Wayanad Road Trip: Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The plan

After I bought my dear Maruti Suzuki Alto Lxi in December 2007, I’ve been part of two road trips – once in May 2008 and the other in October 2008. So, trying to maintain the 5-month break between road trips, the next one was due on March, 2009. However, since Nisha was to return to Bangalore only in April, the trip was finally done after her return.

Every trip begins with a lot of planning. And this trip of ours was to be no different. In fact, planning began as early as January 2009 – and the trip was being planned for March! Well, I guess managerial activities at work definitely helped here as well!

Emails were exchanged (tones of email, to be precise). People were asked whether they were “in” or “out”. Since many had missed the much talked about road trip of last year, it came as no surprise that many new people were very keen to join in. On the flip side, many others couldn’t – some were due to go home for vacations, some were abroad, some had prior commitments. Anyways, the list of people opting in became more than what my Alto could handle! So, it was decided to take another car, and with it came the task of getting another driver (but of course).

Now the strange part in our group is that nobody knows how to drive – not one (besides me). Thank God for Ritu! Ritu is a member of my extended family (and after the trip, he impressed a lot of people – so much so that Sachin wanted to open a “Ritu Fan Club”!!) and he was super keen in joining for the trip. So our problem of a second driver was solved. Now the problem was getting a second car. Thankfully, Ritu took care of that too. He said he could loan a Hyundai Santro Xing from his friend. Whew! That was a major hurdle crossed for us, the road trippers.

So from February to March-end, we were busy deciding on where to go, when to go, where to stay, what to see, etc. etc. And we decided as follows:

Where: Wayanad, Kerala,When: 10-12 April, 2009

We finalized on the routes to take, read a lot of reviews about roads, accommodations, and all the works. And with some experience of road tripping in our kitty, most of these things got over quite fast. Kudos to everyone for a fantabulous work there!

Just a week before the trip came some major trouble. Both the cars got involved in separate accidents on the same day! How bad can your luck be! The Santro was involved in a more serious accident than the Alto, from what Ritu could tell us. So, now we were back to getting a new car for the trip. Thankfully, my Alto didn’t suffer much and was repaired on time for the road trip.

This time around we scouted the internet for car rentals (self-drive) in Bangalore. And viola! There was so much information that it was hard to believe! Why? Because a self-drive car rental was something we thought was non-existent in India – even if it was, we were under the impression that it would be very expensive. However, that was not to be. We found a lot of such services in Bangalore, and finally decided on Autoriders – and we got a Santro from them for INR 1000/- per 24hrs, and with a safety deposit of INR 10k. Whew! The car finalization took place just two days before the actual trip was to begin – so even though we’d thought that we’d completed the planning of the trip, it was some last minute tension for sure!

Anyways, once all the tension subsided, and we had everything ready - we were all set for the trip. We waited with packed bags and excited minds for the 10th morning to come - yet another road trip!!!

For more pictures, click here.

(Read the next chapter: Chapter 2)