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India – Part 1 – Planning the trip.
What you are about to read is a true story. I was there. I lived it. This truly was the biggest travel mistake I have ever made with one of these trips. Was I bothered by it? Absolutely not. I travel for the “story”. I could not have dreamed up a bigger and better story. The only thing that can ever top this is being taken hostage in a hostile foreign country. If I can survive such an ordeal then the experience will make for a great “story”. If I can’t you will at least be able to read about it in the newspapers. Until then you can enjoy “India – when my biggest travel mistake became a reality!” Enjoy the read.
Greetings from Noida, India
From the travels and adventures of the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Buddh International Circuit
Asphalt road course
Country #66 – Track #1,915
THE TRIP’S KEY HEADLINES
My biggest mistake ever!……India – Part 1.
A savior from above?….or at least from across the pond…..India – Part 1.
No visa; no trip….India – Part 1.
I didn’t want to make this phone call…..India – Part 1.
I’m not looking for a tour bus….India – Part 1.
Enter Alison Jackson stage left….India – Part 1.
Los Angeles to Guangzhou, China to New Delhi, India and back!….India – Part 1.
Raju!…..India – Part 1.
It was time to meet India…..India – Part 2.
I’m just a softie at heart…..India – Part 2.
Getting the World Formula 1 race tickets!….India – Part 2.
This wasn’t the western world and we didn’t want it to be…..India – Part 2.
Just like the old west….cattle roaming in the streets……India – Part 2.
The Taj Mahal!….India – Part 2.
Every finger on your hand is different…..India – Part 2.
Women in the last row please!…..India – Part 3.
Delhi belly!…..India – Part 3.
Have you ridden on an elephant?…..India – Part 3.
Our hotel had a tent roof!…..India – Part 3.
Good brakes, good eyes and good luck…..India – Part 3.
A private driver was worth millions…..India – Part 3.
How much would the race tickets be?…..India – Part 3.
Some go F1 trackchasing and others wimp out?…..India – Part 3.
A line is not a line in this part of the world…..India – Part 3.
Sit back and be quiet…for 27 hours…..India – Part 3.
Raju rocked!…..India – Part 3.
PRE-TRIP
ADVANCE PREPARATION
THE RACE
India was off my radar screen and then back on.
I’ve thought about going trackchasing in India for the last five years or more. I did have a contact for some local road course racing in India. Unfortunately, about two years ago he dropped off my radar screen. That made me put India on the back burner. However, after seeing racing in 65 different countries the remaining country locations list that have racing is dwindling. It was time to see racing in India!
What better race to see in the country than the World Formula 1 (F1) race. I am not a big F1 fan. However, most of the world outside the U.S. is. Maybe I’m missing something.
I don’t care for F1 racing for two reasons. First, they race on road courses where the fan can see very little. I grew up with small oval tracks. At those venues, you can easily see all of the racing 100% of the time.
A secondary reason is the cost of F1 race tickets. In many countries (F1 races in about twenty each year) the least expensive ticket is around $600 U.S. However, in reality, the cost of the race ticket at these events pales in comparison to the overall cost of the trip with airfare, a week’s worth of hotels, etc. Paying $600 to see racing on 10% of the track doesn’t seem like a very good value to me.
Was it now or never?
Another reason for coming to India this year, which became obvious to me only after the trip was planned, is the F1 group will not be coming to India in 2014. They are contracted to race here for a couple more years but who really knows if that will happen. After seeing the F1 race in India I will have seen racing in every country on the current F1 schedule. However, I noticed a media story saying Vietnam was angling for one of their races! In the early 70s, I didn’t want to go to Vietnam and now I do! Carol and I have been there previously but not to see a race.
THE VISA
TUESDAY.
My biggest mistake ever!
I have made some planning mistakes in the millions of miles I have covered seeing all of these foreign country races. However, the mistake I made on this trip was my biggest ever!
Did you know that about 15% of all of the racing I have seen has been in foreign countries? When I factor out Canada, which I don’t think of as a foreign country, I have still seen racing at 160 tracks outside of the U.S. and Canada. That’s made my passport jam-packed with foreign country passport stamps.
You need a few important items for international travel.
Of course, when you travel outside the U.S. you need a passport. However, not everyone understands that beyond your passport you might also need a “visa” for the country you are visiting. You might even need a visa for a country you might simply be “transiting” through.
There are really four visa situations a traveler needs to consider. Some countries don’t require a visa to visit at all (Canada/Mexico). Remember, I’m looking at this from an American’s point of view. Not needing a visa makes it easy. Some visas can be acquired online for a fee (Australia). Other visas can be gotten after you arrive in the country (Turkey). Still, other visas must be arranged in advance by mail or by going through the foreign country consulate office in the U.S. With some of THOSE locations you can hire a travel company to expedite the timing and paperwork process. That’s what we did to get a Russian visa at a cost of about $300 per person!
I use an excellent U.S. government website (Do I need a visa?) to figure out what the visa requirements are for any country I plan to visit. I’ve been using this resource for years. It’s never let me down.
The “situation”.
This brings me to the Indian visa situation for this trip. When I first got the idea of traveling to India I used Kayak.com to buy our airline tickets. I did that nearly six months before the race. Along the way I made reservations at some of the most opulent hotels in India. Why opulent? As you will read Carol was coming along on this trip. When she comes with me I get upgraded in just about every aspect of our travel plan!
A savior from above?….or at least from across the pond.
Then I found just about the best travel contact that I have ever encountered. I’ll tell you about Mrs. Alison Jackson a little bit later. I had picked the brains of son J.J. and son-in-law James who had traveled to India previously. India is a difficult country to manage in a number of ways I had been told. However, I had every aspect of this trip wired….up until about four days before the trip.
Four days before the trip.
Just four days before we left for India J.J. was wrapping up his flying career as a captain at SkyWest Airlines. He’ll be moving onward and upward to Alaska Airlines. That’s a great career move for him. Carol and I made the drive up to LAX so we could fly with J.J. on his last day in the SkyWest cockpit. This was Carol’s first chance ever to fly with J.J. commercially and only my second in his 7+ year professional flying career. Following our flights we joined J.J. for lunch in Los Angeles.
They don’t require visas….
It was toward the end of our long lunch, after discussing our Indian trip in great detail, that J.J. asked me a simple question. “How did the Indian visa experience go?” was his question. “What did you say?” I asked. “They don’t require visas for Americans to visit,” I told him.
It was at this point that he got a quizzical look on his face. That look put a newly minted concerned look on MY face. Carol was only half listening and didn’t have ANY unusual look on her face at this point. J.J. said, “Of course, Indian requires a visa. It’s hard to get”.
It was at this point that my face turned pale. I’m pretty quick to put A and B together. When I quickly added A and B in this equation I soon concluded I had made the biggest mistake in my trackchasing traveling career!
No visa; no trip.
No Indian visa meant no trip to India. Somehow I had assumed early on we would not need a travel visa to get to India. I’m not sure where and/or when I came to that erroneous conclusion. The bottom-line was we didn’t have any visas for our trip to India. We were leaving in four days.
I did know a few things. I knew that I had spent thousands of dollars on this trip most of which would be non-refundable if we didn’t or couldn’t go. I never buy travel insurance. Ever. I only insure the things in life that I can’t afford to cover if things go badly. I COULD cover the cost of our trip if we didn’t go I just wouldn’t WANT too.
I needed a new plan and I needed it quick.
It was now 3 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. Our flight to India left Saturday night. I had about 100 hours to find a solution to this really big problem. What could be done at this point? Luckily we had J.J. and his technology skills to help us out. I think I can blow away just about anyone in my age bracket with tech. However, J.J. can blow away just about anyone in ANY age bracket with his tech. Carol was in pretty good hands. If this disaster could be averted at the last minute we had the right resources.
With his iPhone J.J. started searching the India government’s visa requirements on the Internet while we were still at lunch. I was still in a state of shock that somehow through the HOURS of preparation for this trip I had overlooked our visa needs. Carol was beginning to come on board regarding the seriousness of this issue.
Maybe if we had used a travel agent we would not have had this problem? I’m sure a competent travel agent with experience with traveling to India would have told us about visas. That would have been good. However, a travel agent for this trip, who was motivated by his/her financial goals would have been bad for us. No travel agents for me thanks. I don’t want to be put in any boxes. I will search out the best travel resources that don’t have a financial interest in the outcome. Then I will bring in a much more creative trip at a cost that is far less than a travel agent compensated trip. Yes, I understand that a travel agent works on commissions and there should be no extra cost using one. Folks, it really doesn’t work that way.
We needed more information before we could get our action plan together.
Son J.J. learned that we could complete the Indian visa application online. That was good news. However, if we mailed the app in it would take longer than we had to get it back. Mailing the visa application would not work. I was in a pinch. I contacted a couple of travel agents that specialized in getting Indian visas quickly. Nope! It was too late to avail ourselves of their services.
There was only one available option. India have five locations in the U.S. where you can walk in, without an appointment, and get your visa in one day. As a U.S. resident, you can only go to the location in your “region” to complete this process. For folks living in the Far West that location is San Francisco. That meant that if you lived in Montana or Washington or some far-flung Far Western location you would have to get yourself to San Francisco to use the one-day visa process.
One other thing of note….India is one of only two countries in the world that offers “same day” visa service for U.S. residents. Were we getting lucky or not? San Francisco would be an eight-hour one-way drive. I phoned an Indian visa travel agency. They told me I could take my application and Carol’s to SF. That way Carol wouldn’t need to make the journey. That was a relief. I never would have heard the end of that one if I had to drag Carol along for a 16-hour round-trip drive for this purpose.
All the while I was making phone calls J.J. was busy researching on the web. We would need passport photos. Off Carol and I went to the nearest CVS drugstore. There we got our photos taken (Carol had to wear a CVS blouse to cover her bare shoulders) and were back at J.J.’s house in a few minutes. By now he had the application process online and ready to complete.
Of course, we didn’t have our current passports with us when the only plan was to have lunch with J.J. Luckily I carry the essential passport information (numbers, etc.) in my iPhone’s database. One question on the Indian visa application was “what countries have you visited up to now”. For that, I simply opened up www.randylewis.org. Luckily I had not trackchased in Pakistan. Pakistan is not India’s friend and you will have a difficult time getting an Indian visa if you have visited Pakistan lately. I have visited more than 80 countries (just 65 for trackchasing) in the past ten years. The online Indian visa application had room for only about ten country listings. J.J. and I concluded it would be best to list the least “controversial” countries. We added places like the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Switzerland and New Zealand to the application.
Our application was ready to go; I just needed to jump in the car and drive.
It looked as if we had our online Indian application ready to go. Remember it was Tuesday. Carol and I would have to drive 65 miles in late afternoon rush hour traffic back to our house from J.J.’s home so I could pick up our passports. Then I would have to make the 8-hour drive to San Francisco likely arriving in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. I needed to be in line at 8 a.m. for the one-day visa process to work.
It was about this time that J.J. discovered that tomorrow, Wednesday, was a national holiday in India! Say what? The San Francisco Indian visa office would be closed in honor of this holiday. We were lucky again. Had I made a bonsai run up to San Francisco I would have found the office closed on Wednesday! Yes, sometimes I have a distorted view of what “lucky” is.
This gave us a little time to get our act together. Now I would be driving up to San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon for a Thursday morning visit to the tourist office. Time was getting short before Saturday’s departure. This would require a hotel stay in San Francisco one of the most expensive cities in the world. I was just beginning to see how much money my inattention to detail was going to cost me.
Yelp! Nope, Yelp didn’t like the San Francisco Indian visa office. All the while this was going on J.J. was searching Yelp! for user comments regarding the same day Indian visa process. The comments were not good. Virtually no one had a good experience. Finally, I asked J.J. to stop reading the comments. “I get the point” I told him. Now I was concerned we were going to jump through all these hoops and still might not get the visa that was required to make our trip.
What if we hadn’t had lunch with J.J.?
Lots of things were going through my mind. What if we had decided not to go flying on J.J.’s last trip? What if we had decided not to invite J.J. to lunch after his flying day was complete? What if the “Visa question” had not come up at the very end of our lunch? We would have shown up at LAX on Saturday night with our bags packed and ready to go to India and we would have been REFUSED! OMG.
WEDNESDAY
Life can throw you curves.
I left home at 2 p.m. to travel to San Francisco. I needed to leave before Los Angeles’ rush hour began or it would add well over an hour to my trip. I had selected a Kayak recommended hotel, the Casa Loma in San Francisco’s Richmond district for my overnight stay. The hotel was just two miles from the Indian visa office.
The Casa Loma was recommended for being quiet and clean. Rates were more than reasonable, for San Francisco, at $70 U.S. However, the room did not have a bathroom or shower. Those were down the hall “European” style. That wasn’t a problem. I’ve done that before in the Philippines and elsewhere. Off I went!
San Francisco is a beautiful city. It’s hilly and has very little parking. Almost all parking is on the street. Much of that parking is metered. When I arrived at about 11 p.m. at the Casa Loma Hotel there was no parking anywhere near the hotel. The desk clerk recommended a parking garage but the overnight fee was $20 U.S. I searched and searched until I found street parking for free. From where I parked it was a seven-block walk, nearly all uphill, in not the best of neighborhoods. When I reached my room the clock was just striking midnight. This experience reminded me of how quickly things can change in life. It was Wednesday night. Tuesday morning when we went flying with J.J. I had ZERO thought that I would be spending the evening in San Francisco the very next night!
THURSDAY
It was time to put our action plan in, well, action!
I needed to be in line at the Indian visa office at 8 a.m. The office didn’t open until 9 a.m. but an Indian travel agency advised that getting there an hour early was best.
It was a seven-block walk back to my car in the morning. At least the walk was downhill at this point. My path took me past a McDonalds. That would be perfect for breakfast. I’ve mentioned that San Francisco is an expensive city. How expensive? Most McDonald’s sell a double cheeseburger (one of my favorite sandwiches – 458 calories) on their value menu for about $1.39. That sandwich is also on the SF McDonalds value menu. However, the price is $4.99!
Using my iPhone Apple Maps app (I’ve switched back to Apple Maps from Google Maps) I soon found the Indian visa office. Parking was difficult and metered. The meters limited parking to two hours at a cost of $2 per hour. I carry a large supply of quarters in my car. However, what I thought was a large supply really wasn’t. I would end up spending more than $30 on metered street parking before this was over. Quarters soon began to be as valuable as $20 gold pieces.
If you’re not early you’re late.
At 8 a.m. I was second in line. By 9 a.m. when the door opened there were more than fifty people in the queue to get Indian visas. The advice I got to get there early was right on.
I had thought to bring two things that weren’t mentioned on the Indian visa website. I made copies of our birth certificates and our electric utility bill. I had this nagging feeling that no matter how much back up I brought there would still be some little thing I had overlooked. Remember I was trying to save, at the last minute, thousands of dollars of pre-paid travels expenses that were within an eyelash of disappearing forever.
I walked in the door of the Indian visa office and was given a small slip of paper with my “number” on it. Being second in line my handwritten number was “1B”. Soon that number was called. Now the rubber would meet the road.
I brought $500 U.S. in cash with me to pay for the visas. The clerk explained we would go through my visa application first and then Carol’s. I handed over my information. The application had my San Clemente address listed as home. However, I would need one more piece of I.D. (most folks would use their driver’s license) to validate my home address. However, I carry a Hawaii, not California, driver’s license. There are good reasons for that. I won’t bore you with them now. That’s why I had thought to bring a copy of our utility bill. That bill had my name and San Clemente address on it. I was golden.
Pay the man.
Now I simply had to pay $167.30 U.S. for my visa. The visa would be good for six months and included multiple entries. This fee included an extra $100 U.S. for the “rush” part of the visa application. A small sign read “exact change only”. I had only a stack of twenty-dollar bills. I paid him $180 and asked that the overage be applied to Carol’s visa charge. The clerk agreed with that plan.
Then I handed over Carol’s application. I was using a photocopy of her California driver’s license to corroborate her home address. All of that worked well. I laid another stack of twenties down to pay for her visa. The clerk looked up and said, “You still owe me 70 cents”. My first reaction, using my experiences from the United States Marine Corps boot camp training was to reach across the desk and put a life-ending chokehold on this friggin’ idiot until his lifeless body slumped to the floor. However, if I did that my application would not be processed promptly. I scrounged into my pockets and found my last three quarters. “Keep the change,” I told him. He didn’t acknowledge my woeful attempt at humor.
I will point this out to the reader as you make your way through this tale. Remember, I am not smart enough or creative enough to make this stuff up!
What was next?
What was next? I would need to return at 5:30 p.m. to get our passports back with our Indian visas. That sounded like good news. However, it was now 9:15 a.m. I didn’t need to be back in the somewhat rundown Indian visa office for more than eight hours. What would I do during that time?
I considered driving down to Fisherman’s Wharf and taking the Alcatraz tour. Carol and I have done that several times. It’s a fantastic tour….100% recommended. However, especially during the summer, the tour can be sold out for days. I searched the Alcatraz site for tour times. The tours with the most availability would be in the early afternoon. However, with the uncertainties of San Francisco traffic and tour schedules, I was concerned about getting back to the visa office on time.
Instead I elected to catch an early afternoon movie (newly discovered iPhone app Fandango) starring Ton Hanks titled Captain Phillips. I gave the flick Fandango’s highest racing a “Must Go”. Then just across the street from the movie theater, I discovered a Chinese restaurant offering a happy hour special from 3-5 p.m. on their dim sum offerings. All food and drink were half-priced. I gorged myself on dim sum and was back at the visa office well in advance of the 5:30 p.m. requirement. All the time I was scrounging quarters for one parking meter after another.
Other people shared my plight for one reason or another.
While standing in line in the morning I had made friends with folks trying to do the same thing I was. One person, Ann, an executive secretary was getting visas for her jet setting bosses. Today was the third day she had been to the office. She had shown up yesterday not knowing the office was closed because of the Indian national holiday. Others had similar stories to tell about how many times they had to come back. No one that I talked to was planning to begin his or her trip (like we were!) to India in just 48 hours though.
The office was a stark building with some 50 folding chairs for the customers. About five clerks sat behind a crudely built counter processing applications and answering questions. Generally, it was a very quiet atmosphere and peoples of all races waited for that very valuable visa.
The appointed time of 5:30 p.m. came and went. Nothing. When all of the passports had been collected in the morning they were sent via courier over to the Indian consulate office. The office I was visiting was simply an outsourced company that collected applications, collated them and then sent them away.
At nearly 6 p.m. a courier came walking into our office with a plastic tote holding well over 100 passports. The crowd saw this and a murmur came over them. It was time! There was an excitement in the air within the office.
I will call your name.
However, the tote of passports was taken to a back room. Nothing happened for several more minutes. The crowd of 50-75 became more restless. Then at nearly 6:30 p.m. a man appeared. He announced, to the hushed crowd, “I will call your name. Please come up and get your passport”. That was good news.
I was now with my friend Ann, and two eye doctors from rural northern California. They were going to India to do some pro bono medical work. First, one name and then another name was called. You could see the relief on people’s faces when they had there passport, and visa, in hand.
Now there were just twenty people in the room. “Randy Lewis” was the next name called! My friends congratulated me and I ran up to get my passport. I had just one question, “Where is my wife’s passport”. I was told to sit down and wait. When I returned to my friends they were busy congratulating me. “I still don’t have Carol’s passport” I told them. We all waited until there were just my three friends and me in the room. The man told everyone that was it for the day!
What about us?
What about us? We approached the counter. Then the bad news came. There had been a “glitch” in the photo process used to make the visa page for just the four of us. What were the odds, out of 75 people, that the only three people I had befriended would be part of this screwup….as well as Carol.
What were we to do now? It was Thursday night. They told us we would have to come back tomorrow. We should show up at 1 p.m. The passports might be back. If they weren’t we would have to come back at 5:30 p.m. just as we had done tonight. I asked, “Are you guaranteeing the passports and visas will be back by tomorrow night”. The supervisor told us, “We expect them to be back but there are no guarantees”.
Let’s do the math.
Folks, it was now Thursday night at 7 p.m. I didn’t have a hotel room. I was going to need to stay over in San Francisco another night. More importantly, I didn’t have Carol’s passport. We would have one last shot. If things didn’t work out tomorrow, Friday, then I would have to drive back home (8 hours) with just one Indian visa. You can do the math on that one.
I ended up getting another reservation at the Casa Loma Hotel. I knew the drill a bit better on the second night. I still had to park five blocks from the hotel on the street. I trudged up the hill to the hotel. At least I didn’t have to be anywhere until 1 p.m. tomorrow afternoon.
I didn’t want to make this phone call.
However, I did have to make a phone call to Carol with the “good news/bad news”. I had my visa. I didn’t have hers. She doesn’t take news like this all that well. Truth be told I didn’t much care for sharing this news with her. She begins packing for these trips about two months out. Now, just 48 hours before the trip she didn’t know if she was going or not.
FRIDAY
Would the trip be saved today?
It’s Friday and we are scheduled to leave tomorrow night for a 9,488-mile (one-way) trip to India. However, we don’t know at this point if Carol is going. I wondered what the situation would have been if Carol’s visa had come through and mine had not. Lots of things went through my head, most of them weren’t good.
I slept in and checked out as late as possible. Then I made the drive over to the visa office. Would Carol’s visa be ready by 1 p.m.? No, it would not. I was told to return at 5:30 p.m.
Now I had another free afternoon. I went back to the same older neighborhood theatre, the 4 Square on Clemente Street and watched the other movie on the marquee, Don Jon. This was a comedy of sorts and not all that good. After the movie, just like yesterday I walked across the street and enjoyed some great half-priced dim sum.
It was getting cold now in San Francisco. My aloha shirt and cargo shorts weren’t cutting it. San Francisco can be a very cold city when the wind blows in off the water and the temps drop to about sixty. I had an appointment. I had to be back at the visa office at 5:30 p.m.
In the meantime, my friend Ann had called. “Was it worth her driving into the city to try to get the passports?” she wanted to know. I told her I was going back. What choice did I have? She agreed.
Our last chance.
Just like the night before the place was packed with people trying to get their passports and visas. With tonight being Friday, and the office being closed over the weekend people would have to wait three more days if things didn’t work out tonight. I didn’t have that luxury.
While we waited for news an outburst of anger came about from one of the customers. He began yelling and pounding his fist on the counter. I have a video of this. He demanded to get his passport back. They didn’t have it. He wasn’t hearing anything about it. He turned to the crowd and pointed, “These people are just as pissed off as I am” he yelled at the clerk. With that, the crowd gave him yells of encouragement. Finally, he calmed a bit and stormed out of the office. Now we were back to waiting.
Carol Lewis!
At about 6:30 p.m. the “naming process” began just like the night before. Whose was the first name? Carol Lewis! Ann congratulated me and I ran up to get Carol’s passport. Others in the crowd had heard about our dilemma. The crowd was cheering. I was fist-pumping! Carol was going to India. Me too. By the way, Ann’s boss’ names were called right after Carol’s and she got her passports with visas as well.
I felt like I had just had my name called for an Academy Award. I was happy. However, it was now approaching 7 p.m. My Apple Maps GPS unit told me I wasn’t going to get home until around 2 a.m. on Saturday morning. We would be leaving for the airport to fly to India just 14 hours later.
To add to the fun San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid System (BART) went on a one-day strike today. That would make getting out of SF on a Friday night all that much more difficult. I didn’t care I had two Indian visas in my pocket.
I was more than happy.
All the way back to San Francisco I called family and friends to tell them about this adventure. Carol was the first call. When she answered, I yelled, “You’re going to India! You’re going to India!” She was relieved. I was excited. Then I called J.J. He had been a more than key helper in this process.
I arrived home at just past 2 a.m. on Saturday morning. This had been a close one. I honestly have no idea how I put myself in this predicament. I have more experience doing this than 99.99% of the people in the world. However, even when you have the experience, you can’t get complacent. I don’t expect this to ever happen again.
TIME ZONES
Twelve and one-half hours.
For this trip, we will first fly from Los Angeles to Guangzhou, China. Guangzhou is 15 hours ahead of the Pacific time zone where we live. Then we’ll fly into New Delhi, India where we’ll be for a week. New Delhi is 12 ½ hours ahead of Los Angeles. That’s right. Twelve and ONE-HALF hours. That might tell you something about the country we would be visiting.
BOOTS ON THE GROUND
I’m not looking for a tour bus.
Whenever I travel I like to get help and advice from people who know more about the subject than I do. This process has worked very well for me. It’s important to note that I’m looking for advice not someone to simply pick me up at the airport, drive me around and drop me off at the end of the trip.
My first major international trackchasing trip to countries where English is not the native language was with Belgium trackchaser Roland Vanden Eynde. I will forever be indebted to Roland for his hospitality. This was a trip where he picked me up, did all the driving, and organized the trip from A to Z. When it was all over he dropped us (Carol had joined in mid-trip) at the airport and bid us farewell.
I enjoyed seeing racing with Roland in Germany, Belgium, France and the Netherlands. However, I vowed that I would never make a trip like that again. This is nothing against Roland. He did everything anyone could expect from a good host.
However, I don’t really enjoy traveling that way. I want to plan my trips. I want to make the mistakes and reap the rewards that go along with international trip planning. I don’t want to think I’m on a tour where someone tells me what time to get on the tour bus and what time to get back on the tour bus. I will ask people for advice on each and every trip I take. Then I will take all the advice I can get, put it in a blender and come up with my own plan. I’ve been doing it that way for every country I’ve visited for years now. I simply would not do it any other way.
Enter Alison Jackson stage left.
This leads me to Mrs. Alison Jackson. I met Alison on line. No, it wasn’t THAT kind of online meeting. Alison lives in the United Kingdom. I had asked a few questions on the Indian forum of TripAdvisor.com about traveling to India. Alison saw what I had written and sent me a private email. She offered her services on Indian travel ideas based upon the numerous trips she had taken with her husband to the country.
Alison made a compelling case. She was willing to help me at no charge and she had the experience to make that worthwhile. Alison had lots of recommendations. It was helpful she was a native English speaker. Whenever I sent her an email, seemingly at all hours of the day, she got back to me often within minutes.
Her first recommendation was to hire a driver. She had two drivers in mind. Alison reminded me I did not have to hire one of the people she knew but I DID have to hire a driver. Of course, she was right. No American would do well driving themselves in India. I went with one of Alison’s driver recommendations. I didn’t have to pay anything up front. The driver, Raju, would pick Carol and me up at the airport on day 1, take us everywhere we wanted to go during the trip and then drop us off at the airport for our flight home. Raju’s fee included our car, gasoline, tolls and his services as a driver/tour guide.
I have hired drivers in several countries. Sometimes just for the day and sometimes for the entire trip. The closest situation to India would probably be my trip to Sri Lanka. Hiring a driver worked out perfectly there.
Alison had great ideas about all the key places to visit in India’s “Golden Triangle”.
Alison was also helpful is steering me away from using exclusively Sheraton Hotels. I knew we would have a luxurious, even an opulent, experience at those hotels. However, as Alison pointed out we might also miss some of the “Indian Experience”. I didn’t want to bypass that. We ended up changing three of our seven hotel nights to the unique places she recommended.
Alison and I also discussed all of our touring options for the eight days we would be on the ground in India. Once she got to know me a little better we honed in on the touring choices that Carol and I would enjoy the most.
I cannot fully describe how helpful Alison was. Why was she such a willing volunteer? As she explained she simply wanted to share her knowledge and experience with India with others who would appreciate the benefit. That would be us. As I go through the trip report I’ll let you know about all of Alison’s great ideas. In hindsight, it was Alison Jackson who made this trip so successful from a touring and convenience standpoint.
THE TRANSPORTATION
Los Angeles to Guangzhou, China to New Delhi, India and back!
Folks, we are no longer part of the airline sponsorship program we have enjoyed for more than seven years. That was the most fantastic program any trackchaser, father and world traveler could ever expect to have. Nothing lasts forever. Now I’m back to paying for airline tickets myself. That’s O.K. My biggest ever trackchasing year (2006 – 182 tracks) was a period when I didn’t have sponsorship. I did it then and I’ll do it again.
I use Kayak.com to “ballpark” my airfare choices. Once I get a handle on what going from point A to point B will cost I’ll nose around some more and then pull the trigger on the airline tickets.
We’ll be flying almost 19,000 miles round-trip to New Delhi, India and back. China Southern Airlines will take us there. We’ll make one stop in Guangzhou, China. Our layover will be just two hours and 15 minutes. One of the alternatives was a 19-hour layover in Guangzhou. I loved that idea. Carol not so much. We could have done a mini tour of Guangzhou with that plan.
CURRENCY
Do you know the official currency of India?
It’s the Rupee (RUP). As we speak my iPhone currency app tells me I can get about 61 RUP for one U.S. dollar. We left for India without a single Rupee in our pocket. I did take about $500 in U.S. cash, which is a large amount for me. We’ll get some Indian currency as we go along. I expect to get some good advice on handling currencies from our driver, Raju. As this report is refreshed in August, 2020 the exchange rate is now one U.S. dollar to 67.4 Rupee. That’s not a big change from 2013.
WEATHER
We had a good weather forecast.
The weather forecast for India was nearly the same every day. High temperatures will reach nearly 90 degrees each day. The rain forecast is ZERO for every day of our trip. I thought India would be humid. Alison says it will be a dry heat.
OVERNIGHT ACCOMMODATIONS
The perfect sized trip.
We’ll be staying at some really nice hotels in India. Overall, we’ll spend three nights at the Sheraton New Delhi, a night at the Sheraton ITC out towards the Taj Mahal. We’ll also spend three nights in Indian brand hotels, the Samode Haveli and the Samode Bagh. Alison Jackson recommended these. I can’t wait to try them out.
THE RENTAL CAR
There won’t be a rental car for us on this trip…. that I will be driving anyway. We have hired a driver and car for our adventure. I’ve done this in the past, and in places where I wouldn’t feel comfortable driving, it’s wonderful.
With a driver, you can leave when you want, stop where and when you want and get all the local advice you may need. As long as the driver speaks English well enough you’re golden. In Sri Lanka my driver didn’t speak much English but would do anything for me including inviting me to spend the afternoon and have lunch with his family in their home. I will remember that visit forever. The family prepared about a 10-dish lunch just for me. As I waded through their many offerings everyone in the room simply stared at the “big white man”. I suspect I was the first person of my kind to ever be in their home.
In Indonesia, my driver spoke better English and ended getting me into a Muslim mosque and taking me to some of the worst slums (which I requested) in all of Jakarta. Having a driver is a great idea and doubles or even triples the experience.
NAVIGATION
Raju!
Raju will handle this!
THE TRAVELING COMPANION
Carol and I will be flying some 40 hours round-trip just to have fun!
I’m happy to report that Carol will be coming along on this trip. Here’s a common question I get when I’m leaving for a trip, “Is Carol going with you?” That’s a fair enough question.
Most people who travel to India, of the very few people I know who would ever make that trip, would certainly bring their spouse along. Most people who made a trip to New York or Miami and Seattle would likely bring their spouse along. However, most of those people would only be making a trip or two like that every year if that much.
Make sense?
As you know I make 20-30 trips like those mentioned above every year. I’ve been doing that every year for well over ten years. That’s somewhere in the range of 200-300 major trips in a decade. Can you understand why Carol might not want to make every one of those trips? I thought you could!
Carol tries to limit her travel to about 100,000 miles each year. I know right? She’s a baby when it comes to traveling. India will be her 34thtrackchasing country. When you count all the places we’ve been, trackchasing or not, she’s been to more than 60 countries. That’s not really a description of a stay at home individual, is it?
THE SUMMARY – PART 1
My “world map” is filling up fast.
The United Nations classifies India as an Asian country. India will be my 13th Asian trackchasing country. The first twelve look like this:
Bahrain
China
Indonesia
Japan
Malaysia
Philippines
Qatar
Singapore
South Korea
Sri Lanka
Thailand
United Arab Emirates
India will be Carol’s 5th Asian trackchasing country. No other trackchaser has seen racing in more than one Asian country. Why is that? I think the answer is simple. Asia is a long way from home and very far away from every other trackchaser’s cultural background. It is for Carol and me too. However, I happen to feel we’re just a little bit more adventuresome than our fellow trackchasing competitors.
An E-ticket ride.
I estimate I have spent about 100 days in Asia. Asian travel truly is an E-ticket ride. There is very little English speaking. These are just wild places to visit. You have to be up for adventure if you want to visit Asian countries.
Where will I go next? I’ve got another trip planned just one week after I get back from India! However, the future leaves me with just 8-10 “realistic” “new” countries where I might be able to see racing. For my stage in life that’s a perfect number. Many of those countries are “out there” either politically, geographically, culturally or “all of the above”. That will just make the challenge of seeing them all the more fun.
Editor’s note. We went to India in October 2013. India was going to be my 66th trackchasing country. As noted above I predicted there were just 8-10 countries where we could trackchase in the future. Today, as this report is refreshed in August 2020 I have now trackchased in 85 countries with at least another five on the list. What do I take from all of this? It is impossible to predict the future.
Pre-India
These trips take a bit more planning.
I plan my domestic trackchasing trips out a week or maybe two at the most. On Monday of a domestic trackchasing week, I could literally find myself in any of our fifty states by the following weekend. However, foreign travel planning is a bit different.
For most foreign trips I’ll begin planning a couple of months ahead of time. I might need more lead-time if I’m dealing with visa issues. I will systematically go through the above checklist. Each trip revolves around the confirmation of a race. When the race is confirmed it’s full speed ahead to make airline arrangements, book hotel space, rental cars and all the rest.
This was Part 1 of our grand adventure to India, the planning stage. I will follow with Part 2 and Part 3. If you have never been to India or if you have been there I hope with our experiences you will feel as if you are riding in the backseat with us.
Randy Lewis
Yes. I’m still thinking about a lot of stuff to share with you from a modest seaside cottage in the far away but sunny oceanfront village of San Clemente, California