Roads to Nirvana- My Most Memorable Road Trips

If four decades of existence in this world has left myself, and quite possibly everyone close to me, without any doubt about something, it is that I love to travel. There just seems to be this constant urge in me to seek out and explore new places and sights, whether for business or pleasure. And by travel, I mean the ones by road and preferably driving on my own. And luckily for me, I have been endowed with adequate opportunities in my personal as well as professional life to satisfy this urge. A road trip is not just about the getting from one place to another but about experiencing the known and unknown sights and sounds that it brings along. And some of these experiences make a really deep imprint on your mind, frozen in time as if it was yesterday. Today I am going to share some of the road trips that have left a profound impression on my life in more ways than one. And no, I am not going to get straight-jacketed into the numbers game by arranging them in Top Something list, but rather in the chronological order of my first, or in some cases the only, tryst with them. So here it goes.

The first road that I am going to talk about is a part of my childhood memories, or more appropriately the foggy reminiscence of my early years. It is the NH37, connecting Guwahati to the Upper Assam towns like Golaghat, Jorhat, Sivasagar and Dibrugarh where we would go every winter vacation to stay with our relatives and more importantly, spend time with our large conglomerate of cousins. This more than five hundred kilometres long stretch of straight, undulating asphalt (now concrete in many places) is a driver’s as well traveller’s delight, with cluster after cluster of quaint little towns and villages vying for one's attention with the eye-soothing view of the famous tea gardens of Assam. It also helps that bang on the highway, midway between Guwahati and Jorhat, lies the World Heritage Site of Kaziranga National Park, home to the One-horned Rhino.

Now on to another road with childhood association. I must have travelled on this road for the first time when I was hardly 5 or 6, but have later driven on it many a times myself. Inspite of becoming quite crowded in recent times, it has still managed to retain its old charm and remains one of my favourites. This nearly hundred kilometres long serpentine road connects my hometown to the Scotland of the East. Yes, I am talking of the Guwahati-Shillong Road. And it is not in this list just because of the sheer challenge it poses to your driving skills or the breath-taking scenery it provides, but also because it keeps reminding me of both my home and my alma mater in Silchar as the road connecting the two. And every time I drive on this road, my mind just flies away to a time we were young and restless and full of dreams about the future.

The opportunity to travel on the next road came due to my professional commitments and I was quite unsure about it due to the fact that hardly anybody I knew well had travelled on that road earlier. After much deliberation, I finally decided give it a try, never to regret my decision later. It was long, it was challenging and it was awesome! Full of greenery and practically devoid of any human presence for a majority of its two hundred plus kilometres of length, this highland road connecting the towns of Aizawl and Lunglei in the Mizo hills was a revelation to the traveller in me. I had never really felt as lonely and  connected to nature as I did while on that road. And given an opportunity, would be more than eager to take on this beauty, probably travelling further south to Saiha and Lawngtlai towards the Myanmar border.

It was a November afternoon and I was shivering, but not because of the cold. It was not even because of the fact that I had just driven non-stop for around sixty kilometres on a steep, treacherous ascend from the sleepy little town of Dirang at around six thousand feet to one of the highest mountain passes in the India. I was shivering simply at the enormity of the realisation that I had just arrived at the famous Se La, more commonly known as Sela pass, sitting imposingly at close to fourteen thousand feet atop the eastern Himalayas and presently scoffing at the sheer temerity of this ignoramus with thoughts of conquering a mountain simply by driving up its heights. Words fail to really explain how small and humbled I felt at that moment simply by standing amongst those towering mountains. It was the most striking memory of my once-in-a-lifetime road trip from Tezpur in Assam to Tawang Monastery in Arunachal Pradesh through the beautiful town of Bomdi La. That moment of deep realisation of our insignificance in the larger scheme of things would stay etched on my mind forever.

How would you feel when you are travelling constantly at a height of ten thousand feet or above, through steep mountain gorges and wide valleys, occasionally crossing a mountain pass at fourteen to fifteen thousand feet, for more than two hundred kilometres? And wait, did I also mention that the road in question is not even one in the true sense of the word, with numerous water streams traversing it, and opens only for a few summer months? This was how we, myself and three of my college friends on a trekking expedition, felt while travelling on this stretch, declared rather questionably as a road, from the famous hill station of Manali to the town of Kaza in Lahaul Spiti district. It was a more than ten hours long gruelling test of the mind and the body, getting us ready for the challenging trek ahead. But the harrowing road conditions notwithstanding, the barren, mountainous backdrop was a visual treat of colours and contours like I had never experienced before. It was a photographer’s delight and a little bit of the additional time taken in reaching our destination could have been attributed to the repeated photography breaks that we had taken. Another highlight of this trip undoubtedly was our blink-and-miss encounter with the Himalayan Red Fox. Maybe more on this in a blog later!

After talking mostly about the roads that I had travelled solo or with my friends, let me talk of a road trip that I undertook with my family. While on our trip to Ooty (or Udagamandalam, take your pick!), we decided to rent a self-driven car from the Bangalore Airport itself to enjoy our privacy and drove off, full of anticipation. And neither the drive nor the view along the way disappointed any of us. The drive started with the sugarcane district of Mandya giving way to the National Parks of Bandipur on Karnataka side and Mudumalai on Tamil Nadu side and finally a mountain road culminating at the beautiful hill station nestled in the Nilgiris. All throughout, the view was an ever changing palette of colours and simply a treat to the eyes. But most importantly, what has really stayed in my memory about the trip was the joy my loved ones had while on the road.

So these were some of the most memorable road trips that I have been fortunate enough to embark on till date. Passing mention should also be made of Shillong- Cherrapunjee Road with that beautiful V shaped mountain range en route, Kathgodam-Pithoragarh-Munsiari Road with its gasp inducing gorges, Palampur- Dalhousie Road with the majestic view of the Dhauladhar range and the Delhi-Amritsar Road for the glimpse it offers to the heart of North India.

There is no doubt that the wanderlust in me would keep prodding myself to make many more road trips to yet uncharted territories and some of them would surely be compelling enough to eke out a place in my hall of memories.

Till then, do keep tour travelling shoes on. Bon voyage!