1st drive from Bangalore to Kolkata !!

After long planning, discussion and multiple time/expense/route/pit-stop calculations, we successfully conquered NH16 and drove from Bangalore to Kolkata.

Key Statistics:
	Day1:	Day2/3:	Total
Total KM	875	1100	1975 (5 states)
Duration	16.5 hrs	24 hrs	<2.5 Days
Start Time	24th Dec 2017, 3.30AM	25th Dec 2017, 7.30AM
End Time	24th Dec 2017, 8.00PM	26th Dec 2017, 7.30AM	52hr (11.5hr in hotel) Total Drive time: ~37 hrs
Route	E-City-Vellore-Ranipet-Renigunta-Naidupeta-Vijaywada-Rajhamundry	Rajhamundry- Srikakulam-Bhubaneswar-Kharagpur-Kolkata	Total Fuel Price:     ~Rs.12000
Nos. of drivers	1	2
No. of travelers	5 (Me, my daughter, wife, mother & passenger with his puppy from blabla car)	5 (Me, my daughter, wife, mother & brother-in-law)
Most thrilling moment	Unplanned full night travel on Day-2
Most scariest moment	·Sudden stretch of fog, encountered on Day-2 caused us sightless, while travelling at 80kmph+ speeds in highway over the vast fields of Orissa @ 1AM ·Sighting of car coming in the wrong direction at 80kmph+ speed on National Highway, multiple times near Berhampore
Best Stretch	·Krishnagiri-Ranipeta, with illuminated 6-lane highways ·Naidupeta-Vijaywada ·Along Chilka due to straight/empty roads allowing to achive maximum speed ·Balasore-Satragachi, best stretch due to smooth silky roads
Worst stretch	· Ranipet-Renigunta, Single lane ·Crossing Vijaywada City: No bypass route and all highway traffic has to pass through the city traffic/signals. Currently multiple flyovers are under construction which help to reduce the traffics in the near future. ·Andul road before reaching Vidyasagar Setu, Kolkata: Narrow, Single lane with lot of heavy vehicle movement
Pain points	·Road to cross Godavari river, before Rajahmundry is very confusing/complicated.  ·Toll booths in Orissa doesn’t maintain Fastag and also the operational efficiency is very poor, resulting into long queues. ·Very limited restaurants along highways in Orissa resulted into long hunt for even tea stalls

Day-1 travel: (Night stay at Rajahmundry)

Day-2 travel: (no Night stop)

Day-3 travel: (Overnight travel)

Various travelogues in Team-bhp inspired me to dream about the drive and injected few bugs in my head to drive to Kolkata. Travelogues shared by Oreen(http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/95415-bangalore-kolkata-back-altok10.html), MadTiger(http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/132988-my-journey-bangalore-kolkata-tata-nano-too-alone.html) are thrilling and I also wanted to test my limits. The initial plan started while buying my 1st car during Mar’16. The car, Ertiga was chosen based on it’s drivability on highway, comfort level for long drives, space etc in the price range. However few questions doomed me for many days:

1.     Is it really worth? (the travel cost in Petrol car is more than AC train fare)

2.     Is it too risky to travel solo along with family ?

3.   Whether my small daughter (2.8yrs then), mother & wife will be able to sustain the stress of such the long journey? Although I had confidence in endurance of my mother and wife, I was worried about my daughter. 

4. Can I make it ? Driving for 16+ hrs per day will it cause back pain or fatigue causing lack in concentration, reducing the safety!

5.     Weather during the entire 2000 KM journey, can the car bear such long duration trips ?

6.     How to manage office leaves?

7. etc. etc.

Pre-travel :

After lot of discussions, finally I made up my mind to travel to Kolkata from Bangalore during Christmas holidays. Winter has less chances of storm/rain which usually happens in some part of the route, especially Orissa. On the other hand, temperatures in summer are really high in parts of Andra which requires continuous A.C. usage reducing the mileage and also increased chances of suffering from cold. Planned to avoid early morning travel in Orissa, for high risk of fog.

The car was serviced @ Surakshaa car care, E-City and got some tips from the service personnel. Engine oil, brake fluid, tyre pressure/conditions, wheel balancing etc were all checked. I wanted to add external head lamp/Halogens e.g. Hella 600F to ensure good visibility at highways. Although any extra light fittings is illegally, I was sure that Bangalore/Karnataka police is not much strict about the rules. However I knew that Kolkata police is strict and to avoid any unnecessary quarrel with local police while travelling through the 5 different states, I decided only to change the standard 65W headlamps with 90W Philips bulbs. It gives decent illumination, much better than the standard bulbs. Adding higher power headlamps are not recommended as it can potentially damage the headlamp cover due to overheating.

Food timings are definitely to get affected during the long travel period and spending long time  in restaurants are not an affordable option. Planned to consume snack items while driving to ensure supply of energy levels and it also helped in avoiding monotonous journey. Sufficient water, fruits were also consumed during the journey to avoid dehydration. Also I planned to refill in petrol pumps with good toilet facilities only. Some basic stretches were also planned at every pit-stops to avoid muscle fatigue. Since we have space for one person, posted an advertisement in bla-bla car and decided to give lift to one person, along with his little puppy, upto Vijaywada.

Day-1

The unplanned visit by some of our friends, the previous night affected our sleep timings. Although we planned for 6hrs of sleep, the previous night, we could manage ~4 hrs of sleep. My wife took the responsibility of all final checks of the items to be carried, while I slept for some extra minutes. After loading all the luggages we started the journey @3.30AM on 24^th Dec 2017 among the silent cold (18C) night, while my daughter kept sleeping in Mom’s lap.

We faced little traffic in Attibele toll and in no time we crossed Krishnagiri. The straight road from Krishnagiri goes to Salem and a small opening @ Aavin Junction, helps to take the expressway to Chennai. It was my first travel in the road beyond Krishnagiri and luckily, I could spot the small board which indicates the direction to Chennai. This has saved at least 10-15min of travel time. The board is so small that later while travelling to different destinations, I have missed the diversion 2 times L. The road from Krishnagiri to Ranipeta is superbly maintained, 6-lane and I could cruise happily in the empty dark night. We reached Ranipeta by 6:00AM while the daylight started to emerge. Near Ranipeta, multiple diversions at the exit of Palar river bridge caused lot of confusion and instead of moving towards Walajapet, we entered Ranipet City. We crossed the city at snail’s pace and entered a narrow road passing through villages which ultimately connects to SH61, towards Tirupati. I had to pay good attention while driving to allow villagers to cross the roads at their own pace, for their morning activities. This wrong turn had delayed our journey by at-least 30min in addition to the increases stress levels. 

After travelling for 5+ hrs, we saw the approaching Tirupati Hills which gave some relief that we were approaching Renigunta on schedule. We took the by-pass route to cross Tirupati and Srikalahasti. My colleague’s earlier explanation about the confusing junction at Naidupeta to enter NH16 helped to avoid the obvious mistake of taking a wrong turn as explained in fig.  We reached Naidupeta at 11AM I got my first visuals of the Golden quadrilateral. Thanks to Atal'ji for being the architect of the straight, smooth 4-lane highway which helped us to cruise at triple digit speeds. Multiple flyovers helped us to cross multiple cities and reach Vijayawada by 3PM. However crossing Vijayawada city itself took 1+ hr due to absence of a by-pass route and we had to cross the city signals. We saw multiple flyovers under construction which will definitely help to reduce the travel time by > 30min, in the near future. 

 Roads after Vijayawada was smooth again and after 12 hrs of travel already my wife and daughter started signs of fatigue. Although the target for day 1 was to stay in Vishakapatnam which was still 6+ hrs. Rajahmundry which was much before Vishakapatnam was thought to be a safer place to halt for day-1. Google map showed a diversion from Prathipadu to reach Rajahmundry as going through NH16 will easily take 100+KM extra. We followed Google’s  suggestion and diverted from NH16 to SH210 to reach Rajahmundry. After already driving for 15+ hrs, I started feeling tiring to drive in the single lane road with lot of oncoming traffic in opposite direction with high beam! However, I kept my nerve and went on to reach Rajahmundry to hault for the day. SH210 was confusing due to multiple intersections and narrow roads. We finally crossed Godavari went towards Rajahmundry Railway station to settle at a hotel for resting at night. We got into a decent hotel @ 8.30 PM and went for sleep @ 11PM after a satisfying 16+hrs drive.  

Confusing junction at Naidupeta to enter Golden-quadrilateral

Stretch of golden quadrilateral from Nadipet

 

Smooth highways before Vijayawada

My fellow passengers upto Vijaywada !

Day-2:

My brother-in-law, who lives in Kolkata got excited about my driving plans and agreed to accompany me on Day-2. He started from Kolkata one day before in Bus and we planned to meet in Srikakulam by afternoon. 

I woke up in the morning @6.30 AM and was surprised to see thick fog outside the hotel window. Planned to start, little late till visibility gets improved. Slept a little longer and had breakfast and started Day-2 journey @ 8.00AM. After exiting the hotel, we quickly reached NH16 and started the drive smoothly, determined to reach Kolkata by late night. The morning drive was awesome. The stretch from Rajahmundry to Vishakapatnam is quite empty and the well maintained highways, pink flowers in between the median as well as the rising sun coming out of the foggy chilled weather set the perfect mood to start the journey. We all were excited as we cross half-way to Kolkata and planned to cross Vizag by 11AM. We took the Vizag by-pass route, following Google’s suggestion and found it to be a big mistake as most part of it is single lane with lot of trucks travelling. Before reaching Vizag, my daughter showed 1^st sign of trouble for this long non-stop driving. She vomited and started to show disinterest in eating inside the car. We planned to spend more time at each stops to finish feeding my daughter. Temperatures in Andhra was quite high, 30+C, considering we were travelling during December end. By 12PM we crossed Vizag and soar towards Srikakulam to pick up my Brother-in–law, who is travelling all the way from Kolkata in public transport, just to join me for the drive. Salute to for his courage and interest!! 

With a 2nd driver in my car, now the "Josh" level increased and we cruise towards Orissa. At around 3PM, we entered Orissa and started searching for place for Lunch. But in Orissa road side restaurants, tea shops becomes a rare sight, specially due to presence of some forest zones along the great Chilka lake. After crossing Chilka, we halted for lunch at ~5PM in a small dhaba located next to eastern ghat range. Along with a cool evening breeze, we enjoyed the beautiful sight of birds returning to their nests, probably after feasting at Chilka. With full energy, we started towards Kolkata, uncertain about our plan for night stay.. We crossed Bhubaneswar and Cuttack before 11PM and decided to continue. Late in the night we kept cruising through the dark, empty roads in Orissa, After night 1AM, the road suddenly felt void with sight of light from other cars at distance, also felt like a rare sight. Some patches of fog formation on the road, in the chilly wintery night reduced the visibility which further made the situation quite scary! Me and my brother-in-law kept switching the driver seat and continued the drive whole night. We entered West Bengal before dawn and safely reached kolkata by 6.30AM.