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North to South India road trip with our pet dog in our Renault Kwid

10th December 2024, 13:46 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

The route that we finalised was Delhi - Ujjain - Satara MH - Gokarna - Murdeshwar Temple - Mangaluru - Kochi - Alleppey - Munnar - Dhanushkodi - Mysore - Hampi - Noida.

BHPian SJD@NewDelhi recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

TRIP SUMMARY

A big THANK YOU to all the esteemed members who shared their valuable inputs to the above itinerary query.

The initial route plan was: DL - Ujjain - Satara MH - Mysore - Ooty - Munnar - Allepey - Dhanushkodi - Hampi - Noida.

However, after going through the post suggestions and a convo with my friend Pravin in Satara who I was visiting, I decided to update the route slightly which will serve several benefits: different entry-exit, covering more destinations enroute and taking the more scenic coastal route upto Allepey as I shall already cover the mainland route on the return trip from Dhanushkodi - Hampi.

Updated route plan: DL - Ujjain - Satara MH - Gokarna - Murdeshwar Temple - Mangaluru - Kochi - Allepey - Munnar - Dhanushkodi - Mysore - Hampi - Noida.

With this new plan, we could explore more places while excluding only Ooty which we didn't mind as we would be covering a lot of beaches from Gokarna till Dhanushkodi (inputs from narayans80 and Rajeevraj played in my mind while taking this decision, thanks again). Also, Ooty would be crowded and we generally look to avoid crowded places. The updated route plan could be done in 15-16 days, but I was ready with extra leaves if it needed 18-20 days. This updated straightforward route made more sense in my mind and sorted out a lot of route puzzles and complications.

Logic of covering many destinations in one single trip was - this would most probably be our once-in-a-lifetime trip to South India from North India in a car. Hence was looking to cover as much as we comfortably could since we honestly don't know when we might get next opportunity to visit the awesome South! Reasoning behind sticking to our car as our mode of transportation are - travelling with our pet (Joy, our 2-year-old mountain pooch adopted from Mussorie, UK), luggage along with camping/emergency cooking gear and flexibility of halting wherever we wanted without the worry of fixed advanced booking(s).

DAY 1 (Nov 9): Noida - Ujjain (730 kms)

We made an exit from Noida at 2:30AM on Nov 9th. There were reasons for exiting in the dead of night instead of a morning exit. I was interested in showing the Sarafa Bazaar (popular midnight market in Indore) to my wife which I had visited during my bachelor days in 2017. Ujjain was around 750kms from Noida wherein we wanted to visit the Mahakaleshwar Temple. Even if we start at 8 in the morning, it would take us around 15 hrs to reach Ujjain at the minimum (13 hrs of driving & 2 hrs of break) implying an arrival of no earlier than 11PM. Such a late arrival would most probably lead to the temple closing up and missing the chance to visit Saraffa as well as it was 60 kms further from Ujjain towards MH. One more day would be lost waiting for the next day midnight Saraffa or leaving with the remorse of not visiting Indore when we were so near. Hence my calculation was: if we could advance our Noida departure from 8AM by 5 hrs, we can easily reach Ujjain by evening, take time to explore Mahakaleshwar and leave for Indore before midnight. In pic above: Awesome NH52 stretch somewhere between Kota and Raipur (after Jhalawar).

Correct to my calculation, we reached Ujjain by 8PM with about 3 hrs of breaks. We were lucky to have reached before the night-time aarti of 10PM for which entry is closed by 9:30PM. Pic above: Entrance to the Mahakaleshwar Temple.

Pics above: The stunning figurines at the Mahakalweshwar Temple premises.

Above: The Bharat Mata Temple.

Above: Yours truly with better half inside the Bharat Mata Temple.

We beat an unhurried retreat from Ujjain at 11:30PM after exploring the nearby market place which delightfully had a lot of things to eat. I was pretty impressed with the traffic management and discipline in Ujjain near Mahakaleshwar. Reached Sarafa, Indore by 12:45AM. Wifee was amazed seeing the crowd with lots of females even at 1 in the night! Sarafa brought her great joy with its dessert items like rabri malpua, shahi faluda, kulfi, jalebas, 100 different variety of momos, spiral potatoes, gulab jamuns, soda shikanji, kunafa, halwa, sweet corn and many more. If anyone is interested in non-veg items, Bombay Bazaar nearby is the best option but doesn't stay open as late as Sarafa.

Pic above: Witnessed the popular Gold Man of Sarafa Night halt at Mhow, MP at 3AM after leaving Indore at 2AM.

DAY 2 (Nov 10): Mhow, MP - Gangapur, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar district, MH (430 kms)

Joy wakes us up at 7:30 in the morning and we start our journey and get our first ghat section - the Narmada River ghat within 45 mins. It was a breeze to cross although there was heavy vehicle traffic.

Pic above: Colony of banana saplings in MP. What a sight!

As we made our way bypassing tolls towards the MH border, a cotton seller we met near Ozar asked us to visit a beautiful temple nearby. The name of the temple was Bhilat Dev Temple in Nagalwadi/Sendhwa, MP. We were faced with a dilemma: either we visit the Shirdi Sai Baba Temple which we have heard about since childhood or take a small 10km detour to this beautiful temple on a mountain-top which would allegedly cure us of our travel fatigue as per the cotton seller After a discussion with wife, we decided to take a detour to Bhilatdev temple since Shirdi might be crowded and we would reach in the noon meaning quite hot surroundings and suddenly this unknown mountain-top beautiful temple made us more curious to visit it.

Pic above: The essence of MP-MH rural border areas. Passing through such winding roads of Nagalwadi.

Pic above: Mountain road leading to Bhilatdev Temple.

Pic above: Our smiles say it all how much we loved our visit to Bhilatdev Temple.

Pic above: I am not a religious person by any angle. However, I love observing the faith of the disciples in such religious places. This and the beautiful architecture of temples attracts me more towards a temple rather than paying obeisance to deity(s) or praying to seek something.

Pic above: As we drove down from the temple, we encountered a handpump and I couldn't resist taking a bath

Pic above: A sunset captured somewhere near Shirpur.

As we entered MH and bypassed Dhule, we devoured a plate of misal pav and vada pav which set the essence of Maharashtra.

Night halt by 11PM at Gangapur after Lasur and 35kms after we bypassed the detour to Ellora Caves. Unfortunately, we couldn't reach Ellora before the evening and had to miss it...ah, something for the future! You can't have it all. I know we covered less miles today but the extra time spent on the temple detour was worth it.

DAY 3 (Nov 11): Gangapur, MH - Wai, Satara District, MH (280 kms)

My long-time friend Praveen bhau whom I had known since 2015 from the travelling community resided in Wai town. Mahabaleshwar was just at a distance of 35 kms, but we didn't have any plans of visiting it yet.

Pics above: Chilling at Wai, Magnus Caverns Resort.

Pic above: With my dear friend Pravin! Guy fears the cold like anything but still made a solo trip to Mechuka, Arunachal on my insistence and was so smitten that he made a painting of the monastery on the hilltop with the Mechuka scenery in the background. He has plans to convert the painting into a fridge magnet. Pic below of his painting:

Pic above: A beautiful impression of the Khillari cattle, a breed peculiar to the Satara/ Kolhapur regions of MH and Belagavi districts of Karnataka.