October of 2014 was an exceptional month for travelers in India<\/p>\n
There were three long weekends possible in a single month \u2013 a situation which was probably unprecedented in the past few years.
\nThe 2nd Oct weekend was especially alluring because the following Monday, 6th, was also a holiday. So taking 3rd off would make it a 5 day weekend.<\/p>\n
It was quickly decided that the long weekend would be perfect for a trip to the desert in Rajasthan. Jaisalmer and Jodhpur were quickly finalized and a rough itinerary formed. But at the start of Sept, we were already too late. All trains to Rajasthan were booked solid (triple digit waiting list). Flights were also expensive due to the additional demand. The 5 day trip was coming out to be quite expensive.<\/p>\n
Assuming that most public transport options to any touristy place would be similarly overbooked, we thought of doing a roadtrip instead. Goa was the first option. But it was probably going to be choc-a-bloc with revelers with similar ideas. We had done Kutch<\/a> just last year and interior Maharashtra doesn\u2019t have enough to offer for 5 days. Madhya Pradesh had a lot of interesting options, but was it doable by road ? Some quick googling suggested that if we were ready to do 500-600 km driving on the first and last day, Madhya Pradesh offered some very interesting itineraries.<\/p>\n We were two couples, with one driver each \u2013 300km per day was easily doable. The destinations we chose were on the western part of the state, so as to minimize driving inside Madhya Pradesh \u2013 our last experience<\/a> had not been very encouraging.<\/p>\n These we going to be our destinations<\/p>\n Just when the plans for Madhya Pradesh were finalized, unfortunately the other couple had to drop out because of some work deadline. Determined to not lose this long weekend, we checked if it was still doable by a single driver. Travel forums indicated that the longest stretch of the road – Mumbai to Indore \u2013 was in very good condition. This was the long drive on the first and last day \u2013 600 km. We decided to go for it. Day 1 – Mumbai to Indore (600 km). Sarafa Bazaar<\/a> in Indore. Stay at Indore The last day was reserved for the return trip to Mumbai. From the beautiful greenery of Mandu, the dry and dusty Maharashtra was a depressing sight. We do not remember where we exactly we stopped for lunch, but it wasn\u2019t anything special. Since we knew where the bad stretches of the road was, we drove at a much better pace, and in 8.5 hours, we covered the 530 km from Mandu to Mumbai<\/p>\n October of 2014 was an exceptional month for travelers in India There were three long weekends possible in a single month \u2013 a situation which was probably unprecedented in the past few years. The 2nd Oct weekend was especially alluring because the following Monday, 6th, was also a holiday. So taking 3rd off would make<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[83],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-driving","tag-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bombaynomads.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bombaynomads.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bombaynomads.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bombaynomads.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bombaynomads.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bombaynomads.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2249,"href":"https:\/\/www.bombaynomads.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions\/2249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bombaynomads.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bombaynomads.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bombaynomads.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bombaynomads.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\nAnd we are SO glad we did it<\/p>\nThe Trip<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\nDay 2 – Indore to Bhopal (185 km). Bhimbetka<\/a> (45-45 km). Stay at Bhopal
\nDay 3 – Vidisha<\/a> (60 km). Sanchi<\/a> (10 km). Back to Bhopal (51 km)
\nDay 4 – Bhopal to Mandu<\/a> (285 km). Stay at Mandu<\/a>
\nDay 5 – Mandu<\/a> to Mumbai (527 km)<\/p>\nReturn Home<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n
Recommendations and tips<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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