From Bengaluru to Kolkata in my Ford Figo Aspire: A 1900 km road trip

Entered Vizag at around 9 am, and then the ordeal of crossing the city started. There is a long stretch of NH-16 going through numerous traffic lights, which made life miserable.

BHPian masterChief007 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Pre trip story:

The plan to drive to Kolkata germinated a few weeks before the supposed trip was to start. Generally for a person to visit Kolkata during pujo he/she has to plan the trip at least 60 days in advance (as when the railway bookings open - and close within minutes !). For me due to office work this was not possible as there was lot to be done, and I was unsure I can wrap up things in time. So I had neither booked flight, nor did I get a train ticket.

Always had in mind that this time around it will be the car that will get me there, in case I plan to go to my village. Around 3-4 weeks to the trip, I realized that I may be able to go to my village, as the pending tasks started to get sorted in office. I started scanning the Team BHP pages for the route options and conditions and the weather reports for the coastal roads from the IMD site and satellite water-vapour maps.

Since there were some reports of cyclone, I had devised an alternate route (longer) BLR-HYD-Nagpur-Sambalpur-Kolkata to avoid coastal disturbances.

The decision of the final route I left for the last day based on the condition, Thankfully the weather was fine and NH16 was the route I would be finally taking.

As I was doing all this planning, one fine day while returning from my jogging in Lalbagh, an idiot hit my car from behind in a traffic stop. No damage was visible, so I let it go. Only later in night did I realize that the boot won't close as there was a deformity due to the collision. The Ford service center in Lalbagh took the car in and Royal Sundaram covered the work with me paying 3.5 K for the work. I also decided to get all the last few years damages fixed with a total of ~28K (including the 3.5k insurance work). I received my car 1 week before my planned start on 24th September.

For past few months on my long drives, I used to get irritated by the road noise from the stock 6 year old MRF ZV2K 175/65 R14. So I had decided to move to 185/65 R14 Yokohama Earth-1, from Sai Iyengar in Indiranagar. They got the wheel sourced and fixed while I waited at the shop. The wheels were balanced and aligned, but next day again when out driving, I realized that the steering wheel is a bit tilted towards left when I am driving straight, Sai Iyengar couldn't fix this issue, so when to Ford body shop again and they too had to do wheel balancing and alignment again, which didn't fix the issue and then they had to reprogram the EPS to get it to satisfactory state.

This was on Friday, the day before my supposed trip. Since I didn't want to make a trip without properly testing the dynamics, I postponed my start to 25th Sept.

24th September was the day for groceries, like bread, butter, cheese, chocolates, cold drinks and various food items along with 10 litres of water. Came back home packed all stuff into my car packed my trip luggage (yes I pack my luggage on the last day !). Took all the luggage and put it in my car, filled up air and diesel. Then kept all my morning and driving essentials ready and headed to sleep.

Day 1 : 25th September: Bangalore - Rajahmundry (~14.5 hrs/ 797 kms):

I set the alarm for 3.45 am but didn't need it as I went to bed by 9 pm and woke up bang at 12.30 am. Tossing and turning till 2:30 am yielded only frustration so got up made some coffee and had midnight breakfast. Woke my mother up for the trip and by 4:11 am was sitting in the car setting up the rendition of Mahisasur Mardini by Sri Birendra Krishna Bhadra. This used to be the first audio that I put up each day of my road trip I would play. Only after this would any rock music will get to be coming from the stereo.

Start of the drive:

It was dark outside and being my first trip to Kolkata in the car, I was excited. I drove via the old Madras road maintaining around 70 kph due to early morning darkness and reached the Chittoor - Tirupati
stretch at 7 am approx (Tripmeter : 169 Kms). Had a quick breakfast of some cold coffee and bread sandwich (which I packed from home), I started the wonderful drive on the Chittoor Tirupati highway. This was one of the best roads I have ever driven on, be it the tarmac quality and also the scenic Tirupati hills running parallel to the road.

Just after Chittoor on the Tirupati Expressway:

As usual day is followed by night, and so are excellent roads are followed by really bad roads.There was a particular WB registered truck which was mashing its accelerator and 2-3 times observed that it was barelling towards the oncoming traffic, trusting the oncoming vehicles to chicken out and give way. My policy on seeing such driving is to either slow down or speed up so that I dont share roads with such maniacs. Here I sped up and finally was able to get out of the Tirupati-Naidupeta stretch and heaved a sigh of relief. 10:25 am, As soon as I ended up in the NH-16 I filled up on diesel again and used the clean enough washroom. The ladies washroom was also decent as used by my mother. This was an Indian oil petrol bunk. Another alternative could have been the A5 hotel (but it being on the other side of the highway I skipped it) (Trip meter:323 km).

After getting into NH16 at IOCL petrol bunk:

After this the road was good, but being a 4 lane highway meant dodging trucks throughout till Nellore, Now the roads opened up and the driving was relaxed, so took the next break near Musunur toll at around 12:24 pm.

This break was just to wash my face and do a little walk around to check the tires, and do a sleep check so that I dont feel drowsy. 2-3 mins stop helped get the focus back.

At Musunur Toll:

The next stop was made before Guntur at 2:55 pm (Tripmeter: 582 Kms). Now mercury was creeping up again so had to take a cool down thums up again along with some chips. Since we were having some food or other throughout was not feeling hungry for lunch. Drive in the next stretch was average, we had some good roads mixed with some congestion but nothing that bothered me too much.

Some snaps on the way to Guntur/Vijayvada:

After this, we directly stopped at Rajahmundry, via the infamous Kovuru bridge. The whole town was dusty and there was too much haze due to this dust. Anyhow somehow managed to reach the hotel Manjeera Sarovar by 7pm. The hotel was excellent, however came to know that the swimming pool is not yet operational. One night stay cost around 3.5k. (Tripmeter: 797km).

Day 2 : 26th September: Rajahmundry - BBSR (~11.5 hrs/ 646 kms):

Started the day early again at 5am from Rajahmundry, filled up diesel from the IOCL bunk next to the hotel, and started the day 2 of the road trip.

Early start:

Encountered excellent roads and quite scenic route on the way to Vizag. I took a quick bio break on way to Vizag.

Bio stop:

Entered Vizag at around 9 am, and then the ordeal of crossing the city started. There is a long stretch of NH-16 going through numerous traffic lights, which made life miserable. Sometimes I was wondering that am I going to office or on a road trip ! Took around an hour to escape the city and then I frantically searched for a CCD stop. Finally found a ccd after Vizag, and got down to the service road for some coffee and light food.(Tripmeter:1029 kms).

CCD after Vizag:

Next part of the journey was smooth till AP border, Took another small pit stop around Ichchapuram to ward off sleep at 1:22 pm (Tripmeter: 1199 kms), also I was having ankle pain on the right foot due to wearing the running shoe and keeping the accelerator pedal pressed for long hours. The running shoes being flexible cause a lot of fatigue if driving long. So had to get down and walk it off a bit.

Relaxing the foot, and the eyes:

Being forewarned of the Odisha roads and the infamous cows by TBHP forums, I dropped my speed to 60 kph to avoid them. I also shifted to the middle lane just to be a bit more safer. This part of the trip was even more painful than the Tirupati-Naidupeta stretch. As you never know that a cow may pop up like a horror video game character to ruin your day. This constant vigil takes a toll and even though I was passing through some excellent sceneries near the Chillika, I was unable to relax and appreciate as I needed to keep a sharp eye on the road.

Somehow I managed to reach BBSR without hurting any cows by 5:30 pm (Tripmeter : 1443 kms) and checked into Ginger BBSR. The rooms are quite small, but I needed good wifi for a couple of days of WFH.

Next 2-3 days, I spent in Ginger hotel doing office work. Night time after office I explored local cuisine and some shopping. I visited Dalma restaurant, but felt that its not worth the ratings. It was an average experience there however Chenna poda and Jhilli were good. So next day visited Nexus mall and had dinner in their food court. Also got an ankle support leather shoe, which was good as it alleviated the ankle pain due to the running shoe.

Day 3 : 29th September: BBSR - Kolkata (~9hrs/ 459 kms):

Today was the day when the first leg would be completed, but since the distance to drive was pretty less I had a relaxed start after the breakfast at Ginger BBSR. Crossed the beautiful Mahanadi bridge which till now I have crossed only via train.

Passed Cuttack, and the road conditions improved a bit than the last day. I didn't take many breaks except to fill diesel, and drove into WB. After entering WB there were still cows but thankfully they were tied on the median, so not much scope for them to streak across the highway and hit the traffic. Soon however, bad under construction road with diversions and improper speed breakers started and this ordeal kept on going till I reached Kharagpur. Kharagpur onwards the roads were excellent with speed limits of 100 kph.

But trying those speeds once or twice I came face to face with traffic barricades in middle of the road and decided to stick to 80 kph and not get swayed by those inviting 100 kph speed limits. I reached Kolkata outskirts by around 3:00 pm and reached my destination by 4 pm. Didn't take any photos as I was focused on finishing the trip ASAP, didn't take much breaks either.(Tripmeter:1902 km).

This concluded my first ever journey to Kolkata in my car. Hopefully once the in-progress stretches of Tirupati-Naidupeta and the sections in Odisha and WB are completed, would like to do this drive again.

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