[Dr.AD]

Prologue: BMWs and Rains

In our local BMW 3-series owners and friends group (not an official or a formal group by many means; just a casual group of 3-series owners who share common interests and became friends), we often joke about BMWs and the rain. We joke, based on purely anecdotal evidence (not to be taken seriously), that BMWs are sitting ducks even in the small puddles after a tiny amount of rain. Just jokes, but these "BMW and water" jokes go on and on in our group.

Little did we know that when we drove out for this year's monsoon drive across Coastal Karnataka, Goa, and the hills of Maharashtra, in not one or two, but in 10 BMW 3-serieses in various shapes and forms, we would be continuously challenged by, tested against, and made to fight against the very thing that we joke about the most and fear the most - water!

So this is a story of the 10 BMWs against the fury of extreme monsoons that we faced in Coastal Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra early July this year. And a story of 10 drivers who drove on, crossed many puddles, crossed many hills and ghats, relentlessly drove on highways with wipers running at max speed all day and water splashing on all sides of the cars, maneuvered uncountable speed-breakers and a few potholes too, had to stop and turn back and find alternative paths on more than one occasion, and still made it a successful drive with smiles on their faces!

We were 10 friends, each driving a BMW 3-series. As I said, this was not a formal or an official group by any means. Just a casual, informal, friendly group. Two common things had brought these 10 men together. The superficial commonality was that they all drove a 3-series. But the more important common factor was that they all love to drive, they drive long and they drive hard, and enjoy every driving challenge!. Not one of these 10 BMWs are garage queens!

The convoy of 10 included these eight TeamBHP members driving their respective 3ers: @robimahanta (Sunset Orange M340i), @RakishRam (Dravit Grey M340i), @HighRevving (Portimao Blue 330i), @praveenbalan (White 330i), @jfk1975 (White 330i), @hemanth.das (Portimao Blue 330i), @PrideRed (White 320 Ld), and myself (Melbourne Red 320d F30). The two others, Purna (Portimao Blue 330i) and Prabhath (White 320d F30) are not members of the forum.

We had two F30s as mentioned above, and the rest 8 were G20s. We had three Blue and four White cars in the convoy. That made a nice pattern of white and blue as the convoy drove down the highways and the ghats. The Melbourne Red, Sunset Orange and Dravit Grey offered some variation from this blue and white pattern from time to time.

This was a 3 days and 2 nights drive. The rough trip plan that we had in mind when we started the drive was this:


This circuit was chosen to include a variety of conditions: scenic hills and western ghats, coastal highways with a couple of scenic sea-view points, again some hill climbs, and in the end fast and flat highways back to home.

As it turned out, the actual route we took was different. We were constantly challenged by the rain, and at one point, we had to turn back, forego our hotel reservations, find a new hotel and make a new trip plan on the go. So the final route turned out to be different. Please read on for that story!

The best camera is the one you have, or the one you actually use in the given conditions. I was carrying my Nikon Z5 in the car trunk for this drive. However, as it turned out, most of the times it was raining, we were always under challenging conditions, and my mind was more focused on checking the routes, timings, conditions and keeping myself dry. We hardly ever got a chance to even get out and talk to each other in that heavy rain. Given all this chaos, it never occurred to me to take my camera out and take a nice composted photograph. The camera remained in its bag in the entire drive. Not even a single picture from the camera. All I managed was jumping out of the car in the rain, quickly pulling out my mobile, and capturing whatever photos I could while still thinking about the next path and the next challenges ahead. So in summary, all photos in the report below are taken with a simple mobile camera.

[Dr.AD]

Agumbe, Kundapur and Torrential Rains on the Coast

Our Day 1 plan was to drive through the western ghats in Karnataka, then descend down the famous Agumbe ghat (Agumbe is famous for very high rainfall - one of the highest rainfalls locations in India), then join the coastal highway NH66 and drive north to Kumta, and at the end of that long drive and the long day, stay at "Gamyam Retreat", a lovely resort in Kumta.

Our meeting point was Paakshala Yediyur, where we also enjoyed a fresh hot breakfast of idli-vada, pongal, and coffee.

We all started early morning from our homes, around 5am. I was on track for earlier than scheduled arrival at the meeting point. However, thanks to the enthusiastic and punctual group we had, many had already arrived by the time I drove in the parking lot, some 15 minutes ahead of time!

I was not the first to arrive, in spite of being 15 minutes early, and I parked next to the others who had arrived before me:



A few others joined soon:



Somewhere near Chikmagalur, a quick regroup and a break to stretch our legs:


As we crossed Chikmagalur and started driving on the scenic Chikmagalur-Sringeri road, two things happened: the traffic dispersed and we had pretty much empty roads, and the rain started which was with us through the rest of the day, and in fact got extremely heavy in the later part of our day. From this point on, it was a true monsoon drive! The rain is hard to see in these pictures, especially these low quality mobile phone images, but it was indeed raining in pretty much all the pictures below.

Our convoy on those scenic roads (you can see the rain if you see closely near the car bumpers):



Views in my ORVM (amidst the rain that you can clearly see here):


But wait. Where is the 10th car? If you cared to notice above, there are only 9 cars in that picture.

The 10th car, Robi's Sunset Orange M340i, directly joined us at the next regroup point, which was "Khandya Cafe" on that scenic road.

The Orange M340i arrives and greets us here:



The full convoy, all 10 cars now, neatly parked next to Khandya cafe:



Another view of the convoy:



The classy and elegant grey M340i of @RakishRam:



And the Sunset Orange of @robimahanta:



A bit ahead, we pulled over to enjoy the views of the clouds in the hills ahead, and in general the amazing weather:



We had this scenic road that we were driving on, and absolutely no traffic, and we enjoyed such breaks when possible:


Our next major "attraction" was the famous Agumbe ghat. As expected, we encountered nice weather with rain, fog, and plenty of scenic views from Agumbe ghat. Again, there was no traffic anywhere at all (one of the reasons could be that just recently, Agumbe ghat was closed for heavy vehicles due to possibilities of landslides, and only a few private cars were all we saw in that section).

Our convoy in Agumbe ghat:



@praveenbalan's 330i M Sports:



And my 320d:


Our next stop was a lunch break at "UVA Meridian Bay Resort" near Kundapur. This is a nice resort with spacious parking space (one of the main reasons to choose this place for our lunch break). Again, there were hardly any other cars. We took a section of the parking lot and parked all our cars there.

Parking lot taken over by 3-ers:



The pattern of blue and white:



The red one at the end, a clear outlier in the pattern:


We enjoyed a sumptuous lunch here. The food was indeed quite tasty. We had a nice and relaxed lunch break. After this lunch break, we started for the afternoon and evening parts of our journey. The next stop was the famous Maravanthe Beach, on NH66.

Our convoy at that scenic location:



@PrideRed's 320Ld:



@robimahanta's M340i:



@praveenbalan's 330i:



@HighRevving's 330i with those gorgeous alloys:



A clean side view of @praveenbalan's 330i:



And @jfk1975's 330i (notice the subtle differences between the two white 330is which were otherwise identical):



And finally, my 320d:

Evening Drive in the Torrential Rains:

Although we enjoyed our time at Maravanthe Beach, by now, it was getting close to evening hours. Our drive had been slower than expected due to all the rains we faced, and by now, it was dark and started raining heavily.

From there, our next stop was our final stop for the day, Gamyam Retreat, Kumta. This is about 100km further north on the same highway, NH66, followed by some 10km of interior roads. As we started driving on that 100km northward stretch, it felt as if it was the "skyfall" (one of us was actually playing the skyfall music in his car ).

It was raining very heavily. It was a dark evening and visibility was close to zero. All we could see was the glimpses of white road markings, and a few odd shapes in the front, which were the trucks plying on the highway. Other than that, we just had a dark grey in the sky and tons of water falling on our windshields. Everyone's wipers were running non-stop at their max speeds. In the F30 at least, even the max speed of the wiper was woefully inadequate to handle that rain.

To make it worse, there was a lot of water on the road too. The rightmost lane, near the divider, had tons of water accumulated, and the left lane had a stream of flowing water. As the trucks moved through that water, they splashed so much water that our cars were getting momentarily submerged by that wall of water thrown at us from those trucks from time to time. It was extremely scary to pass a truck, or have a truck pass us even in the opposite direction.

I was a bit worried as I sensed that soon it would be night, and it would be impossible to drive through that mess in the night. But there was no chance of waiting or stopping too. The only right thing to do that moment, we felt, was to slowly and very carefully keep driving.

And here I must mention how well everyone drove! Everyone was an expert and experienced driver. Everyone drove exceptionally well, in slow and careful manner.

I wad on radio contact with Robi. We were checking on the progress of other cars. Given that all the cars were moving so nicely and carefully in spite of the extremely adverse conditions, we felt "all OK" and we continued our journey northward.

Eventually, after carefully tackling this non-stop deluge for the whole of the 100km under poor visibility, we reached the point from where we had to exit the highway and drive on the interior roads to the resort. We had decided to regroup at that exit point. However, when we reached there, it was still pouring from the sky and the visibility was very low. Thus, any chances of a proper regroup were zero. I just had a quick visual checks on the blinking indicators to verify that the cars were there, and signaled my left indicators and entered the interior road on the left. The rest of the cars followed me. I still could not see them properly. Just assumed they were there. A quick radio conversion with Robi to verify that all were OK happened. Between the two of us, we counted the cars and concluded that we were all OK.

Then the convoy started moving on the interior roads. And here, almost miraculously, the rain stopped and the skies brightened. We had indeed gained light. Now we could see again!

Without further drama, in about 15 minutes, we reached the resort. But now it started raining again, and our entire stay in Gamyam Retreat was under heavy rain!

The buggy in Gamyam Retreat, all covered up from the rain:


Even to move from our rooms to the restaurant, we had to call this buggy. Gamyam Retreat is a lovely resort with nice facilities and landscapes around. But none of that mattered to us given the nonstop pouring from the sky and given that we had reached there pretty late. We had a nice dinner and a chitchat session, and retired to our rooms.

This was a long and tiring day. We had started driving that day at around 5am, and had reached our resort by 7pm. We had already faced more rains than we anticipated on Day 1. And there were two more days left in this "monsoon drive". We had no clue what was ahead on Day 2. Tired, we slept and had a good night's sleep.

[Dr.AD]

Goa, More Rains, and Back to Goa!

After a good night's sleep, we woke up fresh and full of energy for another day of monsoon drive. We got ready and met at the breakfast at the restaurant in the resort. The food was nice! After a good breakfast, we checked out and once again sat in our respective driver's seats, ready for another full day of monsoon drive.

This is another beauty of our drives. We jokingly call these "truck driver's drives". Just like the truck drivers drive all day and rest when tired, we do just that. There is no other agenda. We just drive, sleep and drive again. We hardly spend any time enjoying the resorts or in any other activities in such drives. These are truly "Eat, Sleep, Drive, Repeat" type of drives!

Our plan for Day 2 was to drive to Goa, have lunch at one of the famous restaurants there with great sea views, and then enter Maharashtra and drive through the famous Amboli ghat, have vada pav and tea at Amboli ghat (my favorite places for eating vada pav are the stalls in Amboli ghat), and then descend down on the other side to Belgavi. Our stay for that night was booked at Marriott in Belgavi. Little did we know, when we started our engines that morning, that we would not be able to reach Belgavi that night!

As we joined NH66 and started driving towards Goa, the same scenes as the previous evening emerged again. Again, we faced torrential rains on the highway. Exactly the same scenes again. Water flowing on the left lane, water accumulated in the right lane, water pouring from the sky on the windshield and even at the max speed the wipers struggling to clear the windshield, poor visibility, and on top of that, trucks and buses throwing walls of water on us from time to time.

However, this time I was totally relaxed compared to the previous night. One, this was the morning hour and there was no danger of an impending nightfall anymore, and two, by now we had got used to these conditions and had resigned to the fact that this is how our drive was going to be.

I actually enjoyed driving through heavy rain that morning.

Soon we exited the highway and started driving on the narrow interior roads of Goa, going up and down small hills. These roads, with slower speeds and lesser traffics, were actually very enjoyable even in heavy rain!

Our lunch stop was the famous Cape Goa restaurant in South Goa, the restaurant famous for its cliff-side location and the fabulous views of the sea from the cliff and even from the tables!

After another session of heavy rain drive that morning, we reached here, the open parking space on the top of the cliff:



Views from the cliff as we descended down the steps to the restaurant:



The restaurant with views:



Views from our table, and you can see it was still pouring:



More views from the restaurant:


After enjoying our lunch and the views from that restaurant, we started driving northward towards Sawantwadi (MH), on our way to Amboli ghat.

As we crossed city areas of Madgaon and Panjim, it was again a rainy drive with poor visibility. We crossed the two big suspension bridges on NH66, and it was still raining a lot with a lot of water on the road yet. Eventually we entered MH, crossed Sawantwadi, and by around 4:30pm, regrouped at a restaurant on the side of the road, on the road between Sawantwadi and Amboli, just before the Amboli ghat began.

I was thinking that in the next 2 hours we would cross Amboli ghat, with a vada pav break thrown in, and by 6:30pm we would check into Marriott Belgavi, where we would party on successful completion of this monsoon drive (we consider the 500km drive from Belgavi to Bangalore as a home stretch that is so easy and fast that we consider any drive as over when we reach Belgavi ).

Drama in Amboli Ghat:

However, just as we pulled into that restaurant which was our regroup point before Amboli ghat, we started noticing strange things. First, a surprisingly large number of vehicles were coming back in the opposite direction, and one even signaled something to us. And then, that small restaurant which is usually always empty, had the parking lot full of cars parked everywhere quite haphazardly. That signaled to us that something was wrong.

When we checked in the restaurant, we realized that the road ahead was closed due to an overflowing bridge. The restaurant manager suggested we wait for sometime and the water will flow away and it would be all OK. We were unsure what to do. We quickly sat together and started exploring maps for alternative roads to Belgavi. There was no network there - zero phone signal and no internet connection too. But it helped that I had downloaded all the maps for offline use. I could explore the offline maps.

By then it was close to 5pm, and there was not much time left to try any alternative routes. Further, any alternative from that location to Belgavi, other than via Amboli ghat, was a long detour that would take at least 5 hours or so. And in that rain, with roads getting flooded already, bridges overflowing, there was no way we could drive in the night and try to find our way in late night.

So after some thought, we realized that our only option was to check again if Amboli ghat road is open, or else abort Belgavi plan altogether.

Then, after a round of tea, we made our mind and started driving towards Amboli, checking if the overflowing bridge would be OK in some time.

However, as we started driving to that bridge location, the seriousness of the situation dawned upon us. We could see floodwaters on the side, and it looked like the water level could rise anytime and the very road we were driving on could get flooded any minute. There was a 1km long jam before the actual bridge, where many vehicles were waiting for it to clear up. We chitchatted with fellow drivers there and realized that the bridge was still overflowing and even taking a U-turn was not possible if we moved ahead.

Robi and I talked on the radio, and we sensed a danger that the place where we were waiting could get flooded soon. While we still had a chance, we decided to take a U-turn, leaving behind that 1km traffic jam.

I think we did the right thing that time - we took a U-turn. All of us drove back to the restaurant, having realized the seriousness of the floods and the overflowing river. We realized there was no way we could reach Belgavi that night, without risking too much on some alternative hill roads in the night, which most likely would be flooded too.

So now the only option was to find where we could stay that night. Unfortunately, none of us had any internet connection at that point. There was no way to check maps or find alternative hotels. No phone signal and no internet connectivity.

So we decided to drive back to Sawantwadi and find a place where we could park and discuss the situation, and where we would have network connection to make some alternative plans. It was getting close to 5:30pm then, and that meant we had a very little time to make alternative plans and reach some place safe soon.

So the convoy drove back to Sawantwadi, and found a place on the side of the road where we could safely park. Coincidentally, the place where we found parking space was right next to the famous Sawantwadi Palace!

Our convoy parked in front of the Sawantwadi Palace, searching for alternative plans:



Stranded in front of a palace:


Everyone started searching for options to stay. One challenge in such large groups is that we need many rooms and enough space to park all our cars inside the premises. With these constraints, it was not easy to find a right place at the literally the last minute.

Coincidentally, the exact place where we were waiting at while searching for a good hotel, the Sawantwadi Palace, is itself a fine boutique hotel, as discovered by and nicely described by our good friend @KarthikK in his "Ninja 1000 log" here. Our first instinct was to check that hotel itself and stay there. While the hotel is fantastic and they could easily take all our cars, they had only 6 rooms and for those 6 rooms, they quoted an exorbitant total price that night. Something like a total of ₹1.6L just for one night stay before our early morning departure again next day. That made no sense to us.

The next logical option was North Goa, which was about an hour away from there. Again, while all these deliberations were going on, we were losing time, and by now it was close to 6pm. We had to find something very quickly and reach there within an hour, else risk night driving again in that heavy rain and flooded roads.

Finally, @HighRevving found a good option in the name of LaRiSa Resort, Ashwem, Goa. They had enough rooms for all of us, and promised they can accommodate all our cars.

That was around an hour away from where we were. So we quickly started driving there, and after some scenic drives and also some narrow village roads for an hour, we pulled into this LaRiSa Resort, for an unexpected overnight stay back in Goa!

LaRiSa Resort parking lot flooded with 3ers:


We had lost our hotel booking at Marriott Belgavi, and instead we were unexpectedly back in Goa. However, thankfully, everyone was still in good mood and there was not even a hint of a complain or negativity from even a single person.

We were just enjoying whatever experiences we were getting in this drive. Now that we were back in Goa, we decided to do a small party anyway, and took over a table at a poolside restaurant. We had a great time reliving the day's memories, and chitchatting and laughing away the problems we had faced in the day.

However, the bigger problem was of returning to Bangalore. We had to return home the next day because all of us had important commitments to attend to back in Bangalore. It was again raining cats and dogs, and we were half joking that it looks impossible that we can drive back the next day. There were jokes that we might have to come back to Goa again after another failed attempt to drive away the next day.

While we were still joking and simultaneously planning our return drive, a news came in that the local administration had issues a red alert for very heavy rain in Goa for the next 24 hours. The alert asked people not to venture out. That sounded very scary there at that moment. But we had no option but to attempt a drive from Goa to Bangalore the next day, in that red alert.

By the way, we were only 7 cars in the return drive the next day. @PrideRed and@praveenbalan had gone back directly on Day 2 because of their prior commitments, and @HighRevving decided to stay back in Goa and enjoy a longer break. The rest of the 7 cars would drive back to Bangalore together the next day.

The biggest question was which route to take back to Bangalore. We were at the northernmost tip of Goa. And from there, these were the options:

1. The shortest and fastest route, at least on paper, was the Amboli Ghat-Belgavi-Bangalore route again. However, it was too risky to try that again, as if it was still closed, we would have to come back again and lose many hours in the process. Our goal was to reach Bangalore the next evening at any cost, and we could not afford losing hours.
2. The other options were either to go to Belgavi via Ponda ghat, or to Dharwad via Anmod-Tinai Ghat. However, those roads are notorious for being extremely bad in the peak monsoons, and given the red alert and the floodings that day, it made no sense to try those in our sedans. All it would take is one flooded river to block those roads and we would have to come back again.
3. Finally, the longest route, but somehow the most sensible option was drive back to Karwar and Ankola (crossing entire Goa and exiting from South Goa), and then take the Ankola-Hubli highway and reach Hubli. This is our tried and tested road in many recent drives, and given the extreme conditions, we decided to stick to this longer but surer route. Also, if the roads were blocked, there were plenty of stay options on this route near South Goa or even in Karwar.

So with that planning, we called it a night and decided to meet at 7am the next day and starting our drive back to Bangalore.

[Dr.AD]

Water Logged Streets and Return to Bangalore

When I went to bed the previous night, it was still raining cats ans dogs, and puddles were forming everywhere already. My cottage had a wooden roof, and I could hear loud rain sounds on the roof. To be honest, I was not sure we would reach Bangalore the next day. I thought we might have to stop somewhere again given the amount of rain, water levels rising everywhere, and the red alert issued.

I could not sleep well that night. Every hour or so I was waking up due to the loud rain sounds. The rain sounds throughout the night were ominous.

Later my buddies mentioned that they also had the same experience. Everyone had a doubt in their mind about our chances of reaching back home that day. But we decided to stay positive and try to drive as much we could and see where we reach.

When I got up in the morning, I saw another ominous sign. Rainwater had seeped through inside the room from the door, indicating the amount of rain outside.

Rainwater seeping in my room, another sign of the extreme conditions outside:


By 6:30am, we started calling each other, and by 7am everyone had gathered in the reception and we were ready to start back. It was raining so hard that I got drenched in just a 10 feet distance between the hotel reception and my parked car!

None of us wanted to wait for breakfast or even a tea there. The restaurant was not open at 7am, and nobody was in a mood to wait till it opens and lose time. Everyone was focused on a single task - get out of there as soon as possible without losing any time and before the conditions got worse!

As soon as I rolled out of the hotel gate, it was obvious what we would face that day. There was water everywhere. Small but continuous puddles had formed on the roads, there was water logging on all sides of the roads and in the open lands, and it was still pouring from the sky.

We started our slow drive back, the six other cars following me as I started carefully finding path through those puddles.

We first had to travel interior country roads in Goa for about 25km, before we reached the main highway, NH66. Those country roads had tons of puddles and water everywhere.

Thankfully, there was no traffic. It looked like it was an ominous day, and only those like us who had no choice were out on the road. It was a red alert day after all. There were a few local scooters plying around though.

At every puddle we faced, we would stop for a moment, wait and watch. I tried to judge the depth of the puddle, watch a scooter or someone else drive through that, and then carefully take my car through that. The other 6 cars would watch the car in the front and follow the pattern. With that discipline, we crossed a few puddles.

This was one of the puddles that we safely crossed with a careful approach:


While it looked like we were doing OK and in a short while we would hit the highway, I saw a massive water pool in front of me. I stopped and my first reaction was that there was no way we could cross this in our cars. I radioed Robi, and we got out to assess the situation.

A massive water logging in front of us that made us stop and come out to assess the situation:


We waited for a while and saw other vehicles crossing it and struggle. A Bolero went by and it had massive amounts of water displaced as it went through it. Then we saw an Ertiga going through it with water levels rising upto its bonnet level. That showed us that it was stupid to try to do that in our cars.

An Ertiga through that water shows how bad it was:


All of us instantly agreed that our cars will not make it. It was way too much risk to take not one or two, but 7 BMWs through that mess.

So once again, we had to take a U-turn and look for alternative routes. Once again, some Radio communication between Robi and I took place and we found alternative route that would take us through Mapusa city and on to NH66.

Even on that alternative route, there were two quite serious looking water logged areas there. But there we decided to take our chances with careful driving, and I went in through those puddles, and the rest of the cars followed. At every such place, I would ask Robi on the radio if the last car had cleared it, and Robi would confirm once the last car cleared it. After crossing those two massive puddles just before the highway, finally we were on NH66.

The conditions on NH66 were similar to what we had faced on the first two days. Again big rain, poor visibility, trucks and other vehicles splashing water everywhere, and tons of accumulated water near the divider. But at least, there was no blockage and the traffic was flowing. We were by now used to these conditions. We continued driving, and after about 2 hours of non-stop morning drive through that mess, we found ourselves on the scenic two-lane roads of South Goa.

We took a quick regroup break once we hit South Goa, and made sure everyone was OK. By now, thankfully, the intensity of the rain had reduced. Looked like we were out of the red alert area. We had a quick tea at a roadside shop, and with a sigh of relief, continued driving to Ankola and then toward Hubli.

Our next regroup point was a small place called "Hotel Navami" on the Ankola-Yellapur stretch.

The 7 cars that safely made out of the red alert, together at Hotel Navami:


Here, we felt quite good because by now the rain had subsided a lot. Roads were clear now. No more water logging on the road anywhere. We were climbing up the hills, away from the area of extreme rain. We all sensed that we had successfully made it out of the danger!

With that sign of danger gone, @robimahanta, @hemanth.das and Purna decided to move ahead and said good bye to us, as they were in a hurry to reach back for their work commitments. We were on our own now. There was no need to stick to a convoy anymore. The rest four of us decided to have a light breakfast there and leave after a short break.

The two F30s, the oldest cars in the convoy, found themselves together here:


After a short breakfast break, the four of us continued to Hubli and then to Bangalore via NH48, with another coffee break where we would say good bye to each other and then drive back on our own.

The last four cars at a CCD near Haveri, for the last stop of the drive:


Here, we said goodbyes and from here on, we drove back on our own.

Before we reached home, there was one more spell of heavy rain and the usual water on the highways routine near Chitradurga. But this was nothing compared to what we had faced in the previous 2 days, and we sailed through this last spell of rain without any issues.

[Dr.AD]

Epilogue

In the end, the trip was a great fun, and all of us enjoyed it thoroughly in spite of the challenges we faced.

Please allow me to conclude this rather long report with a few random points in this post.

The Actual Route:

Because we could not cross Amboli ghat and had to return back to Goa, our actual traversed route turned out to be this:


Notice that we crossed entire Goa up and down twice (first time as per our plan, and the second time because we had no choice). And that happened when the state was experiencing extreme fury of the rain and was under red alert! We joked that the state is on red alert and we have a convoy of BMWs driving up an down the entire state twice!

The Attention Factor:

With colorful BMWs running together, our convoy got way too much attention everywhere. Especially the very similar looking white and blue cars! People turned their heads everywhere to see a line of white and blue BMWs going together. At every regroup point, the cars gathered attention and we had many local guys taking photos and videos of the convoy.

When we were returning from Amboli Ghat after that bridge closure, one Tempo purposely sneaked in the middle of our convoy, and someone from the tempo was holding a phone camera out of the window and taking a video of the convoy through those corners of the road.

In that final stop at hotel Navami, it became impossible for me to take a clean photo of our cars because a few guys there were busy taking photos and videos of our cars and they were walking around the cars taking their photos, giving me no room to take our own photos.

However, I do not blame the people. The cars looked so beautiful together that even I was smitten by the beauty of this convoy many times. I enjoyed the views of the cars in my IRVM (as I was leading the convoy most of the times), and then also enjoyed the lovely machines overtaking me one by one when it was time for them to go ahead and for me to drop back in the convoy. The sounds of the M340is were the next level. Just listening to Robi's car from far behind was a great experience!

At one time in a petrol pump, the three blue G20s, and the two M340is rolled in together, and that scene looked so incredibly beautiful that I could resist stepping out of my car and just watching those amazing machines. The whole petrol pump looked beautiful thanks to these machines. I was as spellbound by these beauties as the locals there.

I managed to click one picture before the other cars moved ahead.

The beautiful machines made the petrol pump look pretty:

The Dirt Factor:

I love dirty cars, when the dirt is from a road trip. All our cars got extreme dirty in this messy drive, and those looked beautiful.

I had stared with a clean car at the beginning of the drive. But when I reached back home, here are some of the close-ups of the dirt on the car:





I took it back to my usual car wash place, and they were shocked to see the condition of the car just in a few days since they had thoroughly washed it already. I told them about the Goa drive, and asked them to clean it again.

My car getting a cleaning done, just days after the previous cleaning and a inch thick mud accumulated in-between the two cleanings:

The Amboli Story:

When we had to return from Amboli, we could not fully understand what was ahead of us. Later, we checked the news and we realized how lucky we were to return safely from there. Had we gone ahead, or had nobody warned us about the dangers ahead, we could have easily got trapped inside flooded lands with nowhere to go, and could have got stuck there waiting for an escape path.

Later, we saw this video on YouTube, which was shot pretty much the same day we were trying to drive through Amboli Ghat (but thankfully could not):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55JRtVjjma8

That news narration is in Marathi, but it talks about the heavy rains and flooding in that region, and says that many vehicles were stranded there in that mess.

So in the end, we were indeed lucky to have returned from that point!

My only regret is that I could not give my buddies the delicious hot vada pav in Amboli ghat that I had promised them and was bragging about that for a while.

Sincere Thanks

Before I end this long report, I must thank all my buddies who were in this drive. This was a challenging drive to say the least. We very well knew this was a "monsoon drive" and were looking for some fun rain, but none of us had anticipated so much rain and water that we actually faced. The drive became long, hard, tiring and unpredictable. We even lost money on our bookings at Marriott Belgavi and had to book new hotel last minute. The lovely BMWs had to be driven through some of the toughest conditions. But not a single person in the group complained! Everyone took it all with a smile! All of them were extremely cooperative in all situations. And furthermore, when it came to driving discipline and skills, everyone demonstrated top notch behavior. It was an honor to drive together with these guys. What an amazing group! Thank you to all of my buddies in this drive!

And finally, kudos to the 10 beautiful cars that went through all this, and passed every test with flying colors. What amazing machines! Allow me to just quote what I wrote in our group that day just after we returned from the drive.

And hats off to our cars too. What amazing machines! We put them through some extreme conditions. Water logging, mad non-stop rain for hours, tons of water splashes everywhere, potholes, broken tarmac, uncountable speedbreakers, ghats, fast highways, everything was thrown at our cars. And every single car passed the test with flying colors. The cars are so lovely to drive and yet so robust and reliable when driven properly! These are true engineering masterpieces. Standing ovation to all 10 cars in the trip.

With that note of thanks, let me end this long travelogue. I request my buddies to add their photographs and their own views on this drive in the posts below. Looking forward to reading their posts.

And thank you very much to everyone for reading this long report.

[KarthikK]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[robimahanta]

What a lovely report as usual AD. It was an epic drive and I fell in love with the car yet again. Over 1500kms in torrential rains and we all made with a smile on our face. Kudos to the enthusiasm of the entire group to face every obstacle with a smile. We were so engrossed in the drive that pictures took a backfoot, sharing the few pictures I managed

Customary drone images from Marvanthe





Agumbe in the rain


My 3er


Looking forward to our next one!

[ajmat]

Nice travelogue. So glad you all made it out against all odds in conditions normally adverse to BMW's in terms of

Wipers normally too slow for torrential rain
Low sited engine air intakes
BMW wheels and tyres in pothole conditions

I was in Goa at the same time, the roads were appalling and our flight was
delayed by 6 hours.

[PrideRed]

Thanks AD for the travelogue and planning/making this trip happen. It was amazing to see the convoy in motion, rain and green cover made the drive better. Stretch from Agumbe to UVA meridian was fantastic and was tailor made for 3 series. This is a drive that I will cherish for long time. Last but not the least, nice company made for fantastic monsoon drive. You have shared everything in detail including amazing photos, adding few from my phone.

Maravanthe



@Hotel parking lot



Agumbe



The worst stretch -Kalladka

[HighRevving]

Thank you Dr. AD for the write-up and setting the tone for this thread.

I am going to come back with some videos and write-up on my experiences, but to keep the flow of the thread, I am posting the most relevant pictures I have, so they stay on top of the thread.

Some pictures from my phone camera:













Drone shots at Maravanthe beach:









Some shots along the Karwar Road:







Then some along the Chitradurga Highway:

[Innysta]

Wow. Such an amazing travelogue and beautiful white, blue, black and red lined BMWs. No brainer why people turned up their heads to watch. It's such a pull even when we watch the photos, i did scroll up and down multiple times to catch up the colors and see what different aspects of enjoyment i can derive at every time.. By the way, the writing made the readers to go through a breezy suspense thriller kind of narration. Well done. Congrats and appreciation to everyone who made it happen. Special kudos to the drone guys..

[RakishRam]

Amazing writeup Dr.AD. Till now I was thinking how to shower praises to you for the meticulous planning (each and every spot, stops, breaks and stays) you have made keeping in mind 10 cars. Now I see, you have put equal efforts in writing this travelogue. Hats off.

A few random pics from my side.

First a picture of our leader's F30 red hot 320d soaked in Rain at Kumta


And here is a photo clicked by Purna, the blue 330i owner who is not in the forum yet, Thanks Purna for clicking my M340i in the background of dark clouds and editing it to make more dramatic.


While a lot is written about weather, here is how angry and rough the sea was. Clicked from Cape Goa restaurant.


And on a lighter side, none of our trips are complete without one of us losing a tyre. Here is a video of one of us getting a bulge from a small pothole, play with sound. Perks of RFTs I must say

https://youtu.be/fr5m5d8tneU

All in all great drive, great roads and above all literally monsoon drive with nonstop rain. Looking forward to the next one.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by robimahanta

What a lovely report as usual AD. It was an epic drive and I fell in love with the car yet again. Over 1500kms in torrential rains and we all made with a smile on our face.

Customary drone images from Marvanthe

Looking forward to our next one!

Thanks again Robi! Fantastic drone shots. Thanks for sharing. And yes, looking forward to the next monsoon drive.

Originally Posted by PrideRed

Thanks AD for the travelogue and planning/making this trip happen. It was amazing to see the convoy in motion, rain and green cover made the drive better. Stretch from Agumbe to UVA meridian was fantastic and was tailor made for 3 series.

Thanks again @PrideRed. Yes, that stretch from Agumbe to Kundapur is one of the best to enjoy a good car. Even in such torrential rains, that stretch had butter smooth tarmac, some nice curves and corners, and good wide road with clear markings. Loved driving on that road!

Originally Posted by HighRevving

Thank you Dr. AD for the write-up and setting the tone for this thread.

Some pictures from my phone camera:

Drone shots at Maravanthe beach:

Thanks again @HighRevving. Amazing drone shots! Thanks for sharing those.

Originally Posted by RakishRam

Amazing writeup Dr.AD. Till now I was thinking how to shower praises to you for the meticulous planning (each and every spot, stops, breaks and stays) you have made keeping in mind 10 cars. Now I see, you have put equal efforts in writing this travelogue. Hats off.

A few random pics from my side.

First a picture of our leader's F30 red hot 320d soaked in Rain at Kumta

Thanks again @RakishRam! And thank you for sharing those pictures. I loved that picture of my car you took. Thanks for that.

Originally Posted by ajmat

Nice travelogue. So glad you all made it out against all odds in conditions normally adverse to BMW's in terms of

Wipers normally too slow for torrential rain
Low sited engine air intakes
BMW wheels and tyres in pothole conditions

I was in Goa at the same time, the roads were appalling and our flight was
delayed by 6 hours.

Thanks a lot @Ajmat! Yes you summarized the challenges very well. As @RakishRam posted above, we did have one tyre trouble, but thankfully it was not too serious. But yes, wheels and tyres were always the topics of concern when we were driving around those potholed roads, especially with potholes hidden under accumulated water.

Originally Posted by Innysta

Wow. Such an amazing travelogue and beautiful white, blue, black and red lined BMWs. No brainer why people turned up their heads to watch. It's such a pull even when we watch the photos, i did scroll up and down multiple times to catch up the colors and see what different aspects of enjoyment i can derive at every time.. By the way, the writing made the readers to go through a breezy suspense thriller kind of narration. Well done. Congrats and appreciation to everyone who made it happen. Special kudos to the drone guys..

Thanks a lot @Innysta for your kind words and appreciation! Yes those drone shots are amazing, and indeed special kudos to the drone guys!

[megazoid]

The pictures capture the wet drive very well. Rain drenched scenery has a special appeal and the cars look absolutely fantastic with this scenery. To tackle these engaing roads must have been next level fun.
Its a clear invite to hit the roads

[Gennex]

While reading the travelogue, you were getting wet by the pouring rain and I with the drool. Mesmerising drone shots. Difficult drive though. Bravo, to the team. Beautiful writeup by @Dr.AD and pictures by @Highrevving.