Honda Drive To Discover – Exploring South India

Honda recently organised the 13th edition of their Drive to Discover, and this time the theme was Monsoon Trails — quite fitting, as the rains had just begun and we were all set to explore some beautiful places in South India. Keeping us company on this journey were the Amaze, City, and Elevate.

It was a four-day drive. On the first day, I flew down to Kochi from Mumbai and headed to the hotel, which was located just across the airport. I got a chance to check out the new City Sport first, and then all of us were allocated our respective cars for the first leg of the drive. Before that, we also had a traditional attire photo op, which was a lot of fun.

My car on the first day was the City MT — a really fun sedan. Honda organised a detailed briefing ahead of the flag-off, where the team explained the routes, pit stops, dos and don’ts, etc. It was clear that they had put in a lot of effort to make everything run as smoothly as possible.

We drove from Kochi to Athirappilly on Day 1. The distance was barely 50 km, but that gave us all a chance to rest and unwind a little. Athirappilly is a beautiful place, and we enjoyed some piping hot coffee and pakoras alongside the river at our hotel. The drive itself was short but enjoyable. I managed to get some really good sleep here and woke up feeling very energised on Day 2.

On Day 2, I got the Elevate CVT, and I was actually looking forward to it because of its high ground clearance and superb ride quality. We started from our hotel around 10 AM and headed to Munnar. The roads were excellent, with lots of ghat sections where the Elevate truly shone. I loved its ease of use, and being a repeat Honda customer, I instantly felt at home in the car.

We had a late lunch at 4 PM since we stopped at many places en route for photos and chai breaks. The CVT really surprised me on the ghats — even though it’s known for smoothness, I expected it to run out of breath on steep inclines, but it didn’t hesitate even once. The 1.5 i-VTEC is a fabulous engine — I really don’t need to describe it. We reached our hotel by 6 PM, and the Elevate CVT delivered 11.5 km/l over this 130 km drive, which was quite good considering I pushed the car a lot on the ghats.

The evening was spent chit-chatting with fellow auto journos and Honda personnel about happenings in the auto industry. The next day, we again started a little late from Munnar towards Kodaikanal, and this time I had the Elevate MT with me. The drive was 160 km long, and the roads plus the views were breathtaking. Well-paved tarmac, no traffic, light rain, and a lovely convoy of 15 Honda cars made for a spectacular sight.

Munnar is a gem, and I’ve made up my mind to bring my CR-V here sometime soon. What an amazing place! I truly enjoyed this leg of the drive the most. We stopped at multiple spots — sometimes to take photos, sometimes just to soak in the views. I took full advantage of the manual gearbox and redlined the Elevate whenever I got the chance. It’s a very good transmission with slick shifts.

We reached Kodaikanal around 7:30 PM. It was already dark, so there wasn’t much time to explore the town, but the weather was amazing with a lovely chill in the air. After driving 170 km on a route that had many ghat sections, I came away really impressed with the Elevate. It’s such an underrated car. We all had a nice dinner together and called it a night.

Day 4 — the final leg of this drive — took us from Kodaikanal to Coimbatore. With a distance of 190 km to cover, we set off at 7 AM. This time, I was back in the Elevate CVT, but for the first time in these four days, I was a rear-seat passenger. It took us a couple of hours to get down the ghats, and after a sumptuous South Indian breakfast, we headed towards Coimbatore, from where we were to catch our flights back to Mumbai.

I found the rear seat quite comfortable even on such a long drive, though my preferred seat is still the driver’s! We had lunch in Coimbatore and then handed over the car to Honda. It was lovely to unwind and catch up with everyone over the course of these four days — and what made the experience even better were the amazing roads and the fun-to-drive cars!

A great experience overall — big kudos to the Honda team for executing this so well.

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