A woman’s sight of a tour through Rajasthan:

 

Well, we had our thoughts about how it would be to go to India with the cars:

The first concern was about driving on Indian roads - especcially on roads off the beaten track. How high was the risk of damage by road conditions? How would we find our way?

The second concern was were we going to offend the (poor) Indian population? Would they react in an agressive way? Would the cars (RR) be provovative? Would they throw stones at us?

The third concern was about accommodation, food and drink? How would the standards be? Would we put our health at risk?

The last but not least concern was how will the shipping of the cars work - with transport from England to Udaipur and from Jodhpur back to England? Will the ship be on time? How about the risk for the cars to be kidnapped on sea?

 

And our experience was:

Once the cars were on board of the ship we followed its track and realized where it was actually going, where it stopped and where it stayed.

...

When we arrived at Udaipur the cars were all there at the Maharaja of Udaipur's vintage car garage where we enjoyed the help and understanding of the garage staff. Only in one of the cars (which were full with our stuff for the tour) the Indian (?) customs must have stirred around so that an oil can went open and oil was spilled out. Our car was immaculate and looked at us quite innocently - and now that I had seen the traffic of Udaipur (coming in from the airport)!!! I thought we should rather stay on the safe grounds of the garage, but there we went, diving into an ocean of vehicles, people and animals, going by the motto "never loose the one behind you" - so we followed the first car directed by DV and spent the whole day in and out of Udaipur, up and down the hills and around the lake. Hundreds of people waved and cheered at us, the children went crazy shouting "tata tata tata" - we could not have had a friendlier welcome. And so it went on for the rest of the tour. Always lead safley by DV without having a proper map or routebook, and we never got lost! On the main roads (especially between Udaipur and Jodhpur) there was heavy lorry traffic, which was a colorful sight linked with some stress. Off the "beaten track" which gave us a fascinating insight into rural life in Rajasthan the roads were sometimes very bumpy but with little traffic and always with a warm welcome - somtimes even with flower necklaces. In the towns DV's directions never misslead, we were always relaxed and on time; we never got involved in critical situations, no car suffered a serious mechanical problem and we did not even get a scratch. Only some dessert dust was left to remind us of the tour, as well a wistle, that DV got for me and which helped me sometimes to make the city traffic aware of our car.

 

For our accommodation princley palaces, which the Maharjas now run as hotels had been chosen - these count among the leading hotels in the world, the standards were accordingly.  However, my husband and I remained very careful with what we ate and drank and thus never had a problem.

 

The personal involvement of the Maharajas in the tour was of course another asset and made our trip very eventful with music, dances and plays, horses and trumpets - and last but not least with the Diwali Party of the Maharaja of Jodphur up in the Old Fort at the end of the tour. So for us Rajasthan was a continous "wow" once we drove out of the palace gates into the buzzling indian every day life and another "wow" when we arrived at yet another palace for the night. A once in a lifetime experience, where all went well and nobody got lost, much for the account of DV.

 

 

Angelika Elliott, Austria