Audi R8 in Jaisalmer

Welcome to Jaisalmer. Welcome to driving heaven.
I doubt anybody introduced Jaisalmer as the driving capital of the country; most of us go there to step into some cow dung in the fort (incidentally the largest inhabited fort in the world) or camel dung at the tourist trap that the sand dunes have become. Most land up in clattery Taveras or Indicabs having taken five hours to get there from the airport in Jodhpur (Jaisalmer airbase is more often than not closed for civilian flights). Through bleary eyes you may even have noticed that the roads are fantastically surfaced and arrow straight till the horizon. If you were in a fast car the realisation may have dawned that the road you were on is probably the best road in the country; exclude the expressways and it definitely is the fastest. And to set our theory in stone we’re here with what’s arguably the best supercar in the world – Audi’s R8.

If you recall this isn’t our first test of the R8. Exactly a year ago we took part in an Audi driver training program at the Eurospeedway Lausitz in Germany, a dozen R8s placed at our disposal as we attempted to gauge our and the car’s limits. On a race track though there’s nothing to hit - if you make a mistake you run wide, lose a few seconds and rejoin. This, though, is no race track. This is an Indian highway. And this is a car that costs Rs 1.7 crore. It’s the only one in the country - the other one ran over a speed-breaker, killed its water pump and had to be sent back to New Zealand. Puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?

A road is a nice place to put things into perspective. You don’t immediately jump in and drive, you notice things that you just wouldn’t on a race track. Like the tiny exposed shard of the alloy rim catching the early morning sun, gleaming from underneath the multiple and tightly wrapped dust covers. And as anybody who’s been assaulted by a G-string winking from a tightly cut and low riding denim will know, nothing heightens the sense of anticipation, makes your heart beat harder and your trousers go all tight like a naughty hint of the treasures that lie beneath.



I’m sweating. Don’t know if it’s the anticipation or the merciless Rajasthani sun but all the time spent unwrapping and unloading the R8 gives me ample time to soak in what’s a beautiful and properly dramatic supercar shape. It doesn’t have the frightening aggression of a Lamborghini in vivid orange or the please-help-yourself-to-my-left-hand desirability of a Ferrari in red. What it does have is a maturity, a German desirability mated to classic supercar proportions (long, low, wide) and its heart, the engine, mounted jewel-like beneath a glass hood for all to see.

Things are really hotting up now so I jump into the car and notice just how comfortable it actually is. It is low but getting in doesn’t give you a hernia. There’s ample space for two. The cabin is beautifully built, just like any other Audi’s, and everything is just where you expect it to be.

Jaisalmer to Pokhran is arrow straight for the most part but there are a few corners, a handful of corners to be precise, and each and every one of them is open, well surfaced and very fast. These are corners that in any normal car you barely need to slow down for but in a fast car it helps to know the corner and the lay of the land. Having recceed the road I know most of the corners but I still slow down for the first corner. Needn’t have.

The R8 turns crisply, Quattro all-wheel-drive grips tarmac like a lizard running upside down on your ceiling, and she turns. No drama, no shenanigans, just cool, clinical efficiency. I turn around and attack the corner again, now in fourth gear, and she flies around.

Life is a Journey

One thing Dhruv Behl and I have in common is our passion for the ‘Raid de Himalaya,’ the highest motorsport event in the world, which challenges you like hell, is adventurous and sometimes more dangerous than you can stomach – but once through, you’ll never forget the thrill, and be proud of the fact that you’ve done it!

So, one day, Dhruv asked me, curiously, how it is to travel on a motorbike through India, alone, as a woman. Well, honestly it’s quite great – stressful and sometimes mad beyond imagination, but still an amazing experience.


First of all, imagine that you’re walking down the street and a UFO lands in front of you – that’s how I mostly get stared at outside big cities, or away from very touristy places, when I turn up with my packed Suzuki DR 650. ‘Your name?’, ‘which country?’, ‘what’s the cost of your bike?’, and ‘what average?’ are the most common questions.

People in India are super friendly – they wave at me, shout ‘Hello’ or ‘Namaste.’ And, most of the time, I get these incredible smiles, and a warm welcome. Sure, it gets quite tiring when I shout ‘Namastes’ the whole day, but then I remember places I’ve travelled before where I’ve got hostile glances, or even had stones thrown at me, and I’m thankful that Indians aren’t like that at all. Of course, there are also the lustful stares from men. Hungry stares, like a starved shark would ogle at a fresh juicy foreign surfer on a new surfboard – food on wheels, practically. And we are not speaking of a woman just bouncing out of a beauty-salon in her mini-dress. We are talking about potato-sack-style, mostly topped with a helmet. So, please, guys out there, work on that – believe me, it’s no fun to walk home sometimes with your eyes glued to your toes because you cannot handle it anymore.

India is colourful and huge! I guess I could travel here for ten years, and still I wouldn’t have covered the whole country – all these religions, different clothes, cuisines, people, looks, customs and behaviours. India is a constant surprise. And it doesn’t matter which part I’m in, there is beauty all over the place. Temples, hills, lush green forests, the Himalayas, clay-built villages, skyscrapers, the most fantastic birds I’ve ever seen up close in my life, wildlife, the list is endless. Also, coming practically from a jeans-and-t-shirt-country, where there’s lots of grey and black, I just love to see all these women in their colourful saris, their hennaed hands and their jewelry moving around in the bustle of daily life.




The food is hilarious! Vegetarian in Europe for a long time meant boiled vegetables with salt – stomach that! India is paradise. Wherever I go, I get surprised by new dishes and flavours. I stopped cooking a long time ago. First of all, I’d rather repair my motorbike than cook, I am hopeless. Second, I am alone on my bike the whole day, so I just love the bustling dhabas –a little chat with my ‘tora tora hindi’ with the locals.

I’ve had about fifty flat tyres since I started travelling four years ago from Austria, most of them in India, and the majority of them repaired by my two most reliable friends – my hands. Countless nails and thorns, and, of course, it’s practically always the back wheel – I guess it’s more fun unpacking all your luggage, not to mention the fact that getting the wheel back in again is all the more tricky. Don’t laugh, and think it’s because I’m a woman. I once watched five guys from a tyre-shop struggling with the wheel for fifteen minutes, until I did it. I’m always praying to have a ‘flatty’ somewhere quiet – if it happens near, or even worse, in a village or town, I’m in trouble. It often attracts hundreds of curious passers-by, they get closer and closer until they’re actually standing on my tools, which is quite stressful believe me.

Whenever I face a more complicated technical problem where I need help or a workshop, I have to say that Indians really amaze me. Of course there are always some that just wobble their heads and refuse help, but mostly people just show me the way – often even jumping on their scooters to guide me there.

Travelling alone has a lot of advantages – you’re the boss, you don’t have to fight about how long you want to stay, where you want to go, and many other things. Only when you’re sick, or in need of help, can it be quite a challenge. I remember, on one occasion, I drove into Spiti Valley where there were an uncountable number of very tricky and deep water crossings. Even jeeps were struggling along. I managed them all fairly well, until I came to a relatively shallow, easy looking one. Fooled me! I got stuck right in the middle – the bike wouldn’t move an inch more, then I lost my balance and fell over into the freezing water. Quite stressed and pumped up with adrenaline, I managed to lift the 300kg monster onto my knee, and unpack with one hand. Finally I could lift it, but all the tricks and wiggling in the world didn’t help, I couldn’t move it. After more than half an hour, a truck came by (lucky for me, as it was the last vehicle for the day!), and even with two more helpers we barely managed to get it out of there. I ended up completely frozen, couldn’t even manage to hold a cup of ‘chai’ in the next dhaba. I slept in an old stone-house, with three pairs of socks, and all the clothes on that I had with me. I couldn’t get warm the entire night, and felt as though my head would explode. Acute mountain sickness hit me like a hammer, so I just ended up sitting in the sun the whole next day guzzling loads of water and recovering. These are the moments where I truly wish to have a travel-companion.

Finding cheap accommodation, especially in big cities where you have safe parking inside, is pretty exhausting. When I’m out of cities, throughout India, I normally just set up camp. The trick is not to be spotted. I know you folks have huge families, and like it loud and bustling with life. But I’m one of these species that loves quietness. I don’t mind going days without even hearing a beep. When I get spotted sleeping in ‘the wild,’ it means the whole village assembles in front of my tent – people run for miles just to catch a glimpse of what a crazy foreign woman does here. They just love to see how my petrol stove works – they start laughing with joy when they see my pots and pans, and how I manage to make a simple meal or a coffee.

Finding the place is the trick – sometimes it takes hours, and often it means just jumping behind the next bush when it’s getting dark. Here, also, a big praise to this country – I’ve never been threatened. Sometimes, I get some strange visitors, but luckily I can always mention, ‘My husband is sleeping just inside the tent.’ Once, in Uttar Pradesh, I had twenty guys in front of my tent at midnight – all with shotguns. They were afraid something could happen to me and wanted to move me. Must have been a hilarious sight – I was jumping up and down like someone with mad cow disease, screaming and shouting to leave me alone, and ‘to get lost.’ But even then, I felt that no one wanted to harm me.

The ‘No Problem’ is something to get used to. I started to get very cautious when I heard these typical words a long time ago. The first time was when I faced a tyre problem I just couldn’t solve. The mechanic said these two lovely words, took a hammer and smack – crashed it onto my rear brake-disk, which, honestly speaking, costs a small fortune. But you learn to deal with it.

The fun starts when overtaking another motorbike, which happens quite often considering the huge amount of them here. Generally I just slowly cruise along – firstly, I want to see where I travel, and, secondly, with a 300kg motorbike (and we’re talking of weight without the driver here), you really don’t want to race. So, I overtake a guy. As soon as they realize I’m a woman, they give it full throttle and zoom past me. Then they slow down drastically in front of me so that I have to overtake again, where the whole game starts afresh. My record was thirteen overtakes by a man in Orissa. Unfortunately, we entered a big town and I lost him, otherwise I would have loved to have handed him a trophy.

Some days, I just cannot believe that I survived such a long time in India without a serious accident. That’s the time where I mostly just hop into a temple and pray, to whatever god there is available – I respect all religions. But it is quite funny. One friend said goodbye to me one day and begged me to be careful. Two minutes later, I see an old man standing on the side of the road shouting to the other side, communicating intensely with another man. I slow down, hoot (a horn is the most important device on a vehicle, I’ve learned), he doesn’t move. I slow down even more, hoot even more. No movement. Suddenly, he starts walking, and a second later I have grandpa hanging on to my mudguard, and he sends me crashing to the ground. Luckily nothing happened, grandpa – quicker than I would ever have assumed that a man of his age could run – fled the scene, and I had many helping hands to get my Suzuki into a vertical position again.

The most important thing on my travels is my Suzuki DR 650, named ‘Thunder,’ which I’ve now ridden for the past nine years. Together, we’ve covered almost 100,000 kilometers. After such a trip, believe me, I would rather carry it home on my back than leave it behind somewhere. It’s my best friend who gets me everywhere, and one that always keeps me company. All you car-or-bike-lovers out there will understand me. I pat my motorbike every day, and say thanks for being so reliable and fun! But, having a foreign bike in countries where you cannot get any spares and mostly not even mechanics who can work on it is quite a challenge. I’ve been able to manage so far – until, that is, I had engine troubles in Nepal.

The only man I trust with my bike is in Delhi. Luckily enough, I did not believe a ‘very good’ mechanic in Kathmandu who said, “No Problem, you can easily ride to Delhi.” I know my bike, and felt there is something more wrong than worn piston rings or valve-seats, as suggested by him. I hunted a whole week for transport – most transport agencies wanted to charge me a fortune. Luckily (again), I met the director of Syakar Company in Kathmandu, who let me travel on one of his empty Hero Honda trucks, and who also helped me get the motorbike there and secure it on the truck. The driver was also great fun, and, with our English-Hindi-mishmash, we spent four days travelling to Delhi.

So, here I am – my motorbike looks a bit like a bicycle, but freshly painted and completely checked over after three weeks of hard work and a lot of help. Now, please cross your fingers that I get all the spare parts needed, and that I will survive facing what will almost certainly be a terrifying bill. The worst feeling is being without your wheels – it doesn’t matter if we talking two wheels or four. As I get mine back on the road, hopefully I’ll see you soon somewhere on India’s vast landscape!

Source: http://www.autox.in/travelogue-sep09.html