As the first experience of renting a car in UK and driving in the motorways without Sat Nav was a huge success we planned to repeat the same one more time. This time we planned our trip to Balaji Temple in Birmingham.
Last time we took a MPV (Vauxhall Zafira) so we decided to hire sedan model for this trip. My friend called the rental agency and booked a Ford Mondeo and confirmed all the details. We (I & my manager) went to the rental agency on Friday evening only to hear that they don’t have Ford mondeo available at that point of time and they only have the Vauxhall Zafira (Which we already rented for the first trip).
I was irritated by this and thought of cancelling the whole plan. After few minutes of negotiations we got Ford focus. I went to the gas station to fill the tank and then parked the vehicle in the nearest parking lot. We planned to start early in the morning @ around 6 30 am so that we can reach the temple on time. We also expected a huge crowd in the temple so wanted to be there at the earliest to get a good dharshan.
The next day morning we all got up by 7 am and started only by 9 30 am. We don’t have GPS with us and all we have it to follow the printed route that we got from Google map. I know the route to reach M3 and from there I need to depend on the Google map to catch M40. We need to catch M40 and drive close to 90 miles in M40 to reach Birmingham.
Somehow we got into M40 and I accelerated so that we can reach our destination soon. After driving for more than 25 miles we realised that we are driving in the wrong direction (Thanks to umesh who navigated us to this direction as always). Whenever umesh has Map in his hand we are assured that we will miss an exit or will drive in wrong direction.
I took an exit from M4 and then took a U turn. We drove all the way back to M3 and merged into M40 (this time in the correct direction) towards Birmingham. M40 was congested this time because of an accident. We lost more than an hour because of the traffic and umesh.
After few miles of drive in M40 we took a break and had breakfast in the Burgerking. We relaxed for sometime and then started your travel. We reached Birmingham by 1 30 pm and found the temple without much of a trouble.
The temple was nice and calm. It was built in a traditional way and was very pleasant to our eyes. We had nice dharshan of Lord Balaji and spent more than an hour in the temple. We had dharshan of Vinayagar, Hanuman, Lakshmi & Murugar which made all of us really happy.
We started from the temple by 2.30 pm and again thanks to umesh I took a wrong exit in a roundabout only to drive 10 more miles before hitting M40 towards London. The return journey was nice and cool as there was no heavy traffic. I got into the right most lanes and once again clocked my highest speed in UK motorway (more than 200 km/hr).
The total trip was around 350 miles and we came home safely by 6 pm in the evening. Overall it was a good experience and superb drive.
Last time we took a MPV (Vauxhall Zafira) so we decided to hire sedan model for this trip. My friend called the rental agency and booked a Ford Mondeo and confirmed all the details. We (I & my manager) went to the rental agency on Friday evening only to hear that they don’t have Ford mondeo available at that point of time and they only have the Vauxhall Zafira (Which we already rented for the first trip).
I was irritated by this and thought of cancelling the whole plan. After few minutes of negotiations we got Ford focus. I went to the gas station to fill the tank and then parked the vehicle in the nearest parking lot. We planned to start early in the morning @ around 6 30 am so that we can reach the temple on time. We also expected a huge crowd in the temple so wanted to be there at the earliest to get a good dharshan.
The next day morning we all got up by 7 am and started only by 9 30 am. We don’t have GPS with us and all we have it to follow the printed route that we got from Google map. I know the route to reach M3 and from there I need to depend on the Google map to catch M40. We need to catch M40 and drive close to 90 miles in M40 to reach Birmingham.
Somehow we got into M40 and I accelerated so that we can reach our destination soon. After driving for more than 25 miles we realised that we are driving in the wrong direction (Thanks to umesh who navigated us to this direction as always). Whenever umesh has Map in his hand we are assured that we will miss an exit or will drive in wrong direction.
I took an exit from M4 and then took a U turn. We drove all the way back to M3 and merged into M40 (this time in the correct direction) towards Birmingham. M40 was congested this time because of an accident. We lost more than an hour because of the traffic and umesh.
After few miles of drive in M40 we took a break and had breakfast in the Burgerking. We relaxed for sometime and then started your travel. We reached Birmingham by 1 30 pm and found the temple without much of a trouble.
The temple was nice and calm. It was built in a traditional way and was very pleasant to our eyes. We had nice dharshan of Lord Balaji and spent more than an hour in the temple. We had dharshan of Vinayagar, Hanuman, Lakshmi & Murugar which made all of us really happy.
We started from the temple by 2.30 pm and again thanks to umesh I took a wrong exit in a roundabout only to drive 10 more miles before hitting M40 towards London. The return journey was nice and cool as there was no heavy traffic. I got into the right most lanes and once again clocked my highest speed in UK motorway (more than 200 km/hr).
The total trip was around 350 miles and we came home safely by 6 pm in the evening. Overall it was a good experience and superb drive.
2 comments:
Get a GPS and get rid of Umesh ;)
(Does he read u'r blog?!!)
Arun - Thats the plan for the next trip. I have passed ur comment to him. Cheers
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