It was a 4-day event with a max of 5-6 hours of driving every day, allowing us to enjoy the vehicles (Elevate, City and Amaze) at a relaxed pace.
BHPian KarthikK recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
I had a chance to attend Honda’s 14th edition of their annual drive event called the Drive To Discover, which usually focuses on enjoying lovely drives through some of the most scenic parts of our country. Honda has been conducting these drive events for more than a decade now, but this was my first experience with this event.
The 14th edition route involved a monsoon trail through the western ghats of Kerala, starting from Kochi, heading towards Athirapally falls and Munnar and traversing to the Eastern ghats of Kodaikanal, before heading back to Coimbatore.
This was a screen grab from one of the flyers which I was sent a few days before the event, revealing the routes involved in the drive.
The itinerary was a four-day affair, beginning in the second half of the first day and culminating in the second half of the fourth day:
- Day 1: Flag off from Kochi, Kochi to Athirapally falls (75 km)
- Day 2: Athirapally Falls to Munnar (150 km)
- Day 3: Munnar to Kodaicanal (170 km)
- Day 4: Kodaicanal to Coimbatore (170 km)
Putting those words in the form of a picture, this is what the map looked like, with the convoy starting from the coastal city of Kochi and ascending Kerala’s western ghats into TN.
The daily distances were deliberately kept small, so the drive was organized in a way where the participants had a lot of time to leisurely enjoy driving these routes, with a maximum of 5-6 hours on the road during the day, ensuring there was enough time to reach the next destination and enjoy the locale before the next day’s drive began. Being a frequent road-tripper in the southern part of the country, I am no stranger to these routes and locations, having covered these places umpteen number of times with different vehicles over the past 20 odd years of riding and driving, yet this event was a nice and different way to enjoy the varied flavours of Honda’s offerings in India and savour the pros and cons of each of them.
Day 1: Kochi to Athirapally Falls
Most of the participants started arriving at Kochi airport by around noon, from where we were taken to Taj Kochi, right opposite the airport. Honda’s staff and organizers greeted us, and over a sumptuous lunch, the participants were soon briefed on the itinerary and dos and don’ts of the event.
Briefing at Taj Kochi before the convoy started off on Drive to Discover, chapter 14.
Soon it was time for the flag-off ceremony. We headed to the parking area, where Honda had displayed their latest City Sport, which was mostly a cosmetic edition with blackened elements compared to the Vanilla City petrol. While this would have made for some good eye-candy in the monsoon vistas of this drive, sadly, the City Sport was not in the D2D fleet of cars.
The Drive to Discover fleet of cars was around 16 in number, and while there were more participants than cars, Honda had ensured most cars had two participants in each car, allowing ample time for experiencing the cars as both driver and passenger. They also ensured rotation of cars among the participants, so that everyone got to drive all three cars on offer (Amaze, City and Elevate) over the four days of the drive.
The Drive to Discover fleet in the parking lot
Awaiting our car allocations while admiring the colorful parking lot at Taj Kochi
An Elevate dark edition lurking in the corner
For the first day I had got myself a City e:HEV (strong Hybrid petrol) for the drive to Athirapally, and I got a good chunk of time behind the wheel as the flag-off ceremony kicked off and all the cars made their way out of Kochi city and up the forest-laden hills of Chalakkudy region to reach Athirapally falls by early evening.
The City e:HEV in silver, draped in D2D livery
City e:HEV badging in the rear
The steady monsoon downpour in coastal Kerala ensured all the cars wore the raindrops with pride, like this
I had not noticed earlier that only the City hybrid (and not other variants) gets this blue halo around the Honda logo on the front.
The ivory interiors looked good, but I couldn’t help but smile at the thought of how this color would tolerate the next four days of monsoon dirt 
Convoy making its way towards Athirapally falls
As we made our way out of Kochi city, the rain-drenched roads of Kerala’s signature countryside begged for a few stops to admire the scenic beauty of God’s own country in monsoon season.
The City hybrid was a pleasant surprise to drive. The suspension was comfortable and the ride quality was quite mature, dispatching most bad patches with ease. The setup is a bit on the softer side, leaning towards ride comfort rather than outright corner carving, but the tradeoff is in the sweet spot of balance between ride quality and handling, and only enthusiasts who push the envelope while cornering aggressively may actually find it lacking in that department.
The refinement was probably the finest in this segment, with me guessing whether the engine was actually active or not, as the powertrain seamlessly switched between electric mode and engine drive mode depending on throttle input, road gradient and load.
I expected that the City e:HEV’s (battery pack in the rear) ground clearance would be an issue on these countryside roads with large potholes and unscientific speedbreakers, but the City Hybrid cleared all the obstacles with ease, much to my surprise.
The City hybrid has paddle shifters similar to its petrol sibling, but unlike the City petrol where the paddle shifters and manual “gears” engage pre-fixed ratios on the CVT cone to simulate actual gearshifts and engine braking, in the City Hybrid the paddle shifters instead alter the Regen level to help recharge the battery, whilst trying to simulate some semblance of engine braking feel.
Another area of improvement (this is common to the other Honda cars we drove on this drive, too) was the ADAS, which was quite intrusive and couldn’t be switched on the fly. It needed the car to be brought to a standstill before we could deactivate the ADAS and drive peacefully.
All in all, this is a lovely, underrated sedan to enjoy driving. It really deserves more sales and credit for being a wholesome product. The extra torque the Hybrid powertrain puts out over the petrol City is felt almost instantly when switching between the two siblings, and the enormous fuel efficiency advantage of the Hybrid (almost twice the FE numbers of the petrol City) helped a lot in extending the range when travelling. Now, if Honda can just work on that pricing a bit, this car should do better in the market by bridging the gap between ICE cars and full-fledged EV cars, both of which have their own unique pain points. Anyway, back from the car-related rambling to the travel now.
A lone elephant grazing alongside the road leading to Chalakkudy river and Athirapally falls.
It must have been around 4PM when we reached Athirapally falls. Over the past few visits here, I have noticed that there is a flurry of resorts which have sprung up along the 1km surrounding the waterfall trail and Chalakkudy river. We were put up in the lovely Sterling resort with a view of the swollen river and Athirapally falls.
View of the monsoon sights at the resort
The mighty Athirapally waterfalls hidden by a curtain of mist and overgrown trees
The comfortable room at Sterling resort, Athirapally
View from the front porch of the resort, right next to the river and falls
The rest of the evening was spent enjoying the monsoon weather and interacting with the other participants until we bade goodbye and retired for the day.
Continue reading about KarthikK’s experience for BHPian comments, insights and more information.
