“The freedom of the open road is seductive, serendipitous and absolutely liberating"
We have been on many road trips in the past, but most were from point A to B and sometimes C and the most we had travelled was 2000 Kms. Primary constraints in the earlier days were time and a suitable vehicle.
The itch to do a real long road trip started after we bought home a Hyundai Creta. However, circumstances, mostly work related, continued to deprive us the opportunity to satiate our fancy dream. Luckily, during this period we did multiple Mumbai-Bangalore-Chennai trips mostly at a stretch which built up sufficient confidence in us about the reliability of Creta for long runs.
The opportunity knocked at our doors in September this year. We were free, the rains had mostly stopped on the western coast, and we figured that if we don’t rush, the monsoon would be easing out in most places as we moved up north. With Srinagar(J&K) as the target destination, we decided to set off on what would eventually become a dream come true.
Our original thought was to reach Srinagar and then move towards Uttaranchal, however after completing Srinagar, we got to know that Uttaranchal roads were in a bad shape and impacted by landslides. So rather than wait for things to improve, we decided to cover another unexplored state i.e. Uttar Pradesh. It worked well for us and except for the October heat playing spoilsport, the objectives were achieved.
A road trip offers flexibility like no other and to make sure we did not burn out, we established a few, difficult to implement, rules.
a) Share the driving between the two of us
b) No driving before Sunrise or after sunset and not to drive more than 6 to 8 hours a day
c) Chai-bidi breaks every two hours
d) Keep schedule and stops flexible. This gave us a huge opportunity to tweak our stays depending on how good a time we were having. We booked hotels only one day prior to reaching the place and got excellent rates in good hotels.
e) Cover smaller locations around the city of stay, even if it means an extra day.
At the end of it all, we had covered 7500 Kms across 8 States/UTs and 21 locations in 35 days. Thanks to the guidelines above, we didn’t really feel tired during the trip or even when we reached back home.
Route:
Mumbai – Ahmedabad – Gandhinagar – Modhera – Patan – Mount Abu – Haldi Ghati – Udaipur – Chittorgarh – Jaipur – Panchkula – Amritsar – Srinagar – Gulmarg – Sonamarg – Chandigarh – Gwalior – Jhansi – Orchha – Lucknow – Varanasi – Allahabad – Nagpur – Mumbai
Highlights of the trip, besides the driving, were:
a) Taj Lake Palace Hotel in Udaipur. Expensive but once in a lifetime experience of the famed Taj hospitality in an erstwhile palace in the middle of a lake, definitely worth it. (For Armed Forces personnel, Taj offers a 25% discount on best available rate for room as well as food & Beverages)
b) History – We realized there are so many things not taught to us about our own history. Visiting the forts/museums in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh gave a fresh yet different perspective on what our ancestors did for this country. It was also exciting to see places we had only read about in our childhood like the story of Maharana Pratap and his horse Chetak, Jhansi wali rani, Padmavati etc
c) The India Growth Story – It is not a myth and there is a visible change as one travels through the country. Ahmedabad and Lucknow stood out as places where the respective state Governments have indeed worked hard to bring up the cities. Here the cleanliness, the roads and infrastructure, the Sabarmati & Gomti riverfronts and the parks are totally at a different level.
d) Highways – You may keep seeing some folks cry foul on the standard of road construction, but we noticed that most highways, expressways and tunnels are truly good. Yes, there is a long way to go to make all highways of that standard, however, the work done so far is praiseworthy.
Having done it once, we are now looking forward to doing it again and North-East is on the mind.
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