My corner: Driving up to Himalayas

Dr Anand Naregal

If one is not time bound, travelling by your own vehicle has distinct advantages vis a vis ying to your destination, specially when you are on holidays and not on business trip. Not only you can visit many more places which fall on your route (which you otherwise won't visit in your lifetime), you also get into holiday mood slowly and slowly as your destination approaches. Kind of a foreplay before the ...!! One can also pack lots of extra things if your vehicle is accommodative . Walking shoes, formal shoes and shoes for the gym!!. And last but important, if you are like me as far as ignoring of alarms are concerned you are not like to miss your bus(read ight) if you are on your own. So when my friend asked me that he wants to test his new Yeti(baby SUV by Skoda) this summer, I immediately grabbed the idea and started working on it. At the hight of Indian summer, Beaches and safaris were obvious exclusions and hills were the obvious choice. Having driven to Auli, (U.K. That is Uttarakhand BTW) we were condent of driving in hills and after little bit of homework we zeroed in to Mashobra, just north of Shimla. ( total of 1500 km one way)
Day 1 : Vadodara- Neemrana, 875 km

We decided to break our journey in three parts. Day 1 Vadodara to Gurgaon( 900 km), day 2 - stay at gurgaon, day 3 gurgaon to Chandigarh(250km) and day 3 Chandigarh to Mashobara(150km). Idea of driving the least on the last day was to reach to the destination hotel at check in time (and not one minute beyond that, after all we are all paying thru our noses for that hotel) and also to reach fresh. So that you don't waste the arrival day in resting and dozing. Preparations were started a week in advance. Car service, spare tyres, car papers were checked. Break down telephone nos taken including nos of Skoda dealers en route. notes and maps were exchanged. Two important books were purchased for ready reference. Driving holidays in Himalayas: by Kokosingh. And high way on my plate by rockysingh (all about highway dhabas and eateries). All of us (three of us) met on previous evening at Barista for nal check list. Certain rules were laid down for driving like, no night driving, not more than 300 km at a stretch by one driver, rst yawn by the driver and he hands over the steering to next, navigator's job is to continuously talk to the driver at the same time not to disturb him too much! D day: 4 30 am: we are set in the car after customary and compulsory prayers to god. As decided we are travelling on Baroda- Halol - GodhraShamlaji stretch. This newly laid down four lane though not short, avoids two important bottle necks namely Ahmedabad and Himmatnagar. After Godhra, the trafc is sparse and road quality is excellent.we are really happy to have chosen this road. One can really test the car to its limits and driving is fun here. We hit shamlaji at 8 am and join the old road to Udaipur. Road is still good but our progress is recurrently halted by omnipresent tolls. I have bought about 2 bundles of ten Rs (so thoughtful) and it's really helpful to give exact change at toll and save few minutes. 9 30 am : we are having breakfast at udaibagh hotel, good choice of route and less trafc has saved almost an hour for us and which is being utilized well at this highway hotel. While I am looking around the property my friend is ghting with the waiter that why he was served two egg omelette when the menu mentions its three! This place looks good only for one day stay and that too when you have exhausted all staying options within udaipur. After refreshing 30 minutes break we are back to business. This time again we have taken a alternative route to Jaipur via bhilwara and chittorgarh. Developed as a part of golden quadrilateral this stretch of almost 200 km has no hurdles. No towns, no crossing and beware no dhabas also. 1 30 pm: bypassing chittorgarh now. And I can see magnicent chittorgarh fort with victory tower in the distance. This majestically sprawling fort over the hiil is largest fort of India and was capital of Mewar. It's a place worth visiting

Magnicent Chittorgarh fort with victory

even if you are not a history buff.( what's the life without a bit of history when you know that the same life is soon going to be the part of history!) In few sq kilo meter area you get to see Mirabai's temple where she used chant those mesmerising Krishna bhajans. One can see Rani padmavati's palace. One is also shown a small window thru which she was shown to Allaudin Khilji. (In those days he travelled all the way from Delhi to have a glimpse of this beautiful queen ). One can visit pyre where it said that almost 13000 brave Rajput wives committed jauhar. In fact it was seize of chittorgarh by Akbar in 1568 that led to creation of Udaipur as second capital of Ranas. While I was sharing this little piece of Rajput history with my friend he made me hear ' Azeemo-o- shaan shehanshah.....' he is A R Rehman fan and can produce any of his song from his phone, pen drive or from innumerable CDs. At 2 30 pm we join the old (Ajmer-Jaipur) high way NH8 at Kisangarh and decided to give justice to puri bhaji lunch, lovingly packed by our better halves. Soon we are back on Ajmer-Jaipur toll road. This 100 km road is very wide but it's free for all, everyone on this drives like they drive cars in video games , overtaking from left, right and centre. This unannounced changing of lanes leave you scarred. 4 pm: we are on Jaipur bypass and quite happy about our progress so far. We are almost 3 hours early than our last trip in 2003. This bypass is full of trucks and almost never ending one (60 km long). Somehow we managed to get on the Jaipur - Delhi express way by 5 pm. Few kms on this road and we realise that we have hit the worst stretch of the day. NH8 here is a

perpetual 'work in progress' and will one day be a beautiful highway. That day has not yet arrived. There is construction. A lot of construction. There are also trucks, and most of them are not road-worthy, most move quite slow, and most have no idea what "lane" to use. In other words, lots of trucks plus lots of construction equals lots of extra time on the road. And to rub salts on our wounds three is 98 Rs toll fees to travel on this piece of rubble. 6 pm: hassled by this stop and go trafc we decided to drop the idea of reaching Delhi. Instead I found the phone no of Neemrana fort palace about which I had read in few travelogues. Called the manager and stuck the deal for night stay at 20% discounted rates. At 6 30 pm we were entering the huge gate of this fort hotel situated about 80 km from Gurgaon and 100 km from Delhi airport. When we switched off ignition we had covered 900 kms in 14 hours. Neemrana (www.neemranahotels.com) was a pleasant surprise And what we didn't know was that when we were going to check out next morning, this nice little heritage hotel was going to surpass all our expectations. This 60 room heritage fort hotel is a agship hotel of the group which is owned by Aman Nath, historian and Francis wacziarg , apparel house owner. They like to call themselves as as restorers rather than hoteliers. Their philosophy is " prot is a wonderful reason to start the business but the passion is a better one" . They purchased this 15th century crumbling fort in

1986 (for just 7 lac Rs)and painstakingly restored it for 6 long years and started 12 room fort hotel. Today it is 60 room hotel, all different from each other and individually named (ours was rang mahal from 17th century) with

two swimming pools, spa, gymnasium, two restaurants. After getting fresh we started exploring the fort. It has lots of cozy nooks and corners where you can relax, read, sketch, meditate or just do nothing, sit and enjoy views. We just did that with coffee mugs in our hands. Went for a swim, had early dinner and crashed in the bed. Day 2: 6 am: I woke up early and set off on my photography tour of the fort while my friend chose to enjoy his morning coffee with newspaper sitting under the marble canopy. The fort is built on 9 levels, offering wide range of views, no matter which room one stays or where you stand. As I explored the fort, going around the various nooks, corridors, rooms and terraces spread over it different levels. I could feel a sense of calm all around; the fort premises were totally quiet. As if I was the only one in the fort. It was such an adventure and I felt like explorer lost in an exotic fort where time did not matter. But in real world time did matter and I realized that it's time to be back.! One thing was clear there were lots of ups and downs here and those with arthritis or impending arthritis should stay away and should try some other Neemrana property.( they now have 30 properties all over the country and none of them are purpose built, all of them are restored old colonial

house or forts). While having breakfast I glanced thru pictures of old neemrana and just marvelled at the amount and the level of hard work gone behind restoring this property 10 30 am: We have left behind neemrana and are back on Jaipur Delhi stretch. 100 km stretch took 2 hours and we were at the airport to pick our

wives in time who were ying from Vadodara. We checked in at Business hotel at Gurgaon. That evening we were at kingdom of dreams (sector 29, Gurgaon) to our show of Zangoora, the gypsy prince, Bollywood musical show which we had pre booked. Zangoora was a larger than life experience. It left us mesmerised with its amazing sets and spectacular music. The performances were full of energy with vibrant colours. It's the story of gypsy prince told to us by the way of musical drama with lots of Bollywood hits from yesteyear. show keeps you engrossed till the end with its beautiful presentation and performances.In short, a highly recommended show of international standards that one should not miss. Post show we tasted foods from across India at culture gully, which is air condition 'street of India' spread over 1,00,000 sq feet under the magnicent sky dome. Culture Gully showcases each state of India in its traditional architecture in a Venetian canal atmosphere, with astrologers, tarot readers and food and artisans from each state, creates ambience of pleasant evenings outdoors, while you are actually inside. We crashed into the bed after a well spent evening Next day early morning via ring road we were on NH1 better known as Grant trunk road. bit of history about history of this road which was built by Sher shah Surinam and our further progress towards Chandigarh and on to the Himalayas in next episode! Keep waiting!!! Love to have your response anand.naregal@rediffmail.com and comments on