[DHABHAR.BEHRAM]

This is a lovely travelogue Mr.Kumar and I am indeed very happy to note that your Scorpio ran beautifully. For your kind of trips, it is an ideal car. Please check out the new Scorpio VLX, you will be delighted.

Best regards,

Behram Dhabhar

[phamilyman]

amazing trip. But why didnt you do chakrata instead of crappy shimla? I hate the concrete jungle that it is. and nowhere as much snow as a rohtang or even a jalori

PS: When do you start selling hvk india gps maps?

[Hemanth]

Very good travelogue. Very informative and useful for all adventorous people around.

[snaronikar]

Travelogues are always nice to read. But yours, is little exceptional as you are more experienced in these kind of things. Now post some pics...

[SRShrikanth]

Dear Kumar,

Hats off to this amazing expedition and a truly worthy write-up to follow in quick succession.

Deserves the

All this has inspired me to plan my B'Bay - Coimbatore - Karur - Salem - Pune - Bbay trip as well.

Travel dates - 29/01/08 until 04/02/08.

Am onlny planning my route yet and will resort to all your experienced help, as required.

Thank you for this inspirational 'push-over-the-cliff'.

Regards

[mobike008]

What an amazing travelogue. You are easily the guru of knowledge on travel, highways, and ensuing facilities on this forum. Highly disappointing is that such a beautiful write up looks so plain without any pictures. Do post them if you have it.

Btw, how many times your tyres got punctured?

[Drivealot]

Dear Mr. Kumar, First of all let me Wish you a very happy and Prosperous New Year.
Hats off to you on your marvellous travalogue. I know what it takes to drive these long distances. You are absolutely are a man of steel and if your son and wife has accompanied you on this trip then there is only one word " WOW"
Personally I have driven all these stretches of roads and I there are certain times when we get exhasperated with the cops or with some of the truck drivers who just refuse to give side or for that matter drive on the wrong side of the road. I have come across this problem in North India more often. There is also a very peculiar madness (on the highways) if you have noticed, (i.e.) most of the truck drivers drive on the extreme right side of a 2 lane highway which is normally a high speed lane & we have to overtake them from the left and secondly they drive with their head-lights rather than the dippers making night driving that much more difficult. The issue of driving with the headlights 'ON' starts from the moment you are leave Gujarat Border and enter the Rajasthan Border and continues all over the Northern States of Haryana, Punjab, Himachal etc. This is a common sight at night time in Delhi. I dont mean to offend anybody but this is my observation having driven the length and breadth of India except for the Eastern part of the country.
In the Southern states of India its the reverse. If you drive with the headlights 'ON' the truck drivers including the Northern number plates ones, will try to push you off the road if you dont "DIP'
Your detailed travelogue reminded me of some of my experiences, driving through Fog, and thro snow. The Fog you experience around NCR region coupled with SMOG makes driving very interesting? isin't it??
All the same keep posting your experiences. You are enlightening people's minds and encouraging them to drive.
KUDOS
Warm Regards
Drivealot/Narayan

[Surprise]

Amazing trip and excellent travelogue. Why no photographs? 2100 kms non-stop, man need to take a leaf out of this and keep it as motivator pill for 500 kms non-stop trips

Mr Kumar, You are a legend, i have never met you but you are my hero.
to everyone else- stop cribbing about photos. when you're driving, you're driving. stopping for anything other than a piss is sacrilege.
I did a 1100km trip this new year and all I've got is 8 photos of the same spot. all because i made it a point to stop for a piss at the scenic spot. all this inspite of being an avid photographer. see my flickr account for evidence.

when there are 2 conflicting passions,prioritise, and chose your favourite. I think thats what Mr Kumar did.

unless of course, its a photography trip, then stop all you want.

by the way, Mr Kumar, how old is your son? i'm wondering how long its going to be before I can do something like this with mine- he's only 5 months old

[hvkumar]

Originally Posted by rippergeo

Mr Kumar, You are a legend, i have never met you but you are my hero.
to everyone else- stop cribbing about photos. when you're driving, you're driving. stopping for anything other than a piss is sacrilege.
I did a 1100km trip this new year and all I've got is 8 photos of the same spot. all because i made it a point to stop for a piss at the scenic spot. all this inspite of being an avid photographer. see my flickr account for evidence.

when there are 2 conflicting passions,prioritise, and chose your favourite. I think thats what Mr Kumar did.

unless of course, its a photography trip, then stop all you want.

by the way, Mr Kumar, how old is your son? i'm wondering how long its going to be before I can do something like this with mine- he's only 5 months old

Sorry about the photography bit - it is exactly as you mentioned- no time to take photos. I am a photography buff but my photos are confined to those moments when I am firmly on ground (and no highway photos) and I do have some - but since I use an old-fashioned Canon SLR, the photos are in hard form, yet to be scanned and digitised. But most of my trips are extensively videographed with my handycam and I do have 1 hour of video of the trip, including some driving scenes on snow.

My son is 12, and my wife did not come during this trip since she had some pressures at work, could not take off. We did the drive upto Pathankot, where we were joined by my firned, his wife and their 2 children, making a team of 6. We left them at Manali and the 2 of us drove back to Bombay. He runs the GPS, logs the trip, organises the food and generally takes care of everything except the driving! Very experienced guy, we have been driving around with him since he was a little over 4-6 months old, and we have done 6,000 kms long trips by the time he was 1.5 years old. Children are very adaptable - I still remember how my son (when he was 1 year old) used to go to bed in the car the same way he did at home and plan his daily routines during long drives.

I have made movies of all my major trips - Ladakh, Coast 2 Cape 2 Coast etc.

Hitanshu, I did not do Chakrata because this was planned to be a holiday for the kids to see snow - and they wanted to see all the popular spots which they can go and talk about after they go back home!!!! That is why, although I want to go to Chakrata, especially during winter, we decided to stick to the crowded spots - Dalhousie is a heavenly place with no crowds and since there was no White Christmas, both Shimla and Manali had moderate crowds.

Mobike08, No, I did not have any punctures - the roads were great all along.

[biswajit]

Hats off for your non-stop 2100KM solo drive. Your detailed description will help fellow travellers, specially by passing Chandigarh.

[btirthankar]

Why just intercity but he seems to be a leader in Interstate Passenger Transport.

This phenomenon will be a day-2-day affair, if most of our Highway developments gets completed by 2010. Something which happened in US in the early 1950s due to Eisenhower's initiatives.

HVK is a national inspiration.

[MaserQ]

A real traveler's travelogue, crisp and to the point.

[Bob]

hi hvkumar

i'm very impress with your travelogue.

pls suggest me can i go vadodara to manali in optra.

i have already put my dillema in travel query section.

thanx . . .BOB

[rex_varghese]

Originally Posted by hvkumar

Am back from my Scorpio drive from Bombay to Punjab/Haryana/Himachal
to visit Dalhousie, Dharamasala, Amritsar, Bhakra-Nangal Dam, Shimla,
Manali (all to show my son snow) and

Your son is a damn lucky chap, I would say

Originally Posted by hvkumar

We also slipped around, hit his side lightly with our rear
bumper (without any damage), and scraped through. Just the previous
day, a car had gone down the valley after skidding on the snow.

This really is scary ! I assume you've lot of snow-driving experience.

It's really a long trip and the report is very much in detail. It was as if traveling with you, all the way up to the Rohtang Pass and back.

Great report ! Thanks.

Regards
Rex