Friday, November 19, 2010

Faster than Mumbai Rajdhani - Mumbai to Delhi using NH8

When I was a kid, I always wondered what diffrentiate great from good, why a train such as Delux of Frontier mail take more time than Rajdhani. I got my answer 3 weeks back when I started my journey from Delhi to come to Mumbai using my new car BMW 320d. Its called ENGINEERING and in my case its GERMAN ENGINEERING.

When I bought this car last month I always knew that there will be a day when someone from either of the metro can cover this distance in less than a day, dream came true on the 6th of Nov 2010 for me when I travelled a distance of 1423km from Delhi to Mumbai in under 16hours. Trick of any long road trip is right planing such as what time will you leave, when will you cross some big cities, food in the car and above all Tank full.

Got myself a tank full in the previous night with tyre pressure higher than normal (loaded boot with diwali mithai), kept alarm for 4.00am and decided to get into first gear by 5 in the morning. Delays because of family good byes always are welcome and we were 15 minute late in leaving the house gate. Started driving towards Manesar which on a bad day can take upto 2 hrs and I had crossed in less than 15 minutes (20km), my target was to cross Jaipur by 8am which due to next day to Diwali was done in exact 2 hours. During the first two hours it was Bhajans on FM and Garam Garam chai while driving, first break was taken when my son woke up around 9am and we had cross 430km from home somewhere in the middle of Rajasthan. Break was refreshing with breakfast on the road side and lot of streching.


Next strech was exciting as well and I had redone my plans to cross udaipur around 12.30 but the amazing speed of the car and non-stop driving allowed us to cross this before 12pm, I calculated the time and it took us 6 hours and 45 minute to reach first 750ish KM which is unimaginable from India's view point. We continued the same run towards Ahmedabad using curvey roads and tar all the way, it took us 2.20 minutes to cross the city from Udaipur.


Next two big cities were covered in hurry (Baroda and Surat), I had crossed Surat around 5pm which included 15 minutes break at a midway restaurant for drinks and bio breaks. Post Surat life became a little difficult as the total driving time till this point was about 12 hours and I was getting tired, decided to slow down a bit as the traffic was increasing and day light was becoming much lesser. Till the time I reached Virar it was around 7.15pm and I had crossed close to 1350Km, my onboard computer was still showing three digit average speed of 100.1km per hour.


I took Ghodrbandar road to reach Powai and reached my parking spot at exactly 9.00pm.


Stats : 1423 KM

Driving time: 15hrs 45min

Diesel: Less than 100ltrs, fuel economy of 15.2kmpl

Avg Speed: 95.4 kmph (only driving hours)