After long planning, discussion
and multiple time/expense/route/pit-stop calculations, we successfully conquered
NH16 and drove from Bangalore to Kolkata.
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:
|
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)
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 24th 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 1st
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.
