We returned from our Darjeeling / Kalimpong Trip last night. The outbound route was: Kolkata - Asansol By pass - Nala - Masalia - Dumka - Dhaka More - Banka - Amarpur - Bhagalpur By pass - Vikramshila Setu - Tetri By Pass - Purnea the first day.
Now, the time/road condition break up:
We left Kolkata on Saturday, 17th October at 6:00 AM and reached Jubilee Pump on the Asansol By pass at 10:00 AM. There was heavy but steady truck traffic at Panagarh, no hold ups though. Slow traffic after Durgapur till just prior to Raniganj because of road widening work.
Jubilee Pump to Dumka via Nala and Masalia was 2 hours. Terrific roads for most parts except for the last stretch just before Dumka because of culvert constructions.
Dumka to Hansdiha - fine. Hansdiha to Dhaka More is sheer hell. There are NO roads at all. You negotiate your way through crater after crater with blinding dust everywhere. Our car (Ertiga) scraped its underbody several times despite exercising utmost caution. Those 30 odd kms. took us 2 1/2 hours to cover.
Banka to Amarpur was a good stretch and Amarpur to Bhagalpur was patchy. Bhagalpur By pass is a godsend discovery and we just breezed past Bhagalpur and took the Tetri By Pass after Vikramshila Setu (hardly any traffic on the bridge) ending up on NH 31 at 5:30 PM.
From there to Hotel Center Point, Purnea was 1 hour 15 mins. and we were checking in by 7:00 PM. Excellent road conditions by the way.
Day 1: about 550 clicks which took us around 13 hours with two breaks of 15 mins. each
I won't describe the road conditions onwards to Darjeeling and Kalimpong as much has been written previously about it on this thread and nothing really has changed.
The return journey:
Day 7: Friday, 23rd October - Morgan House, Kalimpong to Hotel Ashoka Grand just before the Railway flyover in Bhagalpur, around 330 kms. took us 7 hours which included a 1 hour stop for a leisurely lunch at Raj Darbar, Dalkhola. The only thing to note is that the Sevoke Road is patchy in parts. We left Kalimpong at 10:30 AM and were at our hotel in Bhagalpur at 5:30 PM. Traffic on the Vikramshila Setu as well as inside Bhagalpur was light, probably on account of Dussehra.
Day 8: Saturday, 24th October - Bhagalpur to Kolkata. It was Muhurram and we were a bit apprehensive about road blockades. Nevertheless, we went ahead leaving at 9:00 AM and decided to try out the Deoghar route, hence traced our way back to Banka via Amarpur. There was heavy police presence throughout Bihar and we had to take a couple of diversions through villages because of processions but we were in Balanand Ashram, Deoghar by 1:30 PM. After spending half an hour at the Ashram, we were back on the road and took the Jamtara route to NH 2. The road conditions between Banka and Deoghar are good but beware of occasional potholes. Deoghar to Jamtara is fair and Jamtara to NH 2 was excellent! We were on the Golden Quadrilateral by 5:00 PM.
From there on to Kolkata was sheer bliss - there was absolutely NIL truck traffic. The police had blocked all trucks which were made to queue up by the side of the highway (except for tankers) and the roads were absolutely free. After a quick Tea and Makha Sandesh break at Shaktigarh, we were back home in Central Kolkata by 8:30 PM Distance: about 425 kms. & Time: 11 1/2 hours including two breaks of 1/2 an hour each.
![Clapping](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/images/smilies/Clapping.gif)
Of course we were lucky to have a truck free NH 2, a factor which makes the Kolkata to Asansol journey so frustrating.
Well, that about sums it up; but sadly it appears that we have to take longer and longer detours in order to reach North Bengal from Kolkata. When I had done my first road trip to Siliguri from Kolkata (Calcutta in those days) in May 1994 in a brand new Gypsy, it had taken 12 hours door to door from my residence in Central Kolkata to Sinclairs, Siliguri by NH 34.
Hope the update is of help.
P.S.
We did not face a single instance of Police checking in Bihar, probably because:
a) elections were already over in most of the parts that we traversed.
b) travel was mostly by the day.
c) there were three ladies + 1 child in our group.