2330 kilometers | 47 hours | 3 humans | 2 cars | 1 pet | unlimited experience
If you are new to this page, you should not miss the previous part Gurgaon to Jorhat road trip.
We embarked on a journey in the last week of March and for us it was a first. Neither of us did such a long road trip ever and this was unreal. So if you like road trips or planning one then this story is for you.
In continuation to our previous trip from Gurgaon to Jorhat, this is our experience of our return journey.
So on September 18, we started from Jorhat. This return trip was planned to be a 4-day affair with the below stops:
- Guwahati
- Siliguri
- Gorakhpur
- Gurgaon
Route
- [Assam] Jorhat > Dergaon > Bokakhat > Kaziranga > Jakhalabandha > Nagaon > Jagiroad > Guwahati > Nalbari > Barpeta road > Bongaigaon > Gossaigaon > Srirampur
- [Bengal] Hasimara > Sakojhora > Diana bridge > Chapramari wildlife sanctuary > Chalsa > Mal bazar > Oodlabari > Coronation bridge > Siliguri > Bagdogra > Naxalbari > Panitanki
- [Bihar] Bhajanpur > Thakurganj > Bahadurganj > Jokihat > Araria > Forbesganj > Phulparas > Muzaffarpur > Motihari > Gopalganj
- [Uttar Pradesh] Kushinagar > Gorakhpur > Khallibad > Basti > Faizabad/ Ayodhya > Barabanki > Lucknow > Aoras > Karhal > Fatehabad > Agra > Jewar
- [Haryana] Palwal > Sohna > Gurgaon
Vehicles: Maruti Suzuki Wagon R Vxi 2016 and Ford Ecosport 2020
People: Me, my wife, my brother, and coco – our 13-month-old Japanese spitz
Driving plan: Drive during the daylight and rest at night
DAY 1
September 18, 2022 | Sunday
Route: Jorhat > Dergaon > Bokakhat > Kaziranga > Jakhalabandha > Nagaon > Jagiroad > Guwahati
Distance: 330 km | Odometer: 47072 km | Trip meter: 330
Travel time: ~8 hours – started at 9: 45 am and reached at 5:30 pm
The idea was not to rush like we did while coming. Rather the plan was to start/ reach early and take good time resting and recharging for the next day’s journey. Since Guwahati takes around 8 hours, hence we started around 9:45 am from Jorhat. Though our car tanks were full, but tyre pressure needed to be checked.
By 12 pm sharp, we were at this Bagori lodge in Kaziranga. This is our favorite spot, which we discovered while coming to Jorhat, to freshen up and have red tea (tea without milk) (I prefer calling it red tea and not black tea) with good-day biscuits. Coco also needs some stretching before we start ahead. A 30 mins quick stop that we reached before time, we planned to skip lunch at Nagaon (Assam’s favorite lunch stop).
At 3:30 pm we were at Sonapur. This is a so-called resort named Atithya Resort, just before we climb the hills to Jorabat. The resorts here have these small huts where people like to have lunch/ dinner or a party. These huts have curtains for privacy and are not something I’d like to take my family to. Nevertheless, we were sorted by 4:30 pm.
Our Airbnb was located near the airport, hence we skipped Guwahati city and took the bypass towards the airport. Though it’s around 30 km the ride seems to be neverending. The Sunday evening traffic was everywhere. The red lights jammed and packed with cars, bikes, buses, and everything including the roadblocks. I must appreciate the effort they are making to broaden these roads but the problem is poor traffic management and sense.
By 5:30 pm we were at the Airbnb home. Why Airbnb? Because these are pet-friendly. Coco needed some legroom to ruffle his coat. There are hardly any hotels that are pet-friendly and even if there are a few, their location was remote inside the city. Since we needed to start early in the morning, I would rather stay at this place. Most importantly, the road for the onward journey is the same where this Airbnb is located so it was a safe bet.
We called it a day after eating some disgusting food from a nearby restaurant via Swiggy.
DAY 2
September 19, 2022 | Monday
Route: Guwahati > Nalbari > Barpeta road > Bongaigaon > Gossaigaon > Srirampur > Hasimara > Sakojhora > Diana bridge > Chapramari wildlife sanctuary > Chalsa > Mal bazar > Oodlabari > Coronation bridge > Siliguri
Distance: 474 km | Odometer: 47546 km | Trip meter: 803 km
Travel time: ~9 hours 30 mins – started at 4: 30 am and reached at 2:00 pm
I think this was the most fascinating day of our journey. Our plan was not to go via the usual route, but rather go via the Coronation bridge. Last time while coming, we reached Siliguri very late and that day still haunted me. We were so tired and drenched. This time I didn’t want to take any chance. My aim was to reach before evening.
So we started off from our Airbnb home and reach the mighty Brahmaputra river in a few minutes. I remember some 15 – 20 years ago, Guwahati to Nalbari with a distance of 72 km used to take 1 hour 30 minutes with bad roads and people hovering at every bus stops. This time when I realized its 1 hour after we started, we already crossed Nalbari. Trust me the highway is super fine. No potholes, no cattle, no people, no buses, no cars – since it was 5:30 am. We stopped at the outer border of Nalbari district to catch up for a quick red tea from a small hut and also to realize that we crossed Nalbari. Nalbari is my father’s hometown and we just wanted to feel that ancestral air.
The problem on this highway was that they have these white speed breakers which elsewhere are numb and made of rubber I suppose, but in Assam, they create these with concrete and paint them white. Trust me at one point the tremors were so unreal that my windshield wiper started running on its own. These are pointless breakers just to frustrate the driver every time.
By the time we reached Kokrajhar, the roads gave away. Terrible roads and their bridges even had potholes, imagine! Coco threw up twice. The problem with Coco is that he can’t stand the smell of vomit. So he tries to cover the crime scene with whatever he gets, like toys, towels, tissue – anything. Hence we had to take two 5-minute breaks just to clean his area.
At 8:30 am we were at Srirampur gate. It’s almost 250 km from Guwahati covered in approx 4 hours. Srirampur is the last stop in Assam after which we crossed over to West Bengal. The tree colors changed to dark green and the leaves also seemed bigger. I don’t know what these trees are called but they had these huge 1-foot-long leaves. Srirampur gate was calm during this time else this place is loaded with trucks and huge carriers. I called mom and she was like – “You guys drove rashly! You reached too early.” I am like – the highway was too good!
We had our breakfast at this restaurant named Hotel Sankosh Valley which is in West Bengal just after crossing Srirampur, as they serve good puri, and sabzi. Their restrooms are clean and the place is neat. The good thing is that the workers speak Assamese and I don’t have to reiterate my broken Bengali. This place is exactly 600 km from my Jorhat home.
We had another 200-something km before us and the excitement to see the Coronation bridge couldn’t keep us calm. Though Google did pester us to take some shortcuts, we ignored. The route was through Chapramari wildlife sanctuary surrounded by hills and rivers with white rocks. As we turned right from the highway at Sakojhora, we realized that this road also goes to Sikkim. The road is very good there and the tea gardens, forest, rivers, and hills follow the path from time to time. The vehicle rush is low so there’s less honking all the way. The road inside the sanctuary goes via this forest and I would suggest taking this route only during the day. At night time you may encounter wild animals, if not shady humans. The places had strange names along the way like – Mal Bazar, Sisu bari, Dam dim, Oodlabari, and so on. I refueled at Mal Bazar only to find that petrol here is Rs 110 a litre. Mal Bazar was crowded with people and public buses.
We reached the Coronation bridge around 1 pm and trust me it was an amazing sight. The river Teesta flowing below and the arch-type bridge stands high at around 350 meters. The road connecting this bridge goes through these hills which have waterfalls and the water gushing to the road and flowing to the Teesta river below. It’s a climb to the hill basically. And yes there were monkey packs everywhere sitting to snatch so make sure the windows are all up. One monkey even bullied Coco and came with their family to see him as we slowed down to take a hairpin bend.
Surrounded by hills, this bridge connects Darjeeling with Kalimpong. This road hits the highway connecting West Bengal to Sikkim. There was huge traffic but the moving one. Eventually reached our hotel at 2 pm.
Incidentally, Lucky Ali performed the previous night here at our hotel and people were still checking out. We had to wait for a few minutes before barging in. Ordered some light Chinese food to kill the afternoon hunger. In Siliguri, I find Chinese food better than spicy Bengali food. Bengali food here is a scam, filled with liters of oil and spices – it will surely be the answer to your nature’s call the next day and the day after. Try momos here or simple noodles or just a sandwich – everything is just perfect!
We retired after devouring some noodles from Teafi and sipping some lemonade from Love 2 Juice.
DAY 3
September 20, 2022 | Tuesday
Route: Siliguri > Bagdogra > Naxalbari > Panitanki > Bhajanpur > Thakurganj > Bahadurganj > Jokihat > Araria > Forbesganj > Phulparas > Muzaffarpur > Motihari > Gopalganj > Kushinagar > Gorakhpur
Distance: 675 km | Odometer: 48221 km | Trip meter: 1478 km
Travel time: ~13 hours – started at 4:30 am and reached at 5:40 pm
The most worrying day of the entire journey. Last time our experience from Araria to Siliguri was not pleasant. The entire 140 km journey had to be driven in 3rd and 4th gear with the clutch continuously pressed. It was evening and took almost 4 hours to cross. The reason being this stretch is under construction as they are building some super highway that connects Bihar to West Bengal. Eventually, we reached Siliguri at 7:30 pm.
This time I was super cautious and wanted to settle this 140 km journey at the soonest possible time. Hence again we started at 4:30 am sharp. We saved a few sandwiches from last night as I know at 4:30 am no Swiggy/ Zomato/ Hotel delivers breakfast. We got these Cheese and Corn sandwiches from Coffee 99.
It was dark and somehow we navigated through the gutter water on Donbosco road and reached the highway. In around 30 minutes we reached the point where the bad road started. To our surprise, in 6 months they have mended a lot of this highway. Unfortunately, these are still under construction. Heard that by 2024-25 this road will transform into a super expressway. The crowd hasn’t changed yet. I still saw these local people hopping on the bridge edge either looking at the JCBs working or just staring at the water or throwing stones at the water. Quite a pass-time that too so early in the morning.
There is a police checkpoint at the border and then the road seemed good, unlike our last experience. By 7:30 am we were at the Araria market. Being so early, there was less crowd and we quickly hopped into the Bihar highway.
Araria can be reached via Purnia as well, which is an alternate route. Though the road is better, however, the drive time is longer. I was moreover a bit skeptical as we might lose the day just for the sake of a few kilometers.
Our plan was to cross Bihar on the same day without many stops. You see, there are very less decent eateries on these highways and it is better that you start the day with some pre-packed food. The only excitement we had for the day was that we planned to have breakfast or lunch at the restaurant we ate last time – Lallan dhaba. They cook this amazing ghee paratha and dal.
At 10:15 am we reached Darbhanga and we were hungry. No restaurant in sight we decided to stick to the highway looking for some restaurant/dhaba-type place to eat. Interestingly we saw this newly opened Rajasthan’s Radhe Radhe restaurant and sweet shop across the road. We took a U-turn under the overbridge and quickly hopped out. The parking here is an issue as the overbridge lands just in front of this place. However, with the help of their guard, we somehow parked both of the cars. The other excitement to hopping out was that we successfully crossed the bad road from Siliguri to Araria and that feeling was no less than winning a war.
So Radhe Radhe started a month back and the place was neat. There were sections to eat outside as well as inside. The people there were really sweet and asked us to go inside and rest in their AC restaurant, as we sat outside with Coco and waited for our Chole bhature and Puri sabzi. The food was ok but they have quite a variety of sweets, biscuits, snacks, etc. I went inside to use the super clean washroom and couldn’t resist buying a few packets of freshly baked butter cookies, almond cookies, and banana chips. I avoided any sweets as they might go bad in the next 2 days. We need more such restaurants in small places.
By 11:20 am we were on the highway. We drove for another 2 hours and reached Lallan’s. It was 1:30 pm and almost lunchtime. Ordered the usual ghee paratha with dal and eggplant sabzi. The owner himself cooks and is a sweet person. He wanted us to take some “not so sweet pedas” on our way, which we humbly denied, as the pedas were loaded with sugar. Anyways, we restarted the journey at 2:30 pm.
Reached Fazil Nagar at 4:20 pm to meet my team member Rohit. Due to time constraints, we decided not to go to his house but rather to meet on the highway, just at the end of the flyover. He graciously came with his parents who were super good. They handed me around 1 kilo of thekua, a sweet specially made in Bihar but homemade thekuas are rare. His mom makes amazing thekuas which I have tasted before and I couldn’t say no this time. After some 10 minutes of chitchat, we headed towards Gorakhpur.
So our hotel at Gorakhpur was at the bypass, hence we skipped the city road and hopped on the bypass road. The road here is very good. We filled our tanks with some petrol at the bypass and reached the hotel at 5:40 pm. It was still evening hence there were no apprehensions as such.
We got our rooms and got the cars washed by their people at some nominal charge. Even last time they washed and it’s important to keep the vehicles clean. We had roti, dal, and mixed veg at around 8 pm before retiring for the day. The next day was supposed to be a long one.
DAY 4
September 21, 2022 | Wednesday
Route: Gorakhpur > Khallibad > Basti > Faizabad/ Ayodhya > Barabanki > Lucknow > Aoras > Karhal > Fatehabad > Agra > Jewar > Palwal > Sohna > Gurgaon
Distance: 852 km | Odometer: 49072 km | Trip meter: 2330 km
Travel time: ~17 hours – started at 4: 20 am and reached at 9:30 pm
On this day I expected we would reach Gurgaon around 5 or 6 pm max. You know with our previous 3-day experiences I was quite hopeful. We had 2 plans for this ride:
- We won’t follow Google’s direction to venture inside of Lucknow to reach the Agra-Lucknow expressway. I carved out a route myself that bypasses the heart of Lucknow and we take an outer road. This route took a left turn from the highway via Gomti Nagar, then Lulu Mall, the airport, then again take a right turn from the transport nagar metro station towards the Agra-Lucknow expressway. Last time we lost more than an hour roaming inside Lucknow just to reach the Gorakhpur highway.
- Meet my brother’s best friend in Lucknow as his house is on the new route we planned via Gomti Nagar.
Though we planned to have breakfast at my brother’s friend’s, we reached before time. We thought we’d reach around 10 am but reached his place at around 9 am! So after a good breakfast, we headed to our new route at 10:45 am.
This route was very straightforward – which means not many turns and no confusion. It’s like a u-turn below Lucknow as we bypass the huge city and its cantonment area. The Transport Nagar metro point was a mess. My brother got lost for some 15 minutes as he took a wrong turn. Eventually united and stopped at the last petrol pump before we jump on the Agra-Lucknow expressway. Remember, whenever you venture on the Agra-Lucknow expressway make sure you’re are full-tank. As there are not many petrol pumps on this expressway and you don’t want to spoil your journey!
It was drizzling by the time we started on the expressway at 11:50 am. This is one of the most boring expressways ever! I stopped in around an hour to wash my face as I got bored. There were no cars to overtake, it was raining heavily now, the speed limit was 100 km per hour and all I had to do was take turns when required along the expressway.
We stopped at the refreshment zone at 2 pm and had some packed food. We had our lunches inside our vehicles as it was raining. AT 3 pm we proceeded to the next expressway.
This route was like we hop onto one expressway only to hop onto another. So this Agra-Lucknow expressway ends in Agra which we reached around 4:25 pm. Then we hop on to Yamuna expressway towards Delhi. Yamuna expressway is an old super highway and has speed guns enabled to check on overspeeding cars. This expressway ends at Noida, just before Delhi but we didn’t have to go that way. We were supposed to take a left turn from Jewar to take the road toward Gurgaon, Haryana.
By the time we reached the Jewar cut, it was already dark. I was losing patience as I wanted this transition to be smooth and envisioned reaching during the evening but not at night for sure. As soon as we took the left turn, it was not an expressway we rode anymore. It was a state highway. I know we were screwed now. Unknown road and that too driving at night, something I avoid. I thought we should have taken the route via Noida and Delhi? But now we were already a few kilometers inside this highway, so let’s see.
Palwal was a few kilometers ahead and this road was narrow with barren land on both sides. No street lights, bad roads, and what more irritating was bad drivers. Here in Haryana, they don’t believe in low-beam headlights. Everyone drives with the headlights on the high beam. They don’t understand when we signal them to be on a low beam. This transition from the expressway to the state highway was very bad but that’s the same road we took while going from Gurgaon to Lucknow in March. Since it was early morning that day hence we didn’t find so many people and traffic. This time it was the opposite. It was around 7 or 8 pm and the traffic, people, cattle, overflowing gutter – everything was on the road.
At one point we were riding with a huge number of trucks before Sohna and I trusted Google maps blindly here as I really wanted to get out of this highway. Once we crossed Sohna, the swanky highways start towards Gurgaon. I was literally dying to experience these roads. From Sohna, it’s like 30 to 45 mins to home when I choose to ignore Google maps, overconfident! Now I forgot which turn to take near Badshahpur. I skipped the turn and then had to take a U-turn and then again listen to Google to guide me home. It’s obvious because the broken road at Vatika chowk got a new shine. I didn’t realize that that was the same road I had to take the right turn.
Eventually reached home at 9:28 pm. Didn’t anticipate a 17-hour drive. Yes, avoid the Sohna-Palwal state highway. Spend an hour and go via Delhi to take the Agra-Lucknow expressway at Noida.
After 6 months, the cleaning ordeal was to start. Got a new maid the next day to help clean the house. Rain played a spoilsport as it continued for 4 full days non-stop. Balconies were more than filthy. I think from 27 September the house looked homely.
Coco forgot his old pee places. Now he won’t pee daily, and neither would poop. He was 7 months when we drove to Jorhat and now after 6 months, he forgot his Gurgaon home. He is still sniffing his old pee stinks wondering who peed near the sofa and why the hell are we in this pigeonhole?
Ending my anecdote with this note that exploring the unexplored only enhances one’s knowledge and breaks the fear and apprehensions. I remember I was so skeptical when I took the first long drive to Jorhat and now that we are back in Gurgaon, all I see is that after all this journey was not as bad as I thought it might be. It’s just a new experience, new learning.
EXPENSE SUMMARY
Excluding food and hotel
Distance: 2330 km
Fuel expense: Rs 15,903
Fuel: 158 litre (28 litre remaining) = 130 litres
Mileage: 17.9 kmpl with AC
Tollgate expense (Total): Rs 3115
- Day 1
- Raha – 110
- Day 2
- Nadabour – 125
- Galia – 45
- Dahalapara – 85
- Patgaon – 95
- Guabari – 45
- Rangalibazna – 75
- Sulkhapara – 60
- Day 3
- Satbhaiya – 60
- Khaikhat – 65
- Hariabara – 130
- Asanpur – 100
- Raje – 130
- M – 130
- Pars – 115
- Salemgarh – 60
- Muzaina Hetim – 60
- Day 4
- Tendua – 90
- Mandawnagar – 85
- Chaukadi – 115
- Ronahi – 115
- Ahmadpur – 110
- Alep Main – 650
- Rehan Kalan – 40
- Agra – 145
- Mathura – 160
- Ghamroj Sohna – 115
If you too are planning a road trip, and have these feelings like what to do, how to do? Then read these quick tips here.
Enjoy and happy tripping!
Abracadabra 