Interesting Facts

  • Total Distance Covered: 18181 km
  • Number of Driving Days: 51
  • Area Covered: 24 states and, Union Territory 1
  • Outer National Borders Touched: Kashmir, North; Kanyakumari, South; Rann of Kutch, West; Lungwa, on Myanmar Border, East
  • Average Distance Covered Per Day: 356.49 kms
  • Longest Driving Time: 16.5 hours from Unakoti in Tripura to Aizawl in Mizoram
  • Puncture Stops: Only 1! (But we got 6 punctures in 2 tires at the same, single time!)
  • Accidents: NIL
  • Average Sleep Per Day: 4.5 hours
  • Health problems: NIL
  • Periodic Vehicle Service at Mahindra Franchises: 3 (Varanasi, Sringar, Hampi)
  • Minor Vehicle Repairs at Mahindra Franchise: 3 (Tezpur, Aizawl, Guntur)
  • Highest Speed Driven: 152 kmph, between Bikaner and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan
  • Highest Speed Driven on a Mountain Road: 130 kmph, before entry to Medikere, Coorg, Karnataka
  • Slowest Drive: Near Farraka, West Bengal. No roads, no traffic regulation, no signage, no future! We inched our way through that place
  • Best Roads: Himachal Pradesh
  • Best Highways: Gujarat
  • Cleanest State: Himachal Pradesh
  • Most Courteous People: In Himachal Pradesh
  • Worst Roads: In Tripura… Actually, there were no roads at all!
  • Encounter of the Strangest Kind: We met Cedric Benoit from France, walking on the mountain road between Imphal and Kohima, Nagaland. He had started walking from Singapore and hopes to end his walk at his home in France! Follow him on carpediem.blogs-de-voyage.fr
  • Most Exotic Foods Encountered: Dog meat stew, sticky rice porridge, green tamarind salad, many varieties of steamed snails and an array of boiled ferns and aromatic leaves washed down with Zawlaidi, the local Mizo wine, at Aizawl, Mizoram. Roasted rats in Apathani friend’s house in Ziro.
  • Remotest Place On Our Journey: Vamghumun between Agartala and Aizwal, Mizoram
  • Most Amazing Arrival Experience: We arrived in Mon, Nagaland, just in time to see the Aoleang Festival of Konyaks. A single point and largest congregation of all Konyaks, and this is one of their biggest celebrations.
  • Rarest Sites Visted: A Konyak long house in Lungwa, Nagaland, on the India-Myanmar border, where one half of the house is in India and the other half in Myanmar!
  • Most Exotic Archaeological Location: Unnakoti, Tripura
  • Most Exciting Drive: Through the Rann of Kutch, Gujarat
  • Best Nature Photo Op: The lights, colors, with lightning, thunder, and sky-heavy rain at the Rann of Kutch
  • Unbelievable Navigation Advice: H. V. Kumar telling us to look out for a village water tank at ground level at a particular place on a road that has a name only on maps but does not exist in reality, to go straight on a mud track at that point with the tank on our right, to look out for a road on a bund to your right, but drive parallel to it and you will reach 2 BSF posts in the middle of nowhere, pass them after logging in at the posts, go straight and you will come to Dolavira through the salt flats in the Rann of Kutch. He was dead on correct!
  • Most Scenic Drive: Kanyakumari to Madurai
  • Most Fascinating Refugee Camp: Bylakuppe: Absolutely prosperous!
  • Most Thrilling Drive on an Under-Construction Highway: New road being carved out of the mountains in Arunachal Pradesh. Incredible job being done by the Border Road Organisation (BRO), the unsung heroes of India’s road network. This is between Potin and Bandardewa.
  • Most Exotic Building We Stayed In: Rare Earth Farms & Home Stay in Santiniketan
  • Most Modern Facility in the Least Expected Place: Tage Tabin’s Ziro Valley Resort, in Ziro, Arunachal Pradesh.
  • Toughest Night Stay: Dharmanagar, Tripura, we stayed at a truckers’ stop!
  • Best Historical Heritage Building We Stayed In: Paradise Hotel inside Jaisalmer Fort, Rajasthan
  • Only Royalty We Met: Our wonderful friend, Krishna Deva Raya, scion of the Vijayanagar Empire, 19th in lineage
  • Most Dangerous Drive: Through the Damparangpui jungles and reserve forest, a dacoit territory, in Mamit district of Mizoram, on the way from Unakoti, Tripura to Aizawl, Mizoram
  • Strangest Undertaking By Us: A letter signed by us, given to the Tripura Police, saying they are not responsible for our safety on the road!
  • Quickest Time In Which A Stranger Becomes a Close Friend: 10 hours! At Longleng, Nagaland, we met Atsubu of the Phom tribe. We just stopped to ask for directions. He made us abandon plans to drive through extremist’s territory and two bridgeless mountain stream crossings at night. He came with us in a hired vehicle to pilot us out to the highway next morning. A friendship of 10 hours and he had tears in his eyes when we parted.