The drive back . .. ...

After the drive to Madhepura, we were all quite excited about the drive back. Excited because we were planning to take a different route. However, just before starting, we came to know that we could not drive the new planned route as there was a snag in a bridge on the way. The route we were planning was through Barauni and Bihar Sharif. But, that did not materialise. 

Well, below is the map of our drive to Madhepura from NJH. It was 544 kilometers and took us a total of 16 hours including rest hours. 

NJH to Madhepura Map

The drive back to NJH took us only 14 hours but we took a different route from Patna to Gaya. It totalled 602 kilometers. According to google maps it should have taken us 9 hours and 25 minutes. It took us 14 hours including time taken for rest and for buying vegetables at Chandwa. 

Madhepura to NJH road map

Below are the snaps from the journey. 

A pile up on the highway to Dharbhanga. There was a car inside the pile up (not seen in the snap). 

Alloo (potato) parathas for breakfast. It was so good and sumptous that we did not stop for lunch. 

The team sans Mr. Tapeswar and me enjoying the food. 

Sweets in the dhabha. There was good cottage cheese (paneer) also available. 

Guinea pigs in the dhabha

For those of you who would like to savour the alu parathas.
It's about 20 kms from Patna on the right side of the highway to Muzaffarpur.

Can you believe the name of this railway station. Can think of quite a lot of stories on how the name came. 

Traditional sweets called Tilkut in Gaya

Of course, we had roads like this, but was much better comparing to the drive to Madhepura

The majority of the roads were like this . . . 

Another interesting name of a village. Jabara . . . means 'jaw' in Hindi.
We also had one place called Masauda which means 'gums' in Hindi. 

Indian highways are not complete without goats, cows or buffaloes on the road.
However, quite dangerous. 

Tomato farm. From the nearby market we got about 10 kilograms of fresh tomato. 

The government's definition of development. The new power plants coming up at Chandwa. 

Well, we're already planning on how to make the most of the next meeting in one of the nearby units. Travelling by road has been a great experience. 

A Scramble Across Bihar . . .

Emmanuel Hospital Association, of which NJH is a unit has it's governing body meetings twice in a year had decided to have the Regional Administrative Council for 2012 of the Eastern Region in the Madhepura Christian Hospital, Madhepura, Bihar. For us, it was an opportunity to travel across this part of the country by road. The reason being that train travel would mean that it would take at least 30 hours to reach Madhepura from NJH, whereas a rough calculation told us that it should not take more than 20 hours if we were to travel by jeep. 

We calculated all the kilometers and the route. The google maps told us that it's going to be 565 kilometres. According to google it should take us only 10 hours. But, considering our previous experiences, we estimated 15 hours on the road.

The time of departure from hospital was fixed at 4:00 am on November 5th. And we were all out of the hospital by 3:50 am. 

Dinesh with the vehicle

The team, Dinesh, Majerus and Vandana

Muddy roads from Daltonganj . . .

Progressing on to potholes . . .

And then to larger ones . . . The rains only made it worse . . . 

Some places, it became like small ponds . . . 

Beside the road, the scenery was breathtaking . . .  

Inside Hariharganj town . . .

Relief as we left Jharkhand. We expected better roads and we were rewarded . . . 

Bihar welcomed us . . .  

The GT road at Aurangabad . . .

The GT Road towards Delhi . . . 

I dozed off for most of the time between Aurangabad and Patna. Then, we got into the traffic jam within Patna which delayed us by almost 2 hours.

On the Mahatma Gandhi Setu over the river Ganges

Policemen patrolling the bridge. 

The famous Hajipur bananas along the banks of the Ganges . . . 

The road from Patna to Muzaffarpur was a mess. The 75 kilometer stretch took us more than 2 hours. To make matters worse, there was poor road signs except in the highways.

Muzaffarpur . . .  

 After the snail pace progress till Muzaffarpur, we were relived to see the brand new highway from Muzaffarpur to Purulia. It happened that the construction of the highway was still in progress. Thankfully, the work was over till the place where we had to make the turning towards Madhepura. 

The brand new Muzaffarpur-Purnia highway

Typical rural India on the 4 lane highway . . . 

Guesses on what this is? 

Well, we drove into the Madhepura Christian Hospital campus sharp at 8:00 pm. It had taken us 16 hours totally. If we excluded the time spend for breakfast and lunch, that was what we had calculated. It has been an exhilarating experience for the team. More on Madhepura Christian Hospital in the next blog . . .