Road to Heaven (Swarg ka Rasta): National Highway 754K, Rann of Kutch, Gujarat, India

Alright, let's really unpack this smaller Indian epic. 10,252.28 km by road across 14 Indian state crossings, via India's highways NH-27, NH-19, NE-4, NH-48, NE-1, NH-44, NH-16, NH-316A and countless other local roads. Strap in, because this is the full, meandering, fact-soaked single-post summary of how our Texas-born Toyota Tundra pickup truck named Shehzadi and we - two slightly lost souls - ate up the map of India, one chai stop and mountain pass at a time. We embarked on this pan-India road-trip after our larger epic: a quad-continental North-America - Africa - Europe - Asia Silk Road expedition.

It all began with a negotiation. Not at a border, but with a cow. We had just rolled Shehzadi across the Birgunj-Raxaul bridge (Nepal-India Friendship Bridge, i.e. Maitri Bridge) from Birgunj, Nepal into the beautiful, blistering chaos of Raxaul, Bihar, India. The air changed instantly - thicker, hotter, smelling of diesel, dust, and something frying deliciously nearby. And there she was, a magnificent white bovine, planted squarely in the middle of the chaotic Station Road of Raxaul, as if contemplating the meaning of oncoming traffic. She didn't move. The trucks swerved. The rickshaws parted. We, in our giant American pickup, simply stopped. This was our welcome committee. This was India politely informing us that we were no longer in charge of the schedule. With a final, slow look our way, she ambled off, and we were officially on the Great Indian Overland Road Trip, our only plan to follow the squiggly line on our screen.

Those first days on the Indo-Gangetic Plain were a lesson in scale and sociology. The land was relentlessly, magnificently flat, a green-and-brown checkerboard stretching to a hazy horizon. This wasn't just farmland; this was the gift of the Himalayas, the immense alluvial apron formed over millions of years by the very rivers we were hunting. Driving here felt fast, but the democracy of the Indian highway ensured we never were. We shared the tarmac with a glorious menagerie: legendary Ashok Leyland trucks painted like rainbows with "OK PLEASE HORN" or "BLOW HORN" stamped on their backsides (advice we took liberally), sputtering Suzuki Altos packed with entire families, and of course, the sacred, unhurried cattle, dogs, chicken, goats, sheep, humans, and camels when we reached the western deserts of Rajasthan. We learned the language of the road: a polite beep for "I'm beside you," a long hooooonk for "I'm coming through regardless," and a frantic, sustained symphony for "Sweet mercy, is that an elephant?!" (It was, once, also in Rajasthan).

Table 1: The Vagabond Couple India Overland Journey

Complete Log with Highways & Excursions

A chronicle of the Vagabond Couple's epic overland journey across India.

Our first proper dance with a legendary river wasn't at a bridge, but in a city built on its banks. Varanasi, known also as Kashi (the other one, not Kashgar in China) and Benaras. Driving in from Dhanbad to Varanasi, we negotiated the extremely congested Station Road after nightfall and found a questionable but friendly parking spot for Shehzadi, her large frame turning heads, and walked into the ancient maze. The shift from machine to footpace was jarring. We descended the steep, worn steps of the Dasashwamedh Ghat as the sun began to bleed orange into the Ganga. And then the Aarti began. Dozens of young priests in identical silks moved in a flawless, choreographed ballet of fire, swinging giant, flaming lamps in synchronized arcs against the darkening sky. The air vibrated with bells, chants, and the dense smell of incense and smoke. This was the Ganga not as a geographical feature, but as a living mother, a goddess, a cycle of life and death playing out in real-time on her shores. We took a boat at dawn the next day, and in the soft, pink light, the geology of devotion was laid bare. The entire city is a staircase rising from the water because this entire plain is the river's creation. Every grain of sand under our feet, every brick in those crumbling, beautiful buildings, had been carried down from the high Himalayas. We were literally standing on the accumulated history of the mountains.

Triveni Sangam (त्रिवेणी संगम), Prayagraj

Chasing that river west, we came to Prayagraj and the hallowed Sangam. We hired a rickety wooden boat with a talkative oarsman. Out in the middle of the wide, lazy confluence, he pointed. "See the colors?" And we could. The mighty, silt-laden green of the Ganga swirled with the clearer, bluer Yamuna. "And there," he said, jabbing a finger at a particular patch of swirling water, "is the Saraswati. Invisible. Mythical. But here." It was a moment where geography, faith, and folklore became one indistinguishable thing. The land was flat, the rivers were wide, and the stories were deep.

Then, the earth decided to put up a fight. After the timeless plains of Agra, the land began to stir in its sleep. Gentle, scrub-covered folds rose around us. We were entering the ancient, weary bones of the Aravalli Range. These are some of the oldest mountains on the planet, so eroded they're more like philosophical suggestions of mountains. Our crossing wasn't a dramatic pass with a sign, but a slow, persistent climb through a region of rocky hills and hidden valleys near Jaipur, through what the maps call the Hathi Ghat. "Hathi" means elephant, and it felt like a steady, plodding ascent. Shehzadi's engine, so relaxed on the plains, found a deeper, more purposeful hum. From the crests, we'd look back and see the vast, hazy soup of the northern plains we'd just traversed, a view once used by Rajput watchmen in the hilltop forts that dotted every strategic peak. This was the old dividing line, and we were crossing it. Rajasthan astonished us as we explored city after city - Ajmer, Pushkar, Bikaner and onwards.

Camels crossing Padrora Road, Doongre Ki Dhani, Rajasthan, India (26°38'19.2"N 71°57'32.5"E)

And then, the color changed. The rust-red soil faded to a pale, thirsty pink, and the world opened up into an immense, golden sky. The Thar Desert. The road to Jaisalmer is less a road and more a hypothesis—a straight line proposed across an ocean of sand. This is a rain-shadow desert, a dry spot created because the mighty Himalayas, thousands of kilometers away, greedily catch all the monsoon rains. Driving here was meditation. The only curves were the gentle rolls of distant dunes. We'd stop just to hear the silence, a ringing, absolute quiet broken only by the wind and the ticking of Shehzadi's cooling engine. One detour took us to the haunted village of Kuldhara, abandoned by its Paliwal Brahmin inhabitants overnight centuries ago in the face of persecution. The wind whistled through empty doorways and collapsed roofs with a mournful sound. The story hangs in the air, thicker than the dust.

Shehzadi and a Camel, Jaisalmer-Sam-Dhanana Rd, Rajasthan, India (26°54'53.6"N 70°46'26.3"E)

We drove from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur, and then from Jodhpur to Udaipur. Saying goodbye to Rajasthan, we rolled from Udaipur into Gujarat over the Aravalli mountains.

But the desert's true surrealism was saved for Gujarat. The Rann of Kutch (the southern end of the Thar desert) is a geological practical joke. One moment you're on scrubland, the next, the earth turns a blinding, cracked white that stretches to the horizon. It's a former arm of the Arabian Sea, a vast seasonal salt marsh that's basically a 7,000-square-kilometer pancake at sea level. Driving onto it feels like entering a void. There is no horizon, just a shimmering, heat-hazed merge of white land and white sky. We opened Shehzadi's doors and ran out into the nothingness, whooping like kids, our footprints the first for miles. It was a landscape that reset your brain.

Road to Heaven (Swarg ka Rasta): National Highway 754K, Rann of Kutch, Gujarat, India

To escape the white void, we drove from the Rann of Kutch to Ahmedabad, then from Ahmedabad to Surat via India's most advanced highway system - the National Expressways NE-1 and NE-4 connecting the national capital region of Delhi. We took a well-deserved break at Surat, and then drove onwards from Surat to Mumbai.

We had to scale a green wall. Heading south from Mumbai to Kolhapur via Pune, the land surged up violently into the Western Ghats. Our chosen crossing was the Kumbharli Ghat, linking Kolhapur to the coastal Konkan. The Kolhapur to Chitradurga drive was a proper, heart-in-your-mouth mountain pass. The road was a narrow, engineering marvel of hairpin bends (ghats) carved directly into the cliff face. One side was a solid wall of dripping, primeval rainforest; the other, a sheer drop into mist-filled valleys. Waterfalls, born from the captured monsoon clouds, cascaded down rock faces right beside the road. We crawled down in low gear, the sheer density of the air—wet, fragrant, and cool—a shock after the dry heat. This escarpment is older than the Himalayas and a fortress of biodiversity. We were driving through a living, breathing cloud forest.

One of the ancient formations in the Chitradurga Hills seen from NH-48, Karnataka, India

Descending the Ghats, we landed on the Deccan Plateau, the ancient, volcanic heart of India. This high tableland is built on basalt, the result of epic lava flows that covered the region millions of years ago. The landscape changed to rolling hills, rugged outcrops, and wide, flat valleys carved by the great rivers of the south. And the bridges here became monuments. The crossing of the Godavari River at Rajahmundry is an event. The Godavari Bridge (the Kovvur-Rajahmundry span) is a seemingly endless 4.5-kilometer truss over the "Dakshin Ganga." Driving across feels like a mini-voyage. The river here is broad, braided, and serene, a world away from the Himalayan torrent it begins as. It was a moment to reflect on the journey of the water, and our own. We continued from Chitradurga to Bengaluru.

The south unfurled in a blaze of color and devotion. We continued from Bengaluru to Madurai. At Madurai's Meenakshi Amman Temple, we were swallowed by a universe of stone. The towering gopurams, coated in a dizzying palette of thousands of stucco deities, reached for the sky. Inside, in the dim, incense-heavy hall of a thousand pillars, each one uniquely carved, we felt the weight of a Dravidian architectural genius that needed no steel, only stone and patience.

Vivekananda Rock seen from Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of Indian peninsula

Then, we ran out of land after driving from Madurai to Kanyakumari. Here, at the subcontinent's tip, the geological drama is aqueous. The ancient, hard rocks of the peninsula make their final stand against the relentless siege of three seas: the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean, and the Arabian Sea. You can see the different colors of water churn and mix. We watched the sun set behind the iconic Vivekananda Rock and a giant statue of the Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar, set on a rock offshore, and then saw the moon rise from the opposite sea. It was a full-circle moment, literally.

Dhanushkodi, Rameswaram: road to Ram Setu / Adam's Bridge to Sri Lanka

Driving to Rameswaram and Dhanushkodi feels like following a map drawn by legends. The final approach to the island, across the magnificent Pamban Bridge with the sea sparkling on either side, is just the prelude. The real magic is the road south from Rameswaram town to Dhanushkodi, a slender ribbon of tarmac and sand that carries you to the very edge of the continent. On one side, the emerald waters of the Bay of Bengal churn, and on the other, the aquamarine calm of the Indian Ocean stretches to the horizon. At the end, in the ghost-town silence of Dhanushkodi, you stand where the road dissolves into the sea. Before you, in the shallow waters, lies the faint, mythical line of Ram Setu—the bridge to Lanka from the epic Ramayana. It's a drive that blends stunning coastal beauty with the profound weight of ancient story, leaving you at the literal and mythological end of the land.

Wild Horses at Dhanushkodi beach

Our journey up the east coast was a quieter coda, but with its own surprises. To reach the cool highlands of the Araku Valley, we climbed through the disjointed, forest-covered folds of the Eastern Ghats via the Ananthagiri Ghat Road. It was a gentler, greener climb than the Western Ghats, winding through tunnels of shade and sudden vistas of coffee estates as we headed from Nellore to Vijayawada and onwards from Vijayawada to Visakhapatnam.

Chilika Lake

The semi-final act was Visakhapatnam to Chilika Lake, Asia's largest brackish water lagoon. Drifting past fishing boats, it was peaceful, quiet, and a world away from the honking, vibrant chaos. Here we began our final sprint from Bhubaneswar to Kolkata.

Table 2: Geological Features & Roads: The Vagabond Couple's India Overland Route

A geographical chronicle of the epic overland journey by The Vagabond Couple and Shehzadi.

So, what was the trip? It was 10,252 kilometers of learning that India's true map is written in river silt, desert sand, mountain rock, and coastal salt. It was about driving Shehzadi, our steel camel, our home on wheels, through it all, from cow-dodging on the plains to cooling her tires in the sea spray at the continent's end. It was loud, humbling, spicy, breathtaking, and infinitely generous. It’s the kind of journey that doesn't just show you places; it shows you time, patience, and the incredible, varied skin of our planet. And the best part? The road still goes on.

Here are the two tables above in image format, just in case they are easier to read.

Vagabond Couple India Overland Route Summary

Vagabond Couple India Overland Geography Summary

- The Vagabond Couple and Shehzadi