Hi friends, I just want to share my experience with the Golden Quadrilateral. I left Delhi on 23 October, 2010 with my wife and 7 years old son in Toyota Camry at around 6 AM. Passing through Gurgaon, Manesar, Jaipur Bypass, I took a left turn after Kishangarh. After crossing Chittaurgarh and Udaipur, I reached Dungarpur at around 7 PM and there I stayed in the Dungarpur Palace which is a fantastic place to stay. However, there is no TV in the room. But you will get a big bathroom and you can take your drinks and food on pool side. It was around 800 km from Delhi to Dungarpur.
Then next morning (24 Oct), we saw the Mahal and had breakfast. At around 9.30 am, I left Dungarpur. However, after crossing Ahmedabad and vadodara I got trapped in the truck lane near Surat. Luckily with help from one driver, I was able to manage and get back to the highway. Then I reached Thane and from the highway I took a left turn for one tribal block called Jawahar block in the Thane district. I stayed there for the night. The distance from Dungarpur to Jawahar block is around 660 km.
The next morning (25 Oct), I left Jawahar block around 12.30 pm and after crossing Panvel, I was on the Yaswant Rao Chawan expressway that connects to Pune. After crossing Pune, Kolhapur, and Satara, I reached Belgaum at around 10 pm. The distance from Jawahar block to Belgaum was around 650 km. At Belgaum, I had good food and relaxed and then turned in for the night.
I started my day on 26 Oct with some shopping. This is the district which is being claimed by Maharashtra also because there are substantial numbers of Marathi-speaking people who live there. At around 11.30 am I left Belguam and crossing through Dharwad, Haveri, Davangere, I reached Bangalore which is just short of 500 km from Belgaum. It took me 7 hrs to cover this track. There were hardly any dhabas and petrol pumps on this stretch. On both the sides of the road, you will find nice agricultural land. And at one or two places, I found railway crossings as well. 80% of the track is completed and the rest is still under construction.
After reaching Bangalore, I took a left cut on NH 4. Around 2 hrs were wasted on the periphery of Bangalore because NH 4 was still under construction. And to make things worse, it was raining too. However, after crossing Kolar, Chittor, I was back again on Golden Quadrilateral around 80 km before Chennai. Once in Chennai, I reached my hotel at Poonapally through Porur and through some other places which I am not able to recall. At poonapally, I stayed at the Hotel Velocity. I reached there at around 2 am.
The next morning (27 Oct), I left the city at around 12.30 pm and by 3 pm I was back on NH 5 which connects to Kolkata. I had made up my mind to drive straight to Kolkata which was 1685 km from the highway but didn’t tell my wife of the plan. The road was good in Andhra Pradesh and after crossing Nellore, I reached Vijayawada at around 9.30 pm. We had a light dinner and then drove the whole night.
By 2 am, I had crossed the place from where Kakinada was 70 km. At 5 am, we had tea at Vishakhapatnam and took some rest in one of Reliance’s petrol pumps in our car itself. Then at around 7 am, we resumed our journey. by 11 am, we crossed Ichapuram which is the border town between Andhra and Orissa. Then we entered Orissa where the road wasn’t good for some distance with frequent breakers. At around 2 pm, we had lunch at Bhubaneswar. We were out of the city by 3 pm again. After crossing Bhadrak and Balasore, we tried to take rest at Kharagpur but the moment we entered the city we realized that the stretch was very scary.
We got back again on the highway and planned to stay at Kolkata instead. At around 11.30 pm, we reached Kolkata. Before this, I had never travelled to Kolkata by road and more so in the night. However, we asked a traffic policeman for the way to dharmtala. Luckily, a gentleman offered to take us to a good hotel in Park Street. It was already 1 am and we had some chow mien.
The next morning we left the hotel at around 11 am (29 Oct) and after one hour, we were on NH 2. Delhi was now 1450 kms away. The road up to Burdman was excellent, in fact better than any other stretch in our entire trip. But after that some part of it is still under construction and resulted in loss of some time. After crossing Asansol and Dhanbad, we reached Dhobi at around 6 pm. Some of my relatives stay in Gaya which is 30 km from Dhobi. They were surprised at the speed at which we were travelling. We crossed Aurangabad, Sasaram, Varanasi and Allahabad bypass and the allahabad bye pass is 80 km in length.
At around 2 am, we reached a point that is 50 km before Kanpur. Here, we took rest in the car itself for 4 hrs at a BPCL petrol pump. We were back on the road at 6.30 am. After crossing Kanpur, Itawa, and Agra, we took tea near Vrindavan and then wasted some time in the city traffic at Palwal and Faridabad. And finally at around 3 pm, we were back in Delhi.
It took us 177 hrs from 23 October to 30 October to complete the journey and out of these I drove for 96 hrs if i would have taken the new track which is part of golden quadilateral which goes through hosur and krishnagiri then i would have saved atleast 4 more hrs. My wife recorded the scenic beauty in a handy cam while I was driving. We spent around 25 thousand Rupees on petrol and I got an average of more than 12 km in a Toyota Camry. The company claims 11 km per litre on a highway. The speed was between 90 to 100 km for the entire stretch except for Allahabad bypass where I drove at 170 km/hr for some distance just to check the speed and at this speed you will feel completely relax in this car. The petrol from reliance is pure and accurate but you will hardly find a Reliance petrol pump anywhere except in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. For any specific details about the road condition or anything else, please feel free to contact me. I love driving and can drive non-stop for 1500 km without getting tired.I shall be putting the videos of the tour in due course.
Wow seems Mr. Ranjan is very passionate about driving. It’s a good walk through for all other traveler who wants to cover any side of the quadrangle. The information have been more informative if it would have covered the staying options like illustrated for Dungarpur Palace but anyway nice blog..All d best n happy traveling.
Sanjeev Mehta
thanks sanjeev for your encouraging comments.you are right i should have been given more information on accomodation but u know i had planned my trip just two days ago and wanted to cover the distance in shortest possible time but if you have nay query then pl let me know i will try to answer it regarding accomodation and on other issue also.
Mr. Ranjan , Welcome to Ghumakkar.
Good interesting trip. But such a long trip , it ended so soon. Missed the pics badly . Hope to read many such stories from you.
Sahil
Thanks Mr. sahil i have recordedthe various features of the trip in my handy cam and soon i will put it for all of you and sure from next time i will stop and take snaps also.This trip was basically to cover the distance in short period.
regards s k ranjan
Sunilji
It was thrilling to read the travelogue. You could have taken up a cause for the trip as well, say for women and child rights..etc. Neverthless great adventure soul !
best wishes.
Arbindji from next time i will definitely do such things to create awareness and recently i have bought one royal enfield bullet classic 500 cc and made all arrangements in terms of purchasing biking gear,tent,sleep bag for ladakh trip in which i m planning to go upto changthang region where u get see the animal which gives the raw material for paschmina shawl
Wow!! This is serious driving. Am surprised that your wife and kid didn’t insist on breaks for shopping/ sight seeing.
Thanks Mr anil you know my wife and kid both enjoy going by car so they kept themself busy in watching the scenic beauty, beautifull roads and people from various states.Next time i m planning for delhi to kanyakumari and back along the coast of kerala and to catch NH 3 from nasik in that it will be bit relax .
Its unbelievable!!!
Travelling such a long-long distance within this small span of time and through our great indian unruly traffic.
Amazing.
Keep on travelling and keep onsharing your experiences.
Hope to see some photographs too next time.
Thanks Mr ashok, i will definitely takes snap in my all forthcoming trip and for your information i have gone to rourkela in orissa it is 1500 km from delhi twice by car itself, once to jamshedpur and atleast 10 times to gaya(bihar) and hill stations like lansdowne,dhanaulti,chakrata,dalhousie,palampur,chamba,dharmshala, kasauli, katra and many times to kanpur and lucknow. during march this year i went to gay and while returing from allahabad i went through reva,shahdol,amarkantak, bilashpur then rourkela, the whole track from reva was almost hilly area. Now also on 30 june i m again gng to gaya in that trip i will take snaps.
Amazing
Thank you sir, i have read your write up on char dham yatra and i have told to many of my frds about your courage and love for adventure , i really salute you for gng alone to such difficult terrain. I m also planning to go hopefully next yr ,your great inspiration for all of us.
Thanks. Your wife is a real companion of you, changing herself to your interests, your son would be a great Motorist.
Dear Ranjan,
Very well written post. Lack of photographs reduces the charm of story to some extent. Waiting for your next post with pictures.
Thanks,
Mukesh
http://www.mukeshbhal1.wordpress.com
Thanks Mr mukesh, from next time i will definitely take snaps to make the story more readable and enjoyable
good
Welcome aboard Mr. Ranjan. Guess, this country needs many more of enthusiastic government officers. I avoid night driving unless absolutely necessary. Your run from Chennai to Kolkata was very adventurous. Wishing you good times and hope to read more of you.
Here is a link of another GQ story which is on the other end of spectrum – Please read and comment when you are free. – https://www.ghumakkar.com/2010/09/03/going-nowhere-3/ . It is by Anil Mishra who was also working with Govt of India, just like you are currently.
Hello Sir,
That was hard drive around India, can you please let us know the details on places of Stay and also more on the stretch in Orrissa.
Wow!! Simply amazing trip! We are also planning a GQ in Nov 2011… wanted to have a rough idea of how things are en route…. your travellouge is truly inspiring…
sir
i am happy to hear your trip details .We are planning the same for GQ this year and north -south corridor next year with safari dicor 2.2vtt. I will surely require your help . if i can any time talk to you pl leave the ph no on my mail id hoping to get in touch
regards
YATIN DESHMUKH
Wow! That was one super fast description of a super fast trip! Congratulations sir and many wishes for your next trip :)
I’m planning to do this trip during March 2012 with my mother who shares my quest for travel :) I have heard many people doing the GQ in MUVs like Scorpio and Safari, but I was always doubtful of whether it would be possible in my Fiat Linea and your summary gives me some strength that we can do it in sedans too :)
We’ve planned to do it clockwise, i.e., Chennai – Mumbai – Delhi – Kolkata – Chennai. I’d be grateful if you could suggest some places of interest that you came across, along the GQ route. We have planned to do the trip leisurely by taking some 10 – 15 days. So we can even spend a whole day in good locations.
Thank you very much in advance :-)
Jelliffe.J,
Chennai.
Hi Sunil,
This is just awesome. What you have achieved is quite commendable. I plan to do Golden Quadilateral in 2012 and today is the first day when I thought of doing some research on this and yours was the first post that turned up. Great job!!!!! I hope to cover the same spreadover a period of 12-15 days and some time for seeing some of the places around on the route.
I am happy to read your experience.I very often travel by road with my Swift Desire.During last few months i have travelled from Porbandar in Gujarat to Patna in Bihar, Patna in Bihar to Thimpu in Bhutan ,Patna to Vijayawada in AP. I am 55 years old and my wife at 50.Both of us drive alone.Though the strech in Bihar and Jharkhand is not good road driving is pleasurable.
We love to share our experience.
Golden quaderilateral (GQ) can start golden age for India
(GQ) GOLDEN QUADRILATERAL Project will promote prosperity of our country India, kudos to the ruling government.
Dear Ranjan
Fantastic Trip, but can you pls share YouTube link here, for the videos captured during that journey.
Thanks.
This is a great attempt and congratulations for you your wife and child foCompleting successfully.