[andyonwheels]

Let me begin by applauding all those who have ever shared their 'travelogues' (TL) at T-Bhp and for 2 reasons -
1. For the sheer inspiration that a travelogue instills. Most, if not all, have a transcending effect on the reader. Enough to get you started on your very own journey, like it happened to me with this one.
2. It is easy to get caught up with life once you are back from the journey and your planned TL never sees light. It has taken me a full-year to share my experiences. Reasons best known to me. And I do hope this instills inspiration, especially to families to do such trips with the kids.

As much as i would like this to be specific to the travelogue, i will be peppering this thread once-a-while with my ownership experience of the Fiat Linea Tjet as well.

There are a lot of people on this thread that helped me with my decision on the Linea and a big shout out and thanks to TheTeacher, puchoo, KarthikK, ampere , hvk, johy, J.Ravi, khoj, julupani, sandepmohan and my good friend at work, Karan. Their posts and threads and responses have been of immense help in making the buy and also with suggestions on routes to the roadtrip.

Making the buy:
Cars from the Maruti stable have been part of our family (my bro and folks) for over 15 years and of that i have owned and driven the Alto for 7+yrs. We sold the Alto for the Tjet sometime in Oct'13 and ever since my daughter (all of 7) does not miss a chance to do some emotional atyachaar on me when she spots an Alto on the road - she was extremely fond of the Alto. A true fact - she shed instant tears when she came to know that it was gone forever. Knowing how much i love the Jet, she says - 'anytime you are done with this car, sell it and buy the Alto back'.

Test-drove a lot of cars before settling down on the Jet. The closest second was Skoda Rapid. The rest of the lot in the budget felt too light a drive for me. Wifey preferred the drive of Rapid more comfortable and easier than the Linea. Had to do some mild selling for her to agree with Fiat.

It's been over a year now with the Italian beauty and i never cease to appreciate Linea's exterior design aspects. IMO, it is the best looking car in the segment and will carry on that evergreen charm that Fiat cars are known to have for years to come.

Dealer Experience
Bought if from Aadya Motors, Bangalore. The folks in the servicing station know their job really well and find them very accommodating and friendly. In the initial months of ownership, the car would often squeak on braking for months together. When the squeaking did not stop after a few times of fixing the issue, they deftly changed parts to resolve the issue for good. I particularly like their pick-up and drop facility for having the car serviced. And the friendly and helpful service in-charge for my car - shout out to Neeraj and Lavanya from Aadya.
After all the whims i had heard prior to making the buy about Fiat Dealerships, this was very welcoming and comforting.


The Drive:
In short and to repeat what's been said of the Linea on other threads -
-Exudes good confidence on the highway
-Good smooth and sturdy drive
-Changed stock Goodyears to Yokohama AVS db v550 and totally love them. Smooth, less on noise, and forgiving on bad roads. And the added broad look on the base.
-It took a while getting used to the seat. Found it to be hard but after 9 months of using it, is now nice and snug.
-Am 5'7" and push the height of the seat to it's lowest position. This gives me a more sportier feel of the car and better handling as well. A bit more under thigh support would have been sweeter for long drives.
-The left arm-rest is a saver on long runs.
-While I like the simplistic and elegant design of the interiors, would love to pick the design teams brain on why the bottle storage space was omitted?
-Love the thumb, inner palm support on the steering. Feels great on the grip and in some ways teeth-clenching-ly good when you feel the urge to revv.


Exploring India
The urge and drive to see all in flesh and blood is a never-ending desire. Being on the road gives me a strong sense of living in a 'free-world'. Eases down nerves and raises hopes to a different level. Makes me happy. And in this, am extremely lucky to share this passion with my family members.

21 Days and Nights, packed in the Jet with my wife and two kids (7,11 then). No escape but to do the whole drill together. Open ended itinerary and with a goal to explore in a budget is what we wanted. I had few weeks of leave lined up from work, pitched the idea at home and we were well on our way planning the route.
We wanted it to be as flexible possible, so we made no bookings whatsoever any place, despite the peak x'mas season and new years holidays in 2013.

Eyebrows are raised on mentioning these words together - 'roadtrip and kids'. To me, its the 'only' way to do it and this is 'by-choice'.
Over the last few years, my wife and I have been increasingly fond of being on the road together and now with the kids joining us,
it was starting to be all in the blood. Yes, there a sibling fights and us loosing our cool over them fighting, but trust me - as family - no better way to bond - picture this - you are in a 3x3 feet space in a car for 21 days - you do not wish to ruin the experience - what do you do? - you innovate! you will find ways to gel and keep the excitement going. We loved it! Kids loved it and want to do more of this.

And more we plan to do this April! An Overland Journey is on Charts and in the Jet we trust! Now for some strength, support & love!

To share, I feel the roots were laid when as kids, dad used to take us to different towns in Rajasthan (our native) visiting temples and other places by-road. The aspects i vividly remember of those trips was him enjoying such trips, the food on-the-way, music and the never-ending room for conversations. It was great and i feel that affect has lingered on. So big thanks to dad!



ROUTE
The goal was to see places of historical importance all through the route. As our itinerary were flexible, the route evolved as we progressed.. What's missing in the map (google has now limited it to 10 destinations ) is Bijapur (Gol Gumbaz) and Hampi (Hampi Festival).

Our eventual trip.

[andyonwheels]

DAY 1 - Bangalore - Hubli.
The Start.
We had a delayed start - we planned to leave by morning but who really was in any rush?! We had so much to look forward to and no one really to answer. So in true IST style, we lugged our way till after lunch and reached Hubli close to mid-night. Stay was The Hans Hotel. B/B style.



Surprise goodie kit for our kids. Needless to say, they were excited spotting all snacks, games, coloring pages, dairy for them to log their experiences.



The true champs of the roadtrip. They marched, they fought, they soldiered and kept spirits high and roughed out in the little space they were offered in the Jet for 21 days. Take a bow, kids!



A rest-room break by one of the toll booths on-route to Hubli. Just wish there were enough of these through the journey.






The Hans Hotel from inside where we parked for the night in Hubli. Nothing much to say. It was neat and clean and bit pricey as well for a meare over-night stay.



Day 2 -
Had a laid back start on Day 2. B/F at The Hans as it was included in the package.
As we checked out, I was looking out for an automobile store to buy sun-shades and gps-holder. By the time we sorted this out, it was lunch time. Barely a km. from Hans was a Kamat Yatri Niwas and cheaper tariff too. Travelers make note.

Lunch at Kamat.



Curious what this building is all about?! It's on the Tumkur-Chitradurga stretch if i remember right. Lovely lawn they got! : )



And ofcourse, quaint landscape like the picture below is what road-trips are all about! Every-time and literally every single time we felt the urge to stop and soak such beauty - we simply did! Regardless of what was waiting for us!




Parked O/N in Pune at a relative's place.
By this time - it was all driving for 2 days and no fun. Not a good sign. Wifey caught a cold and started to question our decision of a Journey like this. Son was starting to show signs of motion-sickness and nausea. Surely not what you would want in first few days of a start.

Day 3
We left Pune by 9am and had planned to have a day-long excursion at Adlabs Imagica, (Khopoli - Lonavala). I had kept this as a surprise hoping that it cheers up everyone's mood. By the time we reached the spot - it was as if some 10 odd schools got their school kids over for a picnic, all in a fleet of some 50 buses and plus the aam aadmi and their families. How ideal! Christmas holidays and it's implications!



It just did not make sense to risk the adventure with so much crowd and then the kid and his mom were low on adrenalin as well, 'cos of cold and motion-sickness.
We ended up going to the Fariya's at Lonavala for Buffet and then drive to Mumbai to park O/N at a relative's place and then leave for Ahmedabad (my wife's hometown).

Pics of the crowd at Imagica (those are people waiting outside for tickets apart from the junta inside) , the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and on-route to Ahmedabad.







Day 4 & 5
Mumbai-Ahmedabad via Anand (the home of Amul Butter). On-route to Ahmedabad, we called Amul-Factory to learn if they allowed visitors for a tour of the factory. We got very excited when they said, yes! We arrived during the visiting hours and it was exciting to see how Amul butter was manufactured - a butter that has monopolized the market since as long as i can remember! And at how many breakfast tables over the years have we exclaimed 'the taste hasn't changed over years'. Ahhh...that golden colored toast simmering with the best butter in the world.
Camera's are not allowed inside the Amul Dairy premises. So no behind the scenes pic. :(



Vadodra-Ahmedabad stretch does test your adrenalin controlling capabilities. You cannot resist the goodness of flat, mean roads and burn some good rubber. Must have been the 1st time we touched 140km in the Jet. Felt Gooood!

In the 1.5 days we were in Ahmedabad (in-laws), Dhoom 3 (entertaining), visited Riverfront Park, nice place with fun slides and activities for kids. Later had a family dinner on Christmas Night.


Now this is where our actual journey and excitement starts. 6 days of driving was so far peppered with occasional landscape beauty and fun driving patches - which meant wifey and kids were still to feel convinced that this was a worthy affair. All though, the Amul Dairy visit and the stop at Ahmedabad (kids meeting up their cousins and all) pepped them quite a bit.

Day 6 Mount Abu and Pavapuri (Sirohi)
Plan was to visit Mt.Abu to see Dilwara Temple and then carry-on to Jodhpur same day. We had an early start and were on our way to Abu.

Good Ol' Legend


Monkey's were happy posing for the Camera.



Some forced perspective!



With all due respect, the Dilwara Temple architecture did not do as much for me as had heard about it. We visited the place for about 2hrs, had lunch outside the temple in a dhaba and decided to skip any other spot in Abu and head straight to Jodhpur. No cameras allowed, so no pictures. : (

It was aroud 4pm when we decided to take-off from Abu and Jodhpur was a good 5-7hrs away. Night driving was definitely NOT what we wanted to do.

Pavapuri


40kms away from Abu, the trio (wifey and kids) were starting to feel really bogged down. The biggest gripe being 'are we ever going to stop or is it just going to be non-stop driving'?!
This feeling of theirs had to be respected. We had long way to go and this was a round-trip back home to Bangalore.
While researching possible night-halts, i remembered a relative mentioning about a place called Pavapuri close-by to Abu and was highly recommended as well.

We immediately called the place and found a room available. This turned out to be blessing in disguise. The place was serene, extremely reasonable, beautiful temples and a really big gau-shala (cow-shelter). It was a really soothing and calming experience. Feeding the cows and bottle-feeding calves milk was humbling. The sheer aura of the place felt so grounded.

While driving into the village of Pavapuri
The Army


Beautiful Landscapes



Never Miss a Moment with the Linea


Inside the Temple and the Cow Shelter

[andyonwheels]

Day 7 - Ranakpur Jain Temple
After a soulful time in Pavapuri, next day we headed to the famous Ranakpur Temple.
Excellent carvings in Stone. Will let the pictures speak here.

Some wiki-info about the Temple -
This is a chaumukhi mandir, which means it has faces or gates on all four sides, facing the cardinal directions. However, only one gate is open these days, in front of which are the functioning prayer hall and a huge idol of Sri Adinath. The other three faces are identical but no assembly is held there. Hugely famous for its 1444 pillars, the grand structure is actually an architectural marvel that took 63 years to make and is beautiful to look at, both from the outside and the inside, adorned by intricate carvings. The building boasts of 24 domes and its grandeur can assessed by the supposed Rs. 15 crores that it cost to build, nearly six centuries ago.

About the famous 1444 pillars, many things are noteworthy. They support the whole structure of the temple in the absence of any walls. Out of these 1444, no two pillars are alike and have different stories to tell. Some of the carvings convey stories and meaningful fables, while others just present beautiful images and some have real-life references. One out of these 1444 pillars has been intentionally made slanting so as to ward off evil spirits, with the common Hindu belief that making a perfect structure will invite the evil eye. PIC BELOW. Also it is widely fabled that no one can ever count the exact 1444 pillars.














































Pillar Number 15 - The Slanted Pillar

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to Travelogues. Thanks for sharing!

[Wanderers]

Hi andyonwheels

You seems to have covered places. How do you remember so many of them, while writing.
Great efforts. Loved the Rajasthan part of it more though.

Linea is one of the most comfortable car for long drive and you made best use of it.
Let it go over places.

[S2!!!]

You actually took a year to post this thread In that case, congratulations for completing a 7 day log out of the 21 days .

I'm sure your kids' diary with the trip log must have been of great help while compiling this travelogue cause I can't think of how otherwise would you remember half the places and events.

The T-Jet is a fab car. I was on the verge of driving home in one in the same colour as you own. Unfortunately, the car's length was a deal breaker for me and had to settle down for a hatchback back instead. Still, till date I turn around to check out the T-Jet especially in this and the Bronzo Scuro shade.

[sdp1975]

@andyonwheels , didn't get time to complete the travelogue ?

You're the one that did Bangalore-Paris in the T-Jet as well , right ? Looking forward to that travelogue , really.

[andyonwheels]

Originally Posted by S2!!!

You actually took a year to post this thread In that case, congratulations for completing a 7 day log out of the 21 days .

ha-ha! I will duly accept it. One thing led to another and that's why i have lot of respect for people who manage to write one.

And later this year, it so happened that i had the travel-bug incite me on to another adventure - Bangalore-Paris on the Tjet and lot of my energies got diverted again. : )

Originally Posted by sdp1975

@andyonwheels , didn't get time to complete the travelogue ?

You're the one that did Bangalore-Paris in the T-Jet as well , right ? Looking forward to that travelogue , really.

As just shared above in this post - its amazing how people accomplish a T-log successfully. To me its more challenging than the doing the Journey. Suddenly everything else seems more important once you have done a trip.

You are right - did it with family. And am already feeling so caught up in life that i have no idea when that would happen.

I do want to put out a video-documentary. Hopefully a diwali-release.