fleming
01-06-2009, 05:13 AM
Hyundai celebrated a whole bunch of anniversaries and the Paris launch of the i20 by letting us drive two i10s over 10,000km. The original plan was to drive the cars from Delhi to Paris via Chennai. But plans, as you will see, have a way of working out differently, right? So Martin, Halley, Sirish and Shumi took the wheel at various stages of the drive. Here are their stories.
Delhi-Gwalior
We were flagged off by the shy looking Abhinav Bindra, no sur¬prise, then, that we were on target. However, we broke down and waiting for the help to arrive was probably the lowest point of the day. Probably because it caused us to have really crappy kulche-chole and eventually, it meant that we had to negotiate some really bad roads and finally Gwalior's streets late into the night. Then again, the Taj Mansingh grub was superb.
Bhopal-Nagpur
Can one drop dead of boredom? We came very close to finding out. The repeated exclamations and gestures of the French journalist Eric Malherbe failed entirely to alleviate the gloom. Or the heat. The i10 air con does not have all the bases covered. A bunch of monkeys and a torrential downpour as we crossed a tiger reserve is all I can report.
496
Nagpur-Hyderabad
Crossing over into Andhra Pradesh, the change in topography is instant, underscoring our arrival in South India. The spicy Andhra cuisine perked us up no end, hot mutton biryani washed down with chilled buttermilk. Then, in Hyderabad, we gorged on mutton roganjosh. Along the way, we spotted three cheery sadhus on an RX100. So we had to stop and photograph them.
Hyderabad-Chennai
We zipped through the 300km stretch of the Golden Quadrilateral in three and a half hours, at times hitting 160kmph. No, we were not being foolhardy. The cars we were driving were only going as far as Chennai. Logistics problems and the right-hand-drive Hyundais meant that these cars would not make it to Europe. Instead, two fresh, left-hand-drive i10s would leave Istanbul and proceed onward to Europe. An unforgettable sight was a Rolls-Royce Phantom in bumper-to-bumper traffic in Hyderabad, sweaty driver trying to get through unscathed.
Delhi-Gwalior
We were flagged off by the shy looking Abhinav Bindra, no sur¬prise, then, that we were on target. However, we broke down and waiting for the help to arrive was probably the lowest point of the day. Probably because it caused us to have really crappy kulche-chole and eventually, it meant that we had to negotiate some really bad roads and finally Gwalior's streets late into the night. Then again, the Taj Mansingh grub was superb.
Bhopal-Nagpur
Can one drop dead of boredom? We came very close to finding out. The repeated exclamations and gestures of the French journalist Eric Malherbe failed entirely to alleviate the gloom. Or the heat. The i10 air con does not have all the bases covered. A bunch of monkeys and a torrential downpour as we crossed a tiger reserve is all I can report.
496
Nagpur-Hyderabad
Crossing over into Andhra Pradesh, the change in topography is instant, underscoring our arrival in South India. The spicy Andhra cuisine perked us up no end, hot mutton biryani washed down with chilled buttermilk. Then, in Hyderabad, we gorged on mutton roganjosh. Along the way, we spotted three cheery sadhus on an RX100. So we had to stop and photograph them.
Hyderabad-Chennai
We zipped through the 300km stretch of the Golden Quadrilateral in three and a half hours, at times hitting 160kmph. No, we were not being foolhardy. The cars we were driving were only going as far as Chennai. Logistics problems and the right-hand-drive Hyundais meant that these cars would not make it to Europe. Instead, two fresh, left-hand-drive i10s would leave Istanbul and proceed onward to Europe. An unforgettable sight was a Rolls-Royce Phantom in bumper-to-bumper traffic in Hyderabad, sweaty driver trying to get through unscathed.