India-Nepal-Bhutan

Exploring the borders and beyond…

A trip around the country, extending it to the neighbouring countries, and more importantly, halting and taking time to enjoy each place, than simply driving! This trip started as a fantasy in our thoughts, atleast 2 years before. Our daughter was so young that time, still we used to think that such a trip, being completely off from the regular routine will be so much fun, and it would be one of the best gifts we could give her.

Starting from Bangalore to Goa, we travelled via the western coast of India covering the serene beaches of Arabian Sea, amazing western ghats, metropolitan cities, deserts and sand dunes, mesmerising golden temple, the Pakistan border and then to the enchanting Kashmir, the mighty Himalayas. We then crossed the borders to cover Nepal and Bhutan and finally returned to Bangalore via the eastern coast travelling through Kolkata, Konark and Vizag. It was amazing to see how our journey shifted from the setting sun of the Arabian Sea, to the rising sun of the Bay Of Bengal!

  • TOTAL KMS: 11679 Kms
  • DRIVING HOURS: 286 hours
  • TOTAL DAYS: 57
  • MAJOR DESTINATIONS: 30
  • NHs TRAVELED: 28
  • INDIAN STATES TRAVELED: 15
  • COUNTRIES COVERED: 3
  • ROAD TOLL PAID: Rs 4760
  • HOTELS STAYED: 37
  • DIESEL USED: 616 Litres (Rs 45821 in 2018)
  • AVG FUEL EFFICIENCY: 18.95Km/L(S-Cross 1.6)
  • IN HIMALAYAS: 1440 Kms

The Route Map

More than a year back, early 2017, I had told my boss, Manoj, casually that  I have a dream of covering all of India in my car, and his excitement and joy hearing this, gave me confidence that some day I would be able to do it. As we would be traveling with a little kid, we wanted to make sure we don’t rush through the places. Our health and comfort was utmost priority, so we did not want to be driving everyday. This in turn means, we need a longer vacation. A year later, in June 2018, me and my wife decided to present the matter at our respective offices. There were many reasons why that was the best time to start the discussion at office:

  • The trip could be best done in August-September timeframe, as the climate in most of the places on the trip route will be perfect after the monsoons, and Ladakh roads would be at its best as BRO(Border Roads Organization) does the regular maintenance of the roads after heavy rains in September.
  • We need to get almost 2 months vacation from office. It gets tougher as you grow in your career, also it is good to give at-least 3 months heads up in office.
  • The car would be 50000 kms done, another year would add more kms to it and he might start showing some problems.
  • Our daughter would be going to school from next year and a 2 month vacation would be impossible (even in the kindergartens)
  • We are just above 30 and it looked the perfect time to do such a road trip – mentally and physically!

Though we expected a shock in response to our presentation of the trip plan in office, we were literally excited to see that most of our colleagues including our bosses were so supportive of the idea. What took me back even more was when Manoj came to me the next day to gift me a pen and a book with APJ Abdul Kalam on the cover which read – “Dreams are not the ones you see in your sleep, those are the ones that don’t let you sleep”. He told, “You can use this book for writing your trip’s daily travelogue.”. What more would you need for an inspiration to go ahead and prepare for the trip!

More details of the travel preparation and itinerary can be found below. If you would like to directly start reading about the travel, skip to DAY 1-3: GOA

The Car

This trip was always in mind as we did any test drives for a new car and after trying several cars available under budget for almost 3 months, we finally narrowed down to “Suzuki S-Cross – 1.6”. S-Cross-1.6 has given me the right amount of power, comfort, ground clearance (even if not the best for a trip to Ladakh – but that is what we call adventure 🙂 ), boot space for luggage, fuel efficiency and the consistency that’s required for a long drive.

Travel Itinerary

Creating a proper trip itinerary was one of the major tasks, once “getting leave from office” hurdle was off the list. We wanted to avoid overnight drives, opt clean and trustworthy accommodations, avoid rushing between two places, visit each place in its best time and climate. And after trying out multiple options, we finally came up with the itinerary.

Checklists

Now that the itinerary is ready, we started creating a checklist of all travel items needed

The checklist was divided into different categories:

Hotel Bookings: Almost all stays were pre-booked atleast 2 months before the trip start date, ensuring we got it for the cheapest available rates. A checklist was made with the hotel details, including location, rate and last date for cancellation, which helped us set reminders for revisiting the booking a few days before the cancellation date, to double check if prices have dropped down later. The reviews in TripAdvisor really helped us choose the best out of the several available stay options within our budget.

Food: As we are travelling with a 3 year old, the concerns about the availability of food that matches her taste was always a question. Though we had booked hotel stays with good breakfast at most of the places, we decided to go for occasional home stays as that would give us option to cook food of our taste! With this plan in mind, several easy to cook food items and accessories, occupied a big box of luggage in our car.

Rice, dal and oats were stocked for quick meals, and broken rice too – in case we fall sick, broken rice porridge is the recipe which we regularly use and the easiest to digest. Though most of the hotels provide all items to prepare tea and coffee, we packed tea powder, milk powder, coffee powder and sugar in abundance, as we could have them as and when we want. We also took some dry fruits and biscuits, to satisfy daughter’s hunger while on roads, as we anticipated some cases where we cannot find any food options outside. All spices and masalas needed to cook some easy meals were also kept in small portions, these were not much used as all home stays had the necessary cooking items readily available, and the spices came handy only in a place where we booked a hotel room with kitchen in Nepal. We also had minimal kitchen utensils and other accessories packed. We had a flask as well, as we thought filling hot water might come handy in the tough weather of Ladakh. Aluminium foils were bought which helped us pack some food from breakfast for daughter on the days of long drives. One other thing which came quite handy is spreads for bread, which was easy to use and daughter could easily use them for chapatis, parathas or any other bread items. Of-course, as the trip was quite a long one, we used to stock perishable food items on the way in small quantities, which gave us opportunity to taste regional delicacies as well. 

Packing: We decided to pack things into smaller bags so that it is easy to take out from the car and put back every time we checkin to a new hotel.

Bags packed and ready to leave 🙂

Find more checklist items in the image below.

Preparations

Convincing parents and relatives: We are born and brought up in a way that we feel it difficult to do something against our parents which I personally feel is a great culture in the Indian society. We have that bond all through our life. I had to gain a lot of courage to actually present this idea to my parents and then clear their doubts. Ofcourse the first expression was “Are u sure you are talking about going to Leh, Nepal and Bhutan by car and that too for almost 2 months?”. My father did ask me many times to clarify whether he heard it correct. After multiple attempts, I could finally brainwash my parents. And from her parents, her dad almost fainted I felt. I don’t think he would have used the calendar so much that he used it these two months. He very well knew how many days are left for us to be back. He had a counter running always in his mind.

Leave from office: As already mentioned, getting leaves from office needs proper planning, well in advance. We were fortunate that our organisations tried to be supportive of our plan, as they were given good enough time to plan from their side as well. Our bosses were mostly worried of one person driving alone for the entire trip than us being absent in the office.

Finance: We did not wait till we make that big golden amount of bank balance, to start planning what we always wanted to do. We made a plan with the budget we had. We tried saving for a few months and we were amazed to realise that, with whatever we save, there is always an itinerary we can make.

Traveling with a 3yo kid: Though our daughter was used to travelling long distances in the car from a very early age, being on road with her for continuous two months did look like a big challenge initially. She preferred Kerala breakfasts, and always wanted curd for rice, and most importantly she just hated chapatis! Keeping her always engaged during the travel time was a problem to solve, and managing her potty timings was another concern. To our surprise, turning down all our anxieties, she just evolved along the journey! She ate chapatis, happily had chocos, survived on boiled eggs, tender coconuts, rice and curd!! She never troubled us for any of the routine stuff, and always showed great enthusiasm in getting ready on time, and would promptly agree to use the toilets available on the way, whenever we halt for food in any of the restaurants. Though we had arranged the back seat for her comfortable sleeping, soon different items started occupying the back seats, leaving less space for her, but she still managed happily. 

Altitude Sickness in Ladakh: The primary thing about altitude sickness is that it is a different and unique story for each and every person. After reading hundreds of posts and experiences and talking to many people about altitude sickness we had prepared ourselves with everything that is required to face the worst. We carried medicines, portable oxygen, thermals and other stuff to beat the cold climate and altitude. We decided to take the route from Srinagar to Leh, instead of Manali to Leh, covering 420kms in 3 days, with stays in Sonamarg and Kargil on the way to slow down the ascend and acclimatise. Another 2 days were spent in Leh to get acquainted to the altitude, before ascending to Khardung La. Bottomline from our experience is, be prepared, take enough time to acclimatise, avoid running around, and  if you feel something is going bad while ascending to high altitude passes, try to see how bad it is and descend immediately if you feel it is getting worse. Vomiting once or feeling a little dizzy might not be the worst. It is not impossible with the kids, just stay calm, confident and take it slowly. Read more on our high altitude experiences here.

Pre-booking the accommodations:  Overnight drive was not our priority and pre-booking a  stay at all destinations was very important for us. We did not want to spend time finding hotels after reaching the destination and also the rates are cheaper when we prebook the hotels. I made 32 hotel bookings and to be honest, none of them were bad, thanks to the reliable reviews on TripAdvisor. Also we were able to find a stay option even in the remotest of the places, thanks to the several online hotel booking portals! Some of the important things to note were to check for availability of free parking, free wifi, free breakfast at the hotels, and also if they charge extra for check-in of small kids. Also once in a while we booked stays with kitchen. Another thing which we were always particular about was that the stay should be in close proximity to our trip route, taking deviations from the route just for a stay was always avoided.

Single driver: My wife has a license but was never comfortable driving. So that means I would be driving the whole 12000kms. It was important to keep myself away from any infections or diseases. I was mentally prepared to be very careful of what I eat, and get proper sleep of atleast 7 hours everyday.

Car Maintenance: Over a stretch of 12000kms, we were sure that we would need to do some regular checkups for the car if everything else goes fine. We decided to do this after 5000Kms and Manali was planned to be the service point. This would also help find any problems that would have happened to the car during the Leh-Manali stretch. And yes, that was the right decision.

International Border Crossing and other permits: There were three permits we had to obtain during our trip, and the procedures to obtain the same were studied well beforehand and all the documents required for the same were carefully organised and kept in a file.

Continue reading from Day 1 of the trip DAY 1 -3: GOA >>