A Small Car Caravan to Ladakh
The cabin is good in parts, acceptable in most and shocking in a few areas, particularly in the panel gaps. But you get lots of equipment: Airbags (only the i20 gets six airbags), ABS, alloys, Bluetooth connectivity, even iPod compatibility (but the system refused to read our iPod Touch or USB sticks which made me quite angry).
Prompting an early switch to perennial favourite, the Maruti Suzuki Swift 1.3 ZXi. We all love the Swift, particularly her styling. Even today a Swift with big wheels and a white floating roof will make you smile but a Swift in white with high profile skinny tyres is not a thing of beauty. Inside, I shudder to say, Maruti has gone and wrecked it. We got the Glam variant that gets full beige interiors — even the seatbelts! Luckily the chassis hasn’t been messed around with and around mountain switchbacks the Swift reminded me exactly why I was first in line to buy one when it was launched. It is an absolutely brilliant car to drive; there’s no other small car that can match her agility nor can you chuck around any other car and hope to get away with it. Communication is clear and precise and you can make her dance on tiptoe. The only let down are the narrow tyres which, round corners, squeal like pigs being herded into an abattoir.
Later we stop for tea before Mandi, and I jump into the Tata Indica Vista Quadrajet. I am surprised to find it loaded to the roof: it’s got our emergency rations and supplies, the tool kit, jerry cans, crates of water, sleeping bags, tripods and other camera equipment and some more stuff under all this stuff. It doesn’t just hold a lot; it’s also a winner on ride quality. But that comes at a price: The handling is vague and wholly lacking in feel, the steering is dead as a fish, the suspension pitches, wallows and heave-hos and, driven rapidly, it’s almost impossible to point it where you want it to go. The insides aren’t great either; it all feels terribly cheap, and you will not aspire to own one. Then there’s the design of the dash. I love to drive and prefer to have the speedo in front of me not in the centre of the console, in my mother-in-law’s line of sight (not that you’ll be going very fast...). There are also some bizarre irritants, like the warning beeper that, no matter what, will always beep.
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Image: Gaurav Thombre/ Overdrive
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Later we stop for tea before Mandi, and I jump into the Tata Indica Vista Quadrajet. I am surprised to find it loaded to the roof: it’s got our emergency rations and supplies, the tool kit, jerry cans, crates of water, sleeping bags, tripods and other camera equipment and some more stuff under all this stuff | |
Which is why, when we got stuck on the way up to Rohtang, I pulled rank and jumped into the Skoda Fabia 1.4TDI PD. It’s the best car in which to twiddle thumbs and do nothing. Inside, your aspirations escalate; you start calculating EMIs and a convincing story for your wife to let you buy one. That’s because it feels rich. Interiors space is second only to the Jazz, but not by much. The seats are the best, and adjust every which way; as does the steering. It is no doubt pricey, and at that price gets some unnecessary add-ons like a sun roof and parking sensors (you really should be able to parallel park a small car on your own) but in terms of making you feel like money well spent, nothing comes close. Only one problem: The three-cylinder pume duse diesel engine is so noisy everybody’s starting to call it a tractor!
We finally make it up Rohtang Pass at seven in the evening, catch the last light on the peaks and then make our way down to Koksar where, in keeping with the general spirit of this adventure, the lone pump had shut for the night. We were forced us to buy black market petrol from the dhabas and siphon out diesel from the fuel tank of a willing truckie (at a nice little premium).
Next day, we set off for Baralach Pass, the third highest, most feared pass in India, accounting for the most deaths. The pass is so high and oxygen so rare that very soon all of us get breathless, develop thumping headaches and the television crews throw up their breakfast.
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