Team-BHP - Mumbai Roadsters – Touring the North
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This was our first major road trip and I have wanted to post this travelogue since long and am finally beginning now. The first post is the basic itinerary – the daily details will follow in later posts.

So, here it goes………..

Places Visited – Jaipur, Agra(Taj Mahel), Delhi, Amritsar(Golden Temple, Wagah Border, Jallianwala Bhag), Himachal Pradesh(Mcleodganj, Manali, Rohtang Pass), Ajmer, Udaipur, Baroda.
Roadsters – Varun Divecha (Team Bhpian - \ /arun) & Kaushik Manghani (Team Bhpian – KSM-Vtec)
Our Mean Machine – Santro (Self Drive Taxi, Only 9000Kms old)
Time taken – 10 Days (16th May 2008 – 25th May 2008)
Distance Travelled – 5000Kms

Day 1 - Mumbai – Kishangarh – 1100Kms
Day 2 - Kishangarh – Agra – Ambala – 800Kms
Day 3 - Ambala – Amritsar – 250Kms
Day 4 - Amritsar – Mcleodganj – 250Kms
Day 5 - Mcleodganj – Manali – 250Kms
Day 6 - Rohtang Pass – 100Kms
Day 7 - Manali – Ambala – 375Kms
Day 8 - Ambala –Ajmer – Udaipur – 900Kms
Day 9 - Udaipur – Baroda – 400Kms
Day 10 - Baroda – Mumbai - 450Kms

Details will follow...

Wooo
that was one fast and a long drive.

I can see that you stopped twice at ambala(my hometown).
did you guys stayed overnight? if so where?
next time you are around,you know whom to contact:)


waiting for more

Thanx a lot buddy, we stopped for a night in a small hotel under the ambala flyover on the highway. This was when we were going to amritsar. On the way back we passed by ambala had dinner at "Zilmill" in karnal.

Will be comming that way in July 09 - Ladakh Trip:D

Quote:

Originally Posted by akshay4587 (Post 1028622)
Wooo
that was one fast and a long drive.

I can see that you stopped twice at ambala(my hometown).
did you guys stayed overnight? if so where?
next time you are,you know whom to contact:)


waiting for more


Thats some distance you guys covered. Would love to see some pictures of this super long roadtrip

Sure, lots to post am just trying to cut it as short as possible
Will post day by day kind of thing, is that ok?



Quote:

Originally Posted by mobike008 (Post 1028686)
Thats some distance you guys covered. Would love to see some pictures of this super long roadtrip


That is some area coverage for a ten day trip! :Shockked:. Awaiting your travelogue with photos.

The seed was sown 7 years back – when me & my school gang (1+3) decided to do a road trip sometime in the future. Finally, this year, we were set. Rahul backed out due to personal issues & we 3 – Mihir, Varun & Myself decided to go ahead with the road trip to be done in 2008.

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During the planning & research, we met the GOD OF INDIAN ROADS – Mr. H.V. Kumar. He has driven approx 7 lac kms and knows the roads like the back of his hand. He was a greatest help.

Now, the car - Varun had bought a new swift which had done <1000 kms, I have a fancy vtec which is unfit for such a journey without any mods and Mihir could not dare asking his dad for his Honda. We decided to hire a car. We zeroed in on a Rs. 1000/day Feb 2008 Santro that had just done 9000 kms. (Given our budget, this was the best we could do).

We had all the routes, distances and destinations worked out and were almost set to go when another thunderbolt struck us, Mihir backed out. Now it was just Varun and me. We had a backup plan - a short 2500 Kms trip in and around Maharashtra. Just then Varun got charged up and said that he wanted to stick to the original plan. This meant that the 2 of us would have to drive 5000 Kms in 10 days. That meant more stress, weariness & less sleep. We decided to go for it !

We had so many obstacles that if was difficult to believe that our dream of going on a road trip was going to come true. We were still not comfortable about the idea that we were going without Mihir and Rahul. But, as I mentioned earlier – for a road trip to be done in 2008, it was Now or Never
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Sure am going to post the details and a lot of pics from the next post onwards...thats when the trip begins:D. I believe that pics speak much more than words

Quote:

Originally Posted by Strangerintown (Post 1029146)
That is some area coverage for a ten day trip! :Shockked:. Awaiting your travelogue with photos.


2 days of waiting and a short report not done man

waiting for more

Good. Appears to be a one long travelogue if I go by your posts above. Keep them coming.

2 a.m. : I woke up. The excitement of the trip and anxiety of something going wrong did not let me sleep. I left home to get the car from Autoriders. I loaded all my stuff into the car and came back up to say bye to every one (waking them up from their sleep). Finally with a prayer in my heart I left for Varun’s house in Boravali. Varun was busy eating ice-cream at 3 in the morning and giving me directions to reach his house from some short cut.

4 a.m.: We finally left his house for the highway.

I asked Varun to get a feel of the car and he went on to drive for the next 200 kms, after which we stopped for a “rakabi break” - the tea break we had, and the name is such because we had tea in the saucer making that “sur sur” sound. This is a very refreshing way of drinking tea.
It was my turn to get onto the wheel now and we were nearing the Surat where a lot of flyover construction work was going on and there was a lot of traffic on the road. Varun did a smart thing of letting me drive only then as he knew that this frustrating patch was coming up. We crossed all the 3 entrances into the city and went on to reach a very busy 2 lane highway.
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On this highway, just before the Baroda-Ahmadabad Expressway, we came across a sight which is very difficult to find. There were over 50 trucks loaded with army trucks, tanks, rocket launchers passing by. It was such an unbelievable sight that and many cars were stopping to take pictures. We stopped, climbed the trucks and took a few pictures with those tanks.

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We reached the expressway and I handed over the drivers’ seat to Varun. By now we had done another 220 kms. The expressway was a treat to drive on. 80 kms of smooth and straight roads. Varun got irritated coz he doesn’t like straight roads. We also had to drive below 110 coz we were not to sure of the speed the santro and its tyres’ capability. Varun drove 230 kms till the Gujarat border and then I got back on to the drivers seat.

We had to take it a few important and confusing turns when we got of the expressway. We had Kumar’s log of his previous trip which was our Bible and reference manual. The log had all details recorded but since we were amateurs, we were less confident. We asked some people around and took a decision entirely relying on Kumar’s log. Turned out, he was completely right, as expected.
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We bypassed Udaipur and decided to get off NH8 and move on to NH76 and then on to NH79 which are better and 4 lane highways. These highways bypass Udaipur, Ajmer and go via Chittorgarh, Bhilwara, Kishangarh (our next halt).
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All day long we had been sustaining on the food and water we were carrying from home. Just when we reached Bhilwara we realised that we were running low on fuel, cash and food. We had just INR 500 and were hunting for an ATM, petrol pump. We were told that we would find all this in Kishangarh. We reached Kishangarh found the ATM. In Kishangarh had to decide if we were going to drive further or stop for the nights sleep. It was 10pm and we decided to look for a hotel room, we had driven 1150 kms and were dead tired. We found an AC room for just INR 500. (neat, clean and big room – the AC was not very effective though) We had a heavy, spicy Rajasthani dinner in a dhaba below our hotel and went of to sleep. The next day was also going to be and action packed one with a lot of distance to cover and the first destination coming our way, The Taj Mahal in Agra. The destination was approx 400 kms away and we also had to cross Delhi and reach Panipat that night, which again is another 300 kms from Agra.

Keep it coming. Thats one great drive guys!!

Waiting for more updates/pics on your travelogue...

Kishangarh – Agra

Had to get up early because we had to reach Agra before noon to avoid the heat, but as we were getting into Jaipur, we were stopped by the cops who were on alert due to the recent bomb blasts. The cop asked for 7000 as fine because we had not paid the road tax for the taxi we were driving. It took 30-40 minutes but we could get away paying him INR 100 only. Having lost almost 45 minutes we left asap and tried our best to reach Agra by 11:30 am.

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We reached there by around 12 and decided to visit the Taj before we stopped for lunch. At this juncture I must make a mention of the Agra city roads, they are worst than driving in the bhindi bazzars of Mumbai. We saw the magnificent Taj and I was truly dumbstruck at its beauty(my first time).

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The sheer size of the monument was something which surprised me in a big way, form the pics and videos that we see on a regular basis it is very difficult to gauge the actual size of the Taj and here I was in front of the actual structure wondering how it could be so huge.

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We got hold of a guide and got to know the details from him. Having seen the Taj for more than 2hrs we had lunch in a restaurant there and then left for Delhi.
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Agra – Delhi
It was a nice drive until we hit the Delhi traffic. Varun was driving and I was looking into the city map trying to follow the least crowded route as suggested by Kumar Sir. We managed to get out and be in time to meet one of my old B-school friend

This was on the way to Delhi...
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This was on the outskirts of Delhi...New style of towing....
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Delhi – Ambala
As suggested by my friend we decided to have dinner in Karnal (the dhaba center of India) in a place called “ Zill Mill Dhaba”. The food was absolutely fabulous.We then hit Varun’s favourite patch - the Karnal – Ambala stretch. It was dark and the road was well maintained and marked. Having travelled 800kms which was around 100kms more than the original plan we decided to stop for the night at Ambala in a small guest house.
By the way Ambala sells the cheapest petrol in India. (INR 45/lt when it was 51/lt in Mumbai).

What the...:Shockked: I would kill them if they towed away my car in this way!!

Nice travelogue. keep the snaps coming


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