[vishsharma]

Hi All,
I'm back after a 3831 Km (quite precise) run from my place in Pune to Chandigarh and back plus 9 days of excitement on the road. It was a dream adventure and it got triggered by the simple fact that I did not secure a reserved seat in any of the trains to go home in Hisar, Haryana from Pune for Diwali celebrations. As a frequent visitor to team-bhp, I had read a couple of blogs on a road trip, so I started to figure out the possibilities. Here is my experience on a 2005 model Wagon R, which had already done 40000 Kms.

The route: Pune - Mumbai - Surat - Vadodara - Ahmedabad - Udaipur - Chittorgarh - Kishangarh - Jaipur - Hisar - Chandigarh - N Delhi - Jaipur and back to Pune via same route

The preparation: We wanted to have a GPS system, but didn’t want to spend too much money on it. So I logged on to MapmyIndia.com Online maps, GPS Navigation, Driving Directions, Local Search and tracked the route which we would take. A 16 pages color print of maps substituted the need of GPS system. And trust me its very good and we never had to stop and ask our way, a very common thing in India to happen. Also I bought a DC to AC converter for my laptop to be always charged by the car battery and a Tata Indicom plug to surf internet connection. Apart from this were regular supplies of biscuits, juices, cold drinks et al. Not to forget, I got my car serviced from a Maruti Service Station and had got the engine, brake, gear oil changed, carbon cleaning of engine, brakes overhauling, wheel alignment and balancing, etc.

The Trip
Up Journey (Day 1): Mumbai – Udaipur: Being for the first time on such a trip and accompanied by my wife, Arpana and a year and half old daughter, Anvi, I had decided not to over exert and do a cool trip. We started after office hours on Friday evening and covered the familiar Pune – Mumbai and took a halt in Mumbai to start the “real” journey early Saturday morning. Quite charged up by the trip to come, I don’t know how much did we slept on Friday evening, but we got up very early and were en-route by 5:30 AM. We started from Nerul and took towards Thane and then Ghodbunder road to NH8. It was not a very wonderful road but, nevertheless, it gave us a quick exit to Mumbai and we were greeted by a sign board which told us N Delhi is some 1500 Kms away. Although we knew the fact, but it sent a few shivers down the spine. Anyway we started and the NH8 was OK sort of road with considerable number of pot holes, huge number of trucks and rash driving scorpios / safaris.

In almost 3 hours, we had entered in Gujrat state and the road condition improved considerably. But it lasted only till Surat, where we took our first break. “Post Surat and till Vadodara” is highly frustrating and tiring journey. We can easily see that a six lane highway is under construction, which leads to a lot of diversions and single / two lane roads. This is around 150 Kms patch, which the drivers need to be most careful at. It was only me who was driving till now and so was very tired by the time we reached Vadodara, where we had to see National Expressway number 1.

This is a dream road of 93 Kms and Arpana took charge of the steering, leaving the baby sitting part to me. By this time, Anvi had started enjoying the road, the trucks and the toll booths. We made her busy by delegating the task of handing over the toll fees at the booths. She seemed to have enjoyed that with a pride of helping her adventurous parents. We had crossed Vadodara by 2:45 PM and were by-passing Ahmedabad by 4:00 PM. I am all praises for the Ahmedabad by-pass, which simply puts the travelers out of the expressway towards Udaipur, without any need to see the city and traffic.

Very soon, we were off to Udaipur without any halt and I came back to steering wheel. The road, although is not an expressway, but it is surely nothing less to an expressway. It is simply marvelous and we enjoyed reaching Udaipur by 8:00 PM, where we had already booked a hotel for night stay. It was on our cards to see Udaipur, the city of lakes, but we preferred to take rest instead.

Up Journey (Day 2): Udaipur – Hisar: We overslept a little and could only leave Udaipur by 7:00 AM. From Udaipur, we left NH8 and shifted to NH76, which is a part of Golden quadrilateral. NH76 goes on till Chittorgarh and from there we have to take left to switch to NH79 which goes via Bhilwara and by passes Ajmer to reach Kishangarh.

The route is awesome with classy roads except a 20 Km patch near Chittorgarh which is highly dense and not a good road. Also we had to drive very cautiously from Chittorgarh to Kishangarh, because of a plenty of wrong entrants on the road. There were two wheelers, four wheelers, trucks, cattle and what not, which entered the road from nowhere. So, be careful till Kishangarh, which marks a beginning of six lane road and a very comfortable drive till Jaipur. We reached Jaipur by 2:00 PM, intentionally delaying by stopping mid way for taking pictures and admiring the journey.

This route is also more memorable because we had a little unfortunate incident near Bhilwara while overtaking a truck. Though we were not too close to the truck but had bad luck by our side and a tyre of the truck got burst while we were overtaking it. This is the first time I could feel the air could also have so much energy that it can give a high jolt to my car. I could, although, manage the shock and stopped in a few meters to check that the side indicator and the mud flap from the front fender were nowhere seen. Also a couple of screws from the front bumper got blown away leaving it hanging, but not stopping us from moving ahead.

Anyway, we continued our drive and reached Jaipur comfortably. From Jaipur, we took on to Sikar by-pass and landed on NH11 which goes from Sikar – Churu – Fatehgarh and from there on we came on NH65, which straight enters Haryana. The NH11 is not bad, but has a lot of local traffic, which breaks the speed. The NH65 was good one, but had a 15 KMs patch near Rajgarh which is almost dug up leaving no sign of tar. All in All, with a 1.5 hrs spent near Kishangarh for photography and 2 hours of break in Jaipur to meet our friend there, we reached my home, Hisar by 11:00 PM. Not a bad journey after all.

Day 3, 4 – Diwali celebrations, which we more exciting after this trip. Also I got my car serviced again with the minor repairs after the Bhilwara incident

Up Journey (Day 5): Hisar – Chandigarh: This is the same NH65 and is not a very new route as I have been behind steering quite many times on this track, but in my car from Pune, this one was something special. It was made more special by the Ambala – Chadigarh road, which is highly improved with 4 lanes throughout to reach Arpana’s parent’s home in Chandigarh in 4 hours

Day 6 – Rest and meeting people.

Down Journey (Day 7): Chandigarh – N Delhi: People from north India always have words of appreciation for the NH1 or more famously known as GT (Grand Trunk) Road. This road is very good and takes only 4 hours to cover 230 Kms till N Delhi. The road and trip was good.

Down Journey (Day 8): N Delhi – Udaipur: This time I straight away joined NH8 from Dhaula Kuan in N Delhi and carried on it till Kishangarh. The highway till Gurgaon is an impressive six lane stuff. However the six / four lanes do not excite much till Jaipur because of high amount of traffic and lot of small towns that come in between. From Jaipur onwards the route was same and I won’t do the copy-paste action here.

The Day 9 took me back to Pune on the Sunday eve, tired and looking forward to have a good sleep. Arpana and Anvi shared the same feeling as me.

The Facts and the Numbers:
Total Kms run: 3831
Mileage: > 17 KMPL
Toll amount: ~ Rs 1500
Tyre pressure: 30psi (checked at every refueling). Normal is 33 psi in city
Average speed: 60 KM/hr (includes pit and refreshment stops)
Top Speed: 110 KM / hr
Flat tyre: 0
A/C usage: 100% of the time.
Luggage weight: ~100 Kg (Trust me, we would not be able to manage this much luggage in any other car from the same segment)

Now I leave you with some pics of my trip


Coming back... After around 200 Kms from Delhi, Mumbai still looks quite far. And I have another 150 Kms to drive to Pune. Gear up Vishal


Bye Bye Udaipur


Bye Bye Rajasthan


Clean, perfect track to speed up


Me and Anvi taking rest at a road side dhaba


Arpana, Anvi and the Wagon R chatting while sun sets down.

[subscrive]

Sahi re Sharme!
Nice writeup.
Do tell us abt the car handling especially at turns and at what speeds.
How was the AC cooling during peak (heat) of the day?

[vishsharma]

Originally Posted by subscrive

Sahi re Sharme!
Nice writeup.
Do tell us abt the car handling especially at turns and at what speeds.
How was the AC cooling during peak (heat) of the day?

I have a strong belief that if you take care of your car, your car will take your care. Wagon R, because of its tall body has comparatively less stability at turns and you feel it while driving. So I had to cut the speeds (~40-50 KMPH at steep turns) at the turns, but on the highway there aren't many turns which make the drive more speedy and safe.

The A/C is powerful in Wagon R (considering the same segment cars). Firstly on a highway, you don't have much option to roll down the side windows so to maintain the inside temperature you have to switch on the A/C. In hot summer weather, I could feel chilling inside at level 2 of the blower, so level 1 is sufficient for human comfort.

[aaggoswami]

Nice write up!
The road from Surat to Vadodara was not this bad, but they are updating so you felt like this.
The NE-1 is a dream road that we use when we go to A'bad. I never knew the bypass has grown so good.
Glad you did not enter A'bad city or else the time you took for 93 kms stretch, almost same amount of time will be consumed in the city.

Till the end of expresshighway from our home ( in Vadodara ) with 20 mins break is 1.5 hours and to our home on A'bad from end of expresshighway its one more hour. You get the idea about time if you enter city.

[vnabhi]

Good trip, dude! I appreciate your guts for making such a long trip with an infant on board!
May I ask why you filled only 30psi on your tyres, instead of the recommended 33?

[vishsharma]

Originally Posted by vnabhi

Good trip, dude! I appreciate your guts for making such a long trip with an infant on board!
May I ask why you filled only 30psi on your tyres, instead of the recommended 33?

Yes, thats a good question. I would say there are a lot of logics that one can apply before selecting the right tyre pressure. For me, a little conservative driver, I decided the sacrifice a little on fuel efficiency but not on safety.

As you know the journey was long, so with quite a stretch of driving the tyres become hot and so they inflate. So the 30 psi in the tyres will be shown as ~33 psi in the meters when tyres are hot. This thought provoked me to keep a little less in the old tyres (already done 40K Kms).

Plus over inflated tyres give a bumpy ride, which I didn't want to have.

[rajneeesh]

Vishwakarma, You were wrong in keepin the lower tyre pressure on the HW whrere the speeds are much higher. At higher speeds there is a lot of tyre wall flexing which leads to heat build up in the tyre and causes blowouts. The safer thing to do is to keep the tyre pressure higher by 2 psi in intest of safety although it does compromise cmfort with the car bouncing a bit more. In case you have doubts about this, please search the forum and you will definitely find some threads on the topic.

[vnabhi]

Although I am no expert on tyre pressure, what I've read from this forum matches with rajneeesh's viewpoint.

[darxide]

im planning a similar trip with my wife and mother. while driving from pune to chandigarh what are the chances of my family and i getting looted,raped and/or killed in the rajasthan - haryana - delhi area of the route?

Originally Posted by vishsharma

Hi All,
I'm back after a 3831 Km (quite precise) run from my place in Pune to Chandigarh and back plus 9 days of excitement on the road. It was a dream adventure and it got triggered by the simple fact that I did not secure a reserved seat in any of the trains to go home in Hisar, Haryana from Pune for Diwali celebrations. As a frequent visitor to team-bhp, I had read a couple of blogs on a road trip, so I started to figure out the possibilities. Here is my experience on a 2005 model Wagon R, which had already done 40000 Kms.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by darxide

im planning a similar trip with my wife and mother. while driving from pune to chandigarh what are the chances of my family and i getting looted,raped and/or killed in the rajasthan - haryana - delhi area of the route?

Hi darxide.
The answer to your question cannot be found here, however it can be found.
For that you have to file an RTI to find out the number of vehicles driving on these roads. You can file RTI on the toll gates.
Then you file another RTI with each police station on the route to get the number of
looting
Rapes
Killing

Then you do a simple mathematical calculation to find out the answer.
Do keep us posted

[manikjeet]

Originally Posted by darxide

im planning a similar trip with my wife and mother. while driving from pune to chandigarh what are the chances of my family and i getting looted,raped and/or killed in the rajasthan - haryana - delhi area of the route?

You shouldn't Stop In Haryana Just read today they have banned Girls from wearing jeans. Plan such that you Leave Delhi and Reach Chandigarh during the Day.

Once In Chandigarh I will make sure nothings happens to you.