Firstly, I have always been into travelling, and always dreamt of writing about it, but reasons aside I never did it. This time around thanks to a fellow Team-Bhpian,
H@r$h@l, not only did he make 1 dream come true, but along with his wife many of them. This trip and some of the memories and everything would not have been posible without his support and from the bottom of my heart a huge thanks to him. And of course none of us would have been fed as well as we were without his guide' abilities and a special thank to my wife who loved every moment even though it was under heat she would not have had nightmares about.
Background:
From the time I got my 530d I always wanted to drive to Udaipur, but work and personal reasons kept my away from it, every morning the dew drops on the car made me want to push away but of course the practical part of me does not permit it, so kept waiting for a right moment, and suddenly between the busy work comes a reason good enough to not miss, I get 2 free nights stay at the Trident, Udaipur. Excited enough I casually mention this to
H@r$h@l and he was game from the minute I mentioned it. So the hope got stronger and the will to go was now a concrete block as I could not and would not pass this up.
I was given a dead line for the vouchers which expire on 30th April, but my travel agent was able to book us before 30th April for the nights of 7,8, and was I excited?
The Error:
So excited that I goofed up our booking, as far as I knew and from what I communicated to
H@r$h@l, the dates were 6th and 7th night, in fact even when he asked me to reconfirm my little brain did not realize I am creating a huge blunder by getting confused between the dates and days. For some reason I was looking at the wrong month on my calendar and fear arose on how do I now tell
H@r$h@l about this blunder and in panic I first call Trident they were not willing to make changes for the free nights, and then spoke to the travel agent who could not help either, at which time BBM helped, and I sent a gentle shocking message to
H@r$h@l, who took it as light as eating an ice cream and there my comfort was back.
And the count down began, to the point where I hardly could focus on work on the last 2 days, and had the pressure of my Wife who did not know what kind of a hotel are we going to, and since she is from the US, I took this opportunity to try scare her but to my stupidity I began smiling which crashed my hopes of convincing her that we will be staying in a place where we will need tents and the wash rooms are a few minutes walk away from our room.
The D-Day:
So excited was I, that I did not for the first time need a wake up call to get up at 5:30 A.M. Believe me I rarely knew how the world looks at this hour, and even realized it is true, "The birds do fill your ears with beautiful music." Dad calls,
H@r$h@l calls, and for some reason I am all awake, excited, anxious, and of course worried about the Run Flat Tyres on my car as I had no idea what would I do if something went wrong but due to being over superstitious I choose not to think of it.
We reach
H@r$h@l's place at 6:55 A.M, and his family was extremely welcoming considering the time it was, and had one of the finest cup of teas ever in my life (
For which I do plan to raid his house a lot more) and we left at about 7:35, after which we had a 10 minute fuel break as I was unable to fuel my car the previous night due to a certain people who thought getting married means block the building gates for hours.
The Journey:
Honestly speaking while I have heard a lot about this road, and I do agree there were parts of the journey I did enjoy quite a bit but then there were bits and parts where I was dodging speed breakers left and right to try ensure the ladies at the back slept well, oh and for some reason my Wife was planning to watch movies this early in the morning, which thankfully she did not. H
@r$h@l, again was a great company and not for a minute did he take a nap, and we covered about 246 Kms in a time of about 2 Hours and 45 minutes with certain amount of commercial traffic and 3 tool booths, rates of which
H@r$h@l knew at the tip of his fingers which left me wondering if he ever applied for a job at any of these? Did you? ;)
A perfect journey and the car did a good job of ensuring none of us were fatigued or tired, and the welcome to the city? Let pictures do the talking :
The Stay:
I was not aware how good the Trident will be, and from the moment we entered the massive gates I believe the 4 Smiles & Grins were big enough to assume we were all satisfied by the entrance, and the lobby, and of course a special thank you to the restroom which was all empty for me when I had to run as soon as I got inside and had no time to wait till I check in, the lush gardens, the serene sights and sounds, and clean vast areas all only made your satisfaction grow deeper and the staff only made things better. I have rarely seen staff this good and I could compare them to some of the Four Seasons and Ritz Carltons I have stayed at across the world.
I don't know if our faces looked like we were extremely naughty and would cause damage or was it for privacy reasons but we were assigned rooms a little away from each other, or maybe that was done incase we get bored and start beating each other to pulp? ;)
We had garden facing rooms, and while they were amazing my wife was a little ticked off that our room did not have any flowers while H
@r$h@l's had two of them? but no other complains. We were ready and out into the city,
Will Continue this tomorrow hope it was not exactly boring, but this is my first shot at it so do excuse me.
What no picture of the beast that carried you yet?? 2 hours 45 minutes is amazing.
