Road review for this journey or rather saying road review for NH2 in one word to say is simply awesome. It is advisable to start as early as possible in the morning so as to avoid the city rush.
Starting with the Durgapur Expressway from Kolkata, this is one of the best highways in India, there is absolutely no doubt in that. If you are actually driving in this highway, the road quality is so good and the greenery around are so nice, that you will just want to keep driving on this road. A maximum speed of 150 KMPH is no big deal in this highway and you can easily maintain an avg speed of around 90-100 KMPH.
Normally the trucks are very well-mannered. You do not need to overtake them from the wrong side. Blow the horn once, one or two beamers and they will give you way. Although always there are exceptions, but normally its quite ok. Just got to be a little careful.
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Every now and then one can find decent places to have tea and snacks, there is not limitation on any kind of meals, whether its breakfast, lunch or dinner. Shaktigarh around 100 KM from Kolkata is one such ideal place to have a good breakfast. It’s known for its famous sweets (langchas). It’s also known as langchagarh. It’s an interesting place. You will find all the shops around by the name langcha.
Moving ahead from Durgapur towards Asansol and on to Dhanbad, the road quality is equally good. As one enters Dhanbad, the entire stretch of NH2 is concrete and the quality is even better than Durgapur Expressway, although you will find occasional people in 2-wheelers coming in the wrong way just to avoid long U-turns. As you travel along you will cross small places like Kulti, Nirsa, Aurangabad, Sasaram (Jharkhand to Bihar), Mughal sarai where you actually enter Uttar Pradesh.It’s advisable to keep printouts of route maps. Helps you to keep track of your driving directions.
Varanasi is ofcourse a very congested area with its own historical enigma. Once you move from Varanasi towards Allahabad, it’s more of a congested highway, although the road condition is still very good.
Congested roads of Varanasi
Photo Credit : Anjana Saha
Also since we started early, traffic was really low and Allahabad (a distance of around 125 KM) could easily be reached in 3-4 hours. Allahabad to Sultanpur road quality is now far better compared to what it used to be around 10 years back. Only a small stretch of the NH96 is broken otherwise 99KM from Allahabad to Varanasi should not take more than 2 and half hours.
Sultanpur to Lucknow (NH56) and Lucknow to Kanpur (NH25) are again very good. Although the Sultanpur -> Lucknow stretch is very easy to travel Lucknow ->Kanpur stretch is slightly more congested. Once you move to Kanpur, a pathetic patch starts and moving out of Kanpur sideways to NH2 is a big challenge till you actually touch the highway. Once you touch it, it’s again the awesome highway.
Kanpur->Delhi connectivity around 440 KM is also not a problem, but the traffic is very high and especially once you reach places nearing Agra and Faridabad, traffic really starts to pinch you. It’s no wonder if you get stuck for 3-4 hours for a stretch of just 70 KM. Lucknow to Delhi also has another route which is NH24, but it being 2-lane is always more congested and traffic prone.
Overall its one of the best routes to travel from Kolkata to Delhi.