Day 6 – Mumbai to Ahmedabad – 30th August 2018
Ahmedabad was just a one night halt, and there were not much plans on exploring in and around. We left the home in Mumbai around 8:30 in the morning after yet another delicious homemade breakfast. Since we stayed in Santa cruz, it was pretty easy for us to get onto the NH48, however, as it was a weekday, we did get caught in the Mumbai traffic for a while. We reached Vapi by 11:30am and then Surat by 1:30pm.
- TOTAL KMS: 528 Kms
- TIME TAKEN: 9 hours 10 mins
- AVG FUEL EFFICIENCY: 22.7 Km/L
- ROUTE: Vapi-Surat-Vadodara
- NHs: NH48, NE1
- TOLL PAID: 490 Rs
- HOTEL STAYED: Hotel Darshan
The highway was full of vegetarian restaurant options. Tender coconut was one thing Insha was surviving while on the roads, and we stopped in between for having one. Little did we know that, it was one of the last tender coconut stalls we are going to spot for another month or more! We had one more break for Lunch, to enjoy an awesome Gujarati Veg Thali meals at a hotel named Giriraj Khatiyavadi Bhojanalay, on the highway near Surat, later on continued the drive in a single stretch.
The roads are really good on this route. We experienced some traffic near Surat and then when we reached Ahmedabad, but not too worse. On the highways, drive was really smooth. Many a time, we felt that we are the only car on the road driving between hundreds of trucks. And the National Expressway 1 (NE1), which is a straight line road from Vadodara to Ahmedabad, was an amazing driving experience. As we entered Ahmedabad city, Gujarat police stopped us, seeing the KA registration of the car and a back seat stuffed with luggage. They asked us to open the trunk, and made us take out almost every other bag, until they were convinced that there was nothing else in the car! Finally, we were allowed to leave, and soon we reached our hotel by 5.45pm. We had chosen this stay which is on the Sardar Patel Ring Road so that it would ease our next day’s travel to Jaisalmer, without the need to touch Ahmedabad city.
We could spot some peacocks outside our hotel windows, the highway side hotel did not have any other attractions. We got fresh and ordered some dinner from the hotel itself. Though we really longed for a good sleep after the tiring journey, we were disturbed quite frequently by the loud noises outside, as the hotel was hosting some wedding reception.
Roads N Dreams 