[devnull]

What a perfect read this was, waking up lazily on a Sunday noon. The only issue with your travelogues is that they always badly remind me of my road tripping days and in fact, our own drives together (driving your Fabia from Chikmaglur to Hampi will always stand out in that list) and make me a bit regretful - I don't even have a valid license now! Anyway, all this points to a future calling...and a very near future hopefully.

[FiatDiesel]

Originally Posted by animeshc

Post Jhalrapatan, it’s a two lane highway till Rajgarh and there is a dearth of food options along the way. We only found a decent option just before Rajgarh and broke for lunch.

Post Rajgarh, you enter NH46 and the road till Bhopal is quite magical, minimal traffic and scenic surroundings and even some twisty portions, the exhausts and the B&O both sang out loud and this was the perfect caffeine to the lull created by a heavy lunch.

The NH46 stretch post Rajgarh was a dream

We reached our hotel in Bhopal around 3pm and comfortably beat the Google maps estimate by around 90 mins including breaks.

Thanks for the details, very useful for the route not explored much. You have great car mate.

I have a query as I am planning a trip to Jaipur from Pune via Indore. I am kind of bored from usual routes via GJ or Ratlam - Chittorgarh as have done it numerous times. Your travelogue gives some confidence in the route between Indore and Kota via Rajgarh, which I have never taken.

So do you have any more specific information on this section between Kota and Bhopal apart from provided above in your post? Does it supports avg speed between 80-100 in terms of tarmac and traffic?

[animeshc]

Originally Posted by FiatDiesel

You have great car mate.

I have a query as I am planning a trip to Jaipur from Pune via Indore. I am kind of bored from usual routes via GJ or Ratlam - Chittorgarh as have done it numerous times. Your travelogue gives some confidence in the route between Indore and Kota via Rajgarh, which I have never taken.

So do you have any more specific information on this section between Kota and Bhopal apart from provided above in your post? Does it supports avg speed between 80-100 in terms of tarmac and traffic?

Thanks! Yes, barring a couple of small patches (around Dara and while crossing Rajgarh), the road is quite good and we didn't find much traffic. The road b/w Jhalrapatan and Rajgarh is two lane (but very good otherwise unless the rains have impacted them) so maintaining 80ish is quite manageable, for the rest of the route 100 should be very easily doable.

[animeshc]

Did this trip again, this time in a Thar though. The road conditions are more or less the same, the NH46 after Rajgarh seems to have slightly deteriorated and the passage after Bhopal near the Ratapani tiger reserve is still under construction making the Bhopal-Itarsi leg the most painful part of the trip. Apart from that, the roads are a treat to drive on, specially through the forest areas post Itarsi.
We had to cover the distance in 2 days this time so took a stop over at Itarsi.

The itinerary looked like this:
Day 1, Departure from Jaipur (7:20 am)
Day 1, Breakfast stop at Ananta, Bundi. Finally a decent place to stop on the Jaipur - Kota stretch.
Day 1, Lunch stop at Rajgarh
Day 1, Evening break at Noor-Us-Sabah, Bhopal. Some lovely views of the lake to enjoy while sipping your coffee.
Day 1, Night Halt at Itarsi, Reached around 6:30 pm. Found this hotel express 11 which was quite good for a night stay.

Day 2, Departure from Itarsi (8 am)
Day 2, Extended Lunch break at Radisson Nagpur (11:45 - 1)
Day 2, Departure from Nagpur at 1 pm, arrived in Hyderabad by 8pm.

Overall, a lovely drive and yet another feather in the cap of our Thar, for which our respect grows stronger. The one line highlight would be that the average speed with the Audi S5 was 74 kmph and with the Thar came out to be 73 kmph which was way more than we had hoped for.

Leaving you with some pictures.

Early morning takeoff from Jaipur


Enroute Rajgarh


The scenic views from Noor-Us-Sabah, Bhopal.


Itarsi


We found some early morning fog/mist for a stretch of 10-15 kms which inadvertently turned to be a boon as it helped clean the windshield, which otherwise we were too lazy to make an effort for.






Some nice forest drives on the way!










The Betul-Nagpur patch had some really nice roads and very little traffic.



Nagpur - Hyderabad, quite bad till Adilabad, pretty solid post that


The overall trip log, almost catching up on the Audi in terms of the average speed. Maybe the quote "It's the batsman, not the bat that matters" is true .

[androdev]

Originally Posted by animeshc

.. The one line highlight would be that the average speed with the Audi S5 was 74 kmph and with the Thar came out to be 73 kmph which was way more than we had hoped for.

Ha ha! That average speed stat is very misleading without understanding the factor of safety. A slight disturbance in the space-time fabric will trigger quantum physics phenomenon and Thar will teleport to the wrong side of the median.

[animeshc]

Originally Posted by androdev

Ha ha! That average speed stat is very misleading without understanding the factor of safety. A slight disturbance in the space-time fabric will trigger quantum physics phenomenon and Thar will teleport to the wrong side of the median.

Haha, true. Though I didn't take any risks to fabricate the number, this was just the natural outcome.