[KishoreC]

We have 10 days of leave at the end of 2010, and we have been dreaming of Rajasthan for quite a while.

So we planned for a Rajasthan trip. I will drive, wife will navigate, and we both will enjoy.



Some statistics :

Total Distance (to and fro) : 4350 KM (rounded)
Days : 23rd December 2010 to 2nd January 2011
Car : 2009 Skoda Fabia 1.4 Diesel
Driver : Me

Places to see.

1. Udaipur
2. Chittaurgarh
3. Kumbalgarh
4. Mount Abu

I posted the intial plan for the trip to TBHP. Initial plan also had Jodhpur and Jaisalmer. After some discussion and taking advise of fellow BHPians we dropped plans for Jodhpur and Jaisalmer.

Here are a few pics from the resulting trip. The detailed travelogue is on the way.

I wish to share my experience of this wonderful journey and the colorful state known as Rajasthan.

Udaipur City palace as seen from our hotel roof


Udaipur City Palace


Vijay Stambh, Chittaurgarh


Kumbalgarh Fort


Fateh Sagar Lake, Udaipur


Nakki Lake, Mt. Abu

[ampere]

Nothing symbolizes the grandeur of Rajasthan better than the Vijay Stanb!
Great State and a great place to visit!

[MohsinRoadster]

The land of colours!!! Bring it on.

[aryasanyal]

Looking forward to your trip details. The beginning is as enticing as the state you visited!

[v&v]

Your trip of Kumbalgarh, Udaipur made me remember my trip in 2008. Looking from for more pic. I am hooked.

[KishoreC]

Was not able to find time for last couple of days. Will continue ASAP.

[KishoreC]

This specific post does not have any pictures. Hope you guys don't get bored reading about the preparation phase. What described here will have their effect throughout our trip and is kind of necessary to describe to keep some things in perspective.

Planning :

The final plan stood like this :

Day 1, 24th Dec 2010 : Bangalore - Mumbai
Day 2, 25th Dec 2010 : Mumbai - Udaipur
Day 3, 26th Dec 2010 : Udaipur sight seeing
Day 4, 27th Dec 2010 : Udaipur sight seeing
Day 5, 28th Dec 2010 : Round trip of Chittaurgarh
Day 6, 29th Dec 2010 : Round trip of Kumbalgarh
Day 7, 30th Dec 2010 : Udaipur - Mt. Abu
Day 8, 31st Dec 2010 : Mt. Abu sigh seeing
Day 9, 1st Jan 2011 : Mt. Abu to Mumbai
Day 10, 2nd Jan 2011: Mumbai to Bangalore

The plan was to start at 3:00 AM from Bangalore on 24th to reach Mumbai by 9-10PM on the same day. On the next day start as early as possible and reach Udaipur by sundown.

While traveling back try to reach Mumbai on the first day of travel, or stop as close to Mumbai as possible. On the last day of travel start early and reach Bangalore, whatever it takes.

Preparation :

1. Vehicle service for 60K
2. Download and print HVK's Mumbai bypass guide. We had GPS help which gave us the exact same route. Thank you HVK sir, for writing this wonderful guide.
3. Create a list of all Skoda dealers along the way and print
4. Create a list of all possible hotels on the way and print
5. We didn't have a camera so bought a decent digital camera (not SLR)

6. Hotel Booking - This is where we got a huge shock.

We listed all the hotels of Udaipur from stayzilla.com and sorted them based on price per night. Started calling them up. It seemed most of the hotels were sold out for that duration. Our strategy of trying out bottom 5 and then trying out top 5 didn't work.

About the same time an article came out in Times of India stating Rajasthan and Kerala are the two hottest destinations for foreign visitor for the year
end holidays.

No wonder it was difficult to get a room in Udaipur. The whole plan stood on the verge of getting canceled. We definitely didn't want to show up in Udaipur without booking at the time of maximum rush.

Finally managed to get a room in Hotel Raj Palace. Cost was Rs. 1800/- per night. My guess is it would cost 600-700/- per night on off peak times. We booked one room for five nights.

This incident had created quite a lot of panick in us, that we booked the first good hotel we got in Mount Abu. We got a deal of a 2 night package including breakfast in Hotel Sunrise Palace for Rs. 9900/-. We discovered later that Mount Abu was not as popular destination for foreigners as Udaipur, and we could have easily found a room for us at half the price we payed.

Anyway, thank god we booked beforehand. During our stay in Udaipur, every day we saw tourists in Udaipur looking for a place to stay without much success.

Before the trip :

Once the plan and preparations were complete we started waiting for the big day. Both of us were nervous. It would be our biggest drive till date.
We were not very sure if we will be able to reach Mumbai on Day1.

The worries grew bigger by every day. The whole trip depends on the success of the first day of driving, and we were not very sure about it.

We had to mitigate this risk. The only way to do that is to keep as much time as possible to reach Udaipur and keep our options open on the road.
Try starting as early as possible. We planned to start on 23rd afternoon itself. That way we won't loose precious time at home. Especially that night we won't be able to sleep, because we will be too excited. The same we can use to drive and move ourselves closer to our destination. The only problem was, this meant we will have to do night driving.

Finally the day was upon us.. It was 23rd December 2010, 2:30 PM.
continued...

[Judemayne]

Kishore two days on and no further log?? awaiting (im)patiently to learn whether it went as planned? any reasons to the restriction to South Rajasthan?

[KishoreC]

DAY 0.5 (NH4 - Bangalore to Mumbai ):

It had been a difficult week for me. First a severe knee pain and then I had to endure a 4 full day of training at office.

On the D-day it was difficult for me to concentrate in the training. In my mind I was already on NH4. Took the second half off and came home by 1.

We had loaded all the small stuff the previous night itself, rest we loaded up quickly.

Here is a detailed list of stuff we carried.

1. 2 cabin luggage of cloth.
2. Heavy duty winter wear
3. Extra toolkit for car, flashlight etc
4. A small in car fridge (from Chroma)
5. Apples, bananas, biscuits, small cupcakes, other snacks
6. 15 L. of water (30 X 500ml bottle in a crate)
7. 20 soda can in a crate(Diet coke)
8. A waist pouch carrying original car papers, extra car key. Photocopy of originals were placed in car as well as in suitcases.
9. GPS fitted in Car.
10. A laptop
11. 2 Cell phones with roaming enabled in them
11. All the electrical stuff like chargers, batteries etc.
12. A CCD Coffee mug for filling up coffee on the way.
13. A digital camera
15. 20K in cash, 5k each in our wallets and 5K each in suitcases.

My 2 cents on long driving:

Before I start to describe the drive, here is my 2 cents on highway driving. It applies specially for long distance drives.

First of all YOU NEED TO LOVE DRIVING. Otherwise don't do it. Ctach a train or flight instead. Secondly the moment you think I have this many Kilometers left, the sheer feling of the distance may pull your mood down, taking your enthusiasm down. It happens specially when you are returning home after a trip. Sometime that makes people absent minded or even drive rash.

I always take a staggered approach. Break your total route into smaller chunks and look forward to reaching nearer destination. Like, while starting I was looking forward to reaching Tumkur CCD to have coffee. That kept me motivated and my attention sharp. Once I reached Tumkur, I was looking forward to reaching Ranebennur and crossing the bad section of the road.

Also it's very important to keep yourself entertained by either music or a conversation. Keep reading sign boards, mile-stones etcetra. Keep looking on something other than the road also. The feeling of crossing some distance or nearing a landmark will keep you interested.

And last but not the least, rest when you feel tired. Don't drive when you are tired. Your chance of making mistakes increases many times.

I would say, reaching the final destination is the end result of reaching the intermediate destinations safely.
Overall make your drive enjoyable and safe.

The Journey :

The Starting :


Only the driver is missing, otherwise good to go

We managed to start 1:57 PM from Bellandur, Bangalore.
Trip meter set to zero. First stop planned at Tumkur CCD.

During the day I didn't want to pass through the city. So we took EL Toll road to Electronic City and got onto NICE from there.

It took us around an hour to reach NH4. And there was our first surprise waiting for us.


Coming out of NICE to NH4


Bangalore to Nilamangala toll road

I didn't know that the NH4 stretch till Nilamangala has been completed. We haven't been to this stretch recently. Last time we went there, a truck took our car's LRVM off. So we thought of avoiding it till the construction completes.

Anyway, we reached the toll booth on NH4 near NICE at 3:10 PM. Reached Nilamangala toll booth at 3:24 PM and our first stop at CCD near Tumkur at 3:50 PM. Trip Meter 98.5 KM.


CCD near Tumkur. This had a rail track in the backyard. A new building has ruined the view now.

TumKur to Chitradurga :

After a short coffee break and filling up the coffee mug, we started again.
Next stop planned for Kamat near Ranebennur. I wanted to travel as much possible before sundown.

Road is superb and we started enjoying the drive.
The feeling has now sunk in, that we have started on the road, and the destination if Mumbai.

Some photos near Chitradurga.













Reached KJHalli booth at 4:45 and Guilali toll booth at 5:29. Wife has been seating with a small diary and pencil in hand. Noting down the timing and toll amount.

The windmills near Chitradurga is always a welcome view. Crossed Chitradurga at 5:50 PM. Trip Meter 247 KM.

We haven't taken any picture after this till next day of driving.

Chitradurga to Belgaum:

Crossed Davanagere at 6:35 PM. Trip meter 310 KMs.
This stretch till has some unfinished flyovers. There was a mid size pile up of vehicles in front of both the the rail crossings. We lost some precious time there and were eagerly waiting for Ranebennur.

Saw the Kamat on the left with a Reliance Petrol pump. I read about this newly opened Kamat in TBHP. We stopped there and had our dinner. The pump had petrol not diesel, so could not fill her up.

Crossed Ranebennur, Haveri and reached Bankapur toll booth at 9:12. Trip meter 405 KM.

Soon we reached 2 lane stretch of Dharwad - Hubli.
We had our dinner but our car did not. We needed to fill her up so she can throughout the night.

I knew we should get a reliance pump soon but still wanted to cross verify. We stopped at the very first tea shop on the 2 lane stretch and I started a conversation with the stall owner.

The guy could speak Hindi well, courtesy of all the out of state truckers. As per him there should be a Reliance at Hubli after arround 20 KMs. He kept of giving information about why this stretch has not been made four lane etc.
We payed for tea, thanked him and continued.

The 2 lane stretch is around 20-25 KMs, we got a Reliance soon after that and filled her up. It should last till Satara or even Pune.

Bagewadi toll booth at 10:50 PM, Trip meter 539 KMs.

Soon we were in Belgaum. It was almost midnight and Belgaum was sleeping. NH4 had almost no local traffic and we crossed the city in a jiffy. Records in our diary say we entered Belgaum at 11:05 PM.

Belgaum to Pune :

Hattargi toll booth reached 11:30 PM, Trip meter 592 KMs.

Road after Belgaun is superb. It was recently tarred and marked. No obstruction except a few trucks in the middle of the night. I had to restrict myself not to go over 100 KMPH.

We were crossing Nipani at 00:10 AM (Trip meter 630 KMs), when wife suddenly gets craving for something sweet. Close to Nipani there are 2-3 places on NH4. Most of them have a restaurant and a small shop. We stopped at one. I heard that in some of these they make Kolhapuri Chappals. None were open at that time. Wife got chocolate there. A quick stop for 5 minutes and back on the road again.

Koganoli toll booth at 00:21 AM, and soon we were in Maharastra. This was my first driving experience in Maharastra and I had to do it at midnight.

Soon we were into Kolhapur. Another sleeping city. NH4 doesn't really go into the city and we didn't even get to know when we entered and when we were out.

Another toll plaza (name unknown) at 1:30 AM.
Anewadi toll plaza at 2:40 AM. Trip meter 805 KMs.

In between we stopped once to fill petrol at Satara. I didn't want to stop anywhere in the night, but I had a bad feeling that once we reach Pune it will be even harder to get fuel at this hour of the day. It turns out
to be a bad decision as there were several big pumps near Pune which were all open.

Pune to Mumbai :

Kept on looking for Pune - Mubai bypass and there we go. No way you can miss the boards here. I heard about the pain of bypassing Pune. A long bypass road which goes through densely populated areas. Also the Electronic City for Pune, Hinjewadi is located closer to this bypass road.

For us it was a sleeping town, with empty roads. Had to be alert though, we cannot afford to miss the entrance to Pune - Mumbai expressway.

Voila, a board says Pune - Bombay expressway starts in 2 KMs. Soon we took the left turn for expressway. It's a beautiful 6 lane concrete road.

Reached the toll booth at exact 4:00 AM. Highest toll of the whole paid here (Rs. 140) for the 92 KMs of the Expressway.

We needed a break, it's been a continuous drive for last 4-5 hours. We made very good progress in these last few hours. Roads were empty, people were sleeping (including my wife) and I was driving.

Unluckily the Services were on the other side of the road and the sign boards said "No U turn allowed on the expressway". This was our first experience of an expressway. We liked it. We kept on reading all the boards. There were signboards of various kind.

Some examples here :

"National Expressway 1, a big Joyride"
"You are or National Expressway 1"
"National Expressway 1 is part of the Golden Quadrilateral"

Finally we found a place to stop. A service area on our side of the expressway. Stopped there at 4:45 AM. The whole place was kind of deserted. We walked into the Cafe Coffee day and filled our coffee mug.
Walked out within 10 minutes.

Rest of the drive till the expressway ends was easy. The ghat section had lot of trucks struggling to take those sharp turns. At this point we pull out and switch on the the GPS. We also keep HVK's Mumbai bypass guide handy. We are not far from Mumbai.

Crossing Mumbai :

Somewhere close to 6 AM we come out of the Mumbai - Pune Expressway to continue on Sion - Panvel Expressway. The most worrisome task starts now, that is, bypassing Mumbai.

Bypassing Mumbai saw us going throuh the following roads.

1. Sion Panvel Expressway upto Turbhe
2. Continue on Belapur road always following the direction for Thane.
3. Cross Thane Creek by using Airoli Bridge
4. Right turn on Eastern Expressway / NH 3
5. NH3 becomes Agra Road
6. Keep on left to go towards S V Road / TV Chowk
7. Continue startight on SV Road from TV Chowk
8. The same road is SH 42 and will become Ghorbunder road
9. Continue on the same road till you reach junction of NH8.

Bypassing Mumbai did take time, but surprisingly we never got lost. Both the guide and the GPS gave us exact route to take.
It was easy to go through the thin early morning traffic too.

Ghorbunder road, as I expected was chok-a-block with truck traffic. It took more than half an hour to reach the toll booth from where we got stuck.
The road was uphill for us and HUGE trucks were finding it difficult to climb. There was almost no traffic from the opposite direction. In the middle of the road cops were asking our direction of traffic to use both up and down lanes.

It was a HUGE chaotic situation and made us frustrated. We were so close to our destination and stuck in this never ending traffic jam. After a frustrating hour or more we reached at the NH8 Junction and directly went into the compound of Fountain Hotel. the second surprise awaited us there.

It seems we chose a wrong day to reach Mumbai. It was 24th December. Fountain hotel was full, so was Express Inn, so was Sunshine Inn. The attendant at the reception of Fountain found us a room in his cousin's hotel, which was named something like Taj Darbar or Delhi Darbar. It was within one kilometer south on NH8. We asked about the rate. It was Rs. 1500/-

This created some confusions. We had to discuss more to take a decision.
Do we stay here spending Rs. 1500, if we do, when do we start again? If we wait till next day morning the hotel will charge for 2 nights. Is it worth spending 3000 here? If we stay here only till evening, will I be able to do another night drive ? Won;t we reach Udaipur too early then ?

These questions needed to be answered, and answers would show us the way.

Then suddenly she asks, How tired are you ?
I said I need a cup of coffee and I am good to go.
She said, okay, lets not stop here then.
Lets continue and stop only when you cannot drive any more.
I smelled adventure, adventure of unknown and uncertainty.

Map comes out, time checked, fuel checked.
We could try Surat or even Ahmadabad.

Takes us 10 minutes to decide, and we decide to move on and not stop at Ghorbunder. By 8:45 we were back on road again. We left NH4 and got onto NH8. It was a bold move for us, not stopping after 18 hours of driving. It was also proven to be a good decision the next day.

NH-8, Another historical and very important road for the country. It was my first driving experience on this NH. It got added to the list of mega NHs driven on, like NH4, NH7 and NH5 in my list.

Our goal was simple. Go as far we can go and then check into a hotel. This will contribute towards making next day's drive easier.

So we move on, and stumble very soon ..
Continued ...

[KishoreC]

Originally Posted by Judemayne

...any reasons to the restriction to South Rajasthan?

Mainly time constraints. We had 10 days and we wanted to drive. So number of places visited had to be cut.

[KishoreC]

Mumbai to Vapi :

As per our decision we continued on NH8. We were so excited to drive on this new highway. NH8 here continuous through a hilly region. The area does not have much population. Initial few kilometers were smooth, even with super heavy truck traffic.

Reached Khanivade toll booth at 09:37 AM.

After that all hell broke loose. Very heavy truck traffic along with portions of road construction made our progress very slow and painful. This seemingly never ending heavy traffic and traffic jams stayed with us till we crossed into Gujarat, in fact even ater that.

Slowly reached Manor then Talasari. We were quite frustrated by then and at this point we missed taking down couple of toll booth timings and meter readings.

And that's where a SMS comes in from Airtel. Welcome to Gujarat. Third state in our route. Another first, I never drove in this state before. There was no checking on the border. A sigh of relief for us as I didn't have that yellow sticker on my right headlight.

Bhilad and then Vapi came and took a hell lot of time to cross. We were thinking about putting up at Vapi. There were several hotels next to NH8. But there was something else to think about.

I did not want to keep this painful stretch of road for the next day of driving. Next day I wanted to reach Udaipur before sundown if possible. We knew that our hotel in Udaipur is in the old part of the city and it would take us some time to find it.

So we kept on driving, wating for this nighmarish portion to end.

Vapi to Navsari :

My diary says, we reached Bhagwada toll naka at 12:45 PM and Boriach toll naka at 2:04 PM.

There were Veg restaurants on regular intervals on this road. You could find every variety, starting from shoddy ones meant for truckers to quite decent ones with A/C hall etc.

In between we stopped at one road side CCD and filled up our coffee mug. We also stopped at one Service area and freshened up. All these places were full with so much of crowd. It looked like a huge volume of private vehicle traffic has started from Mumbai that day towards Gujarat and Rajasthan.

Traffic was a nuisance. I don't have strong enough adjectives in my dictionary to describe the kind of driving I saw on this road.

Most of the vehicles had MH or GJ number plates naturally. They seemed to enjoy this portion of road, which was full of flyover construction sites. They drove with absolutely no regards to any traffic rule. I saw hundreds and hundreds of private vehicles (or maybe I counted less) using the oppposite lanes in the very first opportunity they get. No one wanted to stop or slow down in a road with ultra heavy traffic and road constructions everywhere. It seemed to be a norm than an exception on this road.

Every vehicle had their tails on fire, as if everyone had to reach Delhi in time. The result of this was visible after every few kilometers. Overturned, smashed in cars were common, which created even more chaos.

But that did not deter people from rash driving. The extent of rash driving I saw here was previously unknown to me.

The drive was not at all enjoyable, specially after the fantastic drive on NH4 last night. It was like a continuous struggle to survive, not to get side-banged by another vehicle.

Drivers from down south probably cannot comprehend what I'm talking about. You need to experience it to understand.

These comments are not directed to or pointed to anybody. I am just describing my experience here. So fellow members, please don't take any offense from my comments.

There was one positive outcome of this chaos though. I did not loose my concentration even after such a long drive. I had to be razor sharp to survive without a single scratch on the vehicle.

Crossing Pardi, Valsad we were slowly getting tired of the road. In Gujarat NH8 has gone through mostly densely populated areas. You could see factories on both sides of the road. Local traffic was heavy and there was obviously heavy truck traffic.

The road and traffic condition seemed to get better after Valsad. We started looking for Hotels for that night's stay.
After half an hour of driving we reached Navsari and saw big board of Hotel Supreme on the left from the flyover. Had to take a U turn after the flyover ends.

Hotel Supreme, Navsari :

We inquired the rate and they showed us the costliest room in the hotel. That seemed to be the only room free for the night. Fee Rs. 988/-. Odd isn't it. Why is it 988. It could be 950 or even 1000. I guess they didn't want to scare people quoting 1000.
Anyway, we didn't want to drive any more, and took that room. We liked the room too.

The hotel is newly constructed and in very good condition. The room was quite luxurious and I would say the price tag was 988 only because it was Navsari. There were couple of veg restaurants in the hotel building, so won't have to go out for food.

We ended our day there and checked into the hotel. Trip Meter : 1300 KM (approx)

Two security people helped us getting our things inside. They also offered to clean the car and assured us that the car would be safe in the parking lot at night. Two other guards will be there at night outside the hotel.

We freshened up, had lunch and crashed. It's been a long 24 hour of driving. We crossed 1300 KMs. Last 5-6 hours have been most frustrating.

I slept through the day to only wake up at 8 PM. Had dinner and crashed again only to wake up at 6 AM on 25th December.

Now we have only 550 or so KMs to reach Udaipur.
Today we will get into the land of color and valor. Rajasthan ....

Continued...

[Surprise]

Originally Posted by KishoreC

It's been a long 24 hour of driving. We crossed 1300 KMs.

24 hrs of driving . What is your maximum time spent in a car (driving) before this trip?

Reached the toll booth at exact 4:00 AM. Highest toll of the whole paid here (Rs. 140) for the 92 KMs of the Expressway.

That is the highest amount I have paid in any toll booth, but enjoyed my drive on that road esp on my return journey in daylight

Q: Which booth charges the highest amount in India?

[sami316]

Hi Kishore,
Really good TL you got here. I had covered the same route in Feb last year and we did non stop Bangalore to Surat on the 1st day. Waiting for more updates.

[KishoreC]

Originally Posted by Surprise

24 hrs of driving . What is your maximum time spent in a car (driving) before this trip?

Before this it was 18 hours, that too in US. In India around 16 hrs of driving before this one, and that too was day driving mostly.

[roamingrao]

Hi Kishore, Congrats on your first long drive in India.

Planning two days in Udaipur is worth the entire trip. Other places - Chittor, Kumbalgarh and Mt. Abu are bonuses !

Looking forward to the photographs !