Hello all, we just did our first long distance trip driving a car. I have to say, we really enjoyed it. Previously, I was such a city dweller that I used my car strictly within the city and commuted even to nearby cities via train mostly. With our new car, however, we wanted to check out driving. Here is a short write-up of our experiences.
First, preparation: I planned to drive to Chennai and back (from Bangalore). The idea was to visit relatives and so stay and food were both taken care of. Team-BHP has an excellent route queries section and some kind folks (thanks varunasok) helped me with places to stop in and so on. I plotted the route on Google maps. My wife and I had applied leave and my mother was also to join in - so it would be the three of us. My mother planned to make breakfast and coffee for the journey to avoid eating outside. I made sure that the FASTag was charged and that we had sufficient fuel for the car.
The only wrinkle in the journey was cyclone Nivar. I read through all the newspaper articles, contacted my relatives and so on. Our best assessment was that it would be ok to drive on Thursday morning since the cyclone would have made landfall on Wednesday night.
We started at 6 am on Thursday morning and set off. The first segment was from Bangalore to Hotel Murugan Idly Shop near Krishnagiri. The drive was pleasant. There was some traffic but not too much. It was raining a little and also a bit gloomy. The rain got progressively heavier as we neared Krishnagiri. We reached the parking of Murugan Idly shop by 7:50 or so. Had our upma and coffee in the parking lot itself.
We started off at about 8:15 with good spirits. Listening to some good music and singing along, we noticed that the weather was very nice - no rain at all! The roads were almost empty and the scenery on both sides was amazing. Suddenly I realized that the "trusty" Google maps directions were not coming on the screen. After a few minutes, we "debugged" the reason for the nice weather - we were driving in the wrong direction - towards Salem! Somehow the map was turned off and we didn't realize it. After a good laugh, we put in the next stop (Adyar Anand Bhavan at Vellore) and turned around.
This segment was interesting. Shortly after passing Krishnagiri, the rain started to come down in torrents. Visibility was terrible and there were puddles on the roads everywhere. The spray from other vehicles (even from the opposite side) would cover the windshield for a second or two until the wipers coped. The sky was overcast and it was like twilight. We even saw some vehicles driving with no lights at all - it was both mystifying and scary. I was quite happy being in a modern, working car. The lights came on automatically, allowing others to see me. The auto-sensing wipers did their job, they would furiously speed up whenever we got hit by water from a puddle or another vehicle and slow down in between. The rear wipers also have two speeds, but that's manually controlled. The car never felt like it was going to skid out of control, even when going through some big puddles of water. I did drive at a slower speed of 60-70 kmph, in deference to the poor visibility and heavy rain. My dear wife also helped by being an additional pair of eyes on the road and would warn me of vehicles ahead, obstacles / u-turns coming up and so on.
We made it to Vellore but then realized that we must have picked the wrong Adyar Anand Bhavan - Google maps was asking us to take a U-turn and go into the town. I decided to just press on. Luckily, there was a BP petrol bunk on the left a short distance later. I parked in there, ran to the toilet and took care of my business. This was at about 11 am. Drank a little more coffee and then set off for Chennai.
A short while later, the rain tapered off. Soon it was just drizzling. We got to experience the sad roads from Walajah to Chennai, filled with potholes and road diversions. We joked that the roads must have been paved with salt and the unexpected rain had dissolved many parts. The drive to Chennai was uneventful - there was very little traffic throughout, thanks to the cyclone. I did stop at a Shell petrol bunk in Chennai to refuel, to avoid searching for fuel on the return journey. We made it home by 1:30pm - a little tired but very happy.
I noticed (a little late, I know) that I have grown older. My shoulders were stiff and my right wrist hurt. The wrist pain was unexpected. I think it was a consequence of trying out Sport mode with the stiffened steering from Walajah to Chennai. My back, surprisingly, did not hurt. I guess the seating position was fine.
We took 7.5 hours with three stops and one unexpected detour. I tried not to exceed 80 kmph. This was helped by the speed warning chime as well as the potholes after Wallajah.
The 373km drive gave me a surprising fuel economy of 20.4 kmpl.
After resting and visiting relatives on Friday, we started off early on Saturday morning. I wanted to leave as early as possible to avoid traffic in Chennai and nearby areas, so we managed to shave off an entire 10 minutes on our starting time and left at 5:50 am.
The first segment was to the Murugan Idly shop in Kanchipuram. There was traffic all along but it wasn't too bad. Interestingly, the road had much less potholes and was easier to drive on than the opposite side. We reached by 7:45 am. Had our packed idly and coffee in the parking lot and set off for Krishnagiri by 8:15.
This part of the drive was quite nice. The weather was getting hotter, so we closed the sunroof. There was traffic but not too much. The only fun part was the many idiots on the the road. Or maybe they are all smart and I'm the idiot here. Let me explain.
I would try and be slower and ready with my foot on the brake for every intersection / U-turn / barricade. I would try not to overtake at a crazy speed nor would I cut in front of a vehicle that was about to overtake another one. I would prefer not to overtake with no visibility, be it if the road were going up (hence can't see over the rise) or turning to the left. A few folks were driving very fast and it seems that all the above rules are only for idiots like me. Or maybe they were all testing their brakes and doing a scientific study on the reflexes of other drivers. I gave them plenty of space and let them zoom away.
One T-BHPian had asked me about the stability of the car at 120-140kmph. I finally found a long and empty straight stretch where I could speed up. I started to accelerate and go faster and faster... and my wife asked me to slow down since she wanted to take a video of the scenery and the 120kmph continuous warning chime was irritating her. Car testing vs. wife - wife wins. The only data I could gather is probably true for most modern cars - the engine is very smooth and it's easy to speed up.
We reached closer to Krishnagiri and I was feeling quite good - no wrist or any pain, so decided to press on. Somewhere in between, we stopped for a few minutes at a petrol bunk for a download and some coffee. The segment from Krishnagiri to Attibele had much heavier traffic. More scary drivers on this stretch but I just ignored them and let them all get ahead of me or cut in front. We were still making good time, or so we thought.
Eventually, the good drive came to an end and we entered Karnataka. The Attibele checkpost was jammed, the Electronics city elevated expressway was jammed, Hosur road was jammed... Bangalore is hereby renamed the Jam City instead of the Garden City.
Stopped at a relative's house off Hosur Road to hand off some parcels and had a long and painful drive through the entire city to my parents' home in North Bangalore. Lucky for me, my wife took over and tackled this part. Lunch at my parents' home, a siesta and then back home by 5:45 in the evening. God bless wives who can drive in the city without getting irritated. Looking forward to the day when we can both alternate on the highways.
All in all, a 12 hour journey out of which about 9 hours were spent driving. I estimate about 6.5 hours on so on the highway and 2.5 hours in the city. I mostly drove at 80-100 kmph and only exceeded this speed once. This time, I did not turn on sport mode. Not sure if this was the reason or not, but I had no wrist pain whatsoever on the return journey.
A 385km drive gave us a fuel economy of 17.8kmpl.
This was our small trip with a good car, nice roads and delightful company. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed the drive.
PS: my wife makes for an interesting DJ. We listened to songs in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Turkish, English, Hindi and Tamil. I agreed not to inflict my favourite old Kannada songs on her in exchange for not being subject to Marathi songs.