01: Conception of the road trip

To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,
To gain all while you give,
To roam the roads of lands remote,
To travel is to live.
- Hans Christian Andersen

It was being discussed for quite some time. A trip was long overdue, and the gang (to be formally introduced a bit later) had been speaking about going for a week long or so trip. The most favourable time was the last week of the calendar year - not much happens at work in this week making it easier to get time off. Kids have Christmas vacations as well. While long duration trips had been discussed by the gang, I wanted to be sure about how much time people could really spare. Time is the most important parameter as most decisions are bound by the time at hand. Around a week and half was what most of the gang agreed to.

It is important to note here that the gang in question resides in the city of Pune belonging to the western Indian state of Maharashtra. In a week and half, there were quite a few destinations we could have made to. Stay cost would have been more or less similar at most destinations (one can select places to stay to suit one's pocket). After time, the other destination deciding factors were travel cost and weather.

The next question was "Where to?". Thankfully, in a country like India, one is never short of options. Our list of options included Andaman, Lakshadweep, Auli, Nainital and Rajasthan. While Auli, Nainital and other Uttarakhand or Himachal Pradesh options are wonderful places, December end was not the most appropriate of seasons to visit them, considering we had kids with us. So after a few rounds of deliberations, we zeroed down on Rajasthan.

Rajasthan is the largest state in India in terms of area, and is broadly divided in two regions - the western part is the desert region, called as Marwad. The eastern part is more urban, and is called Mewad. Rajasthan is famous for its desert landscape, the many forts, temples, its rich history, heritage, unique culture, dressing and food. Rajasthan had enough to keep us interested for a week and half. It just depended what we wanted to explore. Most of the popular tours explore the Mewad region - for it houses the famous cities like Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur which have enough glimpses of the various shades of Rajasthan and are urbanised as well - making it a great mix for the average tourist. Which is exactly why I wanted to go to Marwad. Being the traveller that I am, "sight-seeing" doesn't interest me, the experiences do.

When the gang did meet for finalising the plan (somewhere in the month of September), I clearly recollect that the majority of the gang were interested in visiting the Mewad region. If you try to get information about Rajasthan, most of the searches, for obvious reasons would list places like Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Pushkar, Ajmer in the "top" few places to see. Since that would end up making ours a "sight-seeing" trip, I clearly recall impressing upon the gang the beauty of the Marwad region - Jaisalmer in particular. I was glad the gang agreed.

Destination sorted, the focus shifted to the travel part. Travelling to Rajasthan would have to be by flight and the local travel within Rajasthan cities was anyway going to be via road. The cheetah (my Mahindra XUV 500) was beckoning me for a Pune - Rajasthan - Pune road trip. I presented the gang with this option and it took them a few days to think and finally agree to an end-to-end road trip. It thrilled me - for I always love the journey more than the destination. Driving was going to be my biggest motivation, and I couldn't thank the gang more for agreeing to a road trip. From the gang's perspective, they figured that a road trip would be a thrilling experience, and it would bring down the travel cost considerably.

It took careful consideration of stop-over places and took the gang a couple of sessions in which we discussed a variety of itineraries. We ended up picking Jaisalmer, Udaipur and Mount Abu as the places to visit in Rajasthan. Having planned that, it became clear that Gujarat was going to be our "stop-over" state in the to and fro travel. We had to factor in time taken to reach from one city to another as well as avoiding continuous travel on road to avoid fatigue. The stay part was managed with relative ease - it took us less than a day to book all hotels!

It was for real - we had all agreed to a 9-day road trip to Jaisalmer (primary destination) and back to Pune, totalling over 3000 kms. A lot of things needed to be taken care of - but the willingness shown by the gang for the road trip was the most important factor! Other things required careful planning, and I was confident we all would be able to manage it..