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.