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For one, there was no Covid which made its presence significantly felt by its very absence. But still. we made a few rules for us, and tried to keep to them -- no driving at night as far as possible, and trying to avoid big cities, and staying in homestays rather than hotels, wherever possible.
Without the fear of Covid looming large over us, the logistics was much easier this time. Everything was open, the roads were full, the towns and cities were bustling with activity. But precisely because of that, we knew that driving around would be a bigger challenge than last time. So we chose a much shorter route, so that no single journey from one stop to the next was more than 200 kms. But we had not factored in the many long and winding day trips we made at each halt. So in the end we landed up having driven more than 3500 kms, almost 1000 kms more than last time. Like last time, 24 days; like last time, Hema drove, but this time the car was different. This time we had a Hyundai Creta that Hema's son Shamir very kindly lent us. And that car held up and did not let us down, even once. No punctures, no getting stuck in the mud, no refusing to start, although we made it do some pretty tortuous journeys and although very often the road we were on was nothing more that deeply pot-holed mud tracks.
And what a revelation that part of India was for us.
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