10 September 2015 – Maligaon to New Jalpaiguri - Day 2

Fully rested and in fine mental shape I left Maligaon before 6am. Just after the Maligaon town I took the Saraighat Bridge and set course for Bongaigaon and Alipurduar. The drive was fairly smooth except a portion before Nalbari, which was in bad shape. I reached the Officers' Rest House in New Jalpaiguri before 3pm despite a diversion for a broken wooden bridge. The 435 km drive was largely pleasant with topography and scenery resembling Kerala.

I had enough and more time to settle in and rearrange the luggage. The ORH was being painted. There were many high officials supervising the makeover. Many of them wanted to know the significance of the expedition. When told the details they were in total awe. And they were proud that it was one of their kin, a railwayman, who had accomplished it. I had many cups of tea while updating information over the social media sites. I had also a lot of comments to reply to on the sites. While completing the documentation over a meal of hot rotis, sabji and omelette I realised that I had driven over 10500 km in the past 29 days.