ROUTE: Hyderabad – Jabalpur – Lucknow
Total distance driven: 1355 km
Total time taken: 20 hours 28 minutes
Average fuel economy: 18 km/l
Car: Audi A4 Petrol
Total Toll Tax:
Passengers: 1 adult
Luggage: 1 suitcase and 1 duffle bag
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| Day 1 - Hyderabad to Jabalpur |
My career took me to Hyderabad in 2009. My hometown Lucknow is about 1400 km from Hyderabad and could have been the perfect reason to go on a long drive whenever I had that craving. 14 years since that day, on numerous occasions I planned to drive to Lucknow from Hyderabad but never could execute it. There were various reasons which stopped me from doing this drive everytime I planned it. I’m not going into those reasons today. The gist is that I had all the reasons to do this drive, lucknow was my hometown, my parents were there, some of my childhood friends were there, a nice place to park the car, everything was aligned but I just could not do it. So this time, when I was sitting in Hyderabad for more than 6 months without any long drive, that craving again started finding its roots in my system. And there I was, planned and this time executed it perfectly.
A few things were working in my favour this time around,
1. I had a better car – The Audi A4, compared to the Ford Fiesta
2. The roads have significantly improved in the last 14 years
3. I already did half of the stretch just last year when I drove till Bandhavgarh.
4. And I had abundance of excitement since I was sitting in Hyderabad for the last 6 months without a single long drive
Although, I must say a few things were going to be different when I drive to Lucknow this time. Supriya won’t be joining me for this trip. Well, not just this trip, she even said she won’t be joining on any long road trip going forward. I guess, in the last 12 years of my marriage, she has come to a stage where she has gotten enough of those forced long drives which I made her join me as the co-passenger. She has done her share of these long drives accompanying me all these years and now I will have to be doing it all alone. I can understand, not everyone shares the same passion of being on-road for hours and hours all together. So, at the end I knew this was supposed to be a solo road trip after a gap of almost 13 years. The last solo drive was from Hyderabad to Bangalore, back in 2010.
For me things are different, not just I enjoy driving, I am so madly in love with it that I don’t even switch on my music in the car, just because I like listening to the engine revving when I press the accelerator. That sound of the rev is so soothing to my ears, I can literally listen to it sitting in the driver’s seat for hours all together. I am not the kind of driver who takes breaks on these long stretches. I prefer to drive continuously for stretches of 1000+ km without even a single break. But that’s only me, I don’t recommend it for others. It depends from person to person and what an individual prefers.
Anyways, let us now come back to this particular trip. I did not want to do 1400 km in one stretch so decided to do a night halt in Jabalpur. Hyderabad to Jabalpur is approx. 800 km and Jabalpur to Lucknow is about 600 km. Started looking for a decent hotel in Jabalpur, and to my surprise, none of the big brands are there in the city. Not even one 5-star hotel was operational in Jabalpur. Then finally I booked my stay in Hotel Pasricha, the things that favoured that hotel was its proximity to the Jabalpur by-pass so that I don’t have to enter the city traffic. Moreover, it was a newer property and I hoped that the facilities will be less abused and rightly so. I didn’t get the hospitality of Taj or Marriott but I wasn’t disappointed with the food either.
As always, for all my long drives, I prepared sandwiches the night before (so that I don’t have to waste my time stopping for lunch / breakfast), got my car refuelled, checked tyre pressure, and applied a coat of wax on the paint so that the post-drive cleaning procedure becomes a lot easier and less harsh on the car paint.
Got up at 4 am on the drive day, prepared coffee and had a good muesli breakfast and started my journey by 5 AM. Exiting Hyderabad is always easy because of the ORR and in general Telangana roads are quite decent. Reached Jabalpur by 3-10 PM. This time I took a pledge, not to cross the speed of 100km/hr for the entire journey. I wanted to experiment this approach, to see what kind of impact it does on my driving experience. And I was surprised to see 2 noticeable impacts. One, I was more relaxed during the entire journey, this increased my longevity and I was less tired overall. Second, the fuel economy which my car delivered was out of the world. Imagine a petrol sedan like Audi A4 delivering a fuel economy of 18 km/l, absolutely incredible. Thanks to the brake energy regeneration / coasting technology in Audi that made this possible. Audi also has a feature of speed limiter where I can fix the maximum speed at 100 kmph and this way I don’t have to keep looking at the speedometer to know whether I crossed 100 or not. I just love this feature.
While crossing MP, somewhere before the elevated forest route started, the cops stopped my car and asked me to pay a challan for overspeeding, which I did in 2021. The speed limit was 100 and I was at 115. They even had the picture of my car through the trap camera. It was good to know that these days, you cannot escape paying a challan even if your car has a registration from some other state. Hopefully this will deter some of the rowdy drivers on the highway. But then again, I’m sure those rowdy drivers must be some relative of an MP or MLA and they definitely don’t care about paying a challan for overspeeding. It is always the common man like us who have to bear the penalty all the time.
Reached Jabalpur Hotel Pasricha and checked in and ordered for lunch. Luckily they don’t have any specific timing for lunch and I could order food even after 3 PM. The hotel is well maintained and the rooms are decent, if not great. On the other hand, food was definitely good.
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| Day 2 - Complete Trip (Hyd to Lko) |
Next Morning, when I got up at about 5-30 am, there was a lot of fog outside. This helped me clean my car easily as the car was already wet and I did not have to arrange for water. Left Jabalpur by almost 6 AM and reached Lucknow by 3-55 PM. The route that I took was Jabalpur – Rewa – Allahabad – Lucknow. The route was in general quite decent until Allahabad. By the time I reached Allahabad, it was already peak traffic and the route to Lucknow takes you right through the city. After Allahabad, the traffic increases manifold and entry in Lucknow through telibagh is a pain. Nevertheless, I reached home by 4 Pm and I would say that is quite decent. The car was comfortable as usual and because of my 100kmph limit, the fuel economy was 18kmpl for the entire trip till Lucknow.
Lucknow – Jabalpur – Hyderabad
The driving that I have done in the last 30 days, totaling to more than 6000 km, is the maximum that I have done in my entire life since the day I started driving. There has never been a month where I have driven more than that. This is a personal best record for me. Surprisingly, it is coming at this age of my life, when I’m not in my 20s or 30s anymore. But I’m glad that I could spend these many kilometers behind the wheels.
Going back to Hyderabad, I stuck to the same route which is used during my onward journey. Not just the route, I even stayed at the same hotel in Jabalpur. The onward journey was so perfect, I really didn’t want to change anything from that.
This time when I was leaving from Lucknow, I ensured that I leave early in the morning. This way I was able to avoid the Lucknow city traffic and it resulted in reaching Jabalpur a full 1.5 hour early compared to the onward journey.
Day 1: Started from Lucknow at 5-30 AM, Reached Jabalpur 2 PM
Day 2: Started from Jabalpur at 6 AM, reached Hyderabad Home 3-50 PM
