[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by rahulv

Thanks TSK. and its not for cost cutting. i have been planing this for 2-3 years now and i think i have got the right excuse this time.
i will be the only driver on this trip. i have already done many 500+ km single day rides and drives, and i plan to do max 650 km in a day.

A salute to your spirit! Take care, make a checklist of essentials and ensure you have them and take hrag's advice + speak to ANYBODY who's driven down those routes. Its not as daunting as it may sound, because while its Bangalore - Chandigarh for you a few million people do that route regularly in segments - Bangalore-Hubli, Belgaum Kolhapur, Pune-Satara etc...treat it like a normal drive and you will have no issues.

To start with, try making a checklist along the following lines:

1. Route and City maps, list of hotels/resthouses along the route with distances between them.
2. Empty can for gas.
3. Full canister or at least 3 2-litre bisleri bottles of water.
4. Tyre puncture kit, toolkit (slightly more than the basic kit), flashlight, batteries.
5. First aid kit - ensure you have antacid, bactrid, paracetamol and volini spray.
6. Dont make the mistake of loading your PetroBonus card and not carrying cash - we did that once and couldnt find either an ATM or a BP pump that accepted the Petro card in Maharashtra. Keep your fuel gauge above 1/2 (or max 1/4) at all times and try and get a list of ATMs from your bank's website (or SBI's, since they seem to have the largest network).
7. At night, park only where there is security (hotels) and then again park where there is light around the car. Your vehicle will have an out-of-state registration and is therefore easy meat for car thieves. Again, ask someone to clean the car before parking for the night - the highway dust is a dead giveaway that the car is in long-distance transit and therefore doesnt belong here. Obviously, ensure luggage or any other stuff in the car is either in the boot or is not visible from outside - take everything with you if you can.
8. Truckwallahs are a good lot, notwithstanding how they drive on the road. Talk them up at dhabas, toll gates or any place you meet up - you're likely to get advance information on the road or other conditions ahead.
9. A list of authorised service stations and their helpline mobile numbers along the route.
10. Dont worry, be happy! Carry plenty of music.

All this may sound like an overkill, but I'd rather be cautious than sorry when I'm travelling through unknown territory.

PS: Carry some basic form of protection - hockey stick/baseball club at least, and ensure its within arms' reach.

[Sush]

woh...looks like you are going for a real adventure. All the best to you man. In case fellow bhpians are willing to then its better to take phone numbers of bhpians who happen to live along the route that you will be taking. This will be just for precautionary measure in case you happen to need any kind of help. You also will feel a little more comfortable if you know whom to call in case you require some help.
Also try contacting some transporter whose trucks go from bangalore to delhi. Ask them about the route that they follow.

[BUSA]

the best for your trip!

Do read this before you go!

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/showth...?t=3469&page=2

These are the essentials of a long drive very well put by Technocrat!

[rahulv]

hi guys.

did the 3020 km journey in 5 days without any mazor incident/accident. stopped in goa-pen(close to mumbai), ahemdabad, jaipur. loved the western expess and road between ahemadabad and jaipur. touched 160 kmph on baroda ahemadabad expessway.

will post detailed trip log later

[tsk1979]

Congratulations. You deserve the T-BHP driver of the year award.
Post the full log soon with all fuel expenses etc.,!

[jkdas]

wow, i was going through your thread. didnt see your latest post as I always read threads frm post 1.

glad that you made it . Do post abt the trip..abt the car..expense etc so taht it would be helpful for others

[aseem]

Congrats on reaching Chandigarh alive and safe. However for your safety you might want to consider shipping the car via train to Bangalore and taking a flight back to Bangalore. Now that you have had fun on the road already, you can just relax and not risk such a long, dangerous and tiring drive back.

[navin]

Very well done Rahul.

[Steeroid]

Please post a detailed write-up on the ride, Rahul. With pics, if possible.

[nitrous]

Keep it up, rahulv.

This must be the drive of the year on team-bhp. We'll make it official when u post the entire experience.

[rahulv]

i think subject should have been " I did it". done is does not sound quite rite

and i will not be coming back to bangalore in near future . especially after driving in chanigarh and mohali. plan to do a manali leh next year.

and i am still staying in a guest house so it will take some time before i write a trip log.

thanks again

Rahul

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by rahulv

and i will not be coming back to bangalore in near future . especially after driving in chanigarh and mohali.

I dont blame you...if you drive out of Bangalore, you want to stay away as long as is possible.

Originally Posted by rahulv

plan to do a manali leh next year.

I'm planning on one too, so lets get in touch and start planning things out because the next year is almost here.

Originally Posted by rahulv

and i am still staying in a guest house so it will take some time before i write a trip log.

thanks again

Rahul

Take your time and enjoy good roads to your hearts content.

[solly]

Dude what about the Trip Log???

Eagerly waiting...

[rahulv]

guys,

i am not good at writing. i get drained out after writing 10 lines. somehow managed to write this much..

(if you find it boring, or you think there is a better way of writing the same, do let me know)

--------------
21st oct 2005

Our original plan was to start early morning on 22nd Oct, but packers and movers finished their work by 2 PM and we decided to drive till shimoga the same day. Now our plan was to start at 3 PM and given the traffic of Bangalore, we thought we would reach shimoga by 8 or 9 PM.

3:30 PM – had the last nostalgic look at the house where we stayed for more than two years, thanked our landlord, handed over the keys and started our journey.

I knew that outer ring road to penia would be 10-15 km extra but thought that it will be faster than going through the city only to realize later that it was worse than the city. It took us 2-3 turns of green light to cross every signal. Last stretch, where the outer ring road merges with Bangalore-Pune road near Peenia was a real nightmare. My tiny car was stranded between large trucks.

6:30 Reached neelmangala.

We realized that we have skipped our lunch. Suddenly started feeling hungry. No sweat, Kamat is just 20 minute drive.



6:50 -7 stopped at kamat for coffee and dosa. Had two strong coffee. Should be enough for next few hours.


fuel at reliance petrol pump + tyre pressure check

7:30 back on road. Took by-pass kind of thing to shimoga road. Road looked much better than the NH -*. Oncoming traffic is light and road surface is good. [

We had decided that we will not do any night driving, but one the very first day we were on the road after 7 PM.

Stopped at a dhaba ( where all the govt buses stop) for tea. By mistake decided to use there toilet, decided not to use it even before reaching the urinals. Tree-trunks are better option.

Unlike the main highways and other busy roads, this road has lot of character. It only passes through small to medium sized towns. You know that the road is good when your speed is not your top priority. Pleasant journey continues……….

Just some 40 50 km before shimoga, road disappears somewhere. It’s all potholes, diversions from main road and dirt. In one of those great potholes, swift’s rather low front bumper touched the road with a bang. As suspected, the bumper was damaged and right side fog light blown May be in day light I could have guessed the depth of that pothole.

10:30 enter shimoga. Found a hotel within 10-15 minutes. Food was pathetic, but what to do saaar, just eat and sleep. Boy I had never seen so many insects inside a Ac room before.
--------------

22nd oct




7:30 left the bed. We ordered idli for breakfast and first time in Karnataka had idlis that a human being can not eat. Left it as it is.[
]8:30- started the journey. -Only 300 km to cover today-

Road is good and really scenic, better than the tumkur-shimoga section. It gets even better as ghats approach.
One snake crossed the road just in front of our car. Stopped to see if I had run over that snake. It was faster than expected.

Stopped in the next village for narial paani. Rs 8 for a monster size narial. One calf started rubbing himself against our car. Infect he liked our car so much so that he kept coming back again and again. had to finish the narial pani in hurry

10AM - 60-70 km away from shimoga we realized that my wife’s mobile is missing. There wasn’t any coverage so could not find whether the phone was in car or not. Stopped at the next town and figured out that we have left it in hotel@shimoga. Manager of the hotel told that collect it when ever you are back in shimoga. Since we had no plans of coming back to shimoga, the only option was to drive back and pick the phone. Decided that its not worth the effort and moved on (just blocked the sim card then and there).

10:30 Jog falls

There were more photographers (instant photograph for Rs 20) than tourists. Water level was not at the peak but still all four water falls were active. One of the guides told us that there is a way to go really close to the falls but it takes time. Wish we cold do that but there are things to and places to reach.


In the ghat section on a narrow stretch of the road, one LANGOOR (black faced macaque) jumps right in front of the car, hits the bumper and falls 10 meter ahead of the car. To our surprise, it does not even loose balance, even her baby remains attached to her. She just landed on her feet, rearranged her baby with one hand and ran away from the road. Thanks God
(why all the animals were coming in front of our car, calf, snake and now langoor )

2:00 PM

Before gokarna, we stopped at KAMAT upachar. We won’t be stopping at KAMATs anymore in near future. I don’t think there any KAMAT restaurant we have missed. Feeling bad about leaving Karnataka.

Crossed Gokarna.
(In last two years, we made 5-6 plans for Gokarna trip and none of them materialized.)

On mangalore –goa (NH17) highway, its mongoose that die on the road while crossing. Saw 4-5 of them crossing and 3 or 4 of them who tried to cross in last few days and could note make it the other side.

Coastline near karwar looks very impressive. We could see few beautiful and deserted beaches from the highway. I think few of the beaches had white sand.

ENTER GOA- find out the way to palolem beach. No problem in finding the way.

3:30 on PALOLEM beach. Its lot better than other places in god, but this one has also started getting crowded. Hunt for a shack on the beach. Finalized one for 300 Rs for the night. (if we had little more energy left, we would not have stayed there)

Noticed that we are the only Indians on the beach. Wanted to have fried fish so went to a restaurant. Boy these guys don’t serve any goan stuff. You get euro food or Punjabi food.( Later found out that its same in every restaurant on the beach ). Hack ordered some grilled fish with French fries. Waiters there were talking to European tourists in north American accent, and don’t talk about the grammar (like “I give you butter naan with Pepsi. That very tasty”).

Witnessed an awesome sunset, and went in the water after that for next two -three hours. This beach is quite safe as most of the tourists come here for staying for over a week and rest of the people earn their livelihood from them (so they don’t harass them). Most of the nuisance is created by people who come to a place in large numbers only for few hours ( most of the time in quails/sumo or tempo traveler).

For dinner we searched for goan food but all that in vain. Euro or Punjabi……..

finally had continetal stuff. Yeah baby shark tastes good
Cafe Del Mars is the best option there
[Long walk on the lonely beach before calling it a day [/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT]

[speedsatya]

hey rahul ..u seem to have enjoyed your drive....just couldnot control myself whenreading what you have written...about that calf,the loo ....but why did you take the shimoga route ????????to go via goa ..you could have taken the NH4 from nelamangala till hubli ...after which you take a left through the superbb nh63 ankola road and then a right at ankola to meet nh17...

check your tires and your rims as you have said about that pothole that damaged your bumper ...better get your wheels balanced and alignment done again..


do you have any pics of the roads ????????