My Tiago car Ghat Road Driving First time experience on Kolli Hills

Kolli 70 hair pin bend Hill Road driving thrill

I am a first timer for car driving and having bought my Tiago car in Jan 2018, I was getting used to this steed.

The big challenge was driving it on our public roads. Little by little I was getting used to it. All these were done with a safety precaution of sticking a L sticker on the vehicle, so that others know the real driver in me on the public roads. It helped me in getting used to the public traffic. After clocking 6000 kms it's time to GROW UP.

After checking with multiple ghat options from experienced motorists I zeroed in on the 70 hair pin bend road up the Kolli Hills.

We started the Tiago trip with my family at 5.30 a.m. from my home (Cuddalore) on 30 Sept'18 and reached the foot hill of Kolli at 10.00 a.m.

Now it's a butterfly in stomach moment. Stopped for a few minutes and started the hill drive.

With the confidence of the Guardian Angel all along being with me in all my past road trips on bikes, I punched my Tiago's throttle and it was a thrill and also a challenge to complete it safely that too with family.

First few hair pin bends were boggling me. Few minutes into the ghat roads up the hill, the fear on the steep road got snuffed down. The helpful things were; traffic is very miniscule and the hill road is butter smooth.

Then it seemed to be another milestone crossed past. We reach the top in 50 minutes.

The next one and half days were spent on sight seeing many of the places in this hills.

Kolli hill is a not so prominent place on tourist destinations, but the less crowd, humbleness of the polite local people is a good experience not to missed of having a trip up this ghat. We bought pristine honey (₹350/Ltr), fruits and spices and drove down the hill the next day afternoon.

One more bucket list of driving the car on ghat section has been ticked off.

The car performed well and I could well feel it only when it was driven on such a steep uphill road. So far in the past nine months, as I was driving on plains, engine has been breathing below 2000 RPM, wherein it seems to be a normal experience. But on the ghats, I needed to maintain the engine RPM at 2500 or 3000 on lower gear to maintain the climb without knocking the engine. That's where I felt the technology that had gone in the engine inside the car. The engine is so smooth and I felt like it to be a usual drive.

Some captivating moments of the nature as I clicked on my mobile phone camera.....

Having gained confidence of driving my Tiago on such challenging ghat, now it's time to remove the L stickers off my car.

Thanks a TON to all my well wishers for all necessary guidance to push my confidence to do my first ever ghat drive on my car.

Ofcourse one of #TheBlindList has got ticked in my life time itinerary and this is a moment to #SayYesToTheWorld