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| Snow Hunt -Bombay to Dalhousie, Dharamasala, Amritsar, Bhakra-Nangal, Shimla & Manali 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 a small business trip detour in
Delhi, Ghaziabad, Patiala, Sirhind and Chandigarh (in that order).
The trip schedule was as follows:
Dec 19/20 - Non-stop drive from Bombay to Dalhousie on NH8 via Surat,
Baroda, Ahmedabad, Udaipur, Chitoorgarh (NH76/79), Jaipur to Delhi,
and from there on NH1 till Pathankot via Panipat, Ambala, Ludhiana,
Jalandhar, and from Pathnkot on to Dalhousie, 2100 kms.
Dec 20-22, Dalhousie Region
Dec 23 - Dalhousie to Dharamasala-Mcleodganj and Amritsar
Dec 24 - Amritsar
Dec 25 - Amritsar to Shimla via Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Una, Bhakra-
Nangal Dam, Anandpur Saheb, Kiratpur, Bilaspur, Darlaghat
Dec 26 - Shimla
Dec 27 - Shimla to Manali via Bilaspur, Mandi and Kulu
Dec 28 - Manali, left in the evening for Delhi, with overnight halt
at Bilaspur
Dec 29 - Bilaspur to Delhi and Ghaziabad
Dec 30 - Ghaziabad to Patiala via Panipat, Karnal, Ambala, Rajpura
Dec 31 - Patiala to Srihind and Chandigarh, and return to Delhi and
non-stop drive all the way back to Bombay on the same NH8/GQ route.
The trip was from Dec 19-Jan 1, and Scorpio covered over 6,500 kms.
Highlights were the first day's drive direct from Bombay-Dalhousie
non-stop, 2,100 kms. Having left Bombay at 300 am on 19th, I managed
to do Surat (640 am, 265 kms, 3h40m, no traffic jams that early),
Baroda (820 am, 402 kms, 5h20m, lost lot of time in the Surat-Baroda
section thanks to road widening work), Ahmedabad (1025 am, 519 kms,
7h25m, slower than my best 6h30m), and proceeded to Udaipur (120 pm,
779 kms, 10h20m), Jaipur (635 pm, 1,217 kms, 15h35m, with a 20 m halt
to intercept a friend Sasi Menon who was speeding from Jaipur to
Kerala!), and finally Delhi at 1040 pm (1,480 kms, 19h40m, slowed
down by heavy traffic in Jaipur-Delhi section and in the final
approach to Delhi). The Bombay-Delhi drive was smooth, although
slower than my previous best (17h), and the Scorpio stopped only for
piss halts, refuelling and brief meeting with Sasi (food on board -
dry fruits, oranges, apples, chappathis, sandwiches, biscuits). Burnt
the rubber well. Took on premium diesel throughout and returned
decent mileage (remember, we had a light load, only 2 of us) - 10.40
kmpl. Cruising speeds were 120-140 kmph throughout, with max
speed at 160 kmph.
Exiting Bombay, the first 50 kms from Ghodbunder to Manor is a patchy
road after which despite high traffic, road is excellent. Since I was
a very early bird (640 am at Surat), I did not have traffic jams on
Surat bypass - can be very messy during day thanks to 3 flyovers
under construction and poor regulation by security guards (no
policemen). From Surat to Baroda, road widening is happening at a
rapid pace (I see significant progress since the last 2 months when I
went on the road last) - additional lanes are being levelled by IRB
(Surat-Bharuch) and L&T (Bharuch-Baroda). The way things are going, I
will not surprised if we see a great 6-lane road in this leg by end-
2008. Road is patchy throughout and traffic messy - I lost a lot of
time on this stretch till I crossed Baroda. Baroda bypass has some 3
flyovers under construction, but was lucky to escape without jams -
although this is also a high-jam zone. As usual, Baroda-Ahmedabad
expressway was a dream, and bypassing Ahmedabad now a pleasure. North
of Ahmedabad, you simply take off and maintain very high velocities
as you cruise through to Udaipur and Jaipur. No bad roads at all. The
Chittorgarh bypass work is still going on, and you have to still go
through town and signages are still bad there, plus progress is slow.
Lots of petrol stations are springing up on the Chitorgarh-Bhilwara-
Kishangarh road. Reliance petrol pumps are charging Rs 4.50 more pr
litre and are deserted - most of the A1 Plazas appear to be closed
down thanks to lack of patronage.
Credit Card petrol pumps are far and too few, but happily even where
the pumps had no signages for credit cards, they did welcome cards,
hence check out before you refuel.
Keep lots of money for tolls, keeppaying - only respite is on the
Surat-Baroda section where widening work is on. All toll gates except
the one between Ghodbunder and Manor (north of Bombay) were well-
managed - the Manor one delayed me by 20 minutes - and this after I
cut in from the extreme left.
Now that the Gurgaon-Delhi expressway is almost complete, it is a
pleasure to drive through Gurgaon; even the traffic jams outside
Delhi Palam airport appear to have reduced.
Being late, I was able to take the Outer Ring Road from Dhaula Khan
via Karol Bagh and Pithampur to Azadpur Mandi and the Azadpur T
Junction. This T Junction where you join NH1 is a total mess even at
11 pm, and I saw serpentine Qs of vehicles both on Azadpur Mandi road
as well as the road coming from ISBT. Getting out of Delhi till the
Haryana border is also messy since road widening work is on, and
although there is no debris on the road, one has to be very careful.
We continued through the night beyond Delhi, hitting NH1 by 11 pm
after crossing Delhi. From Karnal onwards, heavy fog hit us (zero-
visibility conditions), grounding all traffic on NH1 to a total halt.
We were also forced to stop for an hour (135 - 240 am), and decided
to move on despite the heavy fog. I don't believe in fog lamps or
second headlights, and the Scorpio headlights were decent enough to
pierce through at least 3-5 feet of fog, and the road divider guide
was well-marked for bearing. We had to stop again at Rajpura (444 -
523 am) and Khanna (647 -655 am), but eventually managed to drive
through Ambala, Ludhiana to reach Jalandhar at 836 am (with heavy fog
still swirling around) (404 kms from Delhi, but took us from 1040 pm
at Delhi Palam, with those extra halts). The Scorpio heater is great
and gave us lots of warmth inside - and my son found the middle seat
very comfortable, he slept most of the night with his woollen
blankets, etc, without being tossed around.
All major towns are bypassed. Ludhiana town is a bit tricky since it
goes through some crowded areas, but Jaandhar is bypassed well
without any urban clutter. You appreciate the quality of the roads
when you drive in heavy fog - the road dividers and white lines are
the only indicators that give you some reference point where you
can't see the tail lights of the car in front of you. Watch out for
accidents and diversions - we had to do something like that, where I
ended up leading a long convoy of vehicles going on the wrong side of
the road (thanks to an accident that blocked our side of the road)
surprising the guys struggling towards our direction!
From Jalandhar, we reached Pathankot at 1045 am (another 118 kms from
Jalandhar). Needless to say, we had a target that day - we picked up
my friend and his family at Pathankot railway station - they left
Bombay 8 hours after us, took a flight to Delhi, and took an
overnight train from Delhi to Pathankot) - and we wanted to beat them
to Pathankot, but we were 10 minutes late! The drive from Delhi to
Pathankot totalled 522 kms (approximately 12 hours, with those fog
breaks). After that, after a leisurely brunch, we reached Dalhousie
at 300 pm on Dec 20th(total 2,100 kms from Bombay).
NH1A (Jalandhar-pathankot) road is being widened - currently a
conventional 2-lane highway - and is dual carriageway for just 20 kms
till Bhogpur after which construction has made the road a little
patchy, slows you down. In Pathankot town, elevated roads are being
built, which adds to the bad roads. For those going to
Dalhousie/Dharamsala, please take the bypass road just before town
since the Chakki Bank bridge on the main Pathankot-Dharamsala road is
broken.
Incidentally, the drive from Delhi to Pathankot gave me my best FE -
13.3 kmpl!!! Maybe that was because of the controlled slow driving
that I was forced to do thanks to the heavy fog (not exceeding 80
kmph, and with heater on most of teh time).
We spend a good 3 days in Dalhousie. There was snow all around, and
the Scorpio had a great time climbing the local hills (Lakka Mandi,
Kalatop) on icy roads - very scary without the tyre chains, but we
managed with a load of 6 persons on board. I wish my rear tyres were
not so bald, we could have done better, the car kept skidding on the
rear tyres for lack of traction. I found the standard 2WD
Mahindra Pik-Ups doing yeoman duty in these parts, including on ice.
But those drivers have extraordinary skill and you have to keep going
up crunching the ice and snow - one stop anywhere and you will slip
back and find it extremely difficult to get traction again.
While in Dalhousie, we visited Lakka Mandi, (Kalatop and Danikhund
roads were closed by snow), Khajjiar, Chamba, Chimera Lake View and
local places like Satdara. To get to Khajjiar, instead of teh short
22 km route via Lakka Mandi, one has to take the long road via Chamba
(2.5 hours) to get there because the direct road is snowed down.
The HPTDC Hotel Manimahesh is the best location to stay at - very
close to the bus stand, but equally close to nature and has the best
snow mountain views. Lots of places to walk around in.
Dalhousie was in the Minus C temperatures, but the Scorpio did not
have any starting trouble - I did not even "sweater" the car radiator.
From Dalhousie, we drove to Dharamsala-Mcleodganj (134 kms, 3hr30m),
kids saw the Dalai Lama in prayer session, and we reached Amritsar
via Pathankot that evening (200 kms, 4 hr). We stayed in Amritsar 2
nights to visit the Golden temple, Jallianwala Bagh, Pakistan Border,
Atari railway station, etc, amd some shopping. The Dalhousie-
Dharamsala road was good, as was NH20 from Dharamsala to Pathankot
and Nh15 from Pathankot to Amritsar (the latter being very congested
and in sore need of a few bypasses). Amritsar town has good signages
inside town, hence no difficult getting around. Unhappily, I found
that out-of-state registration vehicles were not being allowed to
park near the Golden Temple, we had to park it in some 1/2 km distant
parking lots and leg it to the Temple. Lots of flyover construction
work inside Amritsar on NH1, but traffic is moderate.
Leaving Amritsar on Dec 25th early morning, we drove again through
heavy fog to Jalandhar (84 kms, 2 hr). Leaving NH1 before Jalandhar,
the road to Hoshiarpur was enveloped in even more thicker fog but we
managed to reach the Bhakra-Nangal Dam (via Hoshiarpur, Una and
Nangal) by 330 pm. Remember that you have to take permits at the
PRO's office and deposit your cameras/mobile phones at the check-post
before proceeding to the Dam. This was a bit unfortunate since we
could have saved nearly 100kms by going on the Nangal-Bhakra Dam-
Naina Devi Temple-Swarghat en route Shimla istead of the Nangal-
Anandpur Saheb-Kiratpur-Swarghat road hat we took. Anyone going on to
Manali/Shimla please remember to lie or hoodwink or cajole teh
security to allow you to carry your mobiles/cameras so that you don't
have to return to the nangal Check Post. There are no facilities at
the Bhakra Dam site, not even a tea shop.
The Jalandhar-Hoshiarpur road is also very good. But there are soem
bad sections in the Hoshiarpur-Una road and I am unsure whether that
road is safe at night. From Nangal town through Anandpur Saheb all
the way to Chnadigarh, the highway is fantastic.
From Bhakra-Nangal, we reached Shimla, via Kiratpur, Bilaspur and
Darlaghat, where we spent 1D2N. Hardly any snow in Shimla region. The
Bilaspur-Shimla road is being widened and repaired, and is very bad
in some parts thanks to the heavy limestone/cement truck traffic that
goes on part of this road. While coming from Kiratpur, you can bypass
Bilaspur town.
An early morning start from Shimla town (7 am) meant that we enjoyed
Kufri/Fagu without any crowds. We also found an interesting route via
Junga to Chail. The Shimla bypass is great, helping you bypass the
city alogether especially if you are proceding directly to the
Kinnaur region. But the signages at entrance/exit at Taradevi and
after Sanjauli are poor. In Shimla town, the new Lift to reach the
Mall is terribly crowded and it is better to drive up from Sanjauli
to the RGMC (Medical College) and walk it from there to the Mall
rather than use the Lift or climb up the steep steps. Or use teh
Lakkad Bazar side (the other side of the hill) to drive down and park
teh car below the Mall.
From Shimla, we drove to Manali where th kids had a great time again
building snow castles, skiing and para gliding. And eating Maggi
noodles in the cold. Scorpio again came up with a champion's
performance - we managed to drive all the way up to Gulaba,22 kms
from Manali, almost the end of the road before the winter snows
closed down the road to Rohtang Pass. We had a tough time in one of
the hairpin curves when we encountered a Pik-Up on the way up - he
had to stop, slipped all around with us hovering above, before he got
a toehold. 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.
The Shimla-Bilaspur-Mandi-Kulu-Manali road is in good form. Kulu town
can now be bypassed from Bhuntar onwards (again poor signages, missed
it on teh way in) - turn off after the airport into the bridge to
Manikaran, and take the left bank of the River Beas till the 2 new
brides/flyovers that recnnect this road to the main Kulu-Katrain-
Manai road. Again, signages are poor. Nonetheless, best is to avoid
the chaotic and narrow street Kulu town. As usual, the road to
Rohtang Pass is full of indisciplined drivers and unregulated
traffic, leading to huge traffic jams and edge-of-cliff encounters.
Worse now because of teh snow heaped up on both sides of the road,
making it impossible to pull over to the side to give way.
The drive from Pathankot-Dalhousie-Dharamsala-Amritsar-Shimla-Manali-
Mandi (1,800 kms) cost us 10.30 kmpl in FE, reduced perhaps because
of the higher passenger load (6 persons) and the huge luggage that we
had, plus the fact that we had mountains all throughout.
I had a business mission and pre-maturely drove back to
Delhi/Ghaziabad from Manali (leaving at 5 pm on 28th, halting
overnight at Bilaspur, 840 pm, 186 kms). The next day early, I took
off for Delhi via Kiratpur, Rupnagar, Banur and Ambala (370 kms, 5hr
30m). On 30th, I went to Patiala (on NH1 via Ambala till Rajpura),
and next day (Dec 31), to Chandigarh. Leaving Chandigarh at 230 pm, I
drove back to Delhi (630 pm at Azadpur T Junction), struggled through
peak evening traffic to reach Gurgaon at 845 pm, had dinner and left
for Bombay at 10 pm. I took teh road to bypass Mohali and Chandigarh
directly to Ambala from Karatan via Banur (junction with the
Chandigarh-Rajapura road) to near Ambala. It joins NH1 at the Punjab-
Haryana border, just after the first toll gate north of Ambala -
again, no signs direct you to this road on NH1. The Karatan-Banur
road is very narrow and nadvisable to drive at nights. It is also
full of lorry traffic bypassing Chandigarh.
After returning to Delhi, I had to go on business visits agin to
Ghaziabad, Patiala and Chandigarh. From Ghaziabad, I took a crazy
road via Hindon Air base and Baghpat to join NH1 at Sonepat. TYpical
UP village traffic, but may be worth it because had I gone throgh
Delhi ISBT, Azadpur, I would have been stuck in traffic jams for a
long time. Road condition in the Ghaziabad-Baghpat-Sonepat rute was
good. Flyover construction work at Samalka and Panipat could delay
you. It is indeed a magnificent elevated road that is being built in
Panipat town, hopefully it will be over by end-2008. I went through
Panipat 4 times during this trip, the worst traffic jam lasted only
20 minutes, that too at evening peak time of 5 pm. The Rajpura-
patiala road is a little narrow but like the other Punjab roads
fantastic - I also did Patiala-Sirhind. Chandigarh has well-marked
roads and well-managed traffic, except that at Zirakpur (entering
Chandigarh from Delhi side), flyover construction work can be messy
and confusing. You can bypass Chandigarh for both Shimla and Manali.
Happily, when you approach Delhi on NH1, the Azadpur T Junction is
not so bad since you are permitted a free left turn to the ISBT road,
but teh other roads (Azadpur Mandi, Rohtak road) are a total mess.
We had a pleasant non-stop drive back to Bombay, starting at 10 pm
Gurgaon, and reaching Bombay at 5 pm on Jan 1, almost the same 19
hours that it took us on the onward journey. Gurgaon (10 pm), Jaipur
(100 am, 250 kms), Udaipur (600 am, 426 kms), Ahmedabad (910 am, 253
kms), Surat (120 pm, 270 kms) and Bombay Thane (500 pm, 250 kms).
Mileage on the Mandi-Delhi-Patiala-Chandigarh-Delhi-Bombay sector was
11 kmpl (2,700 kms), despite the high-speed driving.
Scorpio has now completed 1,35,000 kms (started the trip at 1,28,418
and ended at 1,34,967), meaning that the trip was 6,549 kms long.
As usual, I have my detailed log book which I will be happy to share.
I also have logged the trip on my GPS, and there are markings for
petrol stations. I used Indian Oil Extra Premium diesel most of the
time, with some HPCL and BPCL. Refuelled only once in Reliance, they
are over Rs 4 per litre more expensive. In any case, most of the
Reliance petrol pumps are shut down for lack of business and A1
Plazas are mostly non-functional. Toilets in the other petrol
stations are awful to say the leas - the one thing I miss about
Reliance are clean toilets! |