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)

Journey from Mumbai to Delhi by Road

What comes in your mind when someone asks you a question - Do you like long drives? Most of the people I know consider a journey between Mumbai and Pune to be long and will always come up with a story of how they covered that distance in less than 3 hours... For me long drive is where your back gets stiff and when you walk its always with a limp because your bum has gone numb ...

I decided to take out my new car to a long long drive, as a family we decided to drive from Mumbai to Delhi for Diwali vacation. We decided to leave home at 11.45 am and pick my son from the school to save additional 30 minutes of waiting for bus to reach home but then we saw a female driver (no offenses to opposite sex) who forgot that she had parked the car in middle of the road and had gone out to pick her son from school and by the time she was back the traffic was backed up for more than 500 meters in all directions... lost few precious minutes on it. Started driving with very decent speed towards VAPI and was expecting quite a lot of traffic but we did cover very good distance for first 170km... came closer to Vapi and the trouble started because of expansion of existing 4 lanes to 6 lanes.. got stuck into heavy traffic for next 100 km and reached Surat in close to 5 and half hours.

Once Surat was crossed it was a dream come true on a car which had tons of torque to offer, we started picking up speed on the surat - baroda highway and overtaking every vehicle possible on the road. Road from Baroda to Ahmadabad is a dream for every car driver where highway is fenced and you don't expect a dog to come in front of you. We took exit for Nadiad where I had booked hotel "comfort world" which promised me a safe parking but to my amusement the safe part of the parking was the road :)... Person at front desk offered be a guarantee that nothing will happen to my car. I was in no mood to put my 30lacs car on the road on its 10th night... I decided to go back to the highway and go uptill Ahmadabad and stay up at Gateway hotel close to airport which offered me safe parking and good stay as well.

Day 2 was interesting where I started at 6am and covered most of my first 700 km via Udaipur, Chitaurgarh, Bhilwara and Jaipur in just 7hrs and 45 minutes including a 45 minute break for lunch. Drive in this stretch is beautiful with almost no traffic and road conditions excellent. Post Jaipur was another story, I joined the bypass and old jaipur highway at 3pm and expected to reach Gurgaon in 2 hrs as it was just 180km from that mark but the fun started with very heavy traffic ready to enter Delhi post 9pm (trucks are not allowed in delhi during day time)... every city, town or mohalla that came in between delayed us by good 30 minutes, a two hour journey finished in 6 hours and my overall fuel economy falling down from 16 kmpl to 14.5 kmpl. I reached Gurgaon at 9 pm after the struggle at the last toll booth.

Total Journey 1450km, time taken 23 hours with close to 100ltrs of diesel and toll of Rs. 980. It was surely a trip worth coming on even after the painful last stretch and I would recomend this route to all driving lovers...

Cities Covered : Mumbai - Vapi - Surat - Vadodhra - Ahmadabad - Udaipur - Chittorgarh - Bhilwara - Naseerabad - Jaipur - Gurgaon

Sunhera Kal and Dardnak Aaj

This Diwali my family decided to take our new car for a spin, I should rather say that we were taking a 20hrs long drive from Mumbai to Delhi.... though I had done this 2 yrs back in a slower car I expected to complete this journey in 17hrs but to my surprise there were sections of the the trip which were completely rotten and totally unexpected.

In the year's of early 90's Delhi Jaipur was supposed to be the best possible road in the northern india where drivers could reach a speed of 100 kmph but now the story is much different, conditions have deteriorated and drivers have to spend much more time to cover this stretch of 230 km. We paid close to 150 rs of toll to cover 230 km in 6 hours (not joking) and that too on a really rotten road. There were sections where road was just one lane and the traffic volume on this route already demand a 6 lane highway if not 8.

My problem is not the construction of the roads, as the boards already say its for "Sunhera Kal", but its the toll we pay for "Durdnak Aaj". It just hurts when you are running at speed of 6km and you see set of speed breakers after which you will see a Hariyanvi gentleman (not too many are gentle) sitting in the air-conditioned cabin ask for Rs 70 (one way). I asked him is the road going to get better and the answer with a sarcastic smile "Thodi door tak hi kharab hai" which I knew was a lie as he smiled along with the answer.

Should we be paying for roads which are in such pathetic conditions or get together to ask for refunds on all such routes.

Masala Movies are back !

Long weekend, no where to go... Thought of going for a movie and guess what, we decided to go for a super masala flick (WANTED), ahh you must be wondering that i decided this thinking of Angelina Jolie, but I think we Indians have something better (Ayesha Takia), she has everything what Angelina has but is much more cuter. She has time and again proved her acting talent in movies like DOR and Tasveer.

Movies had more frames of Salman than the rest of the cast added together, for once I think he took a right decision to go for short hair. It started with Guns and ended with guns in between the movie there were more guns... all added with lots of blood and flying goons. There were songs, dance choreographed by our own Prabhudeva, fights, Robinhoodism, sleezy girls with guns and knifes.

After seeing this movie it seems era of Masala movies is back, comedy and romance will live for ever but once in a while when you are bored of chocolate hero and ludicrous comedy go ahead a buy a ticket for movie like WANTED.

More to follow.