[neoranjit]

Man... tht sounded real exciting. Am waiting for the next log. Put it up fast....

[rahulv]

Originally Posted by speedsatya

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...

Hi Satya,

no one told me about the route you have suggested. plus i think NH4 is under construction till hubli

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..

i will get the wheels balanced this sunday.

[speedsatya]

Originally Posted by rahulv

Hi Satya,

no one told me about the route you have suggested. plus i think NH4 is under construction till hubli

yeah work is going on for the GQ stretch from hubli to bangalore ,but still volvo buses do that 600kms stretch in about 8 hours..if you went via shimoga ...did u drive on the agumbe ghat with 17 hair pin bends....that is also a good drive.

if you had taken Nh4 ..then you could have reached mumbai in about 15-16 hours easily ..but then the nh4 from bangalore to mumbai is such a big bore with no oncoming traffic....


for the best driving pleasure u cud have taken bangalore-mangalore-ankola-dharwad -mumbai

or bangalore-mangalore-ankola-karwar-panaji-mumbai




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

[ramkya1]

Originally Posted by 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

Rahul,

Congrats, doing 3020 KM in 5 days is great.

It took me 15 days to do 4550 KMs, Ahmedabad -Cochin-Ahmedabad. Yours stretches were tougher and it must have been difficult doing it along.

Pl. post the trip logs, specially the bad sections, this would be a great help for ppl planning long trips.

-- Ramky.

[rahulv]

Originally Posted by speedsatya

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

yes i have but i dropped the camera on the road and damaged it. i can only share pics after getting it fixed. :-(

[rahulv]

[rahulv]

found a usb mem-stick reader

posting the images

all of them are here

http://www.pbase.com/rverma/inbox

[chandan]

Great drive there Rahul.Just waiting for part 2.

Satya,I did the BLR-GOA drive thro Hubli-Ankola,in march & regretted it.There were these mining trucks carrying iron ore in hundreds,one behind the other & overtaking was simply impossible.I took 3.5hrs to do the 135km stretch.I have done the same stretch in less than 2 hrs many a times.On the return,we tried the Honnavar-shimoga-Tumkur road & boy was a that a good decision.Amazing scenery,what with river sharavathi running alongside for nearly 60km & no traffic...I did the entire 620km in 10hrs....revealation.

[jango]

nice pics Rahul hope u had a wonderfull time revving up ur beast, by the way what the FE u got during the trip and how did ur Swift behave....anything specific u would want to sare with us

[rahulv]

Originally Posted by jango

nice pics Rahul hope u had a wonderfull time revving up ur beast, by the way what the FE u got during the trip and how did ur Swift behave....anything specific u would want to sare with us

yup it was fun filled trip. no unpleasant incidents. by the time i reached Chandigarh, underside of my right foot was numb by pressing accelerator. i had to take lot of breaks just to get the blood flowing in that numb foot again. pressing accelerator with a numb foot can be dangerous.

i got around 16 kmpl. i don't know how good are big cars on the highways, but swift behaves better than santro, alto, zen etc]

one more thing
we lost our way in Udaipur and took Ajmer road to Jaipur. Road via chittodgarh is part of GC and we missed that. Road via ajmer is only tow lane but in good condition. I think we don’t regret that as this road was almost empty and we had lot of on that road. You tend to enjoy more on these roads as speed is low, not much traffic and you get better chance of admiring rajasthan

[Godfather]

Awesome Trip.. nice write up.. sorry bro but i could not help laughing at the point of the calf and the toilets..and all the animals coming in front of your car
and i never thought i would know a crazy person who would drive from bangalore to chandigarh... hats off to you bro... great photos..

take care

[rahulv]

correct link to the pictures is

http://www.pbase.com/rverma/bangalorechandigarh[

and i have trip log for other days also. but i have not got time to format/edit it. is there anyone interested in reading the pre-press version and giving feedback?

[rahulv]

6:30 AM
left the room. Parking lot was at the other end of the beach so had a nice morning walk on the beach. Only dogs and a phirang family were on the beach. When we parked our car, the day before, parking lot attendant told us to park our car on the extreme end (as it has to stay over night in the parking lot) so that other cars can be accommodated. He said taking the car out from there will not be a problem as the parking lot is empty in the morning. I parked where he wanted us to park but moved the car close to the gate in the night (as I did not want to spend 30 minutes in taking the car out of parking in the morning). I wasn’t surprised to see a full parking lot in the morning. If I had not moved the car close to exit previous night, I would have lost few hours in the parking lot as there was no way to get the car out from the place where the parking attendant suggested. DON’T TRUST THESE PARKING ATTENDENTS. They are least bothered about your schedule; it’s their duty to get max number cars parked.
I desperately wanted to have a cup of tea, but I did not see any tea stall; Saw lots of bars (closed of course) though.
7:15 reached PANJIM

We were confused between Goa-Mumbai and Goa-Belgaon-Pune road as I had got this feedback just few days back that Goa-Mumbai road had a really bad 40 km long under construction patch. We decided to ask taxi drivers He told us that Goa-Belgaon stretch is in even worse condition, so Goa-Mumbai is the only option. So be it..

Taxi drivers also told us that petrol is Rs 4 cheaper in Goa so get the tank filled before entering Maharashtra. I tried to get fuel in goa but could not find any decent fuel pump. Took fuel worth 500 Rs from an IOC petrol pump. I tried to use the toilet but couldn’t even enter. Then I tried to get tire-pressure checked and got the standard hand signal from attendants that the machine is not working. I know these guys will be out of business once private companies like Reliance, Shell, and Essar extend their numbers. If you know shares of any of there PSUs, it’s the right time to sell them.

Road is really narrow in the border region of Goa and Maharashtra. Food is also a problem there. We did find a decent place there but he was more interested in showing his property than food. Tea took 15 minutes and most of the food items were not available. You don’t need to open a big restaurant just to serve MISSAL-PAAV.

Found a small place that was serving tea and stooped there to have tea and something to eat. This place has more choices than the big restaurant we stopped earlier (and lost half an hour for a cup of tea).

All the sign boards on NH-17 between Bombay and Goa are in Marathi. Like “SAWADHAN, PUDHE GAO AAHE”, “SAWADHAN, PUDHE SHALA AAHE”, “APAGHAT SEVA DAHA KIMI”. There were lot of signs giving information about a hospital but it took me 10 sign boards to find it out (when one of those sign boards had a red cross with the usual text”
I fail to understand the reason behind it. a warning sign in English (other then Marathi) would have been better for the villagers also at it has an effect on their safety also.


Some 300 km from Goa, there is a place where the highway passes through grassland. When we passed that area, the grass was of parrot green color (may be all brown in dry months) and a narrow straight black road with zero traffic passing through it. See the image. http://www.pbase.com/rverma/image/53368996.jpg Boy, it was such a breathtaking sight. Its hard to find such open areas in India that have not been taken for agricultural purpose.
Stopped at a pathetic place for lunch. Food will be the last thing this that you would remember about this place. This place had old fiat parked in front of it to lure people traveling in cars. We found many such places after ahemadabad.

Road now is a mix of flat and straight stretches and ghat sections. Still searching for that under construction part of road. Found few bulldoggers at work but they were hardly any problem for traffic.
From few places on the ghats, you can see beaches down there in the valley. This road has to be among the scenic ones roads in India. And yes, there are more mongoose carcasses on the road than dog remains.
Stopped 30 km before PEN for evening snacks. A teenager was serving our table. He asked us if we wanted mineral water, and we said yes. He came back with the bottle and started opening it in front of us in such a way that no one can figure out that it was a sealed bottle and I am almost sure that it was not sealed. Life is not easy in and around Mumbai, you be little careless and you get duped. Well, we at least crushed the bottle before leaving.
Asked a taxi (quails) driver at the dhaba about hotels in PANVEL. He said the only good hotels around PANVEL are on PANVEL- Mumbai road, but there is a new good hotel in PEN, even better for us. It was dark by the time we left that dhaba. Decided to stick to the tail of a govt vehicle. He did not have any rear view mirror so he was not bothered about head lights.
9: PM entered PEN and started looking for hotel. Found this shiny new hotel called Marquas-Manthan (strange name). still had some energy left to bargain about tariff. He agreed to give good (in fact heavy) discount as we promised to vacate the room before 6 AM.

We ordered biryani for dinner. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to have biryani there. Even though we were hungry, we could not finish the so called biryani. Sleeping with half-filled stomach is painfull after a hard days work.

[contactme27]

I wonder whether we get good food on these highways. Very nice to hear your remaining writeup.

[WhiteKnight]

Amazing writeup. I really appreciate your energy

Waiting for the third part