[Tilaksarkar]

I am driving to ranathambhore from Delhi this weekend.
I have a powerful off roarer (XL7) but was wondering if the Delhi Jaipur Tonk Uniara SawaiMadhopur route is the best and fastest.

Help.

[gd1418]

XL 7 is the Grand Vitara right?

Delhi Jaipur Tonk Uniara SawaiMadhopur route is more popular tourist route. As most foreign tourist take the flight to Jaipur and then drive to Sawai via that route.

The route that I had taken was in first week of October and lot of road expansion work was being carried out. I hope by now all that work would have been completed and that road would be a breeze.

And with a XL 7 why even bother about the road at all?

Originally Posted by Tilaksarkar

I am driving to ranathambhore from Delhi this weekend.
I have a powerful off roarer (XL7) but was wondering if the Delhi Jaipur Tonk Uniara SawaiMadhopur route is the best and fastest.

Help.

[Dragonov]

XL 7 is the Grand Vitara right?

XL 7 is more or less like the Grand Vitara, its just more powerful (increase in BHP / cc) and has a longer wheelbase.

[Tilaksarkar]

Just drove to and from Ranathambhore a couple of weekends ago. Here is my take.

If you have to drive, you must have an SUV type car. All roads have bad stretches that will screw over a normal car, guaranteed.

Drive thru Alwar, Dausa, Lalsot. There are stretches of excellent road and parts that are under construction, culverts that need you to bypass, tracts that need carpeting, etc. But the stretches that are good are lovely and beautiful, if you enjoy driving.

At Dausa, you need to pay a bit of toll needlessly for a very small stretch to get to the Lalsot road. So be prepared.

The Jaipur highway is not a nice road to drive any more, and it's not just the part through Jaipur that I am speaking about here, but almost the whole stretch. It is under substantial construction again and will take 1-2 years to mend full, I think, including the messy Jaipur city bit. DO NOT attempt Sawai Madhopur through this route if you are driving from Delhi or Gurgaon.

We returned via NH 25 and NH 8, both entirely unlovely and unrecommended roads and wish we had returned by the Alwar route.

Anyway, the best way in and out of there is the Train !!
We came

[cranky]

Anyone done this stretch recently? Was planning to drive down Saturday morning for one nights' stay and a couple of safaris.

Have the road conditions improved? How long is the drive expected to be?

Last time I drove it took me 3.5 hours to reach Jaipur, not sure of the roads beyond that. NH8 was still under construction but the T-Jet handled it well enough that I wasn't slowed down too much. Not sure what it's like now and what the monsoon has done.

Would really help if anyone had any inputs. Is the Alwar route better? Google maps refuses to take me through NH8 on the auto mode, so not sure which way to go.

[cranky]

Since no one really updated this, here's a quick note.

If you have a SUV or a rallycross vehicle, the Dausa - Lasot stretch is suitable for you.

For everyone with more normal vehicles, please do it a favour and take the longer route through Tunga/Bassi from NH11A. It adds one toll and around 35km to the ride, but that 35 is covered in far less time than the shorter route.

The road till Dharuhera is average with lots of heavy vehicle traffic. Expect to cover this in about an hour or so. At Dharuhera you should divert to SH25 (head towards Alwar) till the T-junction with NH11A where you take a right.

Then take a left at Dausa after Mahua toll (for bigger vehicles) or towards Bassi after Rajdhok toll. This run from Dharuhera is about 180 or 210 km depending on route, and can be covered just a little above two hours driving time in a quick sedan. Apart from the Alwar bypass which is under construction, the road is absolutely fantastic, but watch for unmarked speedbreakers.

The road from Bassi till Lasot is pretty good apart from a few stretches where the road is being rebuilt. Has plenty of sharp turns, so use your GPS to stay out trouble. I didn't have GPS and had one scary moment where a sharp-ish right turned out to be a switchback. That was slightly hair-raising, and it was thanks to the T-Jet's braking that I managed to stop in time.

Lalsot to Sawai Madhopur is also great. If you have come through the better route, you will have a rough ride for 4-5km just before Lalsot and through the town, but after that is a 100ft road with super tarmac quality.

Total distance through Dausa - 340km, and through Bassi - 380km. The return leg was done at night so top speeds were much, much lower but still managed with only one more hour, of which half an hour was because of a logjam on NH8 and half an hour due to the slower speeds. I would estimate both stretches to take about the same amount of time.

[DRIVEPASSION]

Hi

Can you give me a current update on the Delhi Jaipur stretch in terms of:

1. Road condition and traffic load
2. Estimated time to cover - considering that I would be crossing Gurgaon
towards Jaipur at 6 AM

[nitinralli]

Originally Posted by cranky

Since no one really updated this, here's a quick note.

If you have a SUV or a rallycross vehicle, the Dausa - Lasot stretch is suitable for you.

For everyone with more normal vehicles, please do it a favour and take the longer route through Tunga/Bassi from NH11A. It adds one toll and around 35km to the ride, but that 35 is covered in far less time than the shorter route.

The road till Dharuhera is average with lots of heavy vehicle traffic. Expect to cover this in about an hour or so. At Dharuhera you should divert to SH25 (head towards Alwar) till the T-junction with NH11A where you take a right.

Then take a left at Dausa after Mahua toll (for bigger vehicles) or towards Bassi after Rajdhok toll. This run from Dharuhera is about 180 or 210 km depending on route, and can be covered just a little above two hours driving time in a quick sedan. Apart from the Alwar bypass which is under construction, the road is absolutely fantastic, but watch for unmarked speedbreakers.

The road from Bassi till Lasot is pretty good apart from a few stretches where the road is being rebuilt. Has plenty of sharp turns, so use your GPS to stay out trouble. I didn't have GPS and had one scary moment where a sharp-ish right turned out to be a switchback. That was slightly hair-raising, and it was thanks to the T-Jet's braking that I managed to stop in time.

Lalsot to Sawai Madhopur is also great. If you have come through the better route, you will have a rough ride for 4-5km just before Lalsot and through the town, but after that is a 100ft road with super tarmac quality.

Total distance through Dausa - 340km, and through Bassi - 380km. The return leg was done at night so top speeds were much, much lower but still managed with only one more hour, of which half an hour was because of a logjam on NH8 and half an hour due to the slower speeds. I would estimate both stretches to take about the same amount of time.

Thanks for the input. One question. How is the stretch from Dharuhera till Alwar? As you said that its the better route if you going to Ranthambore, hence wanted to know as i am planning to go there this weekend.
Or should i take gurgaon-manoharpur-dausa-bassi (since you said that dausa to lalsot is bad) - lalsot-ranthambore. Do you think this would be better?

[cranky]

Dharuhera to Alwar is absolutely fantastic, fresh-baked tarmac and you can easily do 160-180 if you want (I didn't). The road had no traffic when I took it.

I'm not 100% sure of the route from Dausa to Bassi unless you're talking about NH11A itself (which, incidentally is also fantastic right about now).

I would suggest:

Dharuhera (NH8)

Alwar (SH25A)

T-junction (not sure of the name of this town) right on to NH11A

Rajdhok toll plaza (You will pass Dausa on your left using this route)

Left at Bassi

Lalsot

Sawai Madhopur

Using this stretch you will get about 4km of almost unmotorable road on the approach towards Lalsot, and about 5-8km of roadworks between Bassi and Lalsot. The rest of the journey is amazingly good. Using Dausa-Lalsot instead Bassi-Lalsot will reduce travel time by about half an hour, but give you about 25km of unmotorable roads. Your call.

[nitinralli]

Originally Posted by cranky

Dharuhera to Alwar is absolutely fantastic, fresh-baked tarmac and you can easily do 160-180 if you want (I didn't). The road had no traffic when I took it.

I'm not 100% sure of the route from Dausa to Bassi unless you're talking about NH11A itself (which, incidentally is also fantastic right about now).

I would suggest:

Dharuhera (NH8)

Alwar (SH25A)

T-junction (not sure of the name of this town) right on to NH11A

Rajdhok toll plaza (You will pass Dausa on your left using this route)

Left at Bassi

Lalsot

Sawai Madhopur

Using this stretch you will get about 4km of almost unmotorable road on the approach towards Lalsot, and about 5-8km of roadworks between Bassi and Lalsot. The rest of the journey is amazingly good. Using Dausa-Lalsot instead Bassi-Lalsot will reduce travel time by about half an hour, but give you about 25km of unmotorable roads. Your call.

Thanks bro, so its final. I will take your route and skip Dausa turn and will take Bassi route to Lalsot. Will update here once i am back.

[cranky]

Cool. Watch for unmarked speed bumps and umarked turns. Drive safe

[nitinralli]

Originally Posted by cranky

Dharuhera to Alwar is absolutely fantastic, fresh-baked tarmac and you can easily do 160-180 if you want (I didn't). The road had no traffic when I took it.

I'm not 100% sure of the route from Dausa to Bassi unless you're talking about NH11A itself (which, incidentally is also fantastic right about now).

I would suggest:

Dharuhera (NH8)

Alwar (SH25A)

T-junction (not sure of the name of this town) right on to NH11A

Rajdhok toll plaza (You will pass Dausa on your left using this route)

Left at Bassi

Lalsot

Sawai Madhopur

Using this stretch you will get about 4km of almost unmotorable road on the approach towards Lalsot, and about 5-8km of roadworks between Bassi and Lalsot. The rest of the journey is amazingly good. Using Dausa-Lalsot instead Bassi-Lalsot will reduce travel time by about half an hour, but give you about 25km of unmotorable roads. Your call.

Thanks a lot Cranky for suggesting this route. I just came back from the trip and enjoyed every second of it. Roads from Dahruhera to Alwar and then to Bassi was excellent with fresh baked roads
Took from Bassi to Lalsot, was decent road with only few patches that was been worked on, rest was a lovely road. Yes of course, as warned by you, there were unmarked speed breakers. But thanks to them, i was able to test ABS for the first time.

To all: please if you are planning a trip from Delhi to Ranthambore, please take this route and skip NH8. NH8 has become a mess these days due to work on 6 lanes, which i guess would easily take another few years to complete.

[gsachin21]

Hi, visiting ranthambore this weekend by road (self drive) from Delhi. Has anyone done this stretch lately, want to check on the road conditions. Last when I went in 2010 roads were in bad shape, had taken alwar-dausa-lalsot route (dausa-lalsot was in particular pretty bad)

[stormerider]

Originally Posted by gsachin21

Hi, visiting ranthambore this weekend by road (self drive) from Delhi. Has anyone done this stretch lately, want to check on the road conditions. Last when I went in 2010 roads were in bad shape, had taken alwar-dausa-lalsot route (dausa-lalsot was in particular pretty bad)

Dausa-Lalsot is still very bad. Would suggest going via Jaipur and taking the Jaipur-Tonk-Ranthambore route instead of Jaipur-Kothun-Lalsot-Ranthambore as Kothun Lalsot is under construction. For last three months i am taking the tonk-ranthambore route as its a freshly made Jaipur-tonk 4 lane stretch. There after the road is ok, not very good but ok.

[joybhowmik]

Originally Posted by gsachin21

Hi, visiting ranthambore this weekend by road (self drive) from Delhi. Has anyone done this stretch lately, want to check on the road conditions. Last when I went in 2010 roads were in bad shape, had taken alwar-dausa-lalsot route (dausa-lalsot was in particular pretty bad)

Delhi - Yamuna Expressway - Mathura - Bharatpur - Sikandra - Dausa - Lalsot - Sawai Madhopur- Ranthambore
Approx 450 km - and doable in approx 6 hours provided you have an early start from Delhi.
Refer this thread: