Do you know what happens when bad luck hits you?
No??
Then, do hear my side of story!
Many of us think that travel is always fun and away from worries. Also, we are likely to be unprepared for the shortcoming that’s approaching along our way! So do me!
Though I am not an ‘accidental tourist’ or you can say that I am far better than Bill Bryson (only if you have read about him in your text) as a traveler, but yeah! I too have stories to tell about my big-time travel disasters.
There are many run-of-the-mill travelling mishaps I had. To say a few: Forgetting my undergarments on a 4-day long journey, breaking a full bottle of imported wine while dropping my bag carelessly at a railway station, trekking on hard snow while putting my canvas shoes (which not only made me slip, but two of my friends too), losing my purse which had my first 2000 rupee note at the time of Demonetization (you can imagine how bad the time was!) and so on…..(countless in number, actually :D)
Now, when you know enough of my travelling foibles then let me tell you about my most recent travelling disaster of 2020. I think most of us ridicule this year for being so different, right? Even I too did! But, I was really happy to chance upon a tour with my school buddies post lockdown. We all were desperately waiting for the day to come when we would start our journey. And finally, it was the midnight of 17th October.
The fun part: One of my friends got a new car in September and he was kind of excited about his new ‘Altroz’ by Tata Motors. But, I along with one more friend kept on teasing him that ‘Baleno’ by Maruti Suzuki is better than his Altroz.
It was his car only by which we were travelling to mountains. (Yaayy!) So, the story of our fun continued until we reached Nainital for our first stop around 9-10 a.m. of 18 October. We still made fun of his Altroz whenever we saw a Baleno in front of us. Though, he never minded that and was quite chill about it.
My plan was to cover few temples in Almora, Binsar wildlife Sanctuary and Kausani in four days. But, as I am telling you about the huge mishap here, so don’t expect any happy ending here.
ATTENTION! The car heated up just a few kilometers before the main town of Almora. (There was also a Baleno parked just near the place where our vehicle heated up. Did you catch my point??? :D)
JOKES APART….
My friends tried every way possible to let it cool for an hour or so, but the destiny had something else in store for us! Most of the locals tried to help us, even a nearby mechanic tried to fix what had happened, but soon we got to know that it was the mistake of the service center (They didn’t connect the coolant wire properly after its first service, due to which it broke off after exertion)
Note: The car was new so we couldn’t take risk to let it fix it up by a local mechanic.
I was literally calm, but my friend was really tensed and he made 2-3 phone calls to find out a prospective solution to this. We waited like 2.5 hours but there was only one solution, he told us – THE CAR NEEDED TO BE SENT AWAY TO THE NEARBY SERVICE CENTER WHICH WAS AT HALDWANI, 4 hours away from where we stopped.
I realized one thing that we couldn’t travel any further without the car since it was the time of pandemic. I didn’t know what to do, neither my friends had any clue that 2020 would prove to be such a nut!
It was at five past forty-five when the people from Haldwani service Centre came to tow the car. We all were sad but we had nothing to do except waiting…. (Fortunately, we got Oyo rooms in 200 meters distance to keep our back straight)
The saddest part was – We would receive the car by 5 pm on the next day. Two days of our trip were almost wasted…and we all had to go back in four days since we all were on paid leaves.
(Though the journey didn't end up here, I had further happy stories to tell but for the next time.)
Here are some tips for the readers:
1. Never take your new car on off-roading trips unless it travels a considerable distance.
2. Always have car insurance so that it can save you from giving huge compensation during such mishaps.
3. Get you car thoroughly checked just before leaving for long trips.
4. Destiny plays a huge role in our life so, always keeps your second plan ready in hand.
5. Enjoy taking risks in life and see the fun part coming your way (You too would have stories to tell!)
6. Ranting and crying over things would never help, so find a right attitude towards such mishaps.
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