In Search of Gangotri From Pune

[kinshuk.arya]

Hi All,

Did a 4600km+ road trip last month along with my wife in search of snow and the source of River Ganga, We couldnt reach Gangotri and were stopped because of weather and road conditions around 25kms before it.

The trip started from Pune, covering Kanpur, Lucknow, Haridwar, Dehradun, Mussoorie, Harsil and then the return journey via Meerut, Alwar and Kota.

TL on its way along with more pics. Meanwhile, enjoy the teaser.



Regards,
Kinshuk

 

[Chandranath]

Eagerly waiting for the start.

Been to Gangotri 4 times. Never driven, but always on a trek. Its very nostalgic for me. Glued to the thread to see more.

The XUV looks smart in the snow

 

[vijay]

Glued to your TL buddy.Start the detaled log soon.
What a treat to see your xuv covered in that snow.Brilliant capture.

 

[kinshuk.arya]

@Chandranath and Vijay, Thank you guys.
The pic credit goes to my wife.

 

[TSIVipul]

If there is a list of travelogues I have been waiting for then this one would definitely has been in the top five.

Glued to this thread now and the pic, wonderful it is. I must accept that the Optimus is looking simply wonderful covered with snow; seems to be the ideal place it is built to be at. Do share it with Anand Mahindra on twitter, I am sure he will be happy to re tweet it further.

If I am not wrong then this pic is clicked between Ganganani and Harsil or maybe above Harsil and I am making this guess based on two things:
1) Presence of snow
2) Width of the road

 

[kinshuk.arya]

@TSI: the place was Sukki Top on the way to Harsil, approx 30 kms from Harsil.

The route in between was full of snow and medium to heavy snowfall, with Optimus cruising on 7-8 inches of snow at some places.

 

[kinshuk.arya]

Hello All,

This is my first travelogue, so please bear with me.

My Wife and I were planning a road trip since our last one, one year back. A great opportunity came in the face of a friend’s marriage in Kanpur, so we decided to extended that leave and explore the nearby city of Lucknow and take a hike to the snowy mountains of Himalayas in the Gangotri region.

Now since we stay in Pune, a road trip to Gangotri region will take at least 2 weeks. So the initial phases of planning included getting leaves approved which is one of the most difficult tasks in todays world and that too a 2 week long leave doesnt go well with the bosses, but somehow we managed to get the leaves. Then came the cities we need to stop and explore, the route planning, the distances to be covered etc. All this was planned with the help of Human GPS of India Mr. HV Kumar (famously known as HVK) and the some other members of the forum who I am greatly thankful to. HVK helped me in finalizing the routes with exceptional details of the ATMs, Fuel pumps etc. all along the way.

Cities that were finalized were Lucknow, Haridwar, Dehradun, Mussoorie and Harsil (24kms before Gangotri). In all the entire trip was close to 4500kms.

The trip started from Pune at around 7:00 AM on the 24th of January, the destination was Kanpur approximately 1500kms away. While planning the total time taken came out to be around 24hours, since we were 3 drivers in this phase me and 2 other friends we decided to drive through and through without any major stops. The route taken was Pune-Ahmadnagar-Shirdi-Malegaon-Mhow-Indore-Bhopal-Vidisha-Bina-Jhansi-Kanpur. The roads are 4 lane all the way except for slight stretches from Ahmadnagar-Malegaon and Bhopal to Jhansi. First day of driving was quite uneventful had lunch in one of the road side dhabas. Post reaching Bina we entered Bina by mistake and took one of the worst roads of my life after driving for around 10kms we reached a fuel pump and inquired about the road status from the attendant, post the update that the route is same for the next 30kms we decided to go back and search for another route. Notes from HVK came in handy a lot while searching for the route, after coming back on track we found out that there was no need to go in Bina and had to pay the toll tax twice which we could have avoided. Post this incident everyone of the 3 drivers after covering close to 1000kms were dead tired so we decided to take the first major break and sleep off in the vehicle itself for an hour. Alarms were set and we dozed off, by the time I snoozed off 3 hours had passed by and others had started. By the time I woke up we had already crossed Jhansi and it was early morning somewhere around 6-6:30 AM on 26th of January. We stopped at a fuel pump again to freshen up and brush our teeth etc. Even though we all were quite tired and in a hurry to reach Kanpur we stopped twice once for a hot breakfast of Samose and Aloo ki sabji and once at a historic monument of Chorasi Gummaj. We finally reached the venue at around 11:00 AM on 25th of January.

Some pics from the first leg of the journey.



Starting off from Shirdi.



The 3 drivers for the Pune-Kanpur leg



The group



In serious discussion about the route or was it because of the taste of Tea.



My Wife.





Post lunch Fotu Session.















Foggy Conditions on Day 2 of Driving.







Fotu Session at Chaurasi Gummaj oenroute Kanpur



Optimu Prime showing the way.

 

[smooth rider]

your xuv in snow looks fantastic. but the shop behind destroyed the snap. eagerly waiting for the next update.

 

[Lameassonwheels]

Wow man!. You managed to get 2 weeks leave, and did a wonderful road trip that many would envy. Killer pic of XUV in snow, as Vipul said share it with Mahindra, they will retweet or may put it in the XUV microsite or FB page for sure. So glued to this thread, please upload more pics.

 

[kinshuk.arya]

your xuv in snow looks fantastic. but the shop behind destroyed the snap. eagerly waiting for the next update.

Thank you SR sir, because of the weather conditions and my near to frozen feet we didnt get much time to do a proper photoshoot. will try that the next time in Snow, hopefully on a Leh ride.

Wow man!. You managed to get 2 weeks leave, and did a wonderful road trip that many would envy. Killer pic of XUV in snow, as Vipul said share it with Mahindra, they will retweet or may put it in the XUV microsite or FB page for sure. So glued to this thread, please upload more pics.

Thanks Lameassonwheels, your name intrigues me...

I have tweeted the pic to Anand Mahindra, lets see if I get a reaction from him or not[thinking]

Will be updating the next part soon enough.

 

[kinshuk.arya]

After attending the marriage function we started of for Lucknow on 26th Jan, 2015 at somewhere around 1:00PM. Reached Lucknow in less than 2 hours because of the road conditions, directly went to an area called Charbagh(near Lucknow Station) in search of accomodation. Inquired into a couple of hotels but didnt find the one to our liking. One of the hotels called Hotel Shelter which was quite near to the station and had ample parking space for our car was finally decided for stay in Lucknow but we couldnt check into the hotel as the name or rather surnames on the ids of my wife and I were not matching. As we havent felt the need for my wife to change her surname it was never done. Luckily, we found another hotel in a lane just behind the Hotel Shelter called Hotel I P Palace (why the name IP Palace I dont know must be the initials of the owner, first thing that came to my mind was Hotel Internet Protocol Palace). Jan end being an off season we were offered hefty discount on the room rent. Checking into this hotel was a smooth affair, the bell boy took the luggage to the room. The room was quite good and spacious with AC(not that we needed it), 32″ TV set with set top box and a clean attached bathroom with all the essential toiletries and a geyser.

By the time we had checked in and freshened up it was quite dark and not much of the market was open because of Public Holiday, we inquired with an Auto driver about shopping of garments with Chikan embroidery work and he guided us to a place called Sewa Chikan, one of the wholesale shops in Lucknow for the Chikan work. For all those who dont know Chikan is a type of embroidery done on cloth by hand, the design is first printed on the cloth and then it is embroidered with the help of needle and white thread, now a days it has progressed to coloured thread as well. After spending close to 2 hours in the shop, getting gifts for every lady in the family we headed out towards Dastarkhwaan Restaurent for the famous Kababs of Lucknow. Man we ate our fill that day had ordered the quantity we would order normally for 3-4 people but finished it all of between my wife and I.

Returned back to the hotel room and slept like a log as we were both quite tired and extremely full from the food and travel the previous days.

Some pics from the 3rd day of our Journey.



Wifey and Me in front of Hotel I P Palace.



In front of Dastarkhwaan



Waiting for the food



Shaadi ke Side Effects. Shopping bags.



The various type of Kababs (one of the best I have ever had)



Entire table is set



After food



A Memento



Relishing the food
The food in Lucknow is simply amazing, I just dont know how people maintain their weights in a place like Lucknow. The Kababs we had at Dastarkhwaan were so juicy and soft that I could eat that thye have spoilt me for all the other Kababs.

I was suffering from Diarrhoea from the time we had lunch on the Highway Dhaba but it had subsided a lot till now. So I was quite relieved as we were planning for a sight seeing tour of Lucknow the next day. Full Day update in sometime.

 

[kinshuk.arya]

The next morning we started off from the Hotel at around 11:00 AM for Lucknow sightseeing. Initially we took out the XUV for the same but after going a couple of kms in Lucknow traffic and getting stuck in a jam we left the vehicle back at the hotel and decided to hire an Auto Rickshaw for the same. The Auto Rickshaw driver dropped us at the world famous Bara Imambara while going through the Roomi Darwaja. Fun fact: Roomi Darwaja was the location of shooting of the movie Gadar, the various scenes picturised in Pakistan were actually shot in Lucknow.

A pic of the Roomi Darwaja from one side.


Another pic from the other side


he speciality of this Grand Gate is that it has 3 small gates on one side and one big gate on the other side, which is quite uncommon in this part of the world.

After getting down in front of the Bara Imambara we took a Tonga aka Taanga aka a Horse Cart to roam around the nearby places, The Tonga driver took us to Chota Imambara, Chota Imambara is a places of worship and was made by the nephew Muhammad Ali Shah hence the name Chota Imambara, The Bara Imambara was made by his uncel Nawab ASaf-ud-Daula hence the name Bara Imambara. On the way to Chota Imambara one also get to see the Ghantaghar of Lucknow.

Chota Imambara has a bathing place which used to have Showers, a heated bath tub etc. It also used to have lightning conductors and a wind vane in the shape of a Gold painted Fish at the gate. The inside of the building is well decorated with Mirrors, chandeliers from that time etc. Couple of pics of the same.







Post visit to Chota Imambara and Ghantaghar on the way we returned back to Bara Imambara. Bara Imambara is majorly divided into 3 buildings namely the Bara Imambara itself, the Bhool Bhulaiya and a Bowli (a step well). Tha main building of the Imambara is majorly divided into 3 sections each of which has a ceiling, the most important part of the ceiling is that even though it is more than 400 feet long there are no girders or support except for the wall on which it is built. The Bhool Bhulaiya was not meant to be made a labyrinth but they are basically passages inside the wall which on encountering a junction makes 4 ways to go and because of the size of the structure one can easily loose himself/herself in the structure, also it is said that there is a network of underground passageways beneath the building as well which was sealed by the Britishers and also named it a Labyrinth, hence the name Bhool Bhulaiya. This a must visit place in Lucknow. Fun Fact: Couples are not allowed inside the labyrinth except with a guide or a group. Inside the labyrinth you can hear someone speak from quite far away and at the highest level of the ceiling one can even hear matchstick being fired on the other end.

The Bowli goes down almost 5-6 storeys where only the first 2 are above the level of water and the rest are below the water level. It has a special pond inside from where one can see the reflection of the people on the main gate of the pond.

Couple of pics of the Bara Imambara, the Bhul Bhulaiya and the Bowli.













After the local sight seeing for that day we headed over to the Aminabad Market. Bought a couple of things had the famous Wahid Biryani in one of the lanes. Lucknawi Chicken Biryani is not as spicy as the Hyderabadi Biryani but still is very flavourful with juicy and succulent pieces of meat.



After a bit more window shopping tested the Famous Tundey Kababi. I should tell you once you eat there you wont like the Kababs anywhere else.









After Tundey Kababi it was time for some dessert so headed over to the Prakash Kulfi center. Another famous joint for Kulfis. The Kulfis were quite good.





With this Kulfi we concluded our day and headed over to the hotel.

 

[kinshuk.arya]

Some extra Pics

Pune to Kanpur pics

 

[kinshuk.arya]

Some pics from Lucknow Day 1

 

[smooth rider]

mouth watering T log. its turning out to be food 'alogue rather than TL. will PM you if ever going to lucknow about the various food joints to be visited.