Planning A Road Trip ? Here Are 7 Lesser Known Asian Highways That You Can Begin With

After the opening of the Myawaddy-Thinggan Nyenaung-Kawkareik section of the Asian Highway Network that connects India and Thailand via Myanmar, many are intrigued about the other routes which come under the Asia Highway (AH) Network. Here are seven routes that you probably didn't know of which passed through India.

1. AH42 – China-Nepal-India

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3,754 kilometres long, this Asian highway is the nearest to Mount Everest. The route passes through China, Nepal and India and connects Lanzhou, the capital of  Gansu Province, China to Barhi in Jharkhand.

2. AH43 – Agra- Matara, Sri Lanka

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Did you know that you could drive to Sri Lanka easily? Well, the AH43 connects Agra to Matara in Sri Lanka. The 3,042 km route through Agra (AH1), Gwalior (AH47), Nagpur (AH46), Hyderabad and Bangalore (AH45, AH47), Madurai. The road briefly ends at Rameswaram before starting in Sri Lanka at Talaimannar and passes through Mannar, Anuradhapura, Dambulla (AH44), Kurunegala, Kandy, Colombo, Galle and Matara.

3. AH45 – Kolkata-Bangalore

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This route connects Kolkata to Bangalore.The 2,030 km route shares a large portion of various Indian National Highways; namely NH 6, NH 5, NH 4, NH 46, and NH 7. A plan of extending the highway from Doha, Qatar to Jakarta, Indonesia is in the pipeline and is expected to be done by 2030.

4. AH46 – Gujarat-Kolkata

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Also known as Indian National Highway, this route connects five states such as West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. The 1,967-km highway  crosses other AH47 at Dhule and Asian Highway 43 at Nagpur.

5. AH47- Gwalior – Bangalore

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The AH47 passes through Gwalior (AH43), Dhule (AH46), and Thane, Mumbai, Belagavi and Bangalore (AH43 and AH45). The 2,057 km long route shares a portion of NH3 and NH4.

6. AH48 – Bhutan-West Bengal

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Also known as the SAARC road, the government okayed the project with the goal of boosting ties, trade and tourism between the SAARC countries. The work-in-progress route will pass from Phuntsholing, Bhutan and will end at Changrabandha near Bangladesh border.

7. AH1 – Japan-Bangladesh-India-Iran

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This is the longest route of the Asian Highway Network, which connects Tokyo, Japan via Korea, China, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. The highway will also take you to Thailand and will be ready for tourists from 2016. In the future, the AH-1 will start from Tokyo (connected by ferry) and run through Seoul, Beijing, Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom to Mae Sot, Yangon, Mandalay, Tamu, Moreh, Imphal, Kohima, Dimapur, Nagaon, Jorabat (Guwahati), Shillong, Dawki, Sylhet, Dhaka, Kolkata, Kanpur, New Delhi, Attari, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Kabul, Istanbul till the border of Bulgaria.

More about this interesting route here.

Source: Planning A Road Trip ? Here Are 7 Lesser Known Asian Highways That You Can Begin With