[Wanderer78]

I received a couple of wedding invitations from my friends and suddenly realized that I had not met them for years. I am from Indore and had not been to Indore for the past 11 years! Thanks to emails,messengers and social networking sites, I had only virtual contact with all my friends. That is when we ( me and my wife) decided, no matter what, this time around a trip to Indore was a must.
Dates were already known and I arranged for a week off from my office. The next stage was planning the trip. It was a long drive and with my 4 year old daughter and my 58 year old Dad, we were sure that we needed to take a lot of stopovers in between. I was planning to make this trip with my 1972 model Premier Padmini (which , Thanks to my Dad, is still in great condition) but then decided against it because of the scorching heat. Instead we decided to make the trip in our Indica Xeta (GLS).


Next we wanted to decide the route. I had to pick up my Dad from Aurangabad, so we decided the route as

Mumbai ---Pune---Ahmadnagar----Aurangabad----Sillod-----Ajanta---Muktainagar Phata-----Icchapur-----Burhanpur-----Khandwa----Indore

I am very familiar with the route as my Dad had earlier been posted in these areas (he is a banker). The only apprehension that I had was the roads. MP is not known for its good roads, but as you will see in the photographs and the traveogue later, I was in for a surprise.

[Technocrat]

Looks like a nice trip, how are the roads currently?

I did a similar trip from Pune to Bhopal in 2007 on the same route, you can check my Travelogue Here

[Wanderer78]

Originally Posted by Technocrat

Looks like a nice trip, how are the roads currently?

I did a similar trip from Pune to Bhopal in 2007 on the same route, you can check my Travelogue Here

Thanks Technocrat. The roads are in excellent condition, much to my surprise. I will put in the details of the toll nakas etc further.

[DRIV3R]

Seems to be one hell of a road trip. But hey, there seems to be a typo in the title. "Weedings" instead of "Weddings".

[Wanderer78]

We decided to leave early on Saturday. So on Friday night , I made sure that I had the following things available and ready.
A Torch (and some extra batteries), a swiss knife, duplicate car key, all car papers, driving license, a road map, first aid kit, 2 CD's with our fav songs, cookies (for a quick bite) , car tool kit. I also refulled the car on Friday night and checked the air pressure in all tyres (including the spare one). At that time I realized that my spare tyre rim was actually bent from a previous trip to Nagpur and I had not replaced it. But taking into consideration the good roads till Aurangabad, I decided to leave it that way and get a new rim in Aurangabad as I was going to halt for a day there.

One question that I had for everyone here- On a long journey, should we keep the tyre pressure as prescribed by the car manufacturer, or a little more than that or a little less ? I always get different answers on this one and hence I plan to get some answers here in this forum. Please put in your views on the same.

Saturday 29th May , we woke up early, at 4:00 am and started the journey by 5:30 am. Passed the powai lake in the morning and it was looking beautiful. My daughter was waking up by the time and I decided to click a photo of us by the lake



By 6:15 we were on the Mumbai Pune Expressway and I was enjoying every bit of it. Man....That road is a pleasure to drive on...



Stopped for a cup of tea on the expressway foodmall and by 8:30 am we were at Pune. Decided to take an hours break at Pune.

[MX6]

Your mention about good road conditions in MP is making me feel happy. I'm off for a quick weekend dash to Omkareshwar from Pune. Plan to do the Pune - Nasik - Omkareshwar - Aurangabad - Pune route. Hope I get to see a lot of traction in this log by this friday
By the way how scorching was the heat? What was the temperature like?

[Wanderer78]

Hi MX6 , Roads are in great condition. We stopped by at Omkareshwar road (didnt go in). BTW, while going to Aurangabad, immidiately after crossing the bridge on river Narmada, on the right is a foodmall. Amazing place for breakfast if you enjoy Poha Jalebi and Kachori I will be positing some photos today later in the day.

[Wanderer78]

MX6, as for the heat, it was really very hot (close to 45 degrees) while we were going to Indore. While coming back, we met some rain showers and it was preety ok.

[MX6]

@Wanderer. Thanks for the updates. I intend to go through Nasik and take NH3. I incidentally am thinking of going to Indore and staying there for the night. Then visit Ujjain as well early in the morning before proceeding to Omkareshwar. So I might not take the Aurangabad route on the way.
Is it possible to put up the exact route you took from pune till Omkareshwar road, with all way points?

[Wanderer78]

After taking an hour long break at Pune, we started for Aurangabad. Crossing Pune city ( we took the Kharadi bypass to nagar road) took about 30 mins as it was traffic time. Once on nagar road, it was hevy vehicle traffic as usual and it had started getting preey hot as well. Last time when I drove to Aurangabad , the construction of the Pune Aurangabad road was not complete at some points. But now it is complete and it has 5 toll check points till Aurangabad.

Thing to remember : When you pay at the 1st toll check point (dont remember the name of the place), no need to pay at the 2nd (Ranjangaon check point). Just show them the receipt. And for some wierd reason , the toll charge here is Rs 31 and the person at the check post will always keep cribbing for change!! Please carry some change along and that will save you a lot of time. Also, this toll is always very crowded and eats up 10-15 mins of your time. Also beware when you cross villages on this streach. People here have an uncanny ability to appear out of thin air!!!

Another bottleneck on this route is crossing Ahmadnagar. You have to crosss the complete city to catch up the aurangabad road and it usually takes a lot of time. Rest of our Journey to Aurangabad was smooth. We finally managed to reach Aurangabad by 2:00 pm. Temperatures here were high (I guess above 40) and I was more than happy to go home and relax for the day.

We had decided to start by 11 am the next day as we had to reach the Burhanpur by evening (Aurangabad Burhanpur is 235 Kms). The route was Aurangabad----Fulambri---Sillod----Ajanta----Bodhwad-----Muktainagar phata-----Icchapur----Burhanpur

We started at 11:30 am and on the way to Fulambri, suddenly the car wobbled and I knew I had a flat tyre, and then I thought " Oh God, the tyre is flat and I do not have a good spare". I was to get a new rim for my spare tyre at Aurangabad and I completely forgot about it !!!!!! It was 12:00 pm and the temp was about 45 degrees. Well, didnt have a choice so , asked my little one to stay in the car and then started the process of tyre change. Took me about 20 mins and by the end of it, I was exhausted and soaked. Decided to get to Fulambri village so that we could get the repairs done. Fulambri was still about 20 kms and I decided to go slow as my spare tyre was not in a very good condition. Took me about 30 mins to reach Fulambri and fortunately we found a small garage who could do the repairs and had a new tyre tube (there were 6 nails in the tyre and the tube was torn off).

So after getting everything done, we started on the journey again at 2 pm. Fortunately , the road conditions in this area are great so we could make up some time and were able to reach Burhanpur by 6:00 pm.

The road to Burhanpur