal. I couldn't spot any good hotel on the route. However I usually carry own food and keep snacking on the wheel to prevent myself from feeling sleepy. Redbull and chakna all the way

2) Didnt travel Nagda-Ratlam-Petladwad-Dahod but my route had Petlawad-Dahod. I was doing the Bhopal-Dewas-Ujjain-Baroda route. The route throughout is pretty good. I guess after Petalwad the state highway merges into national highway. That merge was quite scary for me. The NH is still under construction and parts are one way. Be very very alert in those sections. I missed a head on collision with a sleepy Petrol Tanker who wasn't expecting anyone on the wrong side of his stretch.

Thanks for your inputs. Route I took is a bit different but it was quite an experience.

1) 09-12-2017.
Vadodara-Godhra-Dahod-Meghnagar-Thandla-Petlawad-Badnawar-Barnagar-Ujjain-Dewas

Roads till Gujarat Border were nice.
After Godhra, road till Dahod was excellent and four lane with less traffic. Cruising at 100 kmph was a breeze.
Once into Madhya Pradesh, situation was different. A Jeep Compass (looks smashing!) was ahead of me and braked hard, very hard. Keeping distance from him, I safely braked but thought the Jeep driver was over-reacting and decided to take tackle the road irregularity at around 40 kmph. That rude jolt was enough to warn me for the day.

Ujjain was excellent. Entry points and markings are good and Google Map was very accurate. Rest of the drive was uneventful plus a degree of alertness helped.

Getting hotel in Dewas was difficult during this time, may be due to marriage season. Stayed at a newly opened "Hotel RestInn" also marked as "Oyo Abhinav Hotel". They are yet to have their own dining hall but have a tie-up with restaurant. Food from that restaurant was good, specially "Dal Tadka". Clean and decently sized rooms, paid Rs. 1300/- for dual occupancy and Rs. 100/- for a single occupancy room. Tea was available till late night, and early morning breakfast of "Poha" was nice. Left Dewas for Nagda.

2) 10-12-2017:
Part 1:
Dewas-Ujjain-Nagda

Mostly good roads, and in some stretches, one could comfortably cruise at 80-90 kmph. I entered Nagda via Nagda Bypass. Google Maps wasn't accurate here once I entered Nagda city. A person who we were to visit sent Location on Whatsapp. It was not accurate. 500 meter long stretch of road was in horrible shape, very horrible. Sitting in the car I was wondering if my little Swift can survive such conditions moving dead slow ahead. Initially I was unhappy with the person for giving wrong location. Called up the hosts only to be told that I need to be at Nagda Bus Stand. Here I followed Google Map to a T only to end up in residential area where road is literally narrow for even one car and one bike to pass side by side. Realized that the person didn't share wrong location, but that Google Maps was inaccurate.

Somehow, managed to reach Bus stand after asking for directions to locals. A harrowing experience.

Watch out for : Lack of directional marking. Always ask somebody if necessary. Tapri's can be good for tea breaks the roads and traffic demand. Carry food and water. Learnt this the hard way around.

Part 2 : Nagda-Khachrod-Ratlam (bypass)-Karward-Petlawad-Thandla-Meghnagar-Dahod-Godhra-Vadodara

This route has cement road till Ratlam bypass or so. Moving forward, I again was following Google Maps well and it took me to a small 7 km. stretch that literally had shockingly bad roads. Had to keep one wheel off the road and one on middle of the road to avoid scrapping, such deep were potholes.

Also this route has lot of villages and each village has lot of small, sharp, unmarked bumps. Once I reached Petlawad, things were known due to previous day's drive.

Watch out for : High number of two wheeler traffic and they are insanely avert to discipline. Roads are narrow till near to Gujarat border. Road construction work also going on at many places. Certain sections of "state Highways" will be going through narrow city lanes. Carrying food and water is necessary. Restaurants/hotels enroute aren't that good.

Positives : Madhya Pradesh is beautiful. It could be that I live in a city which is more of a concrete jungle lacking a noticeable green cover. But driving on Madhya Pradesh highways with vast open spaces on both sides of highway was relaxing.
Though the route by I ended up with Google Maps was bad at a one place, it revealed peaceful and pleasant countryside.

[moshel]

Planning for Ahmedabad-Mandu-Indore-Ahmedabad road trip with family in January 2019. Thanks everyone for the many responses on this thread. It is very helpful.

Since the last response is >1 year old, I was wondering how things are now.

Google maps is showing up 2 routes: 1) Ahmedabad-Godhra-Dahod-Jhabua-Dhar-Mandu (380 Kms) & 2) Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Chhota Udepur-Alirajpur-Manawar-Mandu (400 Kms)

The first one is mostly NH47 except for Dhar-Mandu which is SH31. While with the second route, it will be expressway till Vadodara and then state highways till Mandu.

However, I am a bit concerned after reading about the Jhabua route. In any case I will be driving during the day only.

Please suggest which will be a good route.

[rkhare]

Originally Posted by moshel

Planning for Ahmedabad-Mandu-Indore-Ahmedabad road trip with family in January 2019. Thanks everyone for the many responses on this thread. It is very helpful.

Since the last response is >1 year old, I was wondering how things are now.

Google maps is showing up 2 routes: 1) Ahmedabad-Godhra-Dahod-Jhabua-Dhar-Mandu (380 Kms)

Please suggest which will be a good route.

Last time I was on this road was December 2017. I think you can take Jhabua road without worries, it was almost 90 percent done. I haven't heard of any security issues in the recent past but still, I will prefer Godhra to Dhar part only in daylight.

[moshel]

Here are my updates from my recent trip to Mandu and Indore in January 2019.

1) Ahmedabad-Godhra-Dahod-Jhabua-Dhar-Mandu
2) Indore-Dhar-Jhabua-Dahod-Godhra-Ahmedabad

Roads are very good in the Gujarat section. Most roads are 4 lane but in MP, there were some patches with 2 lane and bad roads. Especially in the ghats sections. But overall not more than 5 kms of roads were broken. The roads were almost empty all through to Mandu and even while returning from Indore to Ahmedabad.

There are very few decent places to stop along the way. And nothing in the quality of Sugar&Spice or honest or highway food malls that are in abundance in South Gujarat and Saurashtra regions.

3) Mandu-Manpur-Indore
Mixture of 2 and 4 lane roads. Mostly ok barring a few patches.

Hope this helps those who plan to travel on this route in the future.

Thank you!

[kotirajendra]

Hello - Is there any update on the road conditions? Planning Diwali trip.

[msonwheels]

Originally Posted by kotirajendra

Hello - Is there any update on the road conditions? Planning Diwali trip.

Hey there, Although i have not travelled for full distance on Ahmedabad Indore Highway yet i had the priviledge to travel on the same in sep 2021 for a distance of approx 100 KM from Indore to Sardarpur and the road conditions for those 100 KMs were wonderful. Proper 6 lane newly laid tarmac is an absolute pleasure to drive. IMHO i think the road will be the same throughout the route. So happy wheeling to you.

[narayans80]

Originally Posted by kotirajendra

Hello - Is there any update on the road conditions? Planning Diwali trip.

Indore-Godhra is in very good condition. One thing to take is that the 4-lane suddenly becomes 2 lane and 1.5 lane and expands again around Jhabua and Machaliya ghat.

Strictly only day time travel is advised.