The car is just about perfect for our kind of travel. Great comfort, offroad capability, space, versatility, rugged reliability.
BHPian ringoism recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
Just back from nearly 9,000 km done – for the second year in a row, from Manali to MZ and back, with 1,000 km of added explorations in very remote and less developed parts of Maraland, in the far south of Mizoram.
Would have liked to have done a proper writeup, but there is simply not going to be time for that – lots of backlogs around here, and as good as it is to share these experiences, there are other priorities and if I’m honest, would probably rather spend another three days out there somewhere travelling vs. sitting behind a screen editing photos, recalling details, writing on and on… so just a bit to whet the appetite here.
We headed out with no definite route in mind, no hotel bookings, and no specified night stopovers. This may seem crazy considering we were a family and would be travelling through unknown places, but circumstances pretty much demanded it: Conflicting info (from the Noida traffic police info line themselves) re: the possibility of taking a 10+ y-o diesel on NCR’s EPE had us cancel our plans to head southwards and travel through RJ to Gwalior, Jhansi, and generally central route via MP, CG, OR and back up through WB into the NE. Which would have been nearly 4,000 kms in total. We’d been so busy with work in December, then sick with lingering flu, and now with the route restrictions adding more hours and complications, we finally figured it’d be best to just “beeline” it via the shortest route, drive night & day as long as we felt fit, rest/ eat wherever (even in the car) only as needed, stop and see just a bit along the way to actually experience and learn something, especially for the kids’ sakes.
Left 27th Dec. late at night, drove a couple of days and nights through bad fog and ridiculous UP highway conditions – due to both poorly marked construction zones and also the fact that nobody’s bothered about how 4-lane divided highways are supposed to work: Even on huge, new six-lanes like the Lucknow Bypass, where heavy trucks would be lumbering along in the fast lane IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION!!!
Yet by God’s grace, after 4-1/2 days and maybe ~75 hrs on-road time in total, we arrived safe and sound to our relatives’ joy and surprise at Aizawl early afternoon New Year’s Day! We had slept in the car roadside or at petrol pumps at a few points and were happy to see a substantial police presence out patrolling or parked with lights flashing, all across Bihar and West Bengal in the wee hours, even on some surprisingly small/narrow and desolate little roads that GMaps chose to take us on. Through that blinding fog. Kudos to law enforcement personnel out there and whomever has put them there, this sort of travel would have been highly inadvisable in many places some years ago.
Thankfully no real mishaps, though in the fog I did directly hit a high curb hard once, probably at 40kmph. And another time launched off the high concrete slab into the mud at the end of a construction area where no signs had been there to
direct. Also skidded and nearly rammed into a car that hadn’t seen the (construction) shifted lanes of a 4-lane and had driven over and got stuck on a concrete barrier. While stopped and connecting a tow strap to pull him off, we ourselves nearly got hit by a bus that skidded to a stop in the gravel just behind us. God saved us, I’m sure. All this in UP. Crazy place. Pray hard to the right God before venturing there haplessly, especially in these conditions.
No damage to the car in any event, which could not have been said if it were something with a low bumper, low GC, and less robust steering and suspension. Pretty “adventurous” going, but not really what I had in mind!!!
So route outbound was generally:
Manali-Ambala-Haridwar-Bareilly-Ayodhya (night & a morning), Kushinagar (night & a half day), Jalpaiguri, Guwahati, Silchar (night stay), Aizawl.
Within MZ we did some amazing roads of best and worst conditions, some really tough 4×4 jungle jeep trails filled with mud and water, and broad, sweeping new highways being built for the Kaladan Project links… Anyway, there it was roughly Aizawl-Hmuifang-Lunglei -Castle of Beinu -Lawngtlai -Palak Dil (wetlands preserve), Lungpuk, Serkawr, Saiha, South Vanlaipai, Tuipui D (ferry crossing), and back to Aizawl. Just wonderful. Much easier and much more fulfilling if you know people there, though. Very few if any tourist facilities, Google Maps is often useless or directly misguiding, and even my wife and sisters-in-law started getting a bit lost as the language on signage changed from Mizo to Mara… But would do it all again in a heartbeat. Grueling, but just fabulous. And this Getaway was just the perfect tool for the job. There were six of us with a week’s worth of luggage, camping, and cooking gear, We put a mattress in the back and the kids and aunts took turns relaxing/ sleeping back there as we went along.
Coming to late Feb, we’d thought to return via central India since we’d missed friends there outbound, but an unexpected wedding invite at Nepalganj took us by a more northerly route again: This time Aizawl- Guwahati- Siliguri (2night stay), Darjeeling, Bari Pahadi (at Bihar Sharif), Nalanda (+night stay) Rajgir, Rupaidiha (night), Roorkee, Ambala, Kharar (night), Pinjore, Nalagarh, Manali.
Just great.
Car was perfect but for a broken spring leaf (after hauling nearly a tonne of cow manure for our orchard in MZ over some very bad unpaved construction sections. Easily replaced at home with my father-in-law’s help using a shortened Tata 407 piece of the same thickness, about ₹800. And a headlamp relay fried, fortunately in the daytime, a replacement was found at the first place inquired, and popped into its slot in less than a minute.
The car is just about perfect for our kind of travel. Great comfort, offroad capability, space, versatility, and rugged reliability. Wished it managed a bit better FE, but I do tend to drive briskly and the car likes that – and as they say, “You wanna play, you have to pay”. I don’t think ANY vehicle could have done a better job of it, certainly not one with such good service and spare support in the remoter corners, much less at the price we bought it.
If I get time will transfer a few pics from the dashcam so you can get a driver’s seat view of all it took us through.
Regards,
Eric
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