I love driving, and have been driving across the country for the last fifteen years, the nature of my job also offers me such opportunity as I get posted to various cities of the country. Recently I got my marching orders from Jammu to Bangalore, from the City of Temples to the Hi Tec City and decided to drive down to my destination. Honestly, what better way to travel the length of the country than driving through it. I own a blue TATA Safari which is fondly called the ‘Hathi ka Bachha’ my faithful and comfortable companion to many such adventures. My wife and kids could not join me because of the school examinations and so I took the voluntary services of a friend who was also as excited about the journey as me and finally to give us company was my three year old Golden Retriever “Rusty”. The advantage of travelling in a Safari is that you can throw anything at it whether man or beast and it can accommodate lovingly, so we folded the rear seats of the car and made a play pen for our not so little four legged companion.
Rusty
I will cover the journey in two parts Part I from Jammu to Delhi and Part II from Delhi to Bangalore, I took five driving days to cover the distance not counting the days I stopped over to meet family, friends or to sneak in a round of golf en-route.
Being a Delhite I have travelled from Jammu to Delhi a number of times in the last three years, there are multiple options of travelling from Jammu to Delhi after you cross Hoshiyarpur, but I prefer the Jammu – Jalandhar – Ludhiana- Ambala – Delhi route. Firstly the road quality for most of the journey is fantastic, secondly there are a lot of eating joints on the way especially when you are travelling with children who can get hungry all of a sudden.
We started early in the morning from Jammu to avoid the school bus rush and in no time we were on the Jammu – Pathankot highway in no time, early mornings and afternoons you have the yellow school buses practically taking over the roads in Jammu causing multiple traffic jams.
The road till Pathankot which is almost totally in the state of J&K is good, the quality of tarmac is good not excellent with only a few potholes and very little traffic. It is easy to touch 100kmph. The route however has a number of township astride the National Highway, which acts as bottlenecks to the smooth flow of traffic, there are street vendors, local traffic crossing across and my ever favourite ‘the cattle’.
Domestic animals on NH26
However these are minor impediments and one can easily make up the lost time by speeding up in the next section. There are few good eating joint en-route starting with an extension of ‘Pahalwan Ki Hathi’ at Bari Brahmna and ‘Hotel 17 Miles’ at Vijaypur which has a 24 Hr Coffee Shop and café. After Vijaypur you move into Samba which the place the highway is the closest to the Pakistan Border and hence the favourite place for the terrorists to attack. If you are travelling just before first light be very cautious before you stop your car to anyone waving you to. The Border between J & K and Punjab at Lakhanpur will take some time to cross because of the large trucks that queue up and block the road, the things have actually improved with the new toll booth that has come up.
Datia Fort
Crossing of River Ravi brings you into Punjab after around two hours of driving from Jammu, crossing Pathankot is a breeze as you take the bypass to a village called Damtal which surprisingly is in Himachal Pradesh and not Punjab. Like J & K the highway passes through various settlements, however the there is an iron grill fence on both sides of the road which restricts stray traffic on the road. The quality of tarmac is good very few potholes and you can easily touch 100kmph right till Jalandhar.
You encounter traffic once you hit the Jalandhar Bypass which skirts round the city in a series of flyovers one of them has not been completed so you have to struggle to get around it. After ten in the morning there will be heavy traffic between Jalandhar and Phagwara in particular and Jalandhar and Ludhiana in general. There are a plethora of eating places on this stretch including the famous ‘Punjabi Haveli’ between Jalandhar and Phagwara which serves excellent vegetarian Punjabi food – not to be missed by a foodie. The quality of road however gives you mixed feelings. The road till Ludhiana and beyond till Ambala has been under construction for the last three years that I have been driving on it, and the progress is not inspiring. They have stretches where the road quality is good, good tarmac so you rev up the engine, hit the next gear and almost immediately the stretch gets over and you are braking hard to avoid the vehicle ahead of you. It is actually a shame that such a frequented road is not maintained.
Crossing Ludhiana is a pain any way you try it. There are two ways to do it, one through the city, where there is a long flyover almost right through the city, but frequent red lights and slow crawling traffic will slow you down. Then there is a bypass which takes a rather long detour of the city and the quality of road is what nightmares are made of, there is a huge traffic, narrow roads, children running after kites the entire work. So crossing Ludhiana is the proverbial choice between the frying pan and the fire, and irrespective of your choice you will waste hour to hour and half crossing it, my suggestion, go through the city.
After Ludhiana the road smoothens out, the traffic lessens and you get good eating joints at Rajpura and Karnal. The road bypasses both the townships so there is no issues on that, crossing Ambala is again a breeze as there is a flyover that takes you right over the city. And as you reach Sonepat you feel that you are in Delhi itself, which is how much the Delhi has actually spread.
Overall the trip from Jammu to Delhi is interesting because you are never alone, you always have some traffic around you and the scenery keeps on shifting between agricultural to urban. On the same stretch you have the old JCT Phagwara mills and some pretty old houses in Phagwara to swanky showrooms of Mercedes, Malls and eateries on the road, theme restaurants and universities so one can enjoy the drive and see the diversity that is the hallmark of this country. The distance of 624km took us a little over nine hours with breaks some people can do it faster but I prefer to enjoy the journey rather than set a speed record.
A nice detailed road review, Aashish! I feel that you could have considered of giving a few more photos in the post. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Anupam
thanks for your comment and I am in total agreement with you.
but this being my first post I believe this error can be overlooked, next time I will take more photos
ashish
Dear Ashish
Nice to know that over last fifteen years, you have travelled on various places in the country preferably by road.
Welcome to Ghumakkar as a writer also.
It was a very authentic road review from Jammu to Delhi.
Hope to read a lot from you in next few years of your travels.
Thanks for sharing..
Regards
Oh I love Rusty… It seems he enjoyed the trip a lot.
You bet,
what was more interesting the reactions of people on the road on seeing him in the car.
They came to get themselves clicked with Rusty who was behaving like a rock star, I did feel jealous though.
Aashish
Welcome aboard Ashish.
Very flowery description of the whole stretch and I can imagine that you enjoy your road-trips tremendously. So Delhi-Jammu would be 9-10 hours. If one is headed for Srinagar, do you think one can do it in one day, assuming that there would be an early start (say by 5.30 AM) and no driving after 8 PM.
Looking forward for next leg.
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Dear Nandan,
on a fair day it is possible, however the road from Jammu to Srinagar has many bottlenecks especially after Ramban, where on a bad day traffic can be struck for four – five hours and that is an optimistic figure.
theoretically the journey is possible, but it will be prudent to check the road condition before proceeding from Jammu.
Aashish
Welcome to Ghumakkar Ashish.
I hope your journey here is longer than the journey from Jammu to B’lore!
It is interesting to see someone taking up this long route by road.. Not uncommon these days..
Glad to have you onboard!
Cheers
Dear Ashish,
We are frequent travellers on this route, as our family stays in Jammu, while we stay in Delhi. The travelogue is quite accurate and encouraging . For the first timers I would like to add the spots where journey breaks can be taken as its must with people like us who are with bachha party. Starting early from Delhi , breakfast @ Savoy greens, karnal, lunch @ jalandhar haveli and evening tea @ pahalwan’s , Bari Brahamana, not only recharges you but let you enjoy the journey all the more, not to mention of all those lovely fields wherever my kids saw tubewells to take a bath and snapshots of all the fun. Happy Journey to all interested.
Sir…nice description of Journey……but lack of clicks….i may inform you that if some one wants to cross Ludhiana …one may choose from flyover road n there r only two red lights n one can cross ludhiana within ten minutes n traffic is also less as compare to other ways,from outer bye pass it takes thirty minutes n from inside city below flyover bridge it may takes 20 minutes.I understand due to increase in population n industry there is havey growth from all corners.After shifting of industry from city of Delhi….all most industrialist shifted to this place so v r paying the price.All Ghumakker”s r welcome to my City
Wow!!!
Great subject & equally great writeup. I also wish to do this sort of long driving journey. Maximum done by me is Delhi to Kanpur in a day with just 2 stops.
But Jammu to Banagalore is just amazing….
Best part is .. so much minute details in the post.. Lakhanpur, Haveli, Flyovers in Jallandhar, Samba attacks & so on. For someone who has travelled on this route, this is refreshing of memories..
And I agree that Ludhiana byepass is a mess. Always better to travel through station.
Keep writing….
Good writeup . I came to this while searching for Delhi – Jammu road details as I plan to take a trip soon and I must say both the site and the write-up have not disappointed me.
I do have a couple of questions and would love if someone could help me out
1) How is the safety in this road stretch , especially in light of terrorist attacks ?
2) How much does toll cost in total ?
3) Is there any police harassment on account of a UP number car ?
Himanshu
No police harassment for UP number,
please cover Jalandhar to Jammu in daylight hours do not stop for any stranger.
I do not recollect the exact toll amount but will be approx. 250
Thanks Ashish for this piece of infromation , though I must admit I am but surprised by your responses.. Police not harassing UP numbers is too good to be true. About covering the Jalandhar to Jammu stretch in daylight hours – any specific reason for this ?
HI CAN YOU GIVE LATEST UPDATE ON JAMMU DELHI ROAD