[martand1400]

Hi guys, a fellow guy from Prayagraj here. If you have any doubts related to Mahakumbh I am free to answer.
Thanks!

[Ry_der]

Experience of Mahakumbh Visit on 01-02-2025:-

For ease of understanding, I'll use pointers:-

1. Visited Mahakumbh-2025 on 01st Feb 2025. 3 Adults and one 10YO kid. All under age 42.

2. Route taken was Lucknow-Prayagraj-Lucknow.

3. Left from Lucknow at 6 AM on 1st Feb and returned at 10 PM on the same day.

4. Reached Prayagraj at around 10.30 AM due to frequent diversions arranged by the local administration from Phaphamau.

5. Don't trust GOOGLE MAP ETAs and Routes.

6. Parked the car at Parade Ground parking and walked 4 KMs to the Sangam Nose. You can hire a rickshaw for a part journey on that route. We preferred walking.

7. In 1.5 hours max, I was able to take 'Snan' and change. Sufficient number of changing rooms available in close proximity of of the ghats.

8. Wandered around in Kumbh Akhaada Area after crossing the pontoon bridge from Sangam ghats. There are many pontoon bridges. Some remain open all the time and some are used for VVIPs/Emergency vehicles etc.

9. Visited Nagvasuki Temple which is again on the Sangam ghat side (3.5 KMs from Sangam nose).

10. Hired 2 bike taxis from Nagvasuki Temple to the parking for 800₹.

11. Left from Prayagraj at 5.30 PM.


Tips:-
1. 2 wheelers are allowed till the farthest places including till the gates of the Akhadas. Would be better to hire a two wheeler for a whole day, if your pockets allow. Hire it before venturing to the ghats. After ghats it will be very difficult to get hold of one.
2. If you want to venture to Akhada area on foot, avoid taking kids with you. We walked around 18-20KMs just to experience the 'Kumbh'.
3. Alternatively, you can go to Arail Ghat near Naini and hire a boat for snan right in the middle of the river. Boat service remain suspended if any VVIP or dignitaries visit on the day or on the days of Mahasnan. Same thing happened in our case.
4. Avoid 2 days before/after Mahasnan days.
5. Stay hydrated, wear a cap and the most important thing is to wear a mask. Lots of dust.
6. Police is available at every nook and corner of the site and they generally are very helpful. Whenever confused, don't hesitate in asking them.

The above are what I could observe in a few hours and in a limited area.

'Har Har Mahadev'

[Gaur]

After spending almost 6 days at Kumbh my father and his friends returned to Mumbai day before yesterday.

Even though their train was sometime in afternoon they reached the station early in morning itself, last few kms before station they had to get down from the vehicle and walk with the luggage and they saw quite a few people struggling to carry heavy luggage they had bought with them, so in case if someone is planning to visit Kumbh please travel as light as possible.

Apparently at the station people were not allowed to enter the platform directly until your trains arrival, there is a holding area outside where they were asked to wait for few hrs untill their train arrived and on confirmation of confirmed ticked they were allowed to go to the platform and board the train.

Only once the reserved passengers have boarded and occupied their seats were the unreserved people were allowed to board the train, quite a few people travelling shorter distances boarded their reserved 3AC coach as well but it never became too crowded.
The administration wants as many people as possible to leave prayagraj to reduce congestion.

Overall experience as per my Father: He has visited almost all kumbhs in the past few decades and some of his friends even more, this by far was the largest crowd seen, overall very good management considering the massive crowds, VVIP movement was creating some unnecessary issue.

[Sach_511]

Hi All

Planning to visit Kumbh with my wife and 10-year-old kid from Delhi on 7th Feb (Friday). We plan to start at 4 pm from Delhi (12 hrs. from Delhi as per Maps) and reach Prayagraj by around 5 am. Can anyone provide information on the conditions of the roads/highways if someone has tried reaching there by car?

[mpksuhas]

Originally Posted by martand1400

I am free to answer.

Thanks for the offer.
Please let know if you able to help out with any of the below query -

Planning on visiting Kumbh for one day / one night (7 Feb reach early morning from Varanasi - 8 Feb return to Varanasi) along with 3 friends.
1. Can you please let know is the crowd situation now? More in relation to 3rd Feb being the last major snan day before our visit.
2. Our stay is booked in tent, is the ban on cars enforced still in place? If so, approximately how many kms away from the tent city are the vehicles being stopped?
3. Is there any restriction on carrying plastic bottles? We are planning on purchasing 5 / 10 liter cans of water so as to avoid using multiple disposable bottles. However, someone mentioned about a ban on carrying plastic bottles.

[prajakt_23]

Thanks to all friends here who provided valuable inputs for planning. I just completed my roadtrip from from Pune to Prayagraj.

Here is the travelogue which I have just compiled and posted in Team-Bhp travelogue section. Do check and let me know in case of any feedback or queries. I will be happy to assist in any possible way!

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...bh-2025-a.html (XUV500 travels from Pune to MahaKumbh 2025!)

[RGK]

This time, I see a quite a number of people choose to travel to Maha Kumbh by car rather than by plane (expensive tickets) or train (no confirmed reservations). Aslo this undoubtedly suggests that our nation's road infrastructure has improved.

One of our Hyderabadi family friends returned (road trip) yesterday and they were delighted to see this enormous participation and was extremely delighted. They noticed that the tents offered for changing clothes began to smell unpleasant (seems people urinate ).

Am really interested in going, and intend to fly from Chennai to Kanpur and then hire or drive a rental car. Is this a better (itinerary) plan and can we manage without knowing hindi ?

[Ninja75]

Originally Posted by martand1400

Hi guys, a fellow guy from Prayagraj here. If you have any doubts related to Mahakumbh I am free to answer.
Thanks!

Could you please PM your no? Want to check if private cars (non-UP) can drive upto Sector 6 as of today on non-snaan days?

[Rev2Serenity]

Hi All,

Could you please confirm if the below travel time for stretches is doable from Bengaluru to Varanasi in an Innova.

Bengaluru - Hyderabad - 7.5 Hrs
Hyderabad - Nagpur - 7.5 Hrs
Nagpur - Jabalpur - 4 Hrs
Jabalpur - Rewa - 4 Hrs
Rewa - Varanasi - 4 Hrs

This assuming with short tea breaks. Longer food breaks will be additional. Rewa-Varanasi I understand it depends overly on the traffic inflow and crowd in Varanasi.

[nareshtrao]

Originally Posted by Rev2Serenity

Hi All,

Could you please confirm if the below travel time for stretches is doable from Bengaluru to Varanasi in an Innova.
.

Doable with slight adjustments. I have done this road a couple of times and here is what we did. We had plenty of breaks as we travel with two children under 12. They were younger during these travels and BLR-HYD road had a lot of construction closer to Hyderabad. (all distances rough estimates from memory)

Bangalore - Hyderabad - 570 kms - 9 hours
Hyderabad - Nagpur - 470 kms - 8 hours
Nagpur - Varanasi - 770 kms - 11 hrs

So your break-up is fairly close.

[martand1400]

Originally Posted by Ninja75

Want to check if private cars (non-UP) can drive upto Sector 6 as of today on non-snaan days?

Unfortunately, both of us are newbies and we can't PM each other. To answer your question, I went to Sector 6-8 recently on 5th via scooters and cars were definitely there, didn't matter where the car was registered from. You may enter via Rasulabad Ghat.

Originally Posted by mpksuhas

Planning on visiting Kumbh for one day / one night (7 Feb reach early morning from Varanasi - 8 Feb return to Varanasi) along with 3 friends.

Sorry for the late reply, I am about to have my boards from 18th hence I don't have a lot of screen time.

1.The crowd is okay on non shahi snan days. Definitely worth a visit.

2. There are still a lot of traffic restrictions here, some people succeed in taking their cars to their tents but some are stopped near Naini.

3. No, there is no such restrictions on what you are carring. You are coming to Mahakumbh, not a cinema hall

[onevaibhav]

Latest Update as on 07 Feb 25
Crowd has returned in massive number. All received news of less crowd at Mahakumbh and have started coming for the snan. Schools are closed for my kids studying in 2 different schools till 12 Feb 25. One of my known person relatives went to Mahakumbh yesterday at 8am but couldn't come back before 5 pm. All they did was snan and back. So be prepared, it's not the right time to bring old people or very small kids.

[speedmiester]

My friends and I completed our Kumbh travel this week. We decided to drive down as this was the best option given we had a limited time window.

Opted for the XUV700 for this over my iX1 in the interest of time. We didn’t book any hotels prior to the travel.

We left Bangalore at 9:45PM on 2nd Feb and plan was to drive to Prayagraj without stopping. Since all of us can drive, this turned out to be easier. We could see a lot of cars/vehicles driving to Prayagraj from multiple states on the way.

We booked a hotel in Rewa for a quick nap and to freshen up on the way, reached this hotel at 10:30PM on 3rd Feb. Settled down for a 2hr nap and we got up at 1AM, freshened up and left for Prayagraj at 2:30AM on 4th Feb.

Rewa to Prayagraj is about 127kms and we covered the distance in couple of hours. We reached the parking lot at Arail Ghat by 4:40AM. Luckily there was no fog and little or no traffic on the road helped.

We reached the boating point at Arail Ghat at 5AM and booked a boat just for the three of us. The authorities were restricting the boats from leaving the ghat before 5:30AM. We reached the Sangam platform at approximately 6AM, we completed our Snan in 30minutes and we were back to our car by 7AM.

Since we had a lot of time at hand, decided to visit the temples on the other side, which turned out to be a wrong decision. We decided not to take the car to the other side and rely on ericks and bikes.

The temples were closed for the day as Bhutan’s King was visiting along with UP CM. We decided to return back on foot, but some of the Pontoon bridges were closed and we had to walk a lot in scorching heat to reach our car. We left Prayagraj by 12:45PM and reached Rewa at 4PM. Booked a room in Rewa for a well-deserved sleep and rest.

We left Rewa at 7:30AM on 5th Feb and on the way visited Bhedaghat Waterfall, which was recommended by my colleague. We stopped over at a small resort at 9PM right on the Maharastra-Telangana Border.

Final day, we started the drive back to Bangalore at 4:30AM and reached Hyderabad by 8AM. Since we had a bit of time, visited the Statue of Equality which is close to Bangalore-Hyderabad highway. Started for Bangalore at 12Noon and reached back home at 9:55PM. The last 50Kms from Airport to my home took over 2.5hours.

Total distance travelled is 3550.6Kms in under 50hours of driving time.

Few pointers

• Try to reach Prayagraj by 5AM, this will help in getting an easy parking spot and a boat to the Sangam. We had a clear run to the parking lot with no restrictions.
• At Kumbh, situation can be very fluid, and restrictions can be placed at any time. We were lucky to get a boat to the Sangam, this got closed by 8AM for VIP movement.
• I would highly recommend to just restrict the visit for Snan at Sangam and return. The temples will still be there and can be visited anytime when the crowds are lower, but the auspicious Maha Kumbh Mela will not come again in our lifetime.
• Be ready to walk long distance if planning to explore
• The road conditions are very good for more than 98% of the distance. Any car can do the distance if it’s in good nick. I could see all types of cars right from humble Alto to the mighty Fortuners on the road to Prayagraj.
• Keep an eye out for wrong side driving post Nagpur, this is rampant in MP and UP. We anticipated this and were very careful around these places.
• There are enough restaurants with decent rest rooms on the way.

Happy to answer any questions.

Har Har Mahadev

The machine for the long drive


At the 1000Kms mark


Driving through the heart of Bharat


Less than 100Kms to Prayagraj


Final Stats


Random Pictures from the Maha Kumbh Mela

[IUNKWN]

So finally I set sail with family, drove upto nagpur. I was surprised to see the highway is full of TS and KA vehicles. The drive upto jabalpur was smooth one. Just after crossing jabalpur about 30 mins drive disaster stuck. Massive traffic jam. We came to know people are stuck since night with family and small children. Absolute mayhem. The reason for the jam was police blocked highway because situation in Rewa and Prayagraj has become unmanagable. There is no petrol diesel in Rewa since tankers were stuck outside.

With every passing minutes and AC running in all cars we were getting very worried. Some guys showed leadership, managed to make space with help of truckers to cross to the other side of highway. There was no divider to separate the highway but a small ditch. I had an SUV that managed to cross it but for small cars it was difficult.

We managed to return to jabalpur late night and now heading back to Hyderabad. Police were requesting with folded hands please return do not go situation is very serious.

What made me upset is the main stream media is totally suppressing this. If we were aware of it we wouldn't have started at all. Only when you dig comment section of youtube and twitter you can see people reporting it. And there are several others abusing them not to spread it citing it as misinformation, sounding like IT cell guys

[MyLife_MyCar]

Originally Posted by IUNKWN

We managed to return to jabalpur late night and now heading back to Hyderabad. Police were requesting with folded hands please return do not go situation is very serious.

Well, that explains the low numbers reported by NDTV on the number of people who have taken the holy snan so far as majority is stuck on the roads. I wonder who are 0.57 people!