The toughest part was to get the license to drive from family members. At- last we received “The License” from family members to drive to Ladakh on the condition that we do not venture out in public in Jammu, Srinagar and Kargil.
BHPian kozhissery recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
This is an old travelogue (done in 2010) which was hosted on BCMTOURING.com. After the site going down (Other Indian Web Forums are dying | That’s a depressingly big loss for Netizens)I just thought to keep the thread active (nostalgic reasons, being my first long drive)
Planning
Last year when my co-brother (Vasuki) and myself were having a casual talk about a long vacation during the summer of 2010, he came up with an idea of driving to the “Highest Motor able Road” in the world. When he suggested that, I did not take it seriously. Then came the “Overdrive” magazine in which they’d tested small hatch backs to Leh from Manali which rang a bell in me. And this led me into “search mode” for the feasibility of the drive (a long one too, I think). After going through many sites, books etc I came into conclusion that it’s possible if you have the nerve. After looking into the feasibility it was time to do the actual planning like how to go, where all to visit, what to carry, what all can be crammed in the short 20 odd day’s time etc. This is where bcmtouring came into light. After going through the posts/travelogue it was time for clarifying the doubts and decided to become the member of bcmtouring. This was a real good decision as the actual planning was done with the help from the members of bcmtouring especially from “Yogesh Sarkar”.
Selection of Days
Not much selection was here. Had just a window of 45 days from May 15 June last week from which 20 to 25 days were available. So decided to take the last part i.e. from May end to June End and thus 28.May.2010 to 20.Jun.2010 was selected with a buffer of 5 days (in case of any unforeseen events)
Selection of Vehicle
We had two options:
Hyundai Elantra CRDI
- Advantages
- Comfortable Car
- Safety Features – ABS, Airbags, Traction Control (Peace of mind)
- Diesel
- Ground Clearance 180+mm
- Disadvantages
- Already clocked 1.3+Lakhs
- Phased out model, so spare parts availability is a big question
- Number of Service centres less compared to the competition
Maruti Swift VDI+ABS
- Advantages
- Comparatively new car – Clocked 30+K kms
- Maruti Service centres are present every where
- Frugal compared to Elantra
- Disadvantages
- Airbags and Traction Control Missing
- Not as comfortable as Elantra
- Ground Clearance is only 170mm
At last we zeroed in on Maruti Swift as service is available anywhere and we were just 2 persons who were ready to sacrifice the comfort of Elantra.
Selection of Route
We wanted to drive through the golden quadrilateral. So had initial plans to cover whole of GQ (Trivandrum -> Kochi -> Salem -> Bangalore -> Mumbai -> Delhi -> Ladhak -> Delhi -> Calcutta -> Vizag -> Chennai -> Salem -> Kochi -> Trivandrum), but had to drop out due to all kinds of problems in the eastern parts of India (West Bengal , Orissa, Andhra Pradesh). The final route
Trivandrum -> Kochi -> Salem -> Bangalore -> Mumbai -> Delhi -> Amritsar -> Srinagar -> Ladhak -> Delhi -> Mumbai -> Goa -> Kochi -> Trivandrum (wanted to drive via the Konkan Ghats).
Others
We decided to follow the Rules:
- Not to drive above 100KMP when co-passenger is sleeping
- Not to drive above 120KMPH at any time
- Try to maintain a speed around 100kmph or so wherever possible.
- Never to take any dangerous maneuvers
- Change driver if drive feels sleepy, if both of the drivers are feeling sleepy “Stop for the day”
- No driving time restrictions in South India
- No driving after 9pm between Mumbai to Delhi
- No driving after 6pm (after sunset) beyond Delhi
Toughest Part
The toughest part was to get the license to drive from family members. At- last we received “The License” from family members to drive to Ladakh on the condition that we do not venture out in public in Jammu, Srinagar and Kargil.
Continue reading BHPian kozhissery’s post for more insights and information.
