Time of the trip

A lot of people have been asking me when would be the time to see this idea into reality. Though I am still in very initial stages pf planning but the timelines are pretty clear.

One should avoid the rains on roads, winter of North and summer across India. So this leaves me with February-March or Oct-Nov for the pan india trip. The coming oct nov won't be possible because of my bro's marriage and my manager is not willing to give me any extra leaves this year.

So in all probabilities the earliest date would be around Feb-Mar 09. Lets hope for the best.

Cheers!

Met some legend like people on bhp

Hi Guys,

Work has kept me off, but now I am back, with lots of interesting info.

I met Mr. Kumar (hvkumar) on bhp-forum and he has probably travelled more than anyone in India by road. Here are some of his experiences:

I have done Bombay-Delhi several times and mos of the routes that you will do during your proposed trip, .... The all-GQ trip is being planned. I also have GPS points of many trips.

Always carry my laptop with interne connecivity on all my trips, but do all my logging offline -e netered only after the trip. Also do all advnace rip planning and log trips using my hand-held GPS (no mobile).

Don't tinker around with laptops, concentrate on the driving, my companions' job o do the logging, do it myself if I am alone.

He has been kind enough to send me some of his logs. They have unblieveable amount of info in them. The logs have info about exact kms on the routes. Even how much one could spend in the trip. Its unbelievable that I have not been able to analyze them, but will do soon and share here with his permission.

Cheers!

Bhp-team recommends Innova

After clarifying a bit more on my driving style on my thread:

Have you guys seen Ajay Devgan in "Cash"? The hilarious scene where a jogger overtakes him. I actually picked that and tried and it was very very relaxing I must say. In moving traffic on internal roads its fun to drive as slow as possible.

So that tells me that I am not a speed freak, though occasionally with a good song speeding is fun, but not of the order of 150 or so. Haven't ever driven above 90 i think. It was 90 or so on my way from Amritsar to Chandigarh, my father-in-law wasn't happy at it, he wanted to go above 100 in 10 year old M800. I think those were good Punjab roads, but GQ should be better.

About space since I am going to be on road for almost a month I would say lots of space is needed, not just boot space but space to organize a little room for myself, like a drinking water 25 ltr keg. An ice cooler for beer/cold drink. An option to stretch sometimes once in a while by lowering the back.

All these space requirements and no need for high speeds of above 120 (lets say) tells me that SUV/MUV with little body roll should be fine. What say?

About renting Vs buying and selling, one of the option I have is to cut a deal with one of the second hand car dealers to let me use one of his cars for the trip and pay a lumpsum. The renting is not coming to anything below 1200-1500 per day for an Innova (from Bangalore). I tried a2b bangalore as mentioned in some other posts. Please let me know other options for renting.

For buying if finances makes sense, in terms of loss, I am willing to keep it for a year or so. I generally buy second hand cars to keep them for 2-3 years and loose less money compared to a new car. Also, my car will be due for change after Oct, so if I can get a Safari and sell it after a year for like 30-40k loss, I am willing to do it. But then the problem of my 300km city driving comes in .

People are recommending Innova as the best choice, I think it should win hands down with Scorpio or Safari, in terms of space and comfort. Am seeking views from the members there, lets see.

Remember, Innova has been kind of my dream car for some time, a dream car that should be within my reach in some time :-).