My Son's First Road Trip!!
Being an admirer of nature and traveling, I always wanted my son to
start early on road trips and was thinking on nearby place where I could take
him to ASAP. Around 2 months back, I and my dad were having this discussion of
going to our native place which we always do once a year. And my dad an avid
traveler (though he didn’t travel many places apart from Gujarat because he
couldn’t but am sure he would have had time and money permitted. I got this
travel bug from my parents) himself suggested of taking a road trip to Gujarat.
He is very much keen on taking one himself for a long time now. So, I got on
doing some research and preparing itinerary. The only thing that stopped me
from taking this trip right away was Grey Wind as many of you got to
know her from my previous post. It’s a mouse and we are a family of five and a
half (me, wife, our 5-month-old son, my folks and sister) which makes it
uncomfortable for such a long drive. We finally decided on breaking this
journey in part rail and part road trip since we only had a weekend with us to
cover 2 places. So, the next thing I started was researching on a car rental
service from Ahmedabad.
On doing some research over car rentals, there were only a few options
i.e. Zoomcar, Zoprent, Revv and MyChoize. Of all these Revv had the worst
review and Zoprent and Mycoize didn’t have a better either. Hence, we were left
with only Zoomcar. And Zoomcar over the years has grown big with a mix and
match reviews but I took my chance. Our itinerary was set wherein we booked us
to and fro rail tickets in Mumbai/Rajkot Duronto express. We booked this train
as it takes minimal time to reach Ahmedabad without any stops and is mostly on
time. We didn’t book our Zoomcar until 2 weeks before the journey because
things may change any moment with kids especially with infants at hand. Here is
the catch. We know that our son is a bit claustrophobic and doesn’t like closed
confined places as of now. He wasn’t comfortable with lifts and traveling in
car. And we expected he wouldn’t like train or flight either when we booked his
first. However, the flight journey was inevitable since he was to travel at his
Nanu/Nani’s place. His flight journey will make it for a whole new blog as it
was one crazy journey for us a parent. From the day we booked rail tickets we
took him for multiple drives within Mumbai and nearby places to get him
accustomed to car. After a short 2-3 drives, he was comfortable traveling
during day but still not after dark. And he got accustomed to lifts and flights
as well. While everything being new to him, I knew for sure, he has it in him
to do it comfortably. After all, he is blood of my blood. For a two-day drive,
our journey was to start from Ahmedabad at 7AM on a Saturday morning provided
everything was good with the car and we had to reach a place called Talaja, our
kul daivat temple which was approx. 250km drive. Once done with the rituals, we
had to head back to our next stop and halt for the night at a place called
Sarangpur Hanuman Temple which was another 125km. In all we were expected to
travel approx. 350-370kms on day 1. And the next leg was an easy breezy 170 km
drive from Sarangpur back to Ahmedabad. Overall it was supposed to be at the
max 570km road trip with an infant and senior citizen folks.
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| Day 1 --> Ahmedabad - Talaja |
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| Day 1 --> Talaja - Sarangpur |
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| Day 2 --> Sarangpur - Ahmedabad |
Being a 2-day trip, I was looking for a comfort drive for family and at
the same time, I wanted to try my hands on some nice throttle. So, I had a
couple cars in mind like Hyundai Creta, Mahindra XUV500 or may be Maruti Suzuki
Breeza. I was keen more on Creta since I’ve heard it’s a pleasure to drive one.
We booked a Creta for our 2-day trip at the cost of Rs. 8200/- + Rs. 3000/- as
a Security deposit which had 585kms covered for the time duration. However, 2
days before the trip, I receive a call from Zoomcar stating the car that we
booked isn’t available anymore since it has met with an accident and the only
car available for our location is Ford EcoSport. This was the last thing I
expected and made me doubt my decision considering my travel with family. While
booking the car, I knew Breeza and EcoSport had prices lower than Creta. Hence,
I asked for the price compensation coz that was the only choice I had on a
short notice. They offered me Rs. 1000/- flat less than Creta and 500 Zoomcar
points. I tried to bargain more but I wasn’t in a better position to do so and
I didn’t want to ruin the plan that everyone was so excited for. We finally had
a deal for Rs. 7200/-. The next day before packing our bags, I called them up
just to make sure I don’t have any more surprises. I was assured EcoSport was
available and in good condition.
We packed our stuff in 1 big and 2 small bags and started on our journey
to the railway station. The only thing we were praying for is our son to have a
sound sleep in the train as he is too small for long journeys. However, the
night is short, and his sleep is long for now and he is an analyst in his own
way. Anything new to him, he analysis it from start to end and once he feels
secured, he is comfortable. Once we got in train, he initially felt confined
and dark. But in an hour or so, he got comfortable and went to sleep. The only
distraction was folks walking past every now and then, but he got accustomed to
it and slept nicely. He might have felt as if he was in his cradle moving from
left to right all night. And we knew we are covered for our return leg without
any hassles. Our train was supposed to reach Ahmedabad at 5.30 in the morning
and we had our car booked from 7am. However, the train was late today by almost
40min. It was a cold winter morning and the temp. was around 12 deg Cel which
is very cold by Mumbai standards. I and dad got rest of them comfortable in the
Waiting lounge at the station and we left to get our ride for the weekend. The
location shown in the Zoomcar app was perfect and we reached the spot around
7.15AM. While the app showed there would be no one available at the location
and need to get the car using Key Less Entry (KLE), I received a call from the
owner of the car asking our whereabouts. Once we reached, we inspected the car
and he informed us that KLE isn’t working and we need to call Zoomcar and ask
them to unlock it from their end in order to start our journey. The Zoomcar
support number doesn’t work from regular prepaid numbers. Luckily, my dad had a
prepaid card but with an extra calling minutes so that worked. We quickly got
the meter reading and our journey started right away. We also noticed the car
had speed lock at 80kmph, so we were restricted on speed and had to calculate
our journey accordingly. The car had a few dents here and there and had crossed
more than 73,000 kms (being a rental car) so I crossed my fingers for a trip
without any breakdowns. The fuel reading was low and the dashboard reading
showed it will go 11km max to empty. So, we headed straight to the nearby fuel
pump and calculating the mileage for the diesel variant and a rental car ran
for more than 73,000 kms, I assumed the mileage to be around 15-16 kmpl.
We had expected to start our journey by 8AM and by the time we left from
Ahmedabad railway station, it was 08.45AM. My dad is more aware about the
places in Gujarat coz of his frequent travels so we had decided our first pit
stop around 40km on our way where we would have our breakfast. This first
stretch cutting through different roads and mostly on State Highways (SH), SH142
was a decent two-lane road. Although I noticed the speed breakers are more like
bumpers. They aren’t smooth and tends to be very jerky. It was my first time
driving in Gujarat and to my surprise the number of cattle’s and dogs that I
swayed off was huge. They just popped on and off out of no-where. The pit stop
was Kalikund Parshwanath Jain temple which serves breakfast or morning
navkarsi until 09.30AM and we reached around 09.35AM. On requesting them,
they served us food, we quickly had one and went to the temple. It is a
beautiful marble carved temple as every other Jain temple are across the country.
The architecture of Jain temples is to be marveled at. Whether its Ranakpur or
Palitana, every wall is different and full of stories. The hack to traveling in
Gujarat is to measure halts at the Jain temples on the way. They serve fresh
food and is hygienic by all means and barely has any cost. Many temples even
serve free food for Jain community. After almost an hour, we moved ahead on our
journey and the kid was back to sleep after being up for almost 2 hours. The
hack is to cover as much as possible while he is asleep as he wakes up as soon
as the car comes to halt. So, the next break was when he wakes up. We got onto
SH4 from Dholka and then to SH6 passing through Ambareli, Pipali and Dholera. He
had a nice 1.5hr of sleep and woke up to a new place every time he opened his
eyes 😂. We took a short water break at the next dhaba somewhere on
Bhavnagar-Pipali SH where we had an ice cream to freshens us and some fresh air
for the kiddo. We started again in the next 15min. and the stretch was a breeze.
My son who is a keen observer had his head full of new places and enjoyed
looking out while there were ample people in the car to distract him if he got
bored. Continuing further on Bhavnagar-Pipali SH which passed mainly through
the industrial area had a lot of bad patches and a new 4-lane highway in
making. This patch would soon be a breeze once it starts as it would be a toll
road. There was a toll booth in making as well near Bhavnagar. We bypassed
Bhavnagar and had our lunch break at a dhaba near Bhandaria. It’s funny how
every other dhaba on Gujarat roads are named as Maasi nu Rasodu or Mama ni
Hotel. We thought we had lunch at Massi nu Rasodu however, that turned out
to be the adjoining dhaba 😂.
It was already 3PM by the time we started after lunch on SH51 and the
patch was mostly on service road as the main highway was under construction.
The newly cemented stretch should connect to the toll road that we came across
earlier near Bhavnagar. Once it’s up and running, that should cut down the
entire journey on this stretch by 45min-1hr. We reached Talaja around 4PM and
visited our kul daivat temple. We had expected to be here by 3PM however, we
started an hour late so considering that we were on time. So far, the journey
was good without any hassles. We took the blessings for our son and started by
5PM. The route we took from here was using SH36 via Dihor and Sihor and it was
a mess. We had to take the other route via Palitana and Songadh which is a
10-15km longer than what we took but dad got confused and we embarked on this one.
It was almost dark when we started and the 40km stretch from Bhadraval to Sihor
was a complete off-roading. Our ride swaying left to right with not a shred of
anyone, driving through village by lanes was tiresome. Throw in some village
traffic, cattles, dogs, bad patch, darkness and a sleeping baby who could wake
up any moment will drive you crazy for another 1.5hrs. We took a quick tea
break on the outskirts of Sihor and within 15min left for our halt tonight. We
started around 7.00PM and expected to reach Sarangpur by sometime after 8PM.
The stretch from here was a breeze passing through Chamardi and Vallabhipur on SH36
and SH117. Though it was smooth but very risky since it was a two-lane road
without any divider and the only light was the Upper beam from the on-coming
traffic. There wasn’t a single vehicle which was running on lower beam. I
flashed through the highway to avoid any hazard or potholes. Just when the high
beam lights were getting on my nerves, my son lost his cool as it was pitch
dark and was tired after traveling for almost 24hrs. Everyone got onto
diverting his mind and I focused on reaching as quickly as we could. We turned
onto the internal road from Barwala and my oh my. The last 15km from here was
butter smooth. The last time I saw this stretch couple years back was a single
lane road but now it was a nice four-lane stretch with tar and road signs. We
reached our destination by 8.15PM covering 375kms.
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| Sarangpur Hanuman Temple |
Tonight, was rest time for the family as it had been their first especially
for my folks and son. We visited the temple, had food and a good night sleep. We
woke up to a fresh wintery village morning and though the entire premises have
solar powered water system, there was no hot water available. It was a foggy
dull morning and the sun wasn’t out until noon. So, we had a quick bath in cold
water, checked out, had lunch at temple premises where they serve it to all those
who visit and left for Ahmedabad. We started around 2PM on SH1 passing through
Dhandhuka, Fedara and got connected onto NH47 at Bagodara and all the way till
Ahmedabad. The entire stretch from Sarangpur till Ahmedabad was butter smooth
tar road without a single pothole. Even the speed breakers were so much better
here unlike yesterday. Today’s journey was only 150km until we touched
Ahmedabad. Since we reached by 5PM, we had planned to visit one of our relative
back there. So, the evening was well spent, had dinner and dropped the car at
the same location from where we picked up. Our journey turned out to be 540kms and
not 570km as expected. Since the stretch was pretty good during most of the
journey, we had a good mileage of 18kmpl and was left with a lot of fuel in the
tank. Once we dropped the car, we left for the Ahmedabad Railway station as we
had a train to catch back home. It was very cold tonight and expected our son
would doze off right way. However, to our surprise he got charged up as soon as
we entered the train and merrily enjoyed his journey laughing out loud so that
we play with him. It was such a nice feeling to see him have a good time especially
after traveling continuously since Friday night. And we were all happy faces
back home with a lot of memories.
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| Our Ride |
Quick
Takeaway from this trip:
1. Be extremely aware of cattles, dogs while
driving in Gujarat.
2. Make sure you cut down the speed at
speed breakers since they aren’t smooth and very bumpy.
3. My experience with Zoomcar was
decent. Though the car had run 73000+kms, it was in good condition. I even
received Security Deposit with 48 hours on ending the trip without any hassle.
4. Don’t fuel in as per your target
from beginning. Test the water first as I gave away almost 100km of fuel to
Zoomcar/owner.
5. Kids are very adaptive. Don’t worry
and take them out. Both will have fun.
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