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Our Epic 2010 trip from Trivandrum to Ladakh in a Maruti Suzuki Swift

18th June 2024, 16:04 by Kanad Kalasur

The toughest part was to get the license to drive from family members. At- last we received “The License” from family members to drive to Ladakh on the condition that we do not venture out in public in Jammu, Srinagar and Kargil.

BHPian kozhissery recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

This is an old travelogue (done in 2010) which was hosted on BCMTOURING.com. After the site going down (Other Indian Web Forums are dying | That's a depressingly big loss for Netizens), I just thought to keep the thread active (nostalgic reasons, being my first long drive)

Planning

Last year when my co-brother (Vasuki) and myself were having a casual talk about a long vacation during the summer of 2010, he came up with an idea of driving to the “Highest Motor able Road” in the world. When he suggested that, I did not take it seriously. Then came the “Overdrive” magazine in which they’d tested small hatch backs to Leh from Manali which rang a bell in me. And this led me into “search mode” for the feasibility of the drive (a long one too, I think). After going through many sites, books etc I came into conclusion that it’s possible if you have the nerve. After looking into the feasibility it was time to do the actual planning like how to go, where all to visit, what to carry, what all can be crammed in the short 20 odd day’s time etc. This is where bcmtouring came into light. After going through the posts/travelogue it was time for clarifying the doubts and decided to become the member of bcmtouring. This was a real good decision as the actual planning was done with the help from the members of bcmtouring especially from “Yogesh Sarkar”.

Selection of Days

Not much selection was here. Had just a window of 45 days from May 15 June last week from which 20 to 25 days were available. So decided to take the last part i.e. from May end to June End and thus 28.May.2010 to 20.Jun.2010 was selected with a buffer of 5 days (in case of any unforeseen events)

Selection of Vehicle

We had two options:

Hyundai Elantra CRDI

Advantages

Comfortable Car
Safety Features – ABS, Airbags, Traction Control (Peace of mind)
Diesel
Ground Clearance 180+mm

Disadvantages

Already clocked 1.3+Lakhs
Phased out model, so spare parts availability is a big question
Number of Service centres less compared to the competition

Maruti Swift VDI+ABS

Advantages

Comparatively new car – Clocked 30+K kms
Maruti Service centres are present every where
Frugal compared to Elantra

Disadvantages

Airbags and Traction Control Missing
Not as comfortable as Elantra
Ground Clearance is only 170mm

At last we zeroed in on Maruti Swift as service is available anywhere and we were just 2 persons who were ready to sacrifice the comfort of Elantra.

Selection of Route

We wanted to drive through the golden quadrilateral. So had initial plans to cover whole of GQ (Trivandrum -> Kochi -> Salem -> Bangalore -> Mumbai -> Delhi -> Ladhak -> Delhi -> Calcutta -> Vizag -> Chennai -> Salem -> Kochi -> Trivandrum), but had to drop out due to all kinds of problems in the eastern parts of India (West Bengal , Orissa, Andhra Pradesh). The final route

Trivandrum -> Kochi -> Salem -> Bangalore -> Mumbai -> Delhi -> Amritsar -> Srinagar -> Ladhak -> Delhi -> Mumbai -> Goa -> Kochi -> Trivandrum (wanted to drive via the Konkan Ghats).

Others

We decided to follow the Rules:

Not to drive above 100KMP when co-passenger is sleeping
Not to drive above 120KMPH at any time
Try to maintain a speed around 100kmph or so wherever possible.
Never to take any dangerous maneuvers
Change driver if drive feels sleepy, if both of the drivers are feeling sleepy “Stop for the day”
No driving time restrictions in South India
No driving after 9pm between Mumbai to Delhi
No driving after 6pm (after sunset) beyond Delhi

Toughest Part

The toughest part was to get the license to drive from family members. At- last we received “The License” from family members to drive to Ladakh on the condition that we do not venture out in public in Jammu, Srinagar and Kargil.