Hello everyone, this is my first travelogue and it is about my first highway trip since I started driving. Sorry I don't have many great pictures to post because I was more involved in driving, also the post might be a little lengthy, so please bare with me and I hope you like it.
A brief introduction:
I am a 20 year old civil engineering student in Belgaum and as my username would suggest, I absolutely love driving. I started driving about a year and a half ago and since then the love for it has just been growing on me with each passing day.
About the days leading to the trip:
So this trip was planned from Panaji, Goa to Shahada, Maharashtra (Nanaji's Place) to attend my cousin's engagement in mid July. The total distance is about 900kms. We always divide this trip in two days, first day we do Panaji to Pune, which is right in center of our final destination, and remaining trip on the next day. This would be my first time driving on the highway, so I was obviously very excited and even pitched in the idea of doing the trip in one day but not surprisingly got rejected. The wait till the start of the trip felt like forever. To be honest, I was more excited about the road trip than the purpose of the trip.
I spent all the days reading Team-Bhp threads on safe driving on our Indian highways, posts about what to expect on the roads and about people's experiences on the road. I even read all the accident threads to learn what I had to avoid doing on the highways. I must say this helped me a lot to make my trip successful.
The night before the trip I couldn't sleep out of excitement, I was wondering if my dad would let me drive for the whole route because my mom was not very fond, rather unsure if I could drive the whole distance.
The trip:
Day 1-
We were to take the usual route, Panaji to Belgaum via Chorla Ghat, then continue the trip to Pune on the Mumbai-Bangalore highway. The car chosen for the trip was the Toyota Corolla Altis diesel (2017 facelift model). Not the most fun to drive car but extremely economical and comfortable for such long trips. This is my dad's company car and he also has a company leased new i20 petrol IVT as his daily driver. We also own a 2006 Accent crdi which use to be our companion for such long trips before dad started getting company cars.
My Photography is still a work in progress
, also I so wish we had that Hexa in the background for the trip, having read so many good things about it here.
We left home at around 9:30am. I had done Panaji-Belgaum 3-4 times before, but that was in the i20, so this was my first time driving the manual in the Ghats. Thankfully there was no rain but it was really foggy as we reached the peak of the mountain and I was worried I would be moved from the driver seat, but Dad was enjoying his time in the back seat taking a nap. I guess he trusted my driving enough to let me continue. Surprisingly, the roads in the Goa side of Ghat were in a very good shape but the Karnataka side has huge potholes and they have only worsened now. It used to be the opposite 1-2 years back.
A Chorla Ghat is pretty scenic during this time of the year (more than usual)
After the peaceful drive in the Ghat came the bad part. There are many villages before Belgaum and to keep traffic speed in control, the authorities have laid some horribly big speed breakers. We were 4 people in the car and our one week's worth of luggage and some extra stuff, in-short the car was loaded to brim. This was aiding the car's dynamics but had seriously compromised the ground clearance. No matter what I tried but the car was scraping its belly and my heart ached a little more with each scrape. At one instance I stalled the car on one speed breaker, a local city bus driver came side to side asked me what I was doing with some really judgemental looks, really dents one's confidence but somehow kept driving. I would like to have your suggestions about the right technique to tackle such situations in the future. Reached Belgaum and after dropping off some of my stuff at my flat and came down to realize, the rear left had a puncture. Thankfully we were in the city and there was tyre store nearby. Cause of puncture- a pointed pebble. Repaired the puncture, had lunch and it was 3:30pm by the time we left Belgaum.
Back to the exciting part, we exited Belgaum on to the NH4. Lush green scenery on both sides and wide open road. The desire to mash the pedal to the floor was immense but just then some team bhp post warning against this would pop up in my head and the desire would take a back seat. The road till Maharashtra was a joy to drive-on. Not one pothole, smooth flowing traffic, local traffic using the service road wherever available just made driving so easy. I was comfortably cruising @100kmph. Sure there was the usual slow moving trucks in right most lane but nothing I wasn't already expecting. Dad had got into the front seat for guiding me.
As soon as we entered Maharashtra, things changed drastically. There were a lot of two and three wheelers in the left lane, people crossing the highway and the trucks in the right lane, I had to be really careful before making any overtake. After we passed the Sangli exit, roads got better again. Then it was a non stop drive till after Satara. We stopped for a tea and vada pav break. Before continuing, dad asked if I was tired, I
denied. I wasn't feeling any fatigue or any kind of tiredness, guess the excitement was too high for feeling any kind of tiredness. Then it was non stop drive till our home in Pune. Driving in the dark is really a task in the Altis. Its LED low beam just doesn't light up the road in-front enough and I was avoiding using high beam so as to avoid blinding drivers of cars in-front of me (another team bhp suggestion). There was an instance when there was cyclist crossing the road, though I did spot him dad really insisted on using high beams to avoid any mishap. We made it safely to Pune at around 8:30pm and hence came an end to my first day on our highways. I wasn't satisfied though. Unfortunately as we reached our destination in Pune, we noticed there was a nail in the sidewall of the rear left tyre. The air wasn't leaking though and we decided to address the problem in the morning. I sure had good nights sleep that night.
Day 2-
Shahada is small town in North Maharashtra near Madhya Pradesh border and the usual route we take to this place was either Pune-Malegaon via Shirdi or Sangamner and then Mumbai Agra Highway till Dhule and exit on to the SH1 till Shahada. That day we decided to go via Nashik as Pune-Nashik is 4 lanes now and even though it would mean doing extra 50kms, the time taken would be same. We left house @9:00am but first repairing the puncture and then having breakfast at a relatives house meant it was 11:00 am before we started our journey for the day. We had to cross the whole Pune city to get on the Nashik highway and it was already lunch time before we got out of Pune district. After lunch it was a non stop dash towards our destination barring a few bathroom breaks. Again roads till Nashik were in a great state and the scenery was great too. Saw quite a few xuv 700 testing mules heading towards Nashik. Things got interesting when we joined the Agra highway. It threw everything that we come to expect of Indian Highways. Two-wheeler guys making sudden lane changes, Idiot car driver crossing the road out of nowhere, the Traffic police stopping a truck in the right most lane to make an earning
and much more.
Amidst all the chaos, a little scenery helped in calming the nerves
It got dark by the time we exited the highway for the SH1. Now this is a 2 lane undivided road without any kind of road markings for about 65kms till our destination. I wasn't really sure if I would able to drive in the night and was planning to give the wheel to my dad, who by the way was still enjoying his time in the backseat yet focused enough to see what was going on in the surroundings to guide me. As expected there were high beam warriors coming from the opposite directions and even 100s of flashes didn't make them consider switching to the low beam. All this was very intimidating at first but I got used to it pretty soon. All the way I was constantly switching between high beam and low beam and looking out for potholes and after some time it got pretty fun. On the whole trip, this was the time I was most engaged in driving, all the constant gear changes, switching between high and low beam, braking to avoid potholes and unmarked speed breakers and making quick overtakes was certainly a highlight of the whole trip. Finally reached destination at 9:00pm with Nanaji and cousins waiting for us outside. We were sharing our live location with them to avoid getting calls every hour asking about our whereabouts.
A rest day for the Car
Rest of days were spent in travelling for the engagement and to relatives nearby places with me behind the wheel for most of the times. Then we went to Jalgaon from where we picked up one of my cousin for our journey back home to Goa. So now there were 5 people in the car and even more luggage and even more extra stuff and that meant the already low sitting Altis, was even more closer to the ground. This also meant that My dad took the wheel for the return journey. I was in the front passenger seat, a little grumpy for not being allowed to be behind the wheel but it was understandable and I got over it pretty soon. I got the behind the wheel in outskirts of Pune and boy is the Pune traffic a menace in the evening times. Hundreds of people in a hurry to rush back home zigzagging around, cutting across and navigating through all that was certainly a unique experience, which probably will be a daily chore in the future.
The Last Day:
Surprisingly, I got the wheel for the last day of trip from Pune to Belgaum(I was getting off here for college work and the rest of family would continue to Goa). This day was pretty uneventful, all the usual highway experiences, I guess I had got used to all of that but the excitement for driving was still high. The part I was looking forward to was driving on the Kambatki Ghat before Satara. Now you might wonder what's so special about that but I find this particular Ghat's inclines pretty steep and there is a lot of heavy traffic which is literally moving at a snail's pace and you have to navigate through all of that, I was just wondering what would happen if I get stuck behind one such vehicle on an incline with so much of load in the car. Fortunately no such thing happened and we crossed the Ghat smoothly but still a great experience nonetheless.
A quick snap of the Katraj Tunnel
So after driving for over 1500kms in the span of one week, in all kinds of conditions like Ghats, heavy city traffic, big National Highways and Undivided and unmarked State Highways, that too in the dark, my folks thought that my bug for driving would finally be satisfied, but little do they know its just the start. I am looking forward to doing many more of such long road trips at first chance I get and explore our country.
A little about the Car:
It's very unfortunate that a global success like Corolla Altis was a failure in our market. But if anyone has to be blamed, it is Toyota, I mean come on 86bhp in a 19l car? Its like they were not even trying to save it from the obvious assault from the so called SUVs. Yes the engine is very economical and reliable, but a person shedding over 15l would sure expect more from the car and wouldn't care if the mileage was less by say 1-1.5kmpl. Apart from that, this car didn't even come with a infotainment system but had speakers and steering mounted controls which only work with the Toyota System, I mean who even approved that? I so want to use that frustration emoji here but I have already used all my quota of emojis.
All this aside, the car is really comfortable. Not once did I feel tired or fatigued during the trip. The engine gives a really good kick after post 2000rpm but only till 3000rpm, after which the engine gets very noisy and makes you want to upshift. The car though stable at high speeds in general, felt even more stable under load with had considerably less float on undulations. Add to that, the car is extremely economical. We left Goa with full tank, and believe me the fuel needle didn't even move one bit till just before reaching Pune i.e after 420km+ of driving. Now I don't know if this is was needle malfunction or something else but the car did over 450kms more next day and there was still 60kms worth of fuel in the car after we reached our final destination. So yes it is a great mile muncher except for the low ground clearance. I must say the car was a great companion and didn't give any trouble, barring the two punctures on the first day, but that has more to do with our road conditions.
A few appreciation posts for the car
I would like to end this post by thanking for barring with me and reading the this post till this point and also a big thank you to all the Team-Bhp members for writing such informative posts which helped me a lot to successfully complete this trip.
26th August 2021, 23:18
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