Summary of my sabbatical trip

I still can't believe that my sabbatical trip is over and I'm home already. 30 days went so quickly. It feels as if I was in Kutch just yesterday. My car shows that I travelled 8936 KM total, which went way past my initial calculation of 6000 KM. I travelled across 5 states and numerous cities. I came across several well-known towns and some whose name I haven't ever heard of.

My Alto K10, en route to Rann festival.

We started with Goa where we stayed at my brother's place. We continued to Pune where we stayed at my sister's place and then to Mumbai at my brother in law's place. We spent first 6 days with family. Our main journey started from 10th Feb. We had planned to cover Gujarat and Rajasthan as much as we can. We started from Mumbai to Ahmedabad which is around 580 KM.

Sunset at Ashwem Beach, Goa.

We stayed there for 2 nights before continuing to Diu. We planned to stay here for 1 night as major attractions can be covered in a day. We continued to Dwarka where we stayed for 1 night. Our next stop was Bhuj before finally reaching our main point of focus, Rann Festival. We had booked 2N/3D package in the tent city. The package included breakfast, lunch and dinner for the specified days, travel to sunset/sunrise point at Rann, Kalodungar tour. It also includes pick and drop from Bhuj for travellers coming by train, bus or flight. We stayed one more night in Ahmedabad before continuing to Rajasthan. Ahmedabad to Udaipur is just 3.5 hours drive and the roads are in good shape.

Sunrise over The Great Rann.

We stayed in Udaipur for 2 nights, did sightseeing and continued to Jodhpur. We decided to stay only for 1 night here and then continue to Jaisalmer. We stayed here for next 2 nights but felt we could have added one more night and we couldn't cover many city points. We stayed one more night in Jodhpur and then went to Jaipur. We were to stay in Jaipur for 1 night and then go to Delhi. We had planned to surprise our parents in Delhi and didn't tell them we're coming. We reached our home in Delhi before my parents as they were travelling back from a wedding. It felt so good seeing my parents happy on seeing us.

Blue city, Jodhpur as seen from the top of Mehrangarh Fort.

We stayed home for 2 nights and continued to Jaipur where we had planned to stay for 2N. Our parents gave us company for Jaipur and travelled with us. Our final journey back home started from Jaipur and was the most hectic leg of the sabbatical journey. We had to cover a distance of around 2400 KM in 4 days so that we reach by Saturday and I get Sunday to relax before joining office on Monday. Our halting points were Indore, Pune and Goa.

Sand Dunes at Sam, Jaisalmer.

We were fortunate enough that we didn't encounter any major difficulties or challenge during the whole journey. My alto K10 didn't give me a single issue and ran smoothly throughout the journey. The hotels we booked through Goibibo were all good.

ODO reading of my K10, at the end of the journey.

The breakup of my hotel stay during the journey:

From	To	Nights	Hotel Name	Cost	Hotel Quality
10/2/2017	12/2/2017	2N in Ahmedabad	Hotel Kalash Residency	2572	Good
12/2/2017	13/2/2017	1N in Diu	Apaar hotel	2387	Very Good
13/2/2017	14/2/2017	1N in Dwarka	Hotel Guruprerna	1075	Good
14/2/2017	15/2/2017	1N in Bhuj	Tree Top Residency	882	Average
15/2/2017	17/2/2017	2N in Rann	Rann Festival	17820	Very Good
17/2/2017	18/2/2017	1N Ahmedabad	Hotel Kalash Residency	1600	Good
18/2/2017	20/2/2017	2N in Udaipur	Hotel Mukund Villas	4093	Good
20/2/2017	21/2/2017	1N Jodhpur	Heritage Kuchaman Haveli	1605	Average
21/02/2017	23/02/2017	2N in Jaisalmer	Hotel Victoria	4344	Excellent
23/2/2017	24/2/2017	1n in Jodhpur	Apple Homestay	939	Very Good
24/2/2017	25/2/2017	1N in Jaipur	Hotel Park Regent	1704	Very Good
25/2/2017	27/2/2017	2N in Delhi	Home	Priceless	Priceless
27/02/2017	01/03/2017	2N in Jaipur	Fortune Select	7988	Very Good
01/03/2017	02/03/2017	1N in Indore	Treebo Daksh Residency	1586	Good
2/3/2017	3/3/2017	1N in Pune	Home	Priceless	Priceless
3/3/2017	4/3/2017	1N in Goa	Home	Priceless	Priceless
4/3/2017		Bangalore	Home	Priceless	Priceless
			Total	48595

I'll write about each hotel I stayed I stayed in, in next series of blogs.

The breakup of fuel expense:

Cost	Litres	Total km	Average
2000	26.6	491
800	10	178
1990	32.1	535
1500	20.7	373
2000	27.5	507
2000	27.7	460
2000	27.5	500
2000	27.6	511
2000	27.5	679
1000	13. 18
2000	26.11	537.3
2000	26.61	538
1500	19.75	382
2000	26.84	525
2000	28.08	538
2000	26.08	550
2000	25.49	498
1500	19.67	338
500	6.53	112
2000	31.27	598
Total Cost	Litres	Total KM	Mileage
34790	463.63	8850	19.08

I was keeping a tab on tolls by keeping them together so that I can calculate later on, but there were just too much of receipts and their ink fades out pretty quickly. If I had to put an approximate value on the total cost I spent on tolls, it would be around Rs 6000 across the journey. We mostly stuck to routes suggested by google maps as well as some specific route suggestions on team-bhp forums. Google maps worked perfectly on the highway but it failed miserably inside several cities including Jodhpur and Diu.

Madhavpur Beach, en route to Dwarka from Diu.

We spent approx 15000 in food and drinks. My wife did shopping in Ahmedabad and Jaipur for approx. Rs 4000. These two places have really good street markets for buying souvenirs for friends and family.

My sabbatical trip was probably my best trip ever. I got a chance to meet different people, eat traditional foods, see so many great places. Stay tuned for my next post where I'll write about my journey in Gujarat in detail.

Happy to see home is not far now.

Update: Here's a summary through a series of videos that I shot during the trip using SJCAM.