November 14th
We got to the exit of Udaipur today and reached an intersection that pointed right for Chittorgarh and straight for Jaipur. I remember taking the Chittorgarh exit last time around, but thought it would be safe to ask around. But unexpectedly, we got mixed responses from people. We decided to head straight and I’m glad we made that choice. Within a few kilometres of making an exit from the Udaipur city, we were greeted by twisties! I wouldn’t have been so excited about twisties in an SUV if it were some of the other loathes that I have driven. But after experiencing how the Endeavour was holding the road when making high speed lane changes on the expressways, I was eager to see what it could do around the corners. The ghat section that we got on to had phenomenal views, huge mountains on one side, deep valleys on the other and clear view of at least three next corners. The setting was perfect for the Endeavour to prove its mettle. The Endeavour exhibited some of the best road holding capabilities that you could expect from a brute of this size. There was slight amount of squeal from the tyres when pushed hard around the corners, but the Endeavour never lost its composure.
As the twisties got over, we got onto some crowded village stretches. A cell phone GPS may not be the best help every time so we decided to take advice of the locals from time to time. While talking to an old Rajasthani bloke on a tractor, we were warned about the road that was about to unfold itself on the way to Jaipur. He told us that the road is often deserted and help is hard to get. He also told us that fuel stations may be a rarity hence filling up in one of the villages was a better option and so we got yet another tank up then and there.
What the oldie mentioned was true, the road that unfolded was deserted, but boy, what a road it is! If you are a petrol hold who loves the combination of long straights and fast corners, then this is one road that you have to ride or drive on, no matter what. The tarmac is grainy, the Rajasthan heat keeps it sticky throughout the day and is insanely fast flowing. The other vehicle travelling with me is a FIAT Palio 1.6 which is owned and driven by our performance tester Kiran Kadaba. It was surprising for me to see how the Ford Endeavour stayed on the Palio’s tail for majority of this stretch. I did have to drop speed when it came to corner carving, but most of the stretch was high speed action for us and tons of fun nevertheless!
After burning a lot of diesel through these bends, we got on to the boring highway stretches again. Jaipur came through in about 2 hours. Thankfully, a little shy of the Jaipur city, there is a bypass that directly takes you on to the New Delhi highway. The road surface is bumpy and though the road apparently is newly constructed, it looks as it if hasn’t been mended for decades. After around 15 kilometers of driving on this bypass, we got on to NH8 and were headed for Delhi. The highway passes through Haryana and though it is called a ‘national highway’ is a little bigger than your average city street road. There are tons of eateries and vehicle repair workshops throughout this stretch. Here we meet our nemesis once again – traffic jams! These were bigger and badder than ones we met in Gujarat. The Gujarat highway had trucks and cars, this one had eighteen wheelers and MUVs with half-wit drivers at the wheel. We are lucky to have sustained the entire five hours and 60 kms of the traffic jam without any scratches on our vehicles. On the way, we passed the Hero Honda plant at Dharuhera, after which the roads opened up a bit. Manesar again had some smaller jams, but those were over within an hour. We crossed the Gurgaon toll, but by now, I had lost the Palio somewhere in the jams. While I was checking my rear view mirrors for the Palio, I heard a loud bang. A truck, a few meters ahead of me, had suddenly blown two of its tyres. I did not know what caused it, so to be on the safer side, I quickly changed lanes to avoid the patch. A few kilometres ahead, I pulled over into a defunct Assam Oil fuel station, advised the others about my location and waited for them to arrive. The traffic jams had led to a lot of fatigue and within moments I fell asleep inside the Endeavour. After about half an hour the Palio reached. They were stuck in a jam that was caused due the truck which had blown its tyres. We were fed up already. The road trip was getting ruined because of these endless jams. While we discussed this unnecessarily long journey so far, we decided to eat at this small dhaba which was set up at the corner of the defunct fuel station.
We were too tired too. Still the food did refresh us to an extent and we continued to Delhi. It was 2 AM already and we wanted some cheap accommodation. After turning down places that were asking for stupid amounts of money even for a 3-4 hour wait, we decided to spend the night at a fuel station. We pulled in to a BPCL pump close to Sardar Bazaar in Delhi and told the bloke at the fuel station about our trip and our plan to park the cars at his pump for the night. He agreed and the noble soul that he was, he even offered us blankets for the night. We spent the night in the cars itself. Keeping the windows half open gave us enough ventilation and the cold weather outside provided enough cooling inside the cabin eliminating the need to keep the blowers running.