The route, dates and times:
Delhi - Manesar - Western Peripheral Expressway - Yamuna Expressway - Agra-Lucknow Expressway - Etawah - NH19 - Kolkata
Departure 8 pm on 3rd March, arrival 11 pm on 4th March.
Kolkata - Bardhaman - SH7 - Moregram - Farakka - Botolbari - Madarihat - Falakata - Salkumar Gate (Rhino Inn)
Departure 8 pm on 11th March, arrival 2 pm on 12th March.
Salkumar Gate - Jalpaiguri - Chalsa (Tiyabon Resort)
Departure 11 am on 13th March, arrival 5 pm. Stopover at Jalpaiguri.
Chalsa - Gorumara Sanctuary - Samsing - Rocky Island - Chalsa
14th March.
Chalsa - Coronation Bridge - Siliguri - NH27 - Purnea - Muzaffarpur - Gorakhpur - Lucknow - ALE - YEW - Delhi
Departure 8 am on 15th March, arrival 10 am on 16th March.
CiazzlerŽ came home on the evening of 28th February 2019. And we were on our way to Kolkata on the evening of 3rd March 2019. There's a wedding in the close family to attend at Kolkata, and then we planned to explore a part of the forests of North Bengal. But before that, we had to stop over at Manesar.
Now that the car came equipped with Fastag from the showroom, I had to figure out how to log in and load money into the HDFC account. Once that was done, we were on our way to Manesar, and then a left turn on to the Western Peripheral Expressway, where, sadly, they don't accept Fastag payments yet.
At Hodal, we turned off the WPE towards Palwal on NH19, and turned right again to take the road to Aligarh for some 30 km (of which about 10 km was tough for a sedan). Here, we connected to the Yamuna Expressway. The rest of the journey to Kolkata was routine for us, with the added happiness of some really empty roads between Allahabad (Prayagraj) bypass and Benaras.
4th March was Maha Shivratri, the last day of the Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj, and all truck traffic was being diverted north from Fatehpur, away from Prayagraj, even as a multitude of passenger vehicles of all sizes headed towards the city for the last
snan of the Ardh Kumbh. Mercifully, therefore, the eastbound lane from Prayagraj to Benaras was absolutely devoid of traffic, and we raced through to reach the Ganga Bridge at Benaras (only to be held up there for almost an hour).
After crossing Dehri-on-Sone and the Sone river, we took a break at a Reliance Midway near Aurangabad. The food here is decent, but fuel prices in Bihar are far more expensive (about Rs.6 per litre for petrol) than in UP, JH or WB. Since we were a little low on fuel, took just enough to last us till the next Reliance pump we knew at Jharkhand.
Tyre troubles! On a whim, I'd clicked a truck tyre that appeared to be disintegrating...
Some kilometers down the road, as we started to overtake a trailer truck, the tyre exploded next to my ear. Thankfully, the shiny new car wasn't hit by flying debris!
And then, a little before crossing over from JH to WB, our own car's tyre was damaged by a pothole, and deflated (more details
here (The CiazzlerŽ | Our Nexa Blue Maruti-Suzuki Ciaz Petrol (Alpha))).
Our other routine stop on this highway is at Shaktigarh, and here we are...
Kolkata, here we come!