Driving Sikkim, India and Nepal

Latetom

Observer
A quick review of driving conditions in Sikkim, India and the last three weeks in Nepal.

Driving the plains of India is tough. Every minute a new experience. I have driven in 14 countries and India is in a class of its own. The good news is you only average 20 mph so you have time to react to the unexpected person, animal, bike, scooter, motorcycle, tut tut, car, taxi, truck or bus.

Enough about the plains of India and its crazy driving. Lets talk the truly tough driving -- mountains of West Bengal & Sikkim, India plus our time so far around Kathmandu, Nepal (vs. the lowlands).

The roads are narrow. Narrow in a single lane or lane and a half and the really wide almost two lanes so you must be prepared to back-up when meeting on coming taxis and trucks. Steep in I can't think of any roads (non-4wheel drive roads) with up and down grades as steep as India. I don't even bother to think about the number of hairpin curves I have driven in the the last two months. I only count the hairpin curves I had to back up in order to complete -- 3 so far. The roads are rough -- rough as in most the 4-wheel drive roads I have driven are smoother. Only once or twice have I shifted into 4-wheel drive but have driven hours in 1st and 2cd. We spent two plus days driving in Sikkim where I never drove 20 mph; when I hit an area where I was doing 30 mph we both thought we were back driving the west Texas interstate we were moving so fast.

When asking directions you are typically given the time to your destination not the kilometers and it always takes longer.

Our Toyota 4Runner is a big vehicle in India & Nepal. We are small truck size not car size. This creates problems. The taxi drivers coming at us think we are the same size they are and make road adjustments based on this info. It isn't until they are less than a 100 meters away that they begin to realize we are wider -- time to brake to avoid a head on. I can't imagine driving these roads with a vehicle larger than our 4Runner.

Several times we have driven with Indian or Nepal passengers. To a person they can't believe how smooth the ride is in our 4Runner. We have shocks that work! The high clearance of our 4Runner, the skid plates, the oversized tires, the shocks, etc. all make for a much smoother drive than any Indian or Nepal vehicle provides and allow us to drive faster over the potholes, etc.

As for navigating get use to stopping and asking people if you are headed in the correct direction. Garmin maps in Sikkim are worthless; I turned our Garmin off rather than listen to "turn left" off a mountain side every few minutes and ending up in the wrong town looking for a hotel and more. Google maps is basically good until you get within one to five miles of where you want to go and then is pretty much worthless. There are very few road signs, signs announcing you are entering a town or leaving we have come across "one", and in Nepal they aren't in English. (You need to have the phone number of the place you are going to so you can call for directions and the same goes when you get into a taxi -- no street names for the most part and absolutely no numbered addresses.)

Should you decide to drive the mountain roads of West Bengal or Sikkim, India (spent three weeks in this area) or the mountain roads of Nepal (a week plus so far): (1) buy the best shocks money will purchase and (2) don't drive anything larger than a Toyota 4Runner.

P.S. It is great fun showing everyone our 4Runner. We stop at a gas station, restaurant, village fruit stand or where ever and I end up showing groups of 5 to 25 people our cars. Everyone wants a photo sitting on the driver side (left in our Toyota vs right in their vehicles) or a photo of our Texas plates and Nancy and I. The roads are bad but the people are great.
 

Latetom

Observer
After more than five months of driving in India/Nepal/India I am sitting with my laptop in an apartment in Florence, Italy and hope to be reunited with our 4Runner in less than two weeks in Genoa, Italy.

Either the mountain roads of north west India are slightly better than the north east or I got use to the mountain roads of India/Nepal. I am going to guess the roads are slightly better in the north west and one of the reasons is the state of West Bengal is one of the poorer states of India. I am not saying driving Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh or Haryana & Punjab is easy but for the most part the roads have fewer potholes and are typically two lanes wide. All observations have exception and the exception to the previous observation is driving the Spiti-Kinnaur Loop Road. I will write more on this road but (1) this is probably the best road trip we have ever driven with 10 of our 12 days at altitude of 10,000 to slightly above 15,000 feet above sea level and (2) if anyone knows of another American registered vehicle having made this trip before us please let us know who and when.

For the most part our drive through Haryana & Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra & Mumbai (Bombay for you older travelers) states were uneventful, on good two lane roads or highways, and our Garmin GPS worked for the most part -- except for taking us on a two day backroad; if you count a path with more potholes than asphalt a road, tour of Maharashtra that we would have liked to skipped. After this two day trip the Garmin went back into the glove compartment!

The toll road highways allowed you to drive 80 km/hr and we did over 100 km/hr (60 mph) for several stretches of highway after leaving Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. These were good roads with almost no traffic coming at you head on for the most part -- outside some towns you still came across the driver who decided to drive on the wrong side of a divided highway rather than have to drive down a road and make a U-turn and come back to where they want to be. Tolls are inexpensive to an American driver. Don't believe we spent U.S.$3 on any given day. A lot of road signs are in English except for Gujarat and Maharashtra. Navigating is still done by rolling the window down and asking a person on the side of the road where you are and asking how to get where you want to end up for the day. Again, the Indian people were incredibly helpful!

Neither Nancy or I remember seeing a single police officer cruising the roads looking for drivers violating the law much less an office who has pulled someone over. We did get waved through 4 to 6 roadblocks where a group of officers were conducting some type of "stop" of cars and trucks. However, once they realized we were Americans we were waved on and we never spoke to any officer at these road blocks.

Good news for future drivers of India is there is an incredible amount of road work being done. Bad news is until India decides a cow shouldn't graze, wander, or sleep on a road or city street the ground transportation system will remain a failure. I did read two different newspaper articles by people advocating for the removal of cows -- both authors had been injured in accidents with cows.

Never worried about a lack of gas stations. Even when we drove Spiti-Kinnaur Loop Road we never came close to having to use our spare gas (in roof top containers). I even got use to allowing our gas tank to fall under a ¼ full before stopping for gas.

When time permits I will post more on our Spiti-Kinnaur Loop Road trip -- recommend this drive to anyone who has no fear of single lane roads; roads cut out of a mountain side that have falls of several thousand feet ending in a rushing mountain river without a single tree, boulder, ledge or anything else to stop you once you have gone off the road; enjoy Buddhist monasteries; incredible scenery, the bluest of blue skies and almost no other traffic.

Final thought: Driving into or out of India is very easy. Shipping into or out of India is a complete pain in the *** -- or at least for this American who couldn't understand why a border crossing takes an hour but shipping in or out of a port takes four to ten days!

Happy travels to everyone.
 

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