Day 13 – Renault India Diamond Trail – An evening in Visakhapatnam
850km on the first day, 650km on the second day, 708km on the third… That’s the magnitude of the distances that we have been covering daily on the second leg of the Renault India Diamond Trail. Though the effort hasn’t gone in vain and thanks to that we’ve made it from Pune to Vizag via Bangalore, Kanyakumari, Chennai and Vijayawada in just five days. Four if you exclude the service day of the Renault Kwid! In comparison to that, the distance from Vijayawada to Visakhapatnam spanned just 450km and the drive felt quite leisurely.
Following our ritual of leaving early in the morning in order to be able to cover maximum distance in a day, we had already neared Visakhapatnam by noon. And finally, on our drive, we faced bad roads. No, I’m not happy or celebrating but we have been impressed by the highway network so far and we’re convinced that India does have good highways in most part of the country. It’s just the recklessness and indiscipline of the motorists that make the experience much less pleasurable than what it would have been if the traffic was literate. The Renault Kwid, however, had no problems getting through the bad patches. Its soft suspension setup gobbled up all the road undulations and never did it make the passengers feel unsettled.
We’ve reached Visakhapatnam, the port city of India and the initial impressions of the city are of a beautiful, well planned coastal town! Our hotel room overlooks the Bay Of Bengal and we can’t get enough of the view. We’ll be exploring the city tomorrow before heading out towards Bhubaneswar. Stay tuned.
To keep track of the progress so far on the Renault India Diamond trail, click here
