[Gannu_1]

Thank you for painstakingly compiling and sharing the travelogue, doc! Loved the narration and snaps; felt as if I was at the back seat of the GT.

Cheers to robi and megazoid for successfully participating in the Gumball drive and completing it!

So graaja is known as coach in your circles. Noted.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

Fantastic travelogue and brilliantly written. Must say I had a mix of emotions from wonderment to surprise to disbelief and even a little envy to be honest while reading this .

Thank you very much! You have summarized the emotions very well. That is how we felt during the actual drives. Each new section we would start had its own elements of surprises - sometimes pleasant surprises and sometimes not so pleasant.

Originally Posted by ABHI_1512

This travelogue is like a script waiting to be picked up by someone and made into a large canvass movie. The travelogue has everything- friendship, fancy cars, good locations, fabulous food and most importantly, it has the intrigue associated with a road travel where every character has his own story to tell. Add some drama and bingo- we have a blockbuster.

Thank you very much! I have followed your travelogues too, and I really like your reports too. I always reading the travelogues about the Eastern parts of India, and I am glad I got to see that beautiful land first hand and drive there.

Anything related to the North East specially Arunachal Pradesh brings out the child in me. I have traversed the hanging bridge in Pasighat during my childhood days and it was something. I am sure that you guys enjoyed the trip much more then what we did while reading this lovely account. Thanks for sharing,

Oh great! Pasighat is a lovely place, and it must be so nice enjoying that place in childhood. I must say that the hanging bridge brought out the child in me too. The way I ate those oranges after climbing up the small trail was exactly how a hungry child would eat oranges. Those oranges were so sweet and juicy. I still can't say whether it was just that tiredness and hunger that made me feel that way, but I felt those were the best oranges ever!

Originally Posted by airbus

Awesome travelogue and this was a great Sunday reading for me

Thank you very much.

I am feeling jealous, being born and brought up in Assam I am yet to explore many places that you guys did. If things normalize, we are planning to visit native during April - May for extended duration (thanks to hybrid work model and school holidays) and will take a self drive car to explore some places in the North East.

Assam is a beautiful state. We got to drive across the entire length of the Assam and loved it. Wish you all the best for your travel plans!

Originally Posted by robimahanta

Lovely narration and pictures, AD. It was indeed a great road trip covering thousands of kms. Gumball was just the excuse to give us all the impetus for doing it.

Great report Robi! Thanks for sharing this. Gumball was really the ultimate thing, and the challenges you guys faced and overcome make any other drive sound like a cakewalk. Really inspirational stuff. Looking forward to complete Gumball travelogue from you and megazoid.

Originally Posted by Samba

I have read almost all your travelogues, but this one reached the next level!
There is absolutely no doubt that this car is a looker, but I must mention each and every frame has been captured aesthetically. The 'GT' flawlessly delivered what it's meant for!
It was all throughout an engaging read. Rated a well deserved 5*.

Thank you very much Samba! Really appreciate your kind words. I have read all your travelogues too, and I have seen some amazing landscapes in your travelogue. Nice to see your comment here.

Originally Posted by FuelInjector

Wonderfully written sir. There was one pic of ganesh in a silhouette, and another one with the GT in the sunsire. Those were my personal favourites.

Thank you very much. The sunrise were some of the pleasant surprises. We never really planned for those. We would just start driving, while still lost in our thoughts of the day's plan and still probably finalizing the day's agenda, and all of a sudden, we would see a beautiful on the horizon in front of us. Those were the magical moments.

Originally Posted by Hayek

Dr AD, what an incredible travelogue and what an incredible drive. Amazing to see the beautiful roads around the country. Do hope the current wave of expressway building carries on to Bihar and North Bengal and we end up with good roads there too.

Thank you very much, Hayek!

Regarding the expressways, actually UP, Bihar and North Bengal do have some great expressways. I was actually happy to see such massive network of expressways. Those four-lane expressways were great to drive on and if one sticks to those, the drive is a breeze, across all these states. The problem was when we had to exit the four-lane highways and drive on state highways. Almost all of the bad road experiences I mentioned are on these state highways. Those state highways were in general in very poor condition.

Had travelled along the roads to Kalimpong and Gangtok about 25 years ago - and they were super smooth, maintained by the BRO. The drive along the Teesta was a highlight of that trip. Disappointing that those roads were in such a mess right now. But am not surprised - we had been in Darjeeling for Diwali and faced huge traffic jams on our way to Mane Bhanejhang.

OK interesting. I think BRO is the best organization to maintain roads. We saw in Arunachal that most of the roads were maintained by BRO and they were in amazing condition. Not just the road surface, but also other things like lane markings, reflectors etc were done very scientifically. We enjoyed driving in Arunachal after sunset too, because the reflectors and cat eyes on the lanes looked so beautiful and they guided us nicely across the hilly roads. It was an amazing experience.

Regarding the Kalimpong road, as @gmhossain posted above, probably it was due to the recent floods and landslides.

Originally Posted by Sanidhya mukund

Thank you for the beautiful travelogue! Not too many people are brave enough to undertake such journeys, not in the least when they have low slung BMWs.

Thank you very much.

This travelogue goes to show that even a BMW/Merc/Audi does just fine driving through rural roads if the driver knows his car well.

Agree 100%. One had to know how to manage a low slung car and know where to be adventurous and where to back off. But with such precautions, one can these these cars mostly to anyplace (except of course, the extreme 4x4 territories).

I assume the 330i takes in premium fuel only. How difficult was it to find pumps that serve premium fuel, especially in rural parts of Assam, West Bengal and Bihar? Here in Guwahati, one can find premium fuel at a couple of pumps, but is it the same in other cities?

Actually we just filled normal petrol. graaja has been running the car on normal petrol so far, and he is happy with that. We also knew that premium fuels will be hard to find, so we did not even bother about that. We just made it a habit to fill regular unleaded petrol at all times.

The only precaution we always took is to somehow find a clean looking pump with several trucks and cars filling there. Both of us have developed a kind of intuition about how to identify a good pump. Not that this is scientific method and we could be wrong at times. But we just trusted our intuition and when both of us said "yes, this looks like a good pump!", we drove in and filled regular fuel. When either one of us had a doubt in our mind, we did not fill there and just moved on to find the next pump.

[JoshMachine]

Amazing write-up there, Anand
Actually, its more of a wonderful story rather than just a travelogue. Couldn't take my eyes off once I started reading it.

The non-sequential way of penning down the journey, is what it makes it more enjoyable to read. Beautifully captured.

Kudos to the other partners - graaja, megazoid and robimahanta for being a part of this epic journey.

Liked the way robi started off his eventful journey from Bangalore

Now, waiting for another dishful from graaja and megazoid on their experiences.

[im_chandan]

I really like the new style of storytelling, felt like watching a movie

There is a four-lane work-in-progress road from Patna to Gaya via Rajgir, known as Budha Circuit. Once completed it will be easier to cross Bihar to WB.

Being from BIHAR, I really appreciate and am thankful to you for being nice to them and allowing them to take pics.

By any chance, did anyone ask for a ride

Looking forward to more such TL,
Thank you!

PS: Such beautiful written travelogues puts me on shame to write and share, can't even match the 1% of yours TL in terms of quality.

[busydrive]

In one word amazing. An entirely different style and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Not just an travelogue it was like an journey with different experiences and you took us through all the events in such a fantastic way. I think this sets a new benchmark for travelogues at Team-Bhp. Thank you.

[nekfar]

This is one of the best write-up I have ever read. Absolutely amazing, Sir!!

Kudos to all the actors (Dr. AD, Graaja, Megazoid, Robimahanta and the Cars, of course) in this epic travelogue/journey compilation.

Now, eagerly awaiting for other participants penning their side of the stories.

[PapaBravo]

Incredible writeup Dr. AD. You have been able to capture the true essence of road travel in India through your travelogue. I am sure covering so many states would have provided you fresh perspective about the country. Keep on travelling & Keep on writing !!

Next time, do get in touch with any of us in the eastern part of the country for help or assistance.

PS : I understand the attention the Bavarian gets on the country roads. Here is one selfie in light rain that a young lad clicked of my car at a railway crossing while coming back from Sikkim.



Cheers,
Pawan

[RaviKBobba]

Happy to hear about your recent travelogue & kudos to the Blue beemer.

Thoroughly enjoyed reading the entire transcript & happy to see such wonderful pictures as well.

[dsnaveen21]

Fantastic travelogue.. Have been reading for the past 1 hour.. I enjoyed thoroughly reading this.
Thank you for sharing this with all of us.

[sachin_cs]

Holy mother of a road trip, kudos to all of you for attempting something which essentially is a dream for lot of enthusiasts. You guys have once again proved that we don’t really need an SUV to do cross country. Amazing photography too, I can confidently say that this is one of the most amazing travelogue I have come across.

[animeshc]

What an awesome and inspiring journey, this was a joy to read. Not sure if I missed it but where all did you take night halts along the way from Blr to Arunachal, just a pointer for me to keep a theoretical plan ready

[sougatadas]

Truly amazing travel and travelogue both.. I can understand how much meticulous effort was needed to record each and every details about so long a trip.. but it was done perfectly. Many congratulations Dr.AD and robimahanta. Will wait for others share of the story. Keep going

[itwasntme]

Truly inspiring, both the journey itself and the meticulous storytelling. Cannot but help think that guys like you make Walter Mittys of us all (in a good way)

Walter Mitty (noun)

Wal·​ter Mit·​ty | \ ˌwȯl-tər-ˈmi-tē \
Definition of Walter Mitty
: a commonplace unadventurous person who seeks escape from reality through daydreaming

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dict...Walter%20Mitty

[docsr]

Congratulations Dr.AD and the rest of the team for a phenomenal drive. The name Gumball Rally kindled a childhood memory!
Here it is:


This was 1976 movie.
Here is the link to the trailer:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074597/?ref_=vp_back

[vinya_jag]

Loved every bit of the travelogue. Had to read them in parts. I wonder how you could pen them all down in such a short time. Thanks for sharing in such detail. I was seeing such contrasts of the roads, people, infrastrcuture, traffic situation etc, and wondering how it felt to stay in a place like Bodh Gaya, travelling between destinations on those narrow crowded roads and going on with their business, and for someone using those Mighty Hyderabad roads and doing their business. I am sure 100s of thoughts would have crossed your minds as well. Share them if you can.