Ranchi-Jamshedpur Roadtrip

I returned to Jamshedpur for a quick visit to a local industrial plant. Since Jamshedpur doesn't have its own airport, I had to fly to Ranchi, the capital of Jharkand. As a kid, I used to visit Ranchi once every few years to visit an aunt who lived there. Those days, it used to take us about 3-4 hours to get to Ranchi even though the distance wasn't much at 132 kms. The highway was always full of pot-holes and the 3-4 hour drive to Ranchi during summer in an non-airconditioned car was never much fun, unless we were drinking beers along the way. Now, the roads are much better as the pot holes are gone. It tooks us about 2 hours to traverse the distance. The road trip is quite scenic and we passed through some tribal adivasi villages where I stopped and took some pics for the blog. Here're some of the more interesting ones:

Local farmer hanging out of a jeep ferrying travelers between the villages on the Jamshepur-Ranchi highway. This is a fairly common sight on Indian roads. I believe this passenger will probably pay half the normal price vs. those fortunate enough to have a seat inside. He didn't seem to mind much since it was hot outside and he wasn't crammed inside the jeep with the rest of the passengers.

Local farmer with his tomato crop in the village of Bhuiyadih, half way between Ranchi and Jamshedpur.  Bhuiyadih is famous for its tomatoes in the eastern part of India since its a prennial crop whereas tomatoes are a winter crop in the rest of the country.

This is a jain temple made out of beautiful white marble from Rajasthan. It's literally in the middle of nowhere deep in tribal territory. Local travelers often stop by to seek the blessings of the Hindu Gods in the temple.

My buddy and I took a short break at a local 'dhaba' (truck-stop) along the way. We had some excellent curry and beer for lunch. Indian dhabas are popular with locals who often drive to the countryside to have some beers away from the maddening rushes of crowded Indian cities.

Comments

[remo]

Dear,Friend
Jamshedpur, also known as Tatanagar, is well known as the steel city of India. It

is a major industrial center of India with picturesque surroundings. The steel

plant TISCO (Tata Iron and Steel Company), the automobile plant TELCO (Tata

Engineering and Locomotive Company), Rivers Meet and Jubilee Park in the

heart of the city which is a well planned garden like Vrindavan in Mysore, are the

major attractions here.
Please Visit For More Deatail
http://www.desidirectory.com/india-travel-guide/

[Amit Haralalka]

This post really brought back memories of my college days!

I did my engineering from BIT Mesr and had a few friends from Jamshedpur.. so these trips to and fro hapoened a number of times.. "Trekker" .. as it was commonly called..

Thanks a lot for the very informative post! :-)

Quite liked yout blog.. Will keep coming back..

[james]

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[SRK Raman]

Nice post, am not quite sure i'd find a post on this anywhere else, and yes, i hail from jamshedpur and did a lotta travelling on that same highway during my college days, my college being in ranchi. One peculiar thing that you might notice is the considerable fall in temperature when you cross bundu and go uphill (taimara ghaati as it is called).

[sanjeev]

Hey Vikram,
after long time i came back to this blog just to checkout rakesh's photo is there or u removed it.
i am not able to trace him since 1991.hope he moved to some other country.
niew writeups on jamshedpur. there is no place like jamshedpur !!!

cheers !
sanjeev