Thrill on Road...

Its been a while that I wrote, although I had been meaning to do so since long now. There had been many trips in the meanwhile. The most recent and the most adventurous being "The ROAD TRIP". Sometimes, unplanned trips are the best ones and this one for me is the best example. We had been meaning to go to Amsterdam for quite sometime now. However, the lazy arses were always late in making the bookings and hence exorbitant travelling costs cancelled our trip.
Planning for this trip was a matter of hours and few hours before the travel, we did not even know if we were actually going somewhere or we would spend our long weekend eventless at Cramerstrasse.

Our LandRover

Roadies :P

I was hell bent on doing a road trip, did some googling for a couple of hours and then proposed a decent plan (not so decent for my firang friends though as it covered five places in three days, which for them is like a major project and not a vacation). After all the brainstorming and hours of conference call, where everyone sang his own tunes, we zeroed in on to a concrete plan. This was the first time when we just booked the car, packed our bags and headed for the trip without caring a damn about where to stay.

I love missing trains specially in Swiss, wondering if there is some Yash Chopra waiting for me to sign a deal. Yes I missed my train to Innsbruck, but, unfortunately, I couldn't be the Simran nor did I find my Raj. All I did was waited at the station for 2 hours and then took a train with 3 changes to Innsbruck. At first I thought, I shall hear eons from my friends who were supposed to meet me in Austria, but I forgot to take into account the fact that they are Indians and they would miss the planned timelines too. Hence we all reached Innsbruck almost at the same time.

The stopovers

Pretty excited we jumped into the car and there we headed towards our first stop Lienz. I would give all the credits of the scenic stopovers to Yadav family : one drove us to the places and the other chose the most beautiful spot to puke so that we could click a few shots. While we drove along the beautiful countryside, a picturesque view of alps, flowing water and lush green farms, something as beautiful as the sets of DDLJ, the back seaters played cards, the people who grabbed the center seat tried to acquaint themselves with our driver, Mr Yadav. In no time, the acquaintance turned into a bonding where we mocked at each other and cracked jokes endlessly.

View from our room

On the way we were told that Vinay is a jugnu and we might risk out our lives, if we let him drive after 8. Hence, we decided to rent a apartment on the way and not drive all the way up to Lienz. We got down to find a place to stay and finally got a cute, beautiful, haimish chalet. On asking the last time of order for dinner, the person replied, "Now". Hence in no time we took a a decision to stay and order food else we would have to survive on the cool air from alps and the fresh water from the glacier which anyway would have been better than what we actually ordered and what we were served. Craving stomachs should not care about the taste. So we hogged on what we were given.

Now came the most interesting part. All poker addicts bet their money and there we played for hours together. I have actually wondered what the autowalas play while they encircle on the roadside and shout on top of their voices. And this was the time when our hotel room turned into one roadside view. "Andar" "Bahar", "20 andar"," 40 bahar", this was what could be heard. Yes, Vinay taught us that crazy game that autowalas play. It indeed was insanely interesting. We laughed out butts off while some were in debts, some lent their money but were sternly refused to return and later the lenders begged. Amazing night it was.

The next day, we headed for Venice after the breakfast and a nice stroll near our chalet. And then came the most interesting part for me and the most risky part for the rest. YES. I DROVE!! It was not only the first time I sat in the VolksWagen but also the first time I was driving it. It took me time to get aqcuainated with the left hand driving. Every time I had to indicate left/right, the glass in front was cleant and the people sitting in the car prayed for their lives:P

We finally reached Venice and parked our car to board the ship to the Lido beach. Lido beach was calm, clean and beautiful. We spent sometime on the beach making psuedo Vinay with the sand.

Lido beach

Psuedo Vinay

Men @ work

Venice

Lake de Garda

The next half a day was wasted in deciding if we should go to Como as planned or we should extend our trip by 1 day and do a road trip in Swiss. But late planning is not always fruitful. Hence, our efforts of extending the car booking for a day were in vain and we could not even make it to Como. So it was time to go back. We routed via Lake de Garda and chillaxed there for sometime. On the way back, we were stopped by the Austrian police at the check post  and they consumed more than half an hour and there we missed our train by 10 mins again.The next train was at 3 in the morning but that was the best choice we had. We bid adios to our rich friends who still owned the VW and had to drive further to Munich. It got colder and we had no arrangements for the chill as we did not take into account this unpleasant surprise of sleeping at the station. We had almost layered ourselves with whatever we had and slept at the station. So this was the fantabulous trip that started with missing the train and ended with missing a train, yet no Raj or an offer from Yash Chopra. But I would still like to try next time ;) Maybe before my next entry, I am already a celebrity!!