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In May 2000, I along with my family was at Darbhanga which is a small town in northern Bihar. My grandpa and grandma lives there. We had gone there to spend our summer vacations. We had planned two weeks of stay there. At that time I was in std. 5 and my brother, Johny was in std. 3. After 2 -3 days of stay my father suddenly came up with an idea to take us to Janakpur. It was a significant place of our culture and we hadn’t been there even once. Meanwhile one of my mamajis, (mamma’s cousin) also came to Darbhanga for some of his own job. We asked Papa to ask if he was free enough to come with us. After his agreement we were in all 5 persons to leave for Janakpur.

We went to the Darbhanga station and took a local train to Jainagar. It took 3-4 hours to reach there. It was meter gauge track then but presently the tracks have been converted to broad gauge and so now it hardly takes 2-3 hours to cover the same dist ance. From Jainagar we took a toy train to Janakpur. Jainagar – Janakpur route had a narrow gauge. We reached Janakpur after 2 hrs.
Janakpur does not fall within Indian borders. It lies in Nepal, a small neighboring country of India. So, it was a foreign trip for us. Johny and I were extremely happy with this information which Papa gave us in the train. Being a neighboring country, it has almost the same climatic conditions as of the states of north-eastern India. So as it was the month of May, the weather was extremely hot.
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My intention behind writing road-reviews have been to provide necessary information to fellow travelers (read drivers) who wish to undertake that journey. With that thought, probably Delhi-Patna doesn’t make the cut, since not many would be traveling (read driving) such a long stretch. Patna is not a hot tourist place and neither its close enough to let people choose the tar instead of routine rail or expensive air. So the only real reason I think would be then to use this is to get and feel high, since I did it, just the last week. I drove all the way to Darbhanga (200 Km further to Patna) from Delhi. May be 10 years down the line when I read this again, I would feel young (and stupid), so here it is.

Delhi – Patna can be divided into following stretches.
Distance – 1050 – 1100 KMs , Time – 32 hours with a 12 hour night stop at Allahabad or Banaras. 20-22 hours non-stop with 2 meal breaks and 2 tea breaks.

1. Delhi – Agra – Etawah
2. Etawah – Kanpur
3. Kanpur – Allahabad
4. Allahabad – Banaras
5. Banaras – Patna

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