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i was off this blog for a long time and didn't really miss it. am planning a trip from Bangalore to Calcutta in my jeep in Dec-Jan, and was busy getting ready for it. my jeep too got a lot of work done and still needs some more attention.





Changed:

fan belts (3)
coolant pipe and some other weird-looking pipes
ball joints in the front suspension
some broken indicators

now i gottu get the bull bar fixed and a couple of Neolite lights on that. that should scare the shit out of the truckers during the early morning drives. Now for the route that I'm planning to take: my wife busies herself every weekend poring over the Eicher Atlas, calculating distances and planning the pitstops. After almost three weeks she came up with a detailed route (with many bypasses) with even little tea breaks nicely planned. And she also has a couple of Plan Bs just in case we cannot stick to Plan A. Plan A is roughly like this:

Day 1, Dec 21, 2006: Bangalore to Vijayawada (600 odd kms)
Day 2, Dec 22, 2006: Vijayawada to Gopalpur on Sea (another 600 odd kms)
Day 3, Dec 23, 2006: Gopalpur on Sea to Calcutta (500 + kms)

Here's a rough map downloaded from nhai.org (the official web site of the national highways authority of india). in this you cannot see the first day's route to Vijayawada because we are skipping Chennai and going via Kolar-Chittoor-Tirupati-Nayadpet-Ongole-Vijayawada.

Hoping to get average speeds of about 70 kms per hour because my vehicle is not fast. it is sluggish, comfortable, and more an offroader than anything else.

hmm...