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Road trip: From Kolkata to snow-clad Himachal in our Ford EcoSport

10th February 2025, 15:05 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

The road till Mandi was okay-ish but the road after Mandi till Aut tunnel was simply too good!

BHPian H0RSEPOWER recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Purple haze in snowy Himachal

Our last trip to the Himalayas in the northern part of our state in October was just finished. And soon an itch to go to the Himalayas again started. This time I wanted to go a bit further, to the North western parts. Time was during the Christmas holidays. Initially thought of Spiti, but had only 8-9 days in my hand starting from Calcutta to Calcutta. So skipped Spiti & planned for some other places in Himachal itself.

Even 10 days prior to the travel, we did not make any booking! Then, I eventually booked for one night in Narkanda, next night in Shangarh & next in Manali. Rest were not booked. Well, booking on the go has its own share of excitement during any road trip! I was already super excited but just a week prior to the trip, a huge roadblock arose!

Due to the bad AQI, GRAP 4 was implemented in the NCR region, banning all BS4 diesel vehicles there. And I was planning the trip with my BS4 diesel Ecosport! Then I had to plan a route bypassing the NCR. For the planning of the routes around those areas, I took help from various TBhpians. Many thanks to Bonniver, Predatoronwheelz, Samba, Mile_Breaker & others who helped me a lot with the planning for the alternative routes without which the trip would have been really very tough to plan!

Posting a few teaser photos from the trip-

Narkanda

Shangarh

Manali

23rd night & 24th December

Finally, we started on 23rd December night. And our return was planned on either the 31st night or on 1st Jan. Our first stop was at a gas station somewhere in Bihar. For car lovers, it’s likeable to spend their time in the car as much as possible, well I implemented it very deeply indeed during this trip! I have bought an inflatable bed & had set it up in the back seats. I took a nap for a couple of hours there while my wife was sleeping in the front seat. (This bed really helped us a lot during the journey!).

Then we started again & in the early dawn. We were on the fringes of Varanasi & I again felt sleepy, so quickly parked the car in another gas station & took another round of nap, this time my wife went to the rear bed & I was sleeping in the front seat. Then after getting freshened up we had some sandwiches that we brought with us & continued our journey. We took the NH19 instead of PEW as suggested by both Bonniver & Predatoronwheelz. Our lunch break was just after crossing Kanpur. Then we continued till Agra. Road conditions of both the NH19 & ALE were superb. Only in Bihar, some stretches were in bad conditions. After reaching Agra in the evening we tried to visit the Taj Mahal, but it was closed for the day already. So chose a nearby hotel & finally checked in a room after a 1300 km long drive in the past 24 hours!

25th Dec

We woke up early in the morning. We had plans to reach Himachal on that day but did not have any booking & moreover, as we had to avoid entering NCR, we planned to go via Alwar in Rajasthan & then take the trans-Haryana expressway till Chandigarh. But before starting with the journey I really didn’t want to miss to visit the Taj Mahal! It was my first visit to the Taj Mahal & I was really spellbound with the beauty of Taj! I have seen so many photos of the mausoleum earlier, but visiting that marvellous piece of art in person was really superb!

Well after getting out of the Taj Mahal we started our journey towards Himachal via Rajasthan. During the drive, I enquired of the snow chain from a store called Halte in Chandigarh. They earlier told me that they could arrange it for my wheel size, but on D-day, they informed me they don’t have it in stock! Then as suggested by Mile_breaker, I went to the motor market in Chandigarh to search in the shops. Finally, in the evening I found a shop where they told me that they could make it but they would ship it to Narkanda the next day by bus. And I need to collect it in the middle of the night there!

Anyway with no other option left, I ordered it, & then started to plan for the place to stay in the night. I searched the HPTDC site & booked Ross Common in Kasauli. The road from Chandigarh to Kasauli after finishing our dinner at Chandigarh. The road was good apart from the last few kilometres to Kasauli. Well, the thing I least expected was a group of policemen checking for the offenders with a breath analyser on an empty road in Kasauli at 11:30 pm!

Anyway after passing that test (well, in my mind I was murmuring that hey I didn’t come all the way from Calcutta just to do some drink & drive here!), we eventually checked into the hotel. It was an old colonial bungalow converted to a hotel. Even after driving for more than 2000 kilometres in the last two days, billions of twinkling stars in the backdrop of dark sky compelled me to gaze at them standing outside shivering in cold! I was trying to find the Orion. It was awesome!

The bed in the car to take some rest while feeling too sleepy to drive!