Silicon Valley to Sandstone Stories - 5200 kilometers in EQS

 

There’s a particular romance about road trips—unfolding like a slow reel, frame by frame—filled with dusty horizons, hidden eateries, odd conversations, and timeworn monuments that silently whisper the past. 

Since we had just done a religious road trip, the plan this time was to go towards historical sites. As usual our choice of wheels was Mercedes EQS 450 4MATIC, an EV that is really fun to drive.

Day 01 - 05-June-2025 - Approximately 530 Kms

The distance to cover for the day was approximately 530 kilometers, we really did not need to stop and charge for the day since we have consistently got a range of 550+ kilometers. We had just planned on stopping at restaurants that have chargers and just plug in there.

We started at 6:30am; the plan was to stop at Vijayapura or Bijapur as it was known earlier. We took NICE road and eventually got on  NH-44 towards Tumakuru, Drove for almost four hour and arrive at Paakshala at Sira. This place has a Zeon Charger that can deliver 120KW. We did not need it, but we did put the car for charging, unfortunately for us, after five minutes there was a power failure and we did not get any charger.

Anyway, we had breakfast here and then continued on. We drove till about 2:30pm and took a diversion into  Hosapete town. We went to hotel Royal Orchid. They have a JIO-BP charger which is not superfast, but we were anyway going to have our lunch there and we connected the car to the charger for that period.

We arrive in the outskirts of Vijayapura town by 8:45pm. We had not been able to find a hotel in Vijayapura that had chargers on premises, so before checking into the hotel, we stopped at Supermart which had a ERA charger. Here we had our dinner and charged the vehicle to 100%.

We arrived at our hotel for the night The Ferns Residency, checked in and called it a day. This was just a place to spend the night. We have already been to Gol Gumbaz during our earlier trips and we had not planned on doing anything here.

Day 02 - 06-June-2025 - Approximately 429 Kms

We started after breakfast and continued on NH-52, crossing Solapur, and Beed and arriving at Hotel Gateway, Chatrapati Sambhajinagar. 

The distance was small enough that we did not need to stop anywhere and we directly arrived in the hotel at around 2:30pm. 

We were going to stay here for three nights, and the hotel has sufficient charging infrastructure. So, we decided to just stay in the hotel on first day and rest little bit.

Day 03 - 07-June-2025 - Approximately 200 Kms

The first place that we definitely wanted to visit was Ajanta Caves. So after breakfast we left for the Ajanta Caves. It was around 100 kilometers away from our hotel so that was a 200 kilometer round trip. 

It took approximately two hours of driving to arrive in Ajanta. The parking is quite some distance from the caves and there is MSRTC buses that run between parking and caves. There is no way to buy bus tickets beforehand or online. So, it is pretty much chaotic process of standing in a queue and buying ticket one by one. All of this has to be done in open and in almost 40 degree temperature. Also it has to be done both ways.

Anyway, we arrive in the caves after a 10-15 minute bus ride and you can buy cave tickets online. Ajanta Cave Walk itself takes a good three hours and there is quite a bit of elevation that needs to be handled.

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We left Ajanta around 7:00pm. Originally we had planned on visiting Bibi Ka Maqbara as well but we were not sure if it would be open. Some people said, it might be open till 8:00pm but some other people said it closes by 6:00pm and the google maps said it would be closed due to Eid. So we decided to go there the next. 

This also meant we had to drop Ellora from our itinerary because we had visited that earlier and we definitely wanted to visit Lonar Lake this time around.

Day 04 - 08-June-2025 - Approximately 350 Kms

We started our day with a good breakfast in the hotel and drop to Bibi Ka Maqbara. This was closest to our hotel as well and would probably take the least amount of time. Though often seen as a poor cousin of the Taj Mahal, it holds its own serene elegance. Less crowded, the silence here gives room for reflection.

After spending around an hour here, we left for Daulatabad Fort. This is a formidable hill fortress with a history of being “unconquerable,” it is a labyrinth of moats, secret passages, and sheer cliffs. The climb is not for the faint-hearted, but the view from the top—red roofs dotting green plains—is a reward.

Unfortunately, since we had Lonar Lake in our itinerary, we decided not to go to absolute top. We realized it would take almost three hours for that trek. We put a time-window of one hour to finish whatever we could and then leave.

Next drove east toward Lonar, a quaint town cradling one of the world’s rarest meteorite impact craters. Surrounded by forest and ancient temples, the Lonar Lake is a scientific marvel and a spiritual enigma. Its highly alkaline and saline water supports rare microbial life, yet local legends speak of demons vanquished by gods.

We trekked to the bottom to the banks of the lake, watching flocks of birds take flight and sunlight dance off green waters—alien and serene.

The trek is of moderate intensity but there is a large number of steps at the beginning of the trek, so people with knee problems might find it little challenging.

We left Lonar for our hotel at around 5:20pm and arrived back at our hotel at around 8:45pm. The drive to Lonar Lake is pretty easy now with most of the distance being covered on Samruddhi Mahamarg.

Day 05 & 06 - 09-June-2025 to 10-June-2025 - Approximately 360 Kms

We bid good buy to our residence of last three nights and drove towards Mumbai. This drive is pretty comfortable now, we just had to get on to Samruddhi Mahamarg and drive till the end of that expressway. We arrived at our hotel after around 5 hours of pretty much non-stop drive. Of this pretty much one and half hour went into the outskirts of Mumbai. We had decided to stay at The Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai for next two nights.

This hotel is an experience in itself and we just walked around the place. We also walked to Girgaum Chowpaty. 

For EV Owners, they do have chargers available, but you have to work with them. The location of hotel is such that there is not much space with them. Chargers are installed around the hotel, and they use the periphery of the hotel as parking.  Once you tell them, you want to charge your car, they will remove the car that is parked next to charger and let you charge your car. 

Basically, they have an army of people who will not let any place be vacant. This is one of the places where you have to give out your car to valet. This is one of the things that I normally don't want to do.

We stayed here for two nights and just did walking around the hotel. Some of us also visited couple of museums around the hotel.

Day 07 - 11-June-2025 - Approximately 430 Kms

We checked out from the hotel lazily. Originally, we were planning to directly drive to Udaipur but we wanted to enjoy the hotel facilities for some more time and also visit some places around Ahmedabad, so we decided to change our itinerary and take a stops in Kavadiya and Ahmedabad for a day each. 

We started from our hotel at almost 12:00pm. As mentioned earlier, the plan was to reach Kevadiya by the night and see Statue of Unity next day morning.

By 3:00pm we stopped at Food Hub which also had a ChargeZone/Hyundai chargers which was delivering 150KW. We had some food here and then continued on.

We stopped at a McDonald's on the highway itself at a place called Kadodara.

We arrived at our hotel, The Fer Sardar Sarovar Resort in Kevadiya around 10:00pm.. We pretty much straightaway went to bed.

Day 08 - 12-June-2025 - Approximately 400 Kms

We got up in the morning and after breakfast straightaway went to the Status of Unity. You are not allowed to take your vehicle near the place even though there was no crowd. You have to park approximately 5 kilometers and there are buses and Pink Autorickshaws that you can take to visit the statue.

It does add up to lots of time.

We drove back to the hotel, checked out and straightway drove towards. Ahmedabad. On the way we decided to visit some places before checking into our hotel. The first place to visit was Adalaj Stepwell.

We left the Adalaj Stepwell at 3:50pm and drove towards Sun Temple of Modhera. It took 1 hour and 20 minutes to reach Sun Temple.

Finally, we drove back to Ahmedabad. In hindsight it did not seem like a bright idea. We should have found some hotel in that region itself. But as per our original plan, we had booked Hotel Fairfield by Mariott, with primary reason for booking being presence of a Charger.

Day 09 - 13-June-2025 - Approximately 390 Kms

Since we could not visit Rani Ki Vav, on the previous day, we had to visit it today. The duration to Udaipur from Ahmedabad is approximately 4 and half hour but since we were going to Rani Ki Vav, we had to go to Udaipur via Mount Abu rather than regular NH-48.

We started from hotel at around 11:00am after our breakfast and arrived in Rani Ki Vav at 2:15pm. The place doesn't require much time. We spent here around 20 minutes and were on our way to Udaipur.

We left Rani Ki Vav at 2:45pm and continued towards Udaipur. We stopped at a newly opened Burger King near Mount Abu for our Lunch.

After our Lunch, we continued towards Udaipur and arrived in our hotel at 7:50pm. We had booked Hotel Lakend for next three nights and again the primary reason for booking was they had a charger on premises. The hotel on its own is not great in terms of service but we stayed there for next three nights.

Day 10 to 11 - 14-June-2025 to 15-June

This has been our second visit to Udaipur so apart from visiting historical places, we also wanted to enjoy some of the cafes that surround the Lake. We visited some of the cafes, had some of the interesting foods, apart from visiting the palaces.

Day 12 - 16-June-2025 - Approximately 552 Kms

Our journey was sadly ending; we had to just retrace our paths and return back home. We decided to go to Bhopal on our way back and spend some days just resting and not doing anything.

We drove towards Nimbahera and crossed into Madhya Pradesh at  Neemuch and continued driving towards Bhopal. We did take occasional bio-break and finally arrived at Ode-da-Dhaba near Ashta. This place is a paradise for EV drivers. A great food court coupled with multiple vendor's charging stations. 

We had our late lunch accompanied by topping up our vehicle and then continued towards Bhopal. We arrived at Bhopal at 7:00pm. Next few days were spent here just resting.

Day 15 - 19-June-2025 - Approximately 890 Kms

We had topped our car by the slow charger at our home in Bhopal. So we were ready to go. We still needed to charge once to reach Hyderabad. Maximum range that we could practically get was 550 Kms with all creature comforts on, 

We drove to Nagpur and after crossing the city, we stopped at JIO-BP petrol station. Unfortunately they have just single cabinet with two guns, and one car was already charging so our car could only charge with a speed of 30 KW. We spend almost one hour here. The good thing was they had a cafe and a restaurant, so we had some food as well. But we would have preferred faster charging.

We decided to not charge 100% because even if we did that we might not have sufficient range to reach Hyderabad. So, we decided to drive nearer to Hyderabad and then charge there.

We drove to Sri Sai Family Restaurant in Suddapally and charged there for 45 minutes.

We finally arrived in our hotel Oakwood Residences Kapil at 9:30pm. This hotel has Joulepoint chargers, and they are really flaky. So, I had to spend some time calling them and talking to them and then they started the charging. So, my car charged overnight here.

Day 16 - 20-June-2025 - Approximately 585 Kms

We had our breakfast and started for final leg of our journey. We had just travelled 1 kilometer when a scooterist jumped red light and hit our car on the side. That was a scary moment. 

We continued towards Bengaluru and stopped at McDonald's after Ananthpur for our Lunch. 

We then drove to Samara's Veg after Bagepalli Toll Plaza. We had our evening tea here and also topped up the car. They have Zeon Charger. It is pretty good charger where it delivers 120 KWfrom each gun, but this time there was some flakiness to it. It would just charge for 10-15 minutes and then stop. I finally charged for around half an hour and left that place.

We finally arrived at our home at 10:00pm.