Delhi – Kolkata – Delhi – Road Trip – Part 2

Day 1: Delhi to Varanasi: 5^th Feb 2010 (793 km)

The journey continues…

Thanks for all the comments. And thanks for recharging my batteries.

Part 1 was all about our raw excitement. With Part 2, we will try to describe the journey with a little bit of extended information which will help the readers to digest the journey as well as help them to note down details, if they think of trying the same (I mean driving to Kolkata) by themselves.

Now where are we …err… we have just hit the road. Its 5:15 am, and we need to stop for filling – both the tank as well as our purse (P&P – Petrol&Purse!). It was still dark outside when we crossed Ballabgarh (Haryana) – the Trip meter showed 15.2 kms. Again, out of the shear excitement, totally forgot to mention the name of the partners involved in this eventful journey.

1. Sounav Maikap (my hubby – who drove through the whole stretch)
2. Annoushka our 2 year daughter
3. pici (bua)
4. and me (being the navigator)

After clearing Ballabgarh, Sounav concentrated on kicking up the average (a trick which he learned just before the journey). We were able to touch 18.5 km/litre! That was something big considering the amount of luggage at the back. For the sake of knowledge, the New Honda City has a real time average meter.  By the time we are testing with the average thing, little Annoushka has fallen asleep after finishing her favourite chocolate. It was at the Mathura refinery (130 km), that we saw the first glimpse of the morning sun. Due to the excitement or not, it really looked beautiful and different. The confluence of the fire coming out of the chimney of Mathura refinery and the orange – red sun looked outrageous. It was at that very point we decided to have our breakfast (home cooked noodles by Sounav) as well as enjoy the sunrise.

Time for a bit of information, to travel from Delhi to Kolkata one need to cross NH2 mainly, which covers a distance of 1465 kms. Don’t confuse this with the GT Road (historical Grand Trunk Road), though there are portions of overlapping stretch with the latter.  NH2 is also popularly known as Delhi-Kolkata Road. As per as memory goes we didn’t find a single single-lane road throughout the whole NH2. Apart from a negligible few kilometres driving through NH2 was quite comfortable. Also, all major cities have a bypass attached to it – as a result there is no time lapse.

Quite a bit of advice … time to move on. It’s not before 8:00 am we hit Agra bypass. We have lost considerable time experimenting with the average of the car, time to sit on the throttle. Sounav is a speed freak, we were maintaining an average speed of 100-120 kms with occasional thrusts of 160’s also.  We jumped with excitement, when near the Agra toll booth we saw a Green board displaying “Kanpur 285 Km and Kolkata 1290 Km”. It’s like a milestone for us. We have just crossed the first hurdle towards success.  We could not hold but to call our parents (thanks to the roaming facilities) and shared the excitement of the moment.

The sun is on its directional high and blazing with all power, ringing an invisible bell announcing its 12:00 – we need to prepare ourselves for the lunch. We have covered by then 442 kms (in 6 hrs!) and were crossing the unending Kanpur bypass. We were literally hunting for a “Dhaba” but did not find a “suitable” one. We were practically stopping and asking to locals for a “suitable” place to eat. I still remember one of those guys telling us, “Aage 2 km chaliye, VIP restaurant mil jayega”. 2 km felt like 200 kms, ultimately we stopped near “Pandeo Bhojonaloy“, a Dhaba at Gulamipur, Kaushambi, UP. Sounav by then was quite tired and need some “fuel” for himself.

We were having a very high hope about the Dhaba and ordered Sahi Paneer/Dal Makhni/Aloo-Gobi/Tawa roti/dahi and salad, but the food was horrible and we could hardly have it. The high point of that stoppage was that little Annoushka found a friend in the form of “Mithu” – a caged parrot with the Dhaba owner.

After that non satisfactory whole meal (rather a meal with a hole) we continued our journey at 2:45 pm. Our car was also asking for her share of lunch and we had to satisfy her with 1000 rupees worth of petrol.

Our meter now reads 598 km and then we saw another green board announcing Varanasi is still 171 kms away. At the 612 km mark we came across the new Allahadad bypass. The road is still under construction.  To our surprise and good luck, we found the Toll booth is not open for public. Driving through the whole stretch felt like a out-of-world experience. The closest we can match (the experience as well as the road), is our trip to Blue Mountains, Sydney, Australia, last year.
By the time we are close to Varanasi we found ourselves zipping through the yellow mustard fields. In between we were surrounded by Mango trees, we barely could see any leaves except for the flowers. Seems like, a good season is nearing. By 5:00 pm, as we were very close to Varanasi city, the sun was about to say goodbye, by changing its color to Red like a Chameleon. Darkness is about to win another battle.

We were by then propelling hard to reach “UP tourism Rahi Guest” where we have booked for that night. As for a bit of advice, the road which goes to Varanasi City is easily missable – guessed right – we missed that. It was supposed to be a small green hoarding displaying the direction towards Varanasi city.  On nearing the Varanasi toll gate, we realized that we missed the opportunity to go to the city. With the help of a local we managed a road going towards our destination. Needless to explain, how horrendous the (driving) experience was.

At times, Sounav was highly frustrated and seemed like he wanted to stop till the road gets clear. With due respect to all my Banarasi friends, the driving experience you get every day by driving through the by lanes of Varanasi, I think, you guys can drive anywhere in the world (rather galaxy)!

Somehow after crawling through the lanes, we managed to reach Rahi guest house without a single scratch! UP Tourism’s Rahi Guest house is situated (inside a “galli”) just opposite to the Varanasi Railway station. It’s quite economic (Rs.690 for double bed Air Cooled rooms) and spacious. One can book online. The most important of all, it has its own parking space (which seems to be an unknown word at Varanasi). After a quick refreshment we headed towards Kashi Vishwanath Temple, not in our car offcorse. We rather took a rickshaw (Just for knowledge, the word “rickshaw” originates from the Japanese word jinrikisha which literally means “human-powered vehicle”) which seems to be the only safe transport at Varanasi. The temple is sometimes called as Golden Temple because of a 1000 kg gold plated spire and dome. Needless to say, the security was very heavy. Due to the worship of Shiva you will find many foreigners looking for Cannabis.   As Annoushka’s birthday was on that very day we offered a quick puja. By the way, the temple remains open through the night.

On coming out of the temple, we felt the pain of millions of rats doing sit-ups, in our stomachs. And we settled for a quick dinner at Madhur Milan Resturant. The food was great, especially the Rabri! (I still dream of that).

As for a last glimpse of Varanasi we visited Dasaswamedh Ghat, a stone throw walking distance from Madhur Milan. We missed the famous “Aarati” of Varanasi (which happens every evening at the same ghat) due to the evening rush. Kashi is considered to be the oldest living city of the world, with more than 3500 years of documented history. Though hard to digest, but it seems to be true as one can see numerous examples scattered throughout the city.

How can we put a full stop to the eventful day without tasting “Khaike paan Benaras-wala”. We gulped few and headed towards our hotel. We required a much needed rest as we need to complete our balance journey.

Till then…

Click here for Part 3 of the journey