[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by rabnawaz_b

Great Travalogue Parag.. Can You give more details on DIY Armrest? Is it available online or custom made? Can I fit it on my Chevy Spark? sorry

I have answered your query in detail and you can find the same in my ownership thread:

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-t...ml#post3110569

[crazyfordriving]

Superb travelogue, loved the way you presented. I've been seeing and doing quite a bit of research on this travelogue since the time you wrote, but due to some unavoidable personal reasons, I was unable to comment

Originally Posted by paragsachania

[i]

Attachment 1073246

Superb editing.

[carzone]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

.

We are glued paragsachania, when are you continuing? A long time since you have updated!
Please update the later parts as well.

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by carzone

We are glued paragsachania, when are you continuing? A long time since you have updated!
Please update the later parts as well.

I will be updating the rest of the details either tonight or tomorrow. I am done compressing the photos and editing them to fit the log. Just that I have to start writing it for day 6 now .

Been busy at work and weekends with family that I got little time to move ahead on this.

Thank you for your patience, you should soon see an update on this thread

[Shiv_1984]

Oh My God !!! Amazing stuff I have been reading from past 1 hour. Infact i stopped my work to read your travelogue. Now I have to get back to it and cover up for the missed time .

Nevertheless, this is one of the best as it gives complete end to end knowledge of What, Why and How. Hats off .. Waiting to read your last leg of the journey.

[sanjoy50]

finished the log in a single sitting and waiting for the rest of the trip. your total attitude towards highway driving is exemplary. but please do find some time to complete the log. needless to state that we are enjoying every single word, you are putting in.

[advaitlele]

Hi Parag - We are eager to see the journey completed. Please finish the t-log.

[paragsachania]

I admit I have partly been lazy enough to finish this travelogue and mostly been busy with work and my recent drive to Mumbai/Pune and back last week which now takes my car’s ODO to the stupendous 200000kms!!
So here I present the rest of the details of my drive on the GQ continuing with Day 6.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day 6: Kharagpur - Vizag
Distance: 803 Kms
Start time: 1430 Hours (10th May 2012)
End time: 0130 Hours (11th May 2013)


This is the last capture before exiting from Kharagpur city.


Post our highly distasteful lunch at Kharagpur Railway station, we drove approximately 30 kms on a single carriageway lane to touch the Golden Quadrilateral around 14:30 hours.
Due to the design of the median, we could spot so many trucks parked on the median:

The road conditions are mostly good and concretized and we begin to gain pace quickly settling between 100-110kmph most of the times:


A couple of sections had a convoy of trucks happily parked on the median:

CHENNAI is now regularly appearing on the signage and it hints that we have now become to drive down south:

Just another freight train carrying coal on a hot may afternoon:

Traffic is absolutely thin in this section of the Golden Quadrilateral as we begin to encounter so many empty stretches.
Another reason could be the sweltering summer heat that may have kept the truckers off the roads and made them nocturnal:


Now begins the ordeal of dealing with perhaps the worst section of GQ which was officially undone (dating back to May 2012). The next set of snaps tells you how misleading will this “Good” road be for a first time driver on this sector. Most the culverts and bridges had this uneven, peeled off layer of tarmac over the concrete which gave a perfectly horrible experience.

We had to slow down to the 20s and second gear while crossing each of such bad patches:



We look forward to cross Cuttack and Bhubaneshwar now and enter into the 11th state on the 6th day of our drive!!


Not a surprising catch anyways:


West Bengal-Orissa Border:
This was the most clogged border entry (Into Orissa) that we encountered comparable to entering Haryana and West Bengal. Beeline of trucks parked all over the highway blocking all the lanes and a tiny hatch back trying to wonder where will it escape the mess.


Ah!! The break in the median is a hint that I take the wrong side (lets not talk rules while crossing a clogged border):

Then we merrily start driving on the wrong side.

While the attendant at the RTO booth suspiciously looks at a car bearing a KA Registration plate!!

We again get back to the left corridor only to get stuck in between trucks like these:


After we cross the border and enter Orissa, we are still greeted by innumerable freight trains transporting coal.
This one was mighty long I must say:


Empty roads make us grin and push the throttle and gain speeds:


224 Kms more to Bhubaneshwar means we cross the Capital of this state only in the late evening.


Driving ahead, we encounter plenty of such diversions along with some beautifully laid concretized roads with superb road markings too:




An undone Railway overbridge and the effects of it on the GQ:


It was a seesaw of good and bad roads all the way till Bhubaneshwar:


Even for my travelogue, I am beginning to suspect that this is overdose of pictures for freight trains:


(Day 6 continues.......)

[paragsachania]

(Continued......Day 6)

Excellent road surface which is better than the concretized sections which we passed a while before:



The condition of both the trucks clearly indicates the intensity of impact in this accident:


A neat shoulder dotted with palm trees all along:

Also tells that my windshield needs a cleaning!!

What Bangalore’s famed Madiwala underpass must learn from the barrier before the Railway Bridge that prevents taller trucks from accidentally colliding the Bridge and cause catastrophic damage! I have seen many a times container trucks getting stuck at Madiwala underpass post 10pm and cops and drivers struggling to get the monsters out.


A shining temple complex we passed nearing Cuttack:


Bridge over river Baitarani (IIRC):


Traffic started to build up as we crossed Jajpur. It was good to see the presence of so many cops, a few of them holding metal sign boards in their hands to control traffic:


Construction work was in full swing as we approached Cuttack.


Retrofit spare wheel for Humara Bajaj

We crossed the cities of Cuttack and Bhubaneshwar between 6 and 7:30pm in thick traffic that drastically slowed down our pace:



The last capture for Day 6 (Apologies for the shaken image but that’s the only one I have):


Rest of the events on Day 6:

An unexpected Jam:

We stopped for Tea break soon after crossing Bhubaneshwar. Further to this, we began to drive passing the Salt lake of Chilikha and the town of Bhulagaon and Bhramhapur in the next few hours. This section of the GQ was very bad with so many unfinished sections and huge speed-breakers. We crossed at least 3 railway crossing ever since we started after Bhubaneshwar. It was evident that most of the GQ was diverted into minor roads due to the work for Railway Over Bridges.

At one point we encountered a huge jam along with the presence of innumerable cops around 8pm. We could see that traffic was stopped from both the sides and cops were too reluctant to allow any private traffic too. Dark through the thick trees in a valley far away, we see a huge truck driven in reverse and we wondered why on earth was he doing it? When the truck began closing in, we realized it was a trailer truck carrying Hyundai cars and he was fantastically taking on the curves in reverse carefully assessing only through the mirrors and his faithful torch-bearing “Cleaner” waving the torch at him and finally reach the summit (where we were all waiting).

Cops then signal us to move and I along with another Tata Sumo start off like a chained dog let loose. We still wondered why the Trailer was asked to reverse till we reach a very narrow stretch of a road through a village with a T-Junction where taking right would continue on the main highway while left would lead into a village. It was evident that the trailer would have never made it through this section.

Dinner break:
There is no signage to indicate how far we are from Andhra Pradesh border as we were inquisitive to cross Orissa for some consistent good roads now!! It was around 9:15PM and we find a well lit Dhaba and we stop there for dinner. We order just plain Daal and Rice with carbonated drinks to quench the thirst in a hot climate even at that time of the day. The TV at the Dhaba was airing Telugu channel and that hinted that we might now be close to the AP border though maps still hinted another 60 kms to border.

Election time in Andhra Pradesh, Cops stop us thrice in 3 hours:
We continue our journey and finally enter Andhra Pradesh soon to be stopped by cops. Normally I turn on my cabin lights and they insist on opening the boot door. They lift each and every bag and try to “feel” currency notes and fail. They then ask my cousin to open the side door at the rear and focus their torch lights. They ask me where we are heading to and where we came from. We explain them the purpose and they look at the well lit MapMyIndia device hooked onto the Dashboard and smile to let us go!!

We are stopped twice again in similar fashion with checking of Boot and side door on both the occasions till we finally enter the beautiful city of Vizag around 1AM at night.

Good night day 6:
We settle at Hotel Meghalaya (URL:http://www.hotelmeghalaya.com/)where room was booked by one of my friends. After a quick shower, it was time to hit the bed with a feeling that “Tomorrow” is going to be the last leg of our GQ drive!!!

(Last leg of the GQ all the way to Bangalore via Chennai on Day 7 ....Continued)

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by carzone

Please update the later parts as well.

Originally Posted by Shiv_1984

Waiting to read your last leg of the journey.

Originally Posted by advaitlele

Hi Parag - We are eager to see the journey completed. Please finish the t-log.

Updated the complete details of day 6 folks. What remains now is just the last leg on day 2 between Vizag and Bangalore via Chennai to finish the drive Golden Quadrilateral.

[tharian]

Thank you!
It was a much awaited report.
The coal trains I guess are from the ports going inland since most of the coal are imported for electricity production.

[paragsachania]

Day 7: Vizag - Chennai - Bangalore
Distance driven : ~1250 Kms
Start time: 13:30 Hours - 11th May 2012
End time: 0830 Hours - 12th May 2012



The Hotel offered complimentary breakfast as part of the package and we relished on some much missed south Indian breakfast after a gap of one full week. After finishing the check out formalities, we visited a nearby ATM for withdrawing some cash good enough to take us all the way to Bangalore.

The feeling of driving on the 7th Day was different. More so due to the fact that by the end of this leg we would have completed driving on the Golden Quadrilateral.Unlike the usual drives coming to an end with a sad feeling, this one was keeping us all in the right spirits.

Driving from Vizag all the way till we entered Tamil Nadu Border after Nellore late at night, we encountered huge statues all over the Highway. Most common were of Lord Hanuman followed by a famous Politician and Swami Vivekananda.

We were amused at the frequency at which we kept spotting these monolithic statues.

Attaching a few of the captured images we managed to click under natural light:

















(Rest of the log continues....)

[B.R.S.Rao]

Thank you very much.
Tomorrow afternoon I am leaving to Bhubaneshwar, and returning on 8th. Sri.H.V.Kumar also sent me lots of minute details.
Regards.

[rkg]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

[b]



Driving from Vizag all the way till we entered Tamil Nadu Border after Nellore late at night, we encountered huge statues all over the Highway. Most common were of Lord Hanuman followed by a famous Politician and Swami Vivekananda.

We were amused at the frequency at which we kept spotting these monolithic statues.

Attaching a few of the captured images we managed to click under natural light:


(Rest of the log continues....)

None of these statues are monoliths. Most of them are plain concrete statues

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by rkg

None of these statues are monoliths. Most of them are plain concrete statues

Thank you! I should have rather meant just plain statues than explicitly using the word "monoliths" which was only a metaphorical term used to indicate that these structures or no smaller than the typical monolithic structures dating back to our History.

The reason for the post was to depict the numerous statues seen all over this part of the GQ in just a few hours.