[Dr.AD]

Bangalore to Arunachal Pradesh: The Plot

Every story begins with a plot. For our story, the plot began roughly three months ago. The plot was quite simple to begin with, but soon got increasingly complex. In fact, it became so complex that I often struggled to explain to anyone (who cared to ask or listen to me) about exactly where we were driving to, why we were driving there, and who was driving with whom in which parts of the country. The plot quickly became a nightmare of complications.

It all began with the announcement of the Gumball 2021 (https://gumball.in/). In their own words, it was "Just a 4,000 Kilometre non-stop endurance drive across India. Joining people and places from Koteshwar, Gujarat to Kaho, Arunachal Pradesh. Revelling in diversity and unity." (sic).

Now here is our story. Our two friends, let us call them R and M for now, decided to participate as a team in this Gumball 2021 event (each entry in the event is a team of two). And taking inspiration from them, another set of friends, let us call them A and G decided to participate too. So we now have (or had) two teams of two friends each. Unfortunately, as things developed, due to some reasons, A and G had to drop the idea of participating in the Gumball. However, since the drive was what enamored them more than the event in the first place, they decided to drive to Arunachal Pradesh anyways, and meet the Gumball participants R and M there in Arunachal. This was the base plot.

Now the complications began. Gumball starting point was the westernmost location in Gujarat and the end point was the easternmost location in Arunachal. And our characters in the story live in southern part of India. So it was not just the Gumball drive, but it also involved driving to the start point in Gujarat from Bangalore, and then driving back to Bangalore from the end point in Arunachal. This would be a complete circuit through our vast country, taking multiple weeks of time. Throw in some much deserved sightseeing at the beautiful northeast states of India, and we were looking at almost a 4-week driving plan.

Coming to our characters in the story, M & G decided to make the best of this opportunity and decided to actually be on the road for close to 4 weeks. R and A, on the other hand, could manage to take only about 12 days of time off for this drive. But remember than R and A were not in the same team anyways. R was with M and A was with G in the team. So what was decided was this: M will drive the full circuit. R will fly into Gujarat and join M at the starting point. R & M will do the Gumball and reach Arunachal Pradesh. A & G will drive from Bangalore to Arunachal and meet them there. The four of them will spend a few days exploring some of the beautiful landscapes and national parks in that part of the country. And then R & A will fly back together, leaving M & G back there. Another two members will fly into there, to replaces R & A, and then continue the explorations and the long return journey back with with M & G. It was like a team swap mid way in a 4-week exploration.

One funny thing with this complex plot was that out of the four members (R, M, A and G), no two had the exact same journey path. R had a flight followed by a cross-country-drive followed by a flight. M had a complete cross-country drive via Gujarat. G had a complete cross-country drive, but he skipped Gujarat and directly drove to Arunachal. To make it even further unique, G stays in Coimbatore, and thus his start and end points are already different from the rest of the guys who stay in Bangalore. And then A had a Bangalore to Arunachal drive with G followed by a return flight with R. Each member had their own unique combination of routes and journeys. And yet there was one overall common theme binding the four plans together.

Now coming to the people, R is BHPian robimahanta. M is BHPian megazoid. G is BHPian graaja from Coimbatore, and I am the A in this story. Since each four of us had our own sub stories and our own journeys within this grand journey, each of us can write our own travelogues on this epic journey. And there is a good chance we will have three or four independent travelogues based on this one common theme (and I am eagerly looking forward to those).

In summary, this story is my travelogue of my own section of this journey, which is merely a subset of the master journey which is still in progress (as I type this, M & G are still somewhere out on the road, exploring the beautiful landscapes of our great country).

The Route Plan

:

My route plan (again specific to me, since others had their own unique plans.) is as shown below (I did the driving part (the blue route totaling about 4500km and about 90 hours of driving) with graaja, and then took the return flight (the green route) with robimahanta.):

My Team and the Car:

My teammate for the driving part was my close friend and Distinguished BHPian graaja. As our machine of choice for this cross-country journey, we had the options of my red BMW 320d, and graaja's blue BMW 330i GT. Given the extra space and practicality that the 3GT offers over the 3 sedan, and also given graaja's keenness to take his car for this epic journey (and of course, more importantly, given that I was going to fly back at some point and he wanted to continue the road trip much beyond what my time limit permitted), it was his famous 330i GT that was chosen as our car for this drive.

Our weapon of choice for this drive and the real hero of this story, graaja's (famous) BMW 330i GT (photographed at Kalimpong, West Bengal, during this trip):


This is an incredible machine by any standards. I have always been in awe of this car and has closely seen this car in our numerous drives together in the past. But this time, I actually drove the car over a real long distance. Both of us alternated between driving and navigating half the time, and thus, I drove his car for about half of the whole trip. I loved the car. What an amazing machine this is. Great power, super-refined 30i engine, great handling with his M Sport suspensions, and to top it all, great space and practicality. I got to experience the true power and utility of that car in this drive. I will write more about this car later, but first of all, my huge thanks to graaja for his amazing company and for letting me drive his car. He is not only a close friend and a fellow BHPian, but also my "coach" (as we lovingly call him) on health and fitness too. It was an incredible honor and privilege to do this road trip together with him. Thanks again coach for everything!

The Flag-Off:

On the day before our drive started, graaja drove from Coimbatore to Bangalore, and then I joined him in Bangalore. Our idea was to have a celebratory dinner together at our favorite pizza place in Bangalore along with our favorite desserts, and then start the drive next morning at 4AM. Our friends and BHPians RSUDARSANAN and zebo joined us for dinner and for wishing us good luck (thanks guys for coming to meet us and wishing us luck for this journey). This journey was as much about exploring food as it was about exploring new destinations, and thus it was only apt to start the journey with our favorite food before moving on to whatever local food we got at each place on the road later. Besides, in Bangalore we eat so much pizza and we love our pizza so much that I can easily claim pizza is our local food. So we did not break the local food norm anyways.

Our favorite pizza in Bangalore, before embarking on this epic road trip (where we strictly ate local food at each place):



This is the best Tiramisu in Bangalore and both graaja and I love this, and we had specifically planned to have this before starting our road trip:



And finally, here is our picture (on your left is graaja and on your right is myself) posing next to the main hero of this story, the car, just before starting the journey:


By the way, before I wrap up "The Plot", let me share that robimahanta & megazoid successfully completed the most grueling endurance drive event, the Gumball 2021. This was a fantastic achievement, and we met them at the finishing line (so to speak) to congratulate them in person. Congratulations to them again for this amazing achievement. Their drive was so challenging that after listening to their driving stories, our drive from Bangalore to Arunachal Pradesh sounds like a cakewalk.

Acknowledgements and Thanks: Several friends as well as fellow members on the forum helped us plan this trip. My sincere thanks to all of them. robimahanta and graaja did most of the research about our staying places. We also talked to Moderator Sheel who gave us invaluable inputs and tips about our travel routes. My many thanks to him as well.

[Dr.AD]

Experiencing the Contrast

To begin with, this drive was never about the destination. It was always about the journey and the experiences through the journey. We did not have any specific destination or sightseeing as the main priority. We just wanted to drive across different parts of the country, see different landscapes, meet different people, eat interesting local food, and just experience the vast variety of experiences our country has to offer. And I am happy to say that our trip was 100% successful on this front. We came back with some most amazing experiences and memories.

The BMW 3GT turned out to be the main hero of this "experiences" story. The shiny blue sleek BMW could never be inconspicuous, no matter where we went. It always drew attention. People talked to us about the car first before anything else. The car became, quite unintentionally to be honest, the central character around which all experiences revolved.

And talking about these experiences, the one word that comes to my mind is contrast. We had the best and the worst conditions, at different times and at different places. We saw the contrast between the best roads and the worst roads, between fast highway driving and crawling at miles long traffic jams, between the warm sunny afternoons and the chilly cold nights, between early morning 3AM starts and lazy morning 10AM starts, between some fine dining and some roadside dhaba food, and so on.

The BMW at Hotel Le Meridian in Nagpur (our overnight stay place on Day 1), where it looks at home...


And in total contrast to that, at a roadside dhaba somewhere in Bihar, where people were looking at it as if they saw a ghost:


This contrast summarizes our story of this memorable drive.

Non-Sequential Travelogue

Since I want to highlight these experiences, this travelogue is not a chronological diary of this road-trip. The rest of the posts do not describe the journey in day-wise format. Instead, I will try to juxtapose different contrasting and thematic experiences together. These experiences are my biggest takeaways from this journey, rather than the mundane day and time details. Although just for the records, let me state that my part of this journey lasted 12 days. The experiences shared below are spread over these 12 days.

Since the following posts are non-sequential, please feel free to jump around and you will still not miss a thing. This travelogue has become ridiculously long, and therefore, jumping around the sections might be the best thing to do anyways. My sincere apologies for the excessive length of this travelogue.

Since the journey was the most important part for me, I will first write a few sections describing the roads and the food we experienced in the journey. And then I will write a few sections about a couple of destinations (where we spent some time) and the experiences there.

With that longish introduction, let me start sharing with you a few stories and pictures from this journey that I will most likely never forget.

[Dr.AD]

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Roads, Driving Conditions and Traffic Jams

Since this was a road-trip, the roads and traffic conditions were the most immediate and most impactful experiences. When you do a 4500km road-trip, roads are to you what the sea is to a sailor. It is impossible not to talk about the roads.

We saw some of the best and also some of the worst roads in this journey. We saw free flowing fast six-lane highways, as well as tiny village roads full of traffic and potholes. We enjoyed our fast paces on some of the national highways, while agonized over mile-long traffic jams at some sections. We faced some straight, flat, wide open roads which ran in a given direction for several tens of kilometers, and in contrast to that, we also faced plenty of hilly roads with twists and turns every 50m. Even the road surfaces varied from being butter-smooth to being ridiculously bad with potholes and totally nonexistent tar. We faced it all in these 12 days and 4500km.

Also, since we were almost always driving the car (again, we were in it for the journey rather than the destination), most of the pictures here are taken from my mobile phone from the front windshield. Windshield view is the most representative view of how we saw things in this journey.

The amazing Outer Ring Road, Hyderabad, which represents the best of our national highways in terms of road surface and design:



Smooth highways between Hyderabad and Adilabad:



Somewhere between Hyderabad and Adilabad, on our way to Nagpur:



Passing trough Pench National Park, in our northbound journey from Nagpur on Day 2. These were still some of the best roads, before things got bad later:



Crossing the states. We made it a habit to photograph the map photos whenever we crossed states, which we did almost every day (sometimes we crossed multiple states in one day; On Day 1, we actually crossed 4 states):



Our first major traffic jam, somewhere in UP. While cruising down nice 4-lane highways as the sun went down, we were suddenly stopped by a literally mile long line of trucks completely stationary on both the lanes of the highway. These truck jams we saw in UP and Bihar were unbelievable, shocking, and something that we had never seen before:



Very nice of a trucker (all the truckers had got out of their trucks and were trying to help each other) to guide us to squeeze through small spaces and somehow find our way out of these stationary trucks:



Some painful traffic jams while crossing smaller towns in Bihar; this particular scene was while crossing Gaya (On these rural highways, we saw continuous heavy traffic of bikes, rickshaws, buses, cars coming in all the directions, which blocked the entire roads and this continued for several tens of kilometers):



It was not just the trucks and other "usual suspects" blocking our way, but we had some funny traffic too. Somewhere in Bihar, this vehicle was blocking our way while blasting loud movie songs and advertising some movie at a nearby theater. I can not say whether this slow vehicle blocking our way (he was driving bang in front of us) or the super loud music it was blasting at us was more painful:



Road signs were as interesting as the roads. It was nice to see road signs of so many places we had heard about, but never visited, like this one:



Starting with this Siliguri-Kalimpong road in West Bengal, we started experiencing some of the worst roads we saw in this drive:



Another photo of the conditions on the Siliguri-Kalimpong section:



Driving around in Kalimpong (West Bengal), we experienced another interesting contrast - we had great views all around but also some of the worst road conditions. Here, we ended up on some off-roading track while searching for a road to a monastery:



And finally we found the right road which offered good views, and was a nice twisty road to enjoy the 3GT too:



After experiencing some of the worst roads in and around Kalimpong, we again got some great roads as we started driving from Kalimpong (WB) to Dooars (WB). This was a very scenic drive:



Again excellent roads (and joy to drive on these in the amazing Adaptive LED Headlights of the 3GT) from Dooars (WB) towards Assam:



Further ahead in Assam, crossing the famous Bogibeel Bridge on the mighty Brahmaputra river (this bridge is India's largest road+rail bridge with a length of 4.94km):



The 3GT on the Bogibeel Bridge:



The vast expanse of the Brahmaputra river as seen from the bridge (the river was mostly dry this time, but you can imagine how it would look when the 4km wide river bed is full with massive flow of water during monsoons; I have seen this river in its full glory back in 2012 and it was both impressive and scary):



And finally, as a sweet ending to this story, some lovely (scenic and with good road surface) roads in Arunachal Pradesh:

[Dr.AD]

Experiencing Roadside Dhabas and Dhaba Food

It was not just the variety in road conditions that we experienced and enjoyed, we also got first-hand experience of eating at road-side dhabas across multiple states. We enjoyed the variety in the food, the simple and humble attitude of the dhaba owners, and of course their hospitality.

We ate at roadside dhabas pretty much all the time in our drives. There were two reasons: 1. Once we went further north after Hyderabad, there were absolutely no big food malls or food plazas or major restaurants on the highway anywhere. Big branded restaurant complexes with large parking lots and other facilities on the highway is a common experience in South or Western India. However, nothing of that sort was anywhere to be seen in the part of the country we drove through. And 2. We anyways wanted to avoid common chain restaurants and wanted to eat dhaba food. We were joking among ourselves that for one week, we were living a truck driver's life (we started calling ourselves as truckers). And that was not too far from reality either. For first 4 days, we were practically on road from early morning till late evening, and all we had was dhaba food for every single meal in those four days.

At most times, we loved the dhaba food. We got some amazing experiences at these dhabas. Let me share some of these memories of dhabas in this post.

Just like our road journey, our food journey also had a nice variation, starting from South Indian food and ending with some amazing northeastern food in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. And in-between these two extremes, we had some amazing food at many dhabas in UP and Bihar. The friendliness and hospitality of the dhaba guys in UP and Bihar was also something worth mentioning. We always felt quite safe and at home while spending time in these dhabas.

Our very first food stop on the side of the road between Bangalore and Hyderabad...:



Where we had piping hot idlis; the very first serving of the morning (we reached there when the shop was barely opening and thus got a "special serving" of fresh idlis):



As we started driving northward, the idlis and dosas gave away for proper Punjabi food. Here, an authentic Punjabi dhaba between Hyderabad and Nagpur became our lunch stop:



Even the "seating" was quite authentic, and we had an array of trucks parked there and all truck drivers eating there:



This is the food we had. It was delicious. We enjoyed this meal, although it was a bit too spicy for our taste:



Further ahead, around late afternoon, a customary tea break near a tea stall (before we entered Maharashtra and drove to Nagpur for the night halt):



Next morning, as we started our early morning onward drive from Nagpur, at one highway restaurant we had this tasty "tarri poha", which is a Nagpur specialty:



As we entered Madhya Pradesh, another customary tea break at a roadside stall...:



Where, along with the tea, this jalebi caught our attention:



graaja volunteered to taste it for us and this jalebi received his emphatic approval :



Later that day, as we drove across Madhya Pradesh in hot sunny and dry weather, we found this dhaba for lunch:



And here, we had absolutely perfect food. This was delicious, and the spice level was just perfect. This was one of the best dhaba meals we had in this road-trip:



After driving across Madhya Pradesh, we entered UP and spent that night at a hotel in Mirzapur, UP. Next morning, as we started our customary early morning onward drive (from Mirzapur towards Gaya), we were greeted by heavy fog (not surprisingly, I must say, because we always expected heavy fog in this part of the country in our early morning drives).


Such heavy fog in UP made it impossible to drive, and we had no option but to stop driving and pull over:



Luckily, we found this tea shop, and this was a great place to wait at for the fog to clear:



The shop owner asked us first about the BMW (all these people were quite amazed by the shiny blue thing and all of them talked to us about the car first; I will discuss this in a separate post later), and then served us this amazing tea:



This hot tea in that weather was heavenly, and we enjoyed our break there while the fog cleared:



An interesting poster at another dhaba in UP (and no, I did not miss "Ashok Bhaiya Ka Khana" for sure):



This was "Ashok Bhaiya Ka Khana", and it was delicious. They made us wait but served absolutely fresh and hot food:



This was another dhaba we stopped at, somewhere in Bihar:



And even this one did not disappoint us. They served us paratha that was one of the best I have ever eaten:



Another roadside restaurant where we stopped for a quick tea, somewhere in West Bengal this time:



And this was our usual tea order. Four cups for two people. The cups were usually so small and we always needed to drink two cups of tea. So we started ordering four cups of tea in every tea shop:



After entering Assam, we stopped at this dhaba for tea. Although this was in Assam, it was named "UP Bihar Dhaba":



While driving through Assam, we pulled over at this cute little restaurant for lunch. This turned out to be a great place:



Inside the restaurant. The restaurant was run by a couple of ladies, and they served us absolutely delicious fresh homemade food. In this place, language was a problem because those ladies could speak only Assamese. Thankfully, other friendly customers helped us communicate by translating our Hindi into Assamese:



This was the lunch they served. Fish for graaja, and for the vegetarian me, the same thali but without the fish:



Talking of food, how can we not mention the famous rosogullas? At some roadside place in Assam, we had this unique combination of "khajur rosogulla" (rosogullas made of some date sweetener) and tea:

[Dr.AD]

Sunrises on the Highways

Since we were primarily driving toward Northeast or East direction most of the times, and since we almost always started driving early morning before the sunrise, we got to see some fabulous sunrises on the highways. It happened quite a few times that we took a turn and all of a sudden we had a stunning sunrise straight ahead of us.

We saw plenty of sunrises, but never saw a sunset, except on the last day of my trip, at Guwahati airport.

A beautiful sunrise on the very first morning of our drive, somewhere near Anantapur (AP):



Another sunrise somewhere in UP:



In UP we had severe fog which made the subsequent sunrise even more beautiful:



Another sunrise somewhere in Bihar. Highways, sunrises, and dhabas for breakfast/tea was our usual morning routine.



A surreal sunrise somewhere on the border of WB and Assam:



The 3GT basking in the glow of the morning rays:



Another sunrise, this time while driving from Assam towards Arunachal Pradesh:

[Dr.AD]

The Peace in Bodh Gaya and the Chaos Surrounding it

On Day 3 of our drive, when we were driving from Mirzapur (UP) to Darbhanga (Bihar), we decided to take a detour via Bodh Gaya. We wanted to experience the peace at Bodh Gaya, and we thought this visit might bring some sanity to our otherwise insane drive. Also, since otherwise we were just driving all day, we thought that spending time at some place for a change might do good to break the monotony of the routine.

This turned out to be an eventful day. While the Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya is indeed quite impressive and peaceful, the drive to and from Gaya was totally opposite. This turned out to be one of the toughest driving days in our trip. The roads were absolutely chaotic, with narrow single lane road almost all the way from Gaya to Patna (we reached a four-lane highway only when we were close to Patna). We faced the worst of the slow and chaotic traffic on this road, and many times we had to struggle to find space to inch our way forward through the traffic jams on the numerous villages/towns we had to cross.

This drive from Bodh Gaya to Patna was so bad that it took us 5 hours to drive just 125km in that section. It completely messed up our time calculations and we were forced to do a late night drive from Patna to Darbhanga due to the delays caused in this section. However, to give credit where it is due, the highway from Patna to Darbhanga (via Muzaffarpur) was in excellent shape and it was great to drive on this road even in the night. I was driving that time and I actually enjoyed my night driving on this highway.

Bodh Gaya is a crowded city, but we were lucky to find this parking lot (and notice the man in red shirt staring at 3GT. He was so startled to see this shiny blue thing there and asked us about the car first and then offered his rickshaw ride; we had plenty of such experiences about the car and I will write about those in a subsequent post):



Beyond a certain point, vehicles are banned in Bodh Gaya, except for these e-rickshaws. This blue e-rickshaw became our ride in Bodh Gaya after parking our primary blue ride:



This is the famous Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya, marking the location where Buddha attained enlightenment:



The statue of Buddha in the main temple:



A close-up of the Buddha statue:



Signs marking the locations where Buddha spent time here:



A view of the sidewall of the temple, with the famous Bodhi tree in the background:



This is the famous Bodhi Tree:



Symbolic feet idols marking the locations where Buddha's feet rested:



Another view of the temple:



At another site in Bodh Gaya, this is "The Great Buddha Statue":



This massive statue is 85 feet tall, and is quite impressive:


It was a great experience spending some peaceful time in the Mahabodhi temple. We hired a guide there and the guide gave us a tour. After spending some time there, we started our journey towards Darbhanga via Patna.

However, before starting driving again, we could not resist eating these hot samosas and kachoris on the main road, where this stall was frying them fresh:


The drive from Bodh Gaya to Patna was an absolute nightmare. This is a narrow single lane road, with dense towns every few kilometers, and speedbreakers every 100m (or so it felt). The traffic was totally unruly, and it was a challenge to find our way. This 125km drive took us 5 hours, and completely messed up our driving time destinations.

We faced such dense traffic almost everywhere in this section:



Another photo of the chaotic and dense traffic on this single lane road:



Eventually, in the night, we reached Patna, only to be greeted by such heavy truck traffic jams again:



Finally, around 11pm, we reached Darbhanga. This was our hotel there, located very conveniently on the side of the main highway. We breathed a sigh of relief when we reached here, at the end of what was the toughest day for us till now:

[Dr.AD]

Siliguri to Kalimpong: Another Bumpy Drive

After Darbhanga (Bihar), our next destination was Kalimpong (West Bengal). Kalimpong would be the first place where we would stay two nights in this trip, and break our "truck driver" routine for a change. As I mentioned in the above post, we had a tough drive to Darbhanga and had reached there at 11pm after a really long and tiring day. We slept well and started our drive from Darbhanga at 7am, a relatively late start by our usual practice (but this was required to catch up on some much needed rest).

The drive from Darbhnga to Siliguri was quite uneventful, except for some diversions like these at a couple of locations:



At Siliguri, we wanted to eat the famous jhalmuri, and stopped at this chaat stall:



The chaat guy made this, which he claimed was bhelmuri and not jhalmuri. Whatever it was, it was quite tasty:



After Siliguri, we soon realized that the Siliguri to Kalimpong road was a nightmare, with such crazy traffic jams in the ghat section:



Not just the traffic jams, but the road surface was the worst we faced yet. The entire road is practically in broken state, with huge potholes, mud, slush, and in general with non-existent tarmac, like this:


We had to drive really slow and carefully on this road. A lot of construction activity (presumably road widening) was going on in this section, and that meant heavy traffic of the earth moving machinery too. This road was an absolute pain to drive on. However, ironically, although the road was quite terrible to drive on, it was also very scenic. This road passes right next to the Teesta River, and offers great views of Teesta River throughout.

Such views of Teesta River from this road offer a good compensation for the terrible road surface:

[Dr.AD]

Exploring Kalimpong (West Bengal)

After the rough and bumpy drive from Siliguri to Kalimpong, we finally reached our resort at Kalimpong. Kalimpong would be the place where we would spend 2 nights, exploring the surrounding areas, and breaking our "truck driver" routine. This also meant we would be eating in proper restaurants here and not the dhaba food for these 2 days.

Sinclairs Retreat was our resort in Kalimpong, overlooking the mountains:



The rooms were quite spacious and comfortable:



Restaurant with a view! This resort is very nicely located, and offers great scenic views from most locations, including the restaurant:


In our "free day" at Kalimpong, we decided to drive to a nearby Monastery known as Durpin Monastery. Our resort was located on a narrow side lane in the mountains, and Google Maps showed a continuation of the same lane towards Durpin Monastery. In our excitement, we did the mistake of trusting the Google Maps and started driving on that road. This turned out to be a horrible blunder.

Google Maps guided us on narrow mountain roads where soon we were in a 4x4 territory:



The 3GT looked lovely even in that challenging setting:



After trying our best to find our way, we reached such rocky terrain:


This road was rocky and slippery, with sharp turns and crazy slopes, we even started losing traction, and we had no choice but to abort our drive and trace our way back to the resort. While taking the U-turn there, one tyre actually lost traction and we had to try some special tricks to get out of that mess. This drive turned out to be an unfortunate misadventure just because we trusted Google Maps blindly.

graaja posing with the car before returning to the resort:


After we returned to the resort, we did the right thing and asked the locals about the road to reach the Durpin Monastery. They told us a route via the main road instead of the mountain trails that Google Maps had sent us on. With that new route information, we started our Take 2 drive towards the Monastery again.

This time, the roads were driveable, but we could not avoid the Kalimpong town traffic:



Further ahead, on the road to the Monastery, we spotted this inviting cafe:



This cafe has a great location overlooking the valley and the lower Himalayan mountains:



This Golf Course ("India's Most Scenic Golf Course" as proclaimed on a sign there) was there right behind the cafe and it indeed looked quite beautiful:



Finally, we found our way and reached the Durpin Monastery, only to find that it was closed to visitors due to the pandemic:



While we could not enter the Monastery, we could not resist a photoshoot like this:


After visiting this Monastery, we just drove around randomly on the hilly roads nearby, enjoying the views. This road was lovely, with good tarmac and great views all around.

The 3GT on a lovely road overlooking the lower Himalayan mountains:



We stopped at some viewpoints on the way, which offered such stunning views (that is the Teesta River flowing through the valley):



graaja with the 3GT at one of the viewpoints (the smile on his face is the smile of pride after doing some tricky maneuvers with the 3GT to reach this difficult spot):



My most favorite shot of the car in this drive, on this hilly road, where I got plenty of opportunities to enjoy my car photography:



Then we put the camera on self-timer, and took this "selfie", with the lower Himalayan mountains in the backdrop:


After this hilly drive and photoshoot, it was time for lunch, and we started searching for the restaurants in the town. Unfortunately, and to our surprise, most of the town was closed because it was a Sunday. We checked a couple of restaurants on the internet which had great reviews and offered local food (eating local cuisine was our priority), but again we found them closed on the Sunday. Finally, while just searching around randomly, we found a restaurant that was open.

This is the simple and nondescript "Restaurant" sign that we saw and we took our chance:



At the entrance, we saw this warning sign, but decided to go in anyways, ignoring the warning:



This turned out to be an incredibly beautiful place, with nice, simple and clean ambiance, with a balcony offering great valley views:



The views from this restaurant:





And finally, the food (vegetarian noodles for me and chicken thupka for graaja). The food was absolutely delicious and as always in this area, made fresh after ordering. This restaurant was one of the best accidental finds for us:



Driving back to our resort after this awesome lunch, we had to drive through such city traffic again:



Back at our resort, the resort looked lovely in the night:



The terrace restaurant offered such views of the mountains:



A parting shot of the resort on the background of the hills:

[Dr.AD]

Dooars and the Tea Gardens

After Kalimpong, our next stop was Dooars, West Bengal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dooars). This area is famous for the tea gardens. This was also the shortest day's drive for us so far. Kalimpong to Dooars was less than 2.5 hours of driving time. This was in stark contrast to our initial days where we drove between 12 to 15 hours each day.

As we started our journey, we again enjoyed the lovely road running side by side with the Teesta River, and at some point we again saw such beautiful sunrise:



A view of the Teesta River, with the road running side by side with the river:


Till now we were driving on the road that goes to Siliguri. This is the road which has incredibly bad surface and at the same time such beautiful views. Then a bit later, we had to take a left towards Dooars and exit this road. Once we took that left turn, we were in for a pleasant surprise. The roads now were in great shape, with smooth and wide tarmac, and yet equally scenic. We loved driving on this road.

We had to cross the Teesta River to go towards Dooras, and we crossed the river using this majestic bridge named "Coronation Bridge":



Further ahead, we crossed another river which was wide, but bone dry:



In a short while, we reached this famous tea gardens area:



The quintessential Dooars tea garden views:



Some more tea garden views:



3GT enjoyed driving through the tea gardens:


After spending some time driving through the tea gardens, we checked into our resort. We were again staying at Sinclairs Retreat in Dooars.

Sinclairs Retreat Dooars had these charming cottages:



Spacious and comfortable room again:



The food here was amazing. I ate the famous "beguni" which is a local delicacy:



Speaking of local delicacies, while in West Bengal, how can we miss rosogullas? The lunch buffet had rosogullas made to perfection:



And finally, an evening view of the cottages:

[Dr.AD]

Reaching Arunachal Pradesh and Meeting the Gumball Heroes

By now, we were within striking distance to our goal of reaching Arunachal Pradesh and meeting the Gumball team of robimahanta and megazoid. Our entry point to Arunachal Pradesh was a town named Namsai in Arunachal Pradesh. However, Dooars to Namsai was still a two-day drive, and we needed to have an overnight halt somewhere. We chose Tezpur, Assam as the en-route overnight halt, which is a mid-size town with some decent hotel options (we in fact found quite a nice hotel for an overnight stay in this town).

Drive from Dooars to Tezpur was quite uneventful and smooth. We had excellent roads throughout, and again we got to eat some lovely dhaba food. We reached our hotel in Tezpur well ahead of the estimated time (thanks to all the good roads we had), and used the extra time to relax and take some rest. Since we had time to rest well in the evening, we decided to start at 3am next morning towards Namsai. Our Gumball completing team was already in Namsai, and the idea was that if we reach there early enough, we could use the day to explore the nearby areas. So a 3am start from Tezpur was the plan.

We got up at 2am, got ready, and just a few minutes past 3am, we were on our way:


The nightmare morning drive: Although we started at 3am as per our plan, what ensued was a nightmare. The roads were utterly terrible, with massive road construction in place. There were random unmarked diversions, invisible potholes and speed-breakers, huge dips in the road surface as the road switched across diversions, other vehicles moving in all random directions (because nobody probably could figure out the right direction), and Google Maps going all over the place as it could not keep up with the changing roads due to construction and diversions. And imagine doing all this while driving in the night. For about 3 hours, it was a total nightmare to fight with these road conditions and it took a lot of energy from 3am to 6am to tackle this. Finally, by 6am it was daybreak and also the road construction ended and we were back on good roads. After 6am, it was a smooth and fast drive, and we reached Namsai, Arunachal Pradesh by around 11:30am.

This sign greeted us as we entered Arunachal Pradesh:


We drove straight to the resort where our Gumball heroes were staying, after successfully completing the most grueling and the most challenging endurance drive.

Finally, the 3GT meets the Gumball completing Fortuner:



For the two of us, it was a moment of completing our own mission of driving to Arunachal Pradesh, and it was a proud moment for us in our own ways:


We met the Gumball team, and now for next 4 days we would all be together. Now it was no more a team of two, but it was a team of four. Our plan for the day was to drive through Roing, Arunachal Pradesh, explore the beautiful roads and views, and then by evening, check into a riverside homestay at Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh.

As we started driving towards Roing, the Fortuner looked majestic with the Himalayas in the backdrop:



We had such lovely views on the side of the road:



A bit ahead, at a roadside dhaba for lunch, finally the full team in one picture (Left to Right: Yours truly, graaja, megazoid and robimahanta):



This was the lunch (momos and thupka, the local cuisine) we were offered at that humble local roadside place. None of this was vegetarian, so I had to wait my turn for a bit:



The rest of the gang thoroughly enjoyed this meal and they told me this was absolutely delicious:



At another small place next door, I got my simple vegetarian meal. Although it was as simple as it gets, I can assure you this was delicious too:



After this sumptuous lunch, we started driving towards Roing, and we again had the views of the majestic Fortuner on the lovely background:



With such beautiful roads and views, we just pulled over at this safe spot and spent some time enjoying the scenes and soaking in the ambiance. It was a surreal experience. All of us were happy with what we had achieved in this drive, and this was a moment to celebrate with some peaceful roadside break:



3GT looking lovely as always:



Now we switched vehicles. I was now in the Fortuner, and for a change, I could see the 3GT from outside:



Another break a bit ahead, where we again got down to enjoy the lovely weather and the views:



I again enjoyed my opportunities for car photoshoot, and got such pictures:



And then it was the Fortuner's turn to pose:



This was an enticing road, with smooth tarmac, views of the Himalayas, and absolutely no traffic (we hardly ever saw any other vehicle passing by):



The team enjoying some roadside break at that road with zero traffic:



A glimpse of the snow-capped Himalayan mountains in the distance:



As we started driving further, now I could see the 3GT in the outside river view mirror:



As we drove to Roing, we had such lovely roads:



Another opportunity for car photoshoot:



And finally, a customary roadside tea break before we reached Pasighat, for our overnight stay:

[Dr.AD]

Exploring areas near Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh

Next day, our plan was to drive around Pasighat and explore the nearby areas.

Our homestay in Pasighat, named "Donyi Hango Camp Homestay", offered such lovely cottages on the side of the Siang River:



From inside, this was actually a tent, which offered such cozy arrangement:



It was quite cold there in the night, and this bonfire was extremely useful to spend the time catching up on all our journey stories:



This was a charming little restaurant at the homestay:


While talking of the restaurant and the homestay, I must highlight that we experienced the best of the hospitality at this place. This place was very simple and basic, as you can see in the pictures. But what you can not see in the pictures is how friendly and polite the people were, and how nicely they treated us. Everyone working there was a local person, and the whole place had a home kind of feeling rather than a resort. They all looked after us as if we were their personal guests. The menu was limited, and based on the availability of the chef and the skills of the chef working at that time, several things in the limited menu were not available. However, they made up for all that with their attitude, and with smiling faces and sweet language, they cooked whatever they could for us. And the biggest plus was whatever they cooked was absolutely delicious. Even a simple thing as "peanut masala" was made in a unique local style and it was so good that even today we remember the taste. This homestay was a magical experience.

A customary photo of the 3GT in front of the cottages/tents:



The Fortuner looked totally at home in this rustic setting:



I got to eat a fresh raw green olive here, which I had never eaten before, and it tasted quite nice:



As we started driving around, we had to cross one big bridge over Siang River (which is the name for Brahmaputra River in this part), with such views:



We got great views of the Siang River (again it was mostly dry this time, but one can imagine how this would look in its full glory):



The Fortuner overlooking the Siang River:


Our next agenda was a small hike to one "Hanging Bridge".

This is the river down the hills, and we had to hike down to reach the hanging bridge at the bottom:



At the starting point of that trail, there were plenty of sellers selling these local oranges, ginger and some other produce. While we did not eat the oranges that time, we realized the value of these oranges after climbing back up from the strenuous hike:



robimahanta leading the way down the trail towards the hanging bridge:



graaja and megazoid enjoying the trail:



We started getting clearer views of the river as we reached closer:



Finally, we were almost there, and could clearly see the hanging bridge:



Soon we reached the hanging bridge. Views of the river from the bridge:



graaja and megazoid enjoying the views from the bridge:


Walking down the trail to the bridge was not very difficult. However, the climb back up was quite strenuous. After having spent more than a week primarily just driving the car all the time, this sudden burst of physical activity was a nasty surprise for our bodies. We were huffing and puffing by the time we completed the climb and reached back to the top where our car was parked.

And this time, we bought these oranges and in that tired state, these oranges tasted heavenly:



As we continued driving ahead exploring the roads, we saw another bridge somewhere down in the river:



And then we also saw such broken bridges:



Our next agenda was visiting a waterfall, which again required a small hike on these rocks:



This is the waterfall that we saw after another strenuous walk:



After our waterfall visit, while coming back to Pasighat town, we saw such lovely view of the main bridge over Siang River near Pasighat:


Now it was getting late in the afternoon, and we had not had our lunch yet. We started searching for local restaurants, and based on online reviews, decided to visit one C.V. Restaurant in Pasighat. This C.V. Restaurant turned out to be a very nice place, and they served some awesome food.

Pork thupka at C.V. Restaurant (not for me):



These vegetarian noodles were for me, and they were awesome:


It gets dark in that part by 4:30pm, and by the time we finished our late lunch, it was already dark.

We spent some time walking through the local markets and exploring some souvenir shops:



A view of the evening in the local town:



And finally, back at our homestay, a parting night shot of the charming restaurant, which I will never forget:

[Dr.AD]

New Year's at Kaziranga

After spending two days exploring Pasighat, we finally started our return journey. For I and robimahanta, the return journey was to Guwahati, from where we would fly back to Bangalore (the other two members are still there exploring some magical lands as I type this). However, before returning to Guwahati, we had one more major plan - spending the New Year's eve at Kaziranga and then a jungle safari through Kaziranga National Park on January 1st. For nomads like us, what better way to start a new year than a jungle safari?

Our resort in Kaziranga was a placed called "Wild Grass, Kaziranga". Again this turned out to be an amazing place. This place has a old time rustic charm, with wooden construction and old fashioned rooms. The place had a great restaurant and they served us some awesome food. Overall this was a perfect place for us and I would definitely stay here again if I go to Kaziranga again.

Our rides arrived at the parking lot of Wild Grass Kaziranga:



The lovely restaurant at Wild Grass, where we ate some awesome meals:


We had a a free evening there, and our wildlife specialist robimahanta (who is also the local expert at Kaziranga) took us for a drive where we thought we might see some rhinos (Kaziranga is famous for rhinos, one of the very few places in India where rhinos reside).

While we did not see any rhinos on that drive, we saw another famous animal from that area, the water buffalo:


After that drive, and after enjoying some lovely orthodox Assam tea at one local tea place, we returned to our resort. We had a simple, quiet and short party for the new year's eve. We had already experienced some of the most amazing driving moments, and the year had already proven great on the driving front. We also had the much anticipated jungle safari early morning on the next day, the January 1st. Thus, without delays, and with more anticipation and excitement, we called it a day and went to sleep. Personally for me, this simple and quiet new year's party at a remote location, while on a road trip (doing what I love the most - driving long distance), was way more special than any other fancy city party. How I wish my every new year's party be like this.

Next morning (January 1st), we got up early, wished each other Happy New Year, and got ready for the much anticipated safari.

megazoid appreciating the beauty of our safari ride, a Gypsy, while our usual rides wait in the background:


Soon we were on our way. We were standing behind in this open to the elements vehicle, facing brutally cold winds as the vehicle sped its way in that chilly morning weather. It was quite an experience! Finally, after quite literally a chilling ride, we reached the starting point of the safari.

The safari starting point (where one gets permits) was very crowded, with such long line of vehicles waiting to get the permit:


Apparently January 1st is a very popular day for visiting Kaziranga, and it is sort of a tradition to do a jungle safari that day. Hence this heavy crowd. While our Gypsy driver waited in the line to get the permit, we took that time to walk around and enjoy some views.

A beautiful lone boat on a river nearby:



A bit away, there was an elephant basking in the sun:



And a baby elephant was nearby too. We spent some time watching the mother and the baby elephant playing with each other:


After a short while, we got our permit and we started our safari. Again, the main attraction was the rhinos, which we will not get to see anywhere else, especially in the parts of the country we stay in.

Soon enough, we spotted these rhinos:






While we opted for the jeep Safari, another popular option at Kaziranga is the elephant safari. We could see people on the elephant safari all around us, and here, they seemed to have spotted the rhinos too:



Two elephant safaris surrounding a lone rhino:



A face-off of elephant safaris and a rhino:



A head-on close-up of a rhino:



The jeep safaris and elephant safaris crossing paths:



Away in the distance at a lake, few water buffaloes:



We had a good luck with spotting rhinos that day, and got plenty of rhino sightings:


For me, the jungle landscapes are always as exciting and attractive as the wildlife. I spent some time appreciating the beauty of the landscapes there. Kaziranga has very unique landscape, very different from the jungles I had seen in the southern and central parts of the country. Kaziranga has vast grasslands, with tall, green grass and several water bodies and marshlands to make it a perfect home for rhinos. It was also amazing how lush green the grass and the landscape was even in the dry month of January. It is really a beautiful place and I absolutely enjoyed the amazing landscapes there.

These are the vast, tall grass fields that Kaziranga is famous for (and these are spread over hundreds of square km):



This forest is full of such lovely water bodies:



Safari vehicles treading their path through the beautiful landscape:



Another view of the vast open grasslands:



Early morning jeep ride through these enchanting landscapes, soaking in the morning sun (can there be a better way for enjoying a new year's morning?)



Somewhere ahead, we saw a massive water buffalo hiding away in the grass and staring straight at us. But before we could fire our cameras, it turned away, and all I got was this shot of the massive beast:



One more landscape shot. This forest is one never-ending beautiful place. One can spend days shooting just landscapes here:



We continued to spot rhinos basking in the sun, in that marshland, and birds jumping on and around the rhinos:



Plenty of birds in the marshlands too:



The rhinos and the birds, all enjoying the lovely morning together:



One more view of a rhino, looking at us from a distance:



These birds (black headed ibis) having a great time there:



And finally, one shot of an Indian roller:


We had a great time enjoying the landscapes and the wildlife at this safari. What better way to enjoy a new year's morning than this? While packing my bags for the onward drive to Guwahati after this safari, all I was saying in my head was that if my rest of the year is half as good as this surreal January 1st morning, I would happily take it.

[Dr.AD]

The BMW 330i GT: The Hero of this Drive and the Crowd-Puller

Before wrapping this up, I must dedicate a post to the real hero of this drive, the car. To say that the car performed well would be an understatement. We all know this is a great car on the highways. But in this drive, it faced much worse challenges than highways, and it passed every test with flying colors.

On wide open highways, the car is an absolutely delight to drive. With more than 250 horses and 350Nm of torque under the hood, the car just cuts through the miles effortlessly. With that kind of horsepower on tap, speeds were never an issue. I especially appreciated the refinement and the quietness of the 2.0 Turbo petrol engine, after being used to driving my own BMW 320d with the 2.0 Turbo-diesel engine. The 2.0 turbo-diesel is no slouch either, and with 188hp of power and 400Nm of torque, it offers more or less similar performance in real world conditions. However, it certainly does not offer the creamy smooth refinement of the turbo-petrol. The diesel clatter is always there. In contrast to that, I totally enjoyed the absence of any clatter whatsoever in this super refined 30i engine.

While the lovely 30i engine is surely the highlight of the car, this specific car is upgraded to M Sports suspensions, specifically imported and installed. That makes a world of difference, in a good way. The stock 3GT is known for soft suspensions and bouncy ride and more than tolerable body roll. None of that applies to this specific car. This car, with M Sports suspensions, has no body roll whatsoever, and the ride was flat too! The car handles beautifully, and thanks to the upgraded suspension kit, it was as much fun throwing around in the corners as it was pushing it on wide open highways.

Another masterpiece of technology in this car is the Adaptive LED headlights. These are way superior to any other lighting system I had experienced, and the night drives were much more fun thanks to these lights. To being with, the high beams are super bright and illuminate the road very well. And then the magic starts when the adaptive function is switched on. The car senses the traffic in front, and automatically chooses selective areas to create dark spots (e.g. it creates a dark spot behind a car moving ahead, if it senses a car in front, so as not to annoy that driver with bright light) and brighter areas (it creates brighter areas on the side so that we still clearly see the road without blinding the front car). It manipulates high beams automatically and dynamically to produce the best results under that specific condition, sensing the traffic all around. It was amazing to see this in action. Of course, it does not always work, especially in Indian traffic conditions. There were times when it did not work as expected. But when it worked, it was amazing. Overall, the 3GT Adaptive LEDs are one of the best in business.

While the above-mentioned dynamic qualities are more or less given for a true blue RWD BMW, what was a revelation for me was how well the car handled some absolutely terrible roads and challenging terrains. We faced more than our fair share of bad roads and challenging terrains in this drive. Sometimes we faced totally broken roads for more than 50km at a stretch. We often found ourselves driving on a terrain where no BMW would want to be. But this car handled all of that without any issue whatsoever. Of course, we had to be slow and careful, but with proper careful driving, this car can do magical things. This car can turn into a high speed highway cruiser, a cross-country tourer, or a bad road conqueror on demand. What an amazing machine this is!

By the way, a huge credit goes to the owner of the car, graaja too. He never blinked an eye before letting the car take on some of the most challenging conditions. I can honestly state that some of our driving moments were real adventurous, and graaja never had second thoughts about tackling those adventures, or about the ability of his car. And above all, it was so nice of him to let me drive his car for about half the distance. My sincere thanks to graaja for his amazing company, letting me drive his amazing car, and being a great companion through this memorable journey.

Finally, no praise of the 3GT can be complete without commenting on the space and practicality. The car has an amazing boot space. This is in stark contrast to the 3 sedan (or even the 5 sedan), where the boot space is at a premium, especially after the laughable placement of the "space saver" in the boot. In the 3GT, we carried a full size alloy wheel with a full size tyre mounted on it, placed in the boot. And even after placing that full size wheel and tyre, we had plenty of room to keep our luggage.

Here is how much luggage the boot could swallow, even after placing a full size wheel+tyre on the boot floor:


What an incredible machine this car is!

Lure of the BMW

While I expressed my own fascination of the 3GT, I was clearly not alone. Almost everyone, at almost every place we stopped at, was quite intrigued by this machine. In general, we hardly saw any other luxury car on most of our route (we avoided all main cities, where I am sure there are plenty of other fancy cars). That probably indicated that a BMW was a rare breed in most of that driving circuit. And on top of that, the unique shape of the 3GT, the beautiful blue color, and the black grill, the stunning LED DRLs, all of this added up to make this car looks so attractive and so special on the roads.

At almost every petrol pump, the attendants asked us about the car. At every tea stop we stopped, the shop keeper asked us about the cat before serving us tea. Most of these areas we drove through were Hindi-speaking areas, and I de facto became the spokesperson for the car, answering all the questions in Hindi. I loved the beautiful Hindi they spoke, and I loved answering their questions in my own Hindi. We had some really interesting conversations.

The most common questions were if the car was new (it always looked like it was brand new), what the price of the car was, did we actually drive all the way from Tamil Nadu (looking at the TN plates), and what kind of servicing this car requires. Whenever I answered in affirmative about driving all the way from TN, the next question invariably was about how long it took us.

At one point, in Kalimpong, one policeman was intrigued about the car and our journey, and had some nice questions. When he realized we had actually driven all the way from South India, he asked me "how many hours" it took. I told him "hard to say in hours, but it took us 4 days". His reaction was full of astonishment.

Somewhere in Madhya Pradesh, we stopped at a random tea stall (a very small tea stall) on the side of a highway, in the middle of nowhere (well, there was only a small village nearby). The blue 3GT parked next to that tea stall looked majestic, and no wonder the shop owner was himself amazed to see this thing parked next to his stall. Before we could order tea, a couple of guys on a motorcycle showed up, just to look at our car. And then the conversation between those guys and the shop owner was interesting. The guys on bike said to the tea stall owner, still staring at our car, "dude, you have become a big shot now. Such fancy cars are coming to your shop now". And the shop owner was on cloud nine hearing that comment. After serving us the tea, the shop owner told me in his sweet Hindi "I love BMWs, and I am a driver too". We had some nice chit chat with him there.

When we parked in Bodh Gaya, this gentleman in red shirt asked us about the car first, and then offered his e-rickshaw ride. You can see him still amazed by the car in this photo:


Almost all of these people were very nice, and although they asked us a lot of questions, those were always friendly questions. At many places, people wanted to take photos with the 3GT, and asked us permission. Again, I am amazed by the niceties of people, even in the remote village areas, to ask for permission to take photos. And again, kudos to graaja who always allowed, with a smile, to let people take photos with his car.

At a petrol pump on a highway in Bihar, the pump attendants requested for a photoshoot with the car, which we happily allowed:


These guys took multiple photos from different angles, with each of them posing one by one. While that was going on, one person asked me the price of the car. I answered with the nearest round figure. Immediately after hearing my answer, one guy started celebrating and boasting to his friends. Then I understood that they were playing a guessing game about the price of the car, and the guy who was happiest to hear my answer was the one whose guess was the closest.

Not just at the roadside dhabas or petrol pumps, but even at major tourist places, the car could not escape public attention. For example, in Kalimpong, we had parked at a viewpoint overlooking the valley. Soon another large van came, with a big family in that van. The whole family came to that viewpoint, and even before noticing the stunning views of the valley below, they noticed our car. And their immediate reaction was "Oh, BMW!!". Again, we had the usual routine of a short Q&A session about if the car was new, if we indeed drove all the way from South India etc. Finally, even they asked for a photoshoot, and had their fun with posing next to the car. They were very nice and friendly people, and it was nice to chat with them.

A family posing next to the car in Kalimpong:


Sometimes, on a rare occasion, people did not ask us anything, but just loitered near the car for a long time. For example, at one place in Assam, where we stopped for tea, I was remotely watching these guys loitering near the car, discussing the headlights, and staring at us:


They probably wanted to talk to us but did not. They were still standing there when we jumped into the car, and started driving. They were fully staring at us all the while till we drove away.

While in our return journey, at one tea stall in Assam, there was an interesting conversation too. While we were having tea, some villagers standing nearby were talking about the car, in Assamese. Thanks to robimahanta, who speaks Assamese, we could know what they were saying. One guy walked to the car, put his hand on the logo, and was telling others than this was a BMW. Then one other guy said that he had never seen a BMW in his life, and this was the first time he was seeing one. Another guy said he had seen a BMW once in Guwahati before. Those guys were totally intrigued by seeing a BMW there, and they had a great time discussing the car among themselves.

We figured that seeing a BMW was probably as rare for them as seeing something like a Ferrari (as an example) would be for us. If I see a Ferrari parked next to me on a road, I am sure to stare at it, take photos, and do similar stuff. This was no different. It was all in good intentions, and we appreciated that.

By the way, many times, people were not even sure it was a BMW. They made a guess that this was a BMW, and then they used to start the conversation by asking us "Is this a BMW?". At that tea stall in UP, where we waited for the fog to clear, and had some nice hot tea while waiting there, the tea stall owner could not identify the brand at all and asked me "what car is this?". When I answered, his next question was "Does Maruti also make a similar car"? ("Marutiwale bhi aisee gadee banate hai kya"? - this was his exact question in Hindi). I just did not know what to answer.

The most comical brand identify error happened at one petrol pump in Madhya Pradesh. By then, I was already used to the routine of petrol pump attendants asking me about the car. At this petrol pump, the attendant was also clearly intrigued, but somehow he shied away from asking me anything. He was closely staring at the car the whole time while fueling the car. He did not say a word the whole time, but just stared and had some intrigued expression on his face. Finally, when we paid the bill and jumped into the car, when he probably thought we could not hear him, he said out loud, with a tone of an exclamation mark, "Mercedes Benz"! I could not stop laughing as we drove away.

[Dr.AD]

Team Moments

As much fun just the driving part was, it was even more fun bonding with my friends in this drive. This drive was possible only due to the team work and the support of close friends. Spending time with friends while exploring new roads, and spending evenings talking about cars and the day's driving is certainly a priceless experience.

Here in this post, let me share some photos of the team and some team moments.

Myself and graaja at Kalimpong, West Bengal:



The four of us at a tea-stall in Arunachal Pradesh (Left to right: graaja, megazoid, yours truly, and robimahanta):



megazoid, driving Fortuner with a determination to take on anything that comes his way:



Yours truly, on the hanging bridge which we reached after a small hike down the hills:



The two "Gran Turismos"



The gang of four at a waterfall near Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh:



The owners of the two cars proudly posing next to their machines:



Our usual morning ritual - researching maps and figuring out which route to take:



The full team somewhere in Arunachal Pradesh:



Finally, a selfie where the joy on the faces symbolizes our memories from this trip:

[Dr.AD]

Epilogue

From Guwahati, robimahanta and I took a flight back to Bangalore. Both of us had spent 12 days away from work in this trip, and that is all we could manage and had to take flight back to join our work ASAP. Thankfully, two more members flew into Guwahati to replace us, and then the new team of four continued the explorations. They are actually still there, exploring some amazing lands. They have been sharing their pictures with us and I can tell you that they are having a great time. I am looking forward to their travelogue on the continuation of this trip.

I and robimahanta at Guwahati airport, waiting for our fight back home:



As I mentioned earlier, we saw plenty of lovely sunrises in this trip. However, for the first time in this trip, I could see a sunset, and that was from the aircraft window at Guwahati:



Another view of the sunset at the airport, from the plane window:



As we took off, I bid goodbye to the beautiful land below, with a dream to be back here some day, and hopefully, in my own car next time:


And with that, let me conclude this lengthy travelogue. I apologize for the length, but I had so many wonderful memories and experiences in this trip that I just could not figure out how to keep it short. And writing this report helped me relive my memories.

Thank you very much for reading this!