[bangarchand]

A tour of north India looks incomplete if you do not climb the Himalayas for at least a few days. The mountain range, especially from Sikkim to Kashmir is special because that kind landscape and flora and fauna is easily available for south Indians here. One should realize that the mountains after Sikkim to north east is almost similar to the ones in the western ghats in south India. During the last few years, trips to Sikkim and then to Nepal and earlier to South India and a short trip to Mahabaleshwar were done choosing different routes.

This year I was thinking of going to either Leh and Kashmir (which I did few months back this year) or to Badrinath. Sadhana, my wife, was reluctant about any such adventure. Her apprehensions were based on the fact that we are already over 60 and the passengers were only three, i.e. I, her and our differently abled daughter Chandini. But just for the above reason I wanted one mountain top visit and opted for Badrinath. Kedarnath was not in the picture as, even I was also not eager to walk from Gaurikhund. I had actually done that about a decade and half back without any difficulties. But was not eager to repeat the same.

So, after repeated postponement, it was decided to pack up and go. The tour started on sept.22. and ended on 6th oct. 2023. Even though the idea was lingering all the time, the final decision was taken only two days before the tour. As a matter of fact, that is all you require these days to organise a tour. Because if you are going by car, you don’t have to worry about any bookings. And modern cars are normally in good shape for such adventures. Even if they are not, facilities are available almost everywhere

Our car, Innova Crysta was in ship shape. A new tyre was bought, add-blue added and washing was done Just on previous night, I remembered that I did not have the hard copy of the insurance and hurried to a nearby shop of Rakesh to get one printed there after downloading it. For some reason, it does not come down to my Digi locker.

Since we are agriculturists, area inside compound is pretty massive and we have to make lot of arrangements for guarding, day to day works etc. CCTV had to be checked to see that it will remain on for the duration as well.

Packing is no longer a tough job. This is so because with only three passengers in Crysta, space was not an issue at all. Full liberty was given to Sadhana to pack whatever numbers of dress she wanted. Over the last few tours, we have started to take two bags each for each of us. One big bag will contain all the cloth and one handy bag will have minimum cloth for a few days and basic items and only this bag will go to rooms. Once these clothes are used after 3-4 days, we shift the soiled cloth to a big bag and a few more fresh clothes are filled to the hotel bag. This makes occupying rooms very easy.

Most of the transactions or 80% would be done with cards and UPI. But some cash will always be there. Fastag account was filled with 10,000/. 2-3 ATM Cards are taken with clearly noting their pin numbers, passwords etc.

DAY 01

4 AM is the routine time for us to get up and by 4.45 we were in car. Normally on every tour this duration is when we are very tense for no apparent reason. We start relaxing only after the first break for food after day break.

Our initial destination was Ellora and then Ujjain. There are many route options. One is kumta, Hubli, Vijayapura, Solapur. The other one is agumbe. Shikaripur, Shigaav, Hubli. The other one is chikmagaluru. Hospet., Vijaypura. We opted for the middle one.

The route is Puttur..guruvayankere.. Karkal..and this is where we had our breakfast. The road is ordinary but not bad though. Then the road is agumbe. Thirthahalli.. Shikaripur. Shiggav and Hubli. Near shiggav, I called my friend at thadasa where he resides. He invited us to visit his farm. But I politely refused as we had to cover a lot of distance on day one which is our routine norm also. We wanted to cover 1005 kms and reach Aurangabad.

From shiggav we take right towards Bankapur and then to left to join the NH and just before we reach Hubli, we leave it towards right towards naragunda, Bagalkot. The hotels in these areas are not very tidy but the one we visited at Naragunda gave us delicious north Karnataka lunch. The area is expectedly quite backward.

We bypassed Vijayapura but had a glimpse of Gol Gumbaz. Then comes Solapur. By mistake we missed the bypass and wasted nearly half an hour by entering the city. Then comes Osmanabad which again is bypassed. Osmanabad seems like a very big city.

By now that evening traffic had started hitting the street and over and above that the rain started. All these started slowing down our speed. So, we thought of breaking the journey before Aurangabad. Just before we enter Beed, we found hotel Kanhaiya and got very decent rooms there. Had our dinner also in the same hotel. Gave a quick wash to the car before our dinner. We had covered 860 kms without much notable issues.
On the way maharastra


DAY 02
The day started with good Idli Sāmbhar breakfast in the adjacent restaurant belonging to our hotel. We headed towards Aurangabad on the highway. Since the traffic was very sparce during this early hour we reached Aurangabad, bypassed it, and headed towards Ellora caves which is about 10 KMs ahead of it. Expectedly the caves are in a hilly area. We had visited Ajanta caves few years back and which is not very far from here.

Car parking area is very lousy with plastics, bottles, pigs and what not. The guides pounced on you for assistance but we refused and headed towards the ticket counter. We had to buy tickets for Chandini also despite her UDID card. Tickets are nominally priced. The area after the counter is very tidy and neat. Even though there was a pretty good crowd, since the area is well spread out, one need not jostle in the crowd.

The first and main attraction here is Kailas temple. It was built more than 100 years ago and is carved from a huge rock. The structure is fabulous to say the least and it towers over the Ajanta caves for the sheer beauty of it. There is a huge Shiva ling inside the sanctorum and pooja is not performed. There are many caves on either side of the temple and you must climb or ascend the hill to go there. Sadhana did not go anywhere while I visited few of them and these caves are very similar to what we see in Ajanta, Badami and elsewhere.

Overall, the Ellora location and landscape is very eye-catching and visit worthy. We went to a small hotel near the car park, had limboo juice, tea and vada pav. Ellora is in Maharashtra and at noon we left it towards Dhule to catch the Mumbai Agra highway. The journey was frequented with intermittent rain, bad roads, missed bypass etc.
ellora caves



After bypassing Dhule, shirpur we reached Indore by evening. Ujjain is about 20 kms from here. I called hotel Vijaya palace where I had stayed on an earlier visit. Paid advance by UPI and headed towards there. But missed the proper bypass of Indore and wasted some time on small village roads before re-catching the highway.
There has heavy rush in Ujjain due to Ganpati pooja and visarjan programmes. Lots of pendals were erected on the road. Usually at around 7.30 pm all the cities in north India bustle with people and vehicles. I knew that our hotel was in a narrow lane but just a stone's throw from the temple. But the roads suggested by google were blocked due to pendals and I finally had to hire a e-auto, make him talk to the hotel and direct me to the hotel which he did. I paid him 150/ quite happily also. Once our bags were unloaded, the hotel people took our car to keep it somewhere in their parking space.

The rooms were obviously very good and had a very nice hotel in front for our dinner also. The total travel distance we did was 440 KMs. and Ellora apart, it was a very dry run all through the day.

DAY 03
We got up early and walked across to the temple premises of lord Maha kaleshwara. The gates were opened at 6 am and we were very near to the front in the queue. But once the gate was thrown open the rush of people increased massively and the line discipline was virtually thrown astray. Inside I pointed to one guard and told him to remove Chandini from the queue and allow her to escape the rush. He obliged and hence sadhana and Chandini were allowed to proceed further after he opened the gate for them. Even though there was rush they were able to enter the temple and get the darshan or more precisely just a glimpse of God Mahakala. I reached later and in the jostle was able to see Mahakala.

After that we came out without difficulty and had our breakfast comprising of kachori, puri etc. Then we walked across to view the newly built Mahakaal corridor along with a temple for Bharath Matha. The place is well built and maintained. We spent some time there and then headed to our room. As a matter of fact, the hotel people had parked our car by the roadside in front of the temple.
Ujjain Mahakaal mandir




By 9.30 we had checked out of our hotel and without much difficulty joined the Gwalior highway at a place called Maski. Just before that we had our car wheel alignment done. On the way we had a decent lunch. I stopped the car on roadside near a tank and washed the car. The tank owner did not like it and asked me to pay Rs. 50/. Then we passed Shivpuri, Guna and about 12 kms behind Gwalior we found a good hotel on the highway and got our rooms. We had our dinner in the same hotel and karyakartas of MP BJP descended from a bus for their food. They were going towards Bhopal to attend PM Modi rally. We did 470 kms for the day.


DAY 04

We got up and filled the car tank full with fuel in the pump belonging to the hotelier and then went towards Gwalior. Since we were not in hurry it was decided to have breakfast in Gwalior. On that pretext we roamed around in the streets of Gwalior for a while but failed to get such hotel. But we found a very good food at Hotel Bikaner Wala, where we had chole batura and coffee.

We had decided to visit the Gwalior palace and fort. But when we reached the palace entrance, they said it was closed for the weekly day off, that is Monday. This had happened in 1999 also and we could just take a photo from the entrance only then and now also. We then climbed the hill to reach the Gwalior fort. The google map takes you to the entrance of the fort at the foot of the hill. One can climb the hill in steps from there. But I remembered that there is a road which takes you to the hill top. And found it. It goes through the narrow lanes and in a one-way traffic we reached the fort entrance.

The fort does not seem to be well maintained and crowd also is very sparce. However, the fort looks massive and there are view points from where we can get a bird’s eye view of the Gwalior city. We had some refreshment there. Then a small boy insisted that he shows his magic skill and we paid him Rs. 50/, mainly as a support. While coming down we must wait for a while since the police allows one way traffic by rotation there.

By the by we had travelled in the same road from Dhule till Agra a year ago while returning from Nepal. Agra is 120 kms from here and we reached there via Morena where we had stayed last time. At Agra, we must stop our car in the parking lot and then travel by battery operated bus of theirs. At the entry point, we were first told not to buy tickets for Chandini but later were asked to buy the ticket for her. Taj premises are very well maintained and still looks very enormous and magnificent. The corridors and garden around are very fresh and tidy. The ticket costs you 50/₹ and to go to the underground of the structure you need to pay another 200/.
Oh..! Taj


Fully satisfied we came out and had tea and snacks outside. Taj was not in our bucket list as we had visited there many times and skipped it many times also. But this time we changed our mind and we were happy that we did. From there we went towards Mathura which is about 60 kms and reached there comfortably by evening. We found a very good hotel in the heart of the city and very near to the famous Dwarakadeesha temple. The receptionist had told me that the hotel was full but somebody who seemed like the proprietor, who was managing the cleaning saw our car registration asked us to come in again and told the receptionist to give us the emergency room which he promptly did.

In Mathura you cannot take the car near the temple. In many places it is not allowed and even where it is allowed, the roads are so narrow and rushy that it will be tough to drive there. We hired an e rikshaw (savaari 20/) and reached a particular junction. From there we must hire cycle rickshaw till we reach temple. The road moves by the Yamuna riverside ghats.

The area near the temple is very narrow like Varanasi and is bustling with devotees like a huge bee hive. We had a very tough time to enter the temple, pulling along Chandini in the melee. Once inside the rush further increases and it is virtually a fight to come in front of the sanctum sanctorum. Since Chandini was screaming, a police helped her to find a place to sit. Temple is old and magnificent. With difficulty we came out intact. Outside we had some juice etc. Then went towards the arti ghaat. This place is also very rushy and it is very tough to get near the water on the river bank. We somehow managed to get a glimpse of arti and came back hired rickshaw and all and reached our hotel fully satisfied. We had our dinner comprising of masala dosa in the same hotel. Today we covered hardly 160 kms
Mathura dwarakeesh



DAY 05

Next morning, we went to Janmastan temple. The temple is new and you have a mosque very next to it, built by Aurangzeb. Since it was morning time there was not much crowd and we could participate in the morning pooja easily. The place is full of security personnel and most of them participate in the morning pooja with utmost devotion. From there we went towards Vrindavan which is around 15 kms. The famous temple in Vrindavan is Benka Behari temple and the rush there was even higher than what we had at Mathura. There are many other temples, a museum, and a Tulsi Garden where lord Krishna is said to have roamed around. Here also you cannot take your vehicle and must hire local cycle rickshaw.

From Vrindavan you need to travel around 10 kms to re-catch the Yamuna express way. We had our breakfast at the famous Sukhdev Dhaba on the way. The express way is excellent and is way better than the old Mumbai expressway. Just as we approach Delhi, we take a deviation towards right towards Ghaziabad and Meerut to go towards Haridwar.

The road is excellent and Ghaziabad, Meerut, muzapurnagar and Roorkee all seem to be big cities. Just as we were nearing Haridwar, it occurred to us that it would be better to head towards Badrinath first and visit Haridwar on our return journey. So, we decided to skip Haridwar and went to Rishikesh. And on the outskirts found a decent hotel to stay at a place called gumaniwala. The time was only 5 pm and hence we decided to go to riverbanks to see the famous Gangs arti. As per the advice of the hotelier, we hired e rickshaw and reached the river banks in around 15 mnts.
Rishikesh river bank at Triveni ghat is very spacious and clean also. We can watch the evening arti were comfortably here. Neat stadium like steps is constructed here to facilitate watching arti. We were well in time for the arti and during the night sky and with the backdrop of massive Himalayan mountains which are very now, it is a fantastic site to watch. As a matter of fact, those who are very free can go on a tour only to Rishikesh and Haridwar and spend few days there itself.


On our way back, we had our dinner which was excellent. Rishikesh is being visited by thousands of foreign tourists as it is by now very famous as the yoga capital of the world. They seem to be very much acclimatized as they keep eating world famous masala dosa.

Once in the room, I had to do online registration to visit Badrinath. Once finished I went to the hotel counter and requested them to get them printed which he obliged. The owner was pretty much thrilled to find us coming all the way from Karnataka in own car. He advised us to leave very early at 5 am because according to him new drivers will require at least three hours more than the locals to reach Badrinath and we may reach at 5.30 or 6. Today we did 360 kms.

DAY 06
We got ready by 4.15 and started our major day of the tour, towards Badrinath. But even at that time, the roads were pretty rushy till we completely left Rishikesh behind us. The road was bad due to frequent landslides. However around 7.30 and near Rudraprayag we found a very good hotel for our breakfast. A Gujarati family was also there for breakfast and we had a small chit chat with them.
Badrinath road
[ATTACH=badrinath road.jpg][/ATTACH]



After that the road condition improved through Srinagar and rudraprayag. Rudraprayag is another Sangam place where alaknanda meets ganga. By the way the road to Badrinath is very impeccable barring frequent landslides. Srinagar is the place where buses from Badrinath used to stop for night stay. And rudraprayag is also the place where the road to Kedar Nath deviates. It is about 170 kms from Rishikesh.

After Karna Prayag comes Nand Prayag and then gopeshwar where another road from Kedar Nath through ukhimath rejoins this road. Then comes joshimath which used to be a night halt point earlier when roads were very narrow and rough. At this point you get to find a mountain covered with full snow and. At joshimath, you go on one road and return on another since both are one way. It is very narrow and steep also.

One notable point here is that you have any number of good hotels for food as well as night stay options all through. So, no need to worry in case of any emergency happening.

After you cross joshimath, the road gets into very steep gradients and more than that the landslide places become more frequent and more difficult to pass. The narrow rough road created in the landslide places is full of boulders and you can gaze at the gorge down below from the left window which is scary. In-coming local vehicles force us to hurry at these points posing more challenges to the drivers. But the scenic beauty on either side with extremely tall mountains very close is something to behold you.

At around 1 pm we were at a stone's throw distance from Badrinath and the vehicle queue was enormous. Again, the landslides, once you enter Badrinath become even more tough. We had to take many diversions on a muddy road and reached inside the town. We did not have any prior bookings for the hotel and this we normally do not do also while travelling in cars. We reached few hotels including famous hotel Devlok and were told that they were full. But then we were able to get a room in a decent hotel named Nanda devi. By now we were totally exhausted and the hotelier asked me to take the car to the parking lot in a very narrow place. But luckily, we had a restaurant in front which served a very nice lunch for us.

We rested till evening and then we walked towards the Badrinath temple which was very nearby. Since we had come here on a few occasions earlier, the place was very familiar. We went through a sort of mall road and crossed the river alaknanda bridge and climbed the steps to Sri Badri Vishal temple. There was not much rush as most of the vehicles which left Rishikesh in the morning may have not yet reached there. We could easily go inside and have darshan and spend a lot of time quite leisurely.
Jai vishalakshi Badrinath


The area around the temple is not neat firstly because of smallish landslides there and then the usual plastic, bottle menace. Just by the side of the temple you can see the hot water khund and then at 300 meters you see the Brahma kapal where people offer rites to the deceased members of their family. We came back to the room after sipping tea on the way. By now the beautiful Neelkanth Parvata was visible in full magnificence.

The weather is extremely chilly and it seemed to have touched less than 3 degrees at night. Since we had ascended more than 3000 meters in a very short time, mountain sickness (AMS) seemed to have hit Sadhana who had some head ache.

In the evening there was a lot of rush in the temple and I again walked over there and spent some time. We had our dinner in the same hotel and due to the chilly weather Sadhana and Chandini gave a miss to bathing.

In short, the trip to Badrinath in our own car was always on my bucket list and it is more than worth the effort. The total distance for the day was 299 KMs. If one is free and wants to relax, staying in Badrinath for a few days just roaming around would be a better option than other popular hill stations.

DAY 07
Today the weather was very cold and we had our breakfast in the same hotel. But sadhana was not in good shape due to severe head ache. Obviously, she was suffering from AMS. Hence took out our car and went to Mana, the last village. This village is very scenic and very cold also. It is about 5 kms. While my co passengers did not get down from the car. I did and walked across to the last point which is Bhim pul and Ganapati gufa and Saraswati mandir. Pandavas are said to have crossed this bridge and went to swarga. I decided not to go and had a plate of onion pakoda and tea there and brought it to car.

From there we started our climb down from Badrinath and passed joshimath. I washed the car on the roadside and without any issue reached Rishikesh and found a hotel to stay. We went to look for Lakshman Joola but were told that it is under repair and a new Zoola is coming up shortly. Had our dinner there and had a good night’s rest.

DAY 08
This morning, we took our car to the riverside and found one Panditji to perform thithi (Shradda of my dad) on the banks of river ganga. He asked me to take a holy dip in the river which I did. The thithi was performed in a very serene morning atmosphere. The charge was totally around 1,800/. Then we found a good hotel for our breakfast. From there we headed to Haridwar which is hardly 20 kms from here.

At Haridwar we parked the car in the big parking lot and hired cycle rickshaw to reach the river bank. The crowd was very big and all were performing different religious poojas, thithis etc. And were taking holy dip in the gangs. We spent a lot of time there and then we headed back to the rickshaw stand by crossing the bridge.
Har ki pauri Haridwar


After that we got our car out and came back on the Rishikesh road and after about 10 kms took left turn to go to Dehradun, on the way to Mussoorie. The road is excellent and scenic beauty is marvelous. Dehradun is a very big city and with some difficulty we passed the city. The road goes via the Dehradun animal sanctuary and after that we found a good Udupi hotel and had good food there. The ghat road to Mussoorie is very scenic but traffic was very high. I booked a good hotel online and reached there with great difficulty due to heavy traffic and by mistake I got into the mall road. The road from the famous library chauk was very narrow and the hotel receptionist guided me over phone. Even though the hotel was good we had to park the car about a hundred meter away from it as concrete work of the road was going on.

After taking rest we went back to library chauk which is a sort of landmark place here. From there we hired cycle rickshaw and took cable car to reach the gun hill. The rush was heavy and we reached the hill top. The location is ordinary and we had some ice cream and all there and came down. Then we ambled across in the famous mall road and had some food also.
Library chauk Mussoori


Mall road Mussoori


DAY 09

We had ordered breakfast to our room comprising of ALU parantha. Then we packed and left the hotel. We passed the library chauk and headed towards kempty falls which is about 20 kms. The road is very scenic but kempty is ordinary. We parked the car in the lot and then took the rope way down to the falls. 23 years we had come year in Maruti omni and then these was no rope way.
Kempty falls


We had tea and snack at the falls and then came back to the car. If we continue our journey on the same road, we can reach Gangotri by evening. I once though so but then fearing some very bad road, decided to go back.
Again, we must come to library chauk and took the cart road to go downhill. There was a huge traffic jam and we may have waited for more than one hour to pass the rush. Once that was over, the road was smooth and about 10 kms before we went to the same Udupi hotel for food and took the right turn towards solan. Shimla. But the road goes through the peripheral area of Dehradun covering military training, IAS training center etc.

The road till paont sahib was not good. That is a famous Sikh pilgrimage center and is in the border to Himachal Pradesh. The road all through is hilly terrain and the Himalayas is lush green and beautiful. We called hotel Surya palace in Shimla and confirmed our rooms by making full payment for two days (7,600). Otherwise, we had a plan of staying in Solan. Solan is also a hill station and after that the traffic increases and finally we reached our hotel at Shimla at 9 pm without much confusion. Once we took our baggage out, the valet of the hotel takes the car to keep it in the parking lot.

Hotel Surya is excellent and we had ordered food to the room. Shimla is very posh and modern. Today we had done about 270 kms

DAY 10
Next morning, we had very nice buffet breakfast in the hotel. Since the road is very rushy and finding car park again is difficult, we had hired a taxi (1,500/) from the hotel for our kuffri trip.


The car took us to jakku mandir at the hill top with a massive hanuman statue which is visible from anywhere in down below Shimla city. The place is very good and temple surrounding is well maintained and fresh. From there we proceeded to kufri and on the way we stopped for a while to see the green valley which is a vast valley full of pine/deodar trees.
Jakku mandir shimla


Kufri is about 20 kms from Shimla and once we reach there, we must hire horses for our journey to the site seeing place. Since sadhana and Chandini were averse to horse trip and also because we have seen hundreds of similar places, we roamed around the horse raid starting point and then got back into the taxi.

The taxi took us back to Shimla by noon and asked us to take the govt lift to climb up to the mall road which we did by paying 50/ each. The lift goes to the mall road proper and we walked to the mall road, the church, the flag post, the cliff, and scandal point. There is huge crowd and the place is very good also. We had our lunch in hotel ashiyana guffa, which is a govt hotel as suggested by the taxi driver. Then we walked back to our hotel which is about a km from there. Once in the room, we took some rest and, in the evening, we went back to the mall road to view the evening rush. Our top floor lift has an opening which takes us straight to the mall road.

The weather was cold and people were glamorous. And to add that it drizzled for a while. We had pizza, Costa Rica coffee, ice cream etc there and walked around leisurely. Once done, we walked back to the room fully satisfied.
mall road shimla


DAY 11

Morning, we left the hotel at 7.30, did not wait for their breakfast and headed down to mainland. This is our return journey back home. We had a good breakfast in a Punjabi hotel, then had a wash for our car and headed towards Chandigarh.

We deviated from there in the bypass, then passed Ambala and got into the newly laid trans Haryana express highway. Which is very fresh and comfortable. In a food joint in the same road, we had a very good lunch. At a place called kotputli the road joins the Jaipur Delhi highway. By now we were running low on diesel and had some difficulty to find the pump in the bypass of Jaipur. Once that was over, we headed towards Kishangarh. But about 10 kms behind that we found one high way hotel and got our room and dinner there. Today we did 650 kms. But since the road was excellent the journey was comfortable

DAY 12

Today our first destination was mount Abu. The road goes through Ajmer, pali (breakfast) and sirohi. Just before Abu Road we take right turn and climb the Ghat road to mount Abu.

The hill station road is typical Rajasthani and is totally different from any other Ghat road. It is rocky also. We reached mount Abu and straight away went to the famous Dilwara Jain temple. The temple surroundings are not very tidy but the temple proper is. Its sculpture and art made on marble is extra ordinary. We had our paid lunch in the temple itself.

From there we went to Nakki lake. The lake is said to be one of the beautiful lakes of India. We ambled around there, had ice cream, viewed toad rock, did not opt for boat ride, and then came back to the car. The distance covered since morning is 390 kms.

We descended the ghat road which by now had large number of cars coming towards mount Abu. We reach Abu Road which is a big town. From there we headed towards Ahmadabad which is about 200 kms from here. The road crosses over to Gujarat in about 50 kms. Here the police check the vehicles for liquor. The police spoke tough but then finally smiled and told me that he had worked in basavangudi Bengaluru and spoke some Kannada also.
Nakki lake Mt abu


But when we reached Mehsana, we decided to take quick detour towards Modhera, a historical site. This is about 25 kms from our road. The place is full of exquisite carving and a huge water body in a typical Gujarati oriental style. Then we returned to the high way and instead of driving in night till Ahmadabad, we stopped at a place called Chhatral and found a decent hotel. We had our dinner there as well.
Modhera temple


DAY 13

This morning, we had our breakfast in the same hotel. Then hit the road and reached Ahmadabad. We just wanted to see Sabarmati River front. The road goes inside the city and without difficulty we crossed the river bridge and stood in the banks of river front. The place is decent but since it was morning there was not much people. May be people come there in large numbers during g evening and week end. The river also has one Atal bridge which looks beautiful.

After circling the kankaria lake, we left Ahmadabad and got into the Vadodara express highway. From there we deviated to kewadia to visit the statue of liberty. On that road we did wheel alignment, had tea and snacks took the state high way.

Kevadia is only 90 kms from Vadodara and 200 from Ahmadabad.
We reached there noon and stopped the vehicle in the parking lot and took the basic ticket to travel in their bus and visit the statue. The road, the parking, the arrangements were all immaculate and very spacious. Once we alighted the bus near the dam and in front of the statue, we walk across. The place is very neat and posh. We use travelators to walk and reached the entry of the statue. The statue is expectedly very massive. There was not much of crowd. We reached the feet of the statue through escalators/steps. There is a facility of elevator also. Another elevator takes you to the shoulder of the statue from inside which we did not opt for.

We had samosa, ice cream and all in the food court and headed back to our car in the bus. Our site seeing ended at this point.
Patel statue kewadia


But the road from then onwards goes through forest and remote village area. The road condition also was bad and finally by evening at palsana we rejoined the highway towards Mumbai. We may have made a mistake and should have opted for Navsari road. However, even the high way is also not very smooth with heavy traffic and at Vapi we felt enough is enough and found one woodlands hotel for our room where we had our dinner with masala dose.

DAY 14
We left the room at 4.30 and headed towards Mumbai, reached thane at 7 am. The road at that hour also had lots of lorries and trucks. We crossed panvel and had our breakfast in the express high way in an Udupi hotel. However, the express highway had its own share of woes due to massive traffic jam. Once we passed Pune, constant road widening works hindered our progress through sathara, Kolhapur, Nippani till Belgaum. Somewhere after sathara we had our lunch
On the way back


After Belgaum Road improves. We pass usual Vidhana soudha and kittur. One can take a deviation from there to yellapur. But since that road goes through forest we drove till Dharwad and deviated towards kalaghatagi, yellapur. Road is not very good and we could only reach kumta by 9 pm. So instead of driving till the wee hours we decided to have our room there which we got in hotel Pandurang where we had our dinner also.

DAY 15
We had not even taken our bags to the hotel and at 4 am we left the room and headed towards home. Baindur, kundapura, Udupi and Mangalore passed in a breeze and by 7.30 we were in Puttur where we just hopped in to a hotel for our breakfast and by 8.00, we were back home

Conclusion
The fifteen-day tour is lengthy under the present context. Even our Nepal trip was over in 14 days. This trip is phenomenal as it was flawless and enjoyable on all counts. We visited good number of spots and even the tough Badrinath was done with ease and aplomb.

Every place that we visited was hugely enjoyable. Innova crysta did a splendid job as ever. The food was where comfortable all through and no complaints about weather also We covered 6750 kms and the car gave a mileage of around 12.5 kmpl. The toll paid was around 6,000/

Conclusion
The fifteen-day tour is lengthy under the present context. Even our Nepal trip was over in 14 days. This trip is phenomenal as it was flawless and enjoyable on all counts. We visited good number of spots and even the tough Badrinath was done with ease and aplomb.

Every place that we visited was hugely enjoyable. Innova crysta did a splendid job as ever. Both the passenger’s sadhu and chandu supported and enjoyed the trip. The food was where comfortable all through and no complaints about weather also We covered 6750 kms and the car gave a mileage of around 12.5 kmpl. The toll paid was around 6,000/

[Aditya]

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

[HWKingInnCrysta]

Wishing you joyful memories from your incredible ride in the Innova Crysta! ��✨ There's nothing like cruising in style and comfort, and it sounds like your journey was just that – smooth, enjoyable, and memorable. Here's to many more miles of happiness, safe travels, and wonderful experiences ahead!

[Geo_Ipe]

Wonderful travelogue!! Mesmerising pictures as well!

Just a note on the thread title - Serene Badrinath in an Innova Crysta - at first glance it looked like someone by the name Serena Badrinath got into an Innova Crysta!! Took me a minute to figure out it was a travelogue!

[Starwar19]

Amazing Travelogue. You must have felt a lot younger after taking this adventure. Wishing you many more miles.
Thank you for such a great write up.

[Innysta]

This is the second travelogue of yours that i read and immersed in the narrative. Well done and hats-off to your family for the positive energy. You had the guts to locate the hotel on the fly which i always felt nervous to do so. Great going..

[nihilultra]

Wonderful Travelogue Sir. Like your previous travelogues, through the travelogue, we visited with you the places.

[SKU]

Happy to read your travelogue Sir, Your earlier travelogue of visiting North in childhood is still fresh in memory.
Wishing you & your family many more Happy miles.