12 years and 3 countries later, I’m in!

G20Rider · 11th September 2022, 16:11

So the alarm rang at 7AM. It’s Sunday and I had no intention of actually waking up for the next 2 hours. Glanced at the notifications of phone and saw this email with the words Team-BHP and APPROVED in it. 30 mins later I am on my dining table with a hot tea and typing this excitedly!

My first attempt with membership was back in 2010 when I was a college dude using a windows XP desktop+CRT monitor with 256MB RAM and an intel processor pentium hooked up with a dial up connection of few Kbps bandwidth while a Nokia xpress music sat beside me.
Now I am typing on a mobile which has many times the hardware fire power while fitting in my palm doing multiple Mbps over 4G while my laptop sits beside me.

Back then we had a car with 1400 cc turbocharged engine that did 0-100 in ~17s. Right now it’s a 2000 cc turbocharged engine doing 0-100 in ~7s.

Certainly, technology changed exponentially while changes in (IC engined) cars were incremental. What stayed constant was that both the cars were absolutely fun to drive.

I think there were 4 further attempts at registration spread over last 12 years and here I am, Hello!

I’m in my early 30’s living in The Netherlands, originally from Kerala, India.
I (like other zillion Indians living abroad) is a software engineer.
I currently drive a BMW 3 series G20 and absolutely love this car.

I learnt to drive quite early on and believe it or not, I learnt by observing. Back when I was in 5th standard, my mom joined a driving school so she can drive our new (to us) Maruti 800. Since she didn’t want to leave me alone at home, I had to tag along. Sitting in an old Ambassador in the middle back row crammed with ladies taking lessons, it was absolutely embarrassing for me and I kept it a secret from my friends. But I also enjoyed it to the core as I eagerly socked up all the tips and tricks being taught in there.

For some perspective, my favourite seat in public buses of Kerala was the front horizontal row facing the driver where I can just observe and admire the whole process of driving (it was a sensory feat, how those old leyland buses were driven and gears shifted). Getting to sit in those seats in limited stop buses zipping dangerously on narrow sections of NH 17 in Kerala always gave me a huge adrenaline shot.

But as with any good things in life it rarely happened. My mom thought (rightfully so) it was too dangerous in case of a crash so those seats were the last priority to be only chosen when no other seats were available.
I overcompensated for it when I grew up and started living abroad by always sitting when possible in the first row seat almost parallel to the driver of the Volvo\ Scania \ MAN low floor buses on duty in those cities.

Back to me, after the driving lessons ended, one fine day I offered my mom in font a full cohort of relatives to drive the car around in the compound of our ancestral house. My mom was take back asking me silly questions like “do I know which is the brakes” etc. I drove like a pro in that compound, and did a reverse parallel parking. And my whole family was flabbergasted, if I remember correctly even a premium ISD call was made to my dad to check if he had secretly taught me. Proudest day of my life. Unknown to them, I have been training by reversing out and in to our garage for past months.

Anyway my excitement soon died out when it was strictly made clear I won’t be allowed to drive in any way and as a consolation price, I was appointed the official parking valet of my family. The only supportive figure was my grandfather who appreciated and encouraged me and I’m eternally grateful for him for that. I savoured the few minutes I used to get when he allowed me to park and take out the car from garages. A weird after effect was that for a long time after that till I got my license, I was super confident in manoeuvring in an out of even the tightest of parking spot, but not driving on straight roads.

As fate would have it, I ended up living and working for an extended period (7+ years) in Singapore, arguably the worst place in the world to be a driving enthusiast. New cars started at SGD 80,000+ ( 1SGD = ~ 50 INR) for a bare basic hatch back and life of car was capped at 10 years. And to make it worse the country is too small to drive around. Fact is normally you won’t need a car there as the public transport was cheap, high quality covering every nook and corner of that island. Taxi’s were relatively cheap too. But for me, a car was not a need, but a want. Even then it made no financial sense to put that kind of money and then drive around in the small city state. I had to make do with frequent trips to neighbouring Malaysia were renting cars were cheaper with good quality highways. COVID put brakes on those, and for two years my only option was an app based daily rentals in Singapore. An app called getgo became very popular after 2020 and it was very convenient to use, priced at around 8$ an hour at peak times plus 40cents per km including fuel. Their fleet started with mostly Mazda 3s, but has diversified quite a bit recently to even include full electric models.

When we made a decision to move out of Singapore, ability to own a car was one of key factor in my mind.
Netherlands is not the cheapest place to own a (IC engined) car, but compared to Singapore it’s a lot more affordable. We moved in early 2022. One of the first thing I did after landing here was to get a car.

And things have a knack of working out at the right time. I found out about a Team-BHP meet that happened in the Netherlands which prompted me to try my luck again and here I’m.

Thanks all for reading, looking forward to meeting some great people and great fun here.

GTO · 12th September 2022, 09:26

Welcome to Team-BHP, G20Rider

. Fantastic to have you with us!

Quote:

Originally Posted by G20Rider

I’m in my early 30’s living in The Netherlands, originally from Kerala, India.

We do have a few BHPians from Netherlands, the most prominent being Jeroen!

Share pics of your G20.

G20Rider · 12th September 2022, 11:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO

Welcome to Team-BHP, G20Rider

. Fantastic to have you with us!

We do have a few BHPians from Netherlands, the most prominent being Jeroen!

Share pics of your G20.

Thanks GTO. I intend to write an initial ownership as well as buying experience review soon. In the meanwhile here she is

Attachment 2357635

Attachment 2357636

Jeroen · 12th September 2022, 11:29

Welcome to the forum! There are a number of our members living in the Netherlands and also Belgium. Hope you enjoy my home country.

Look forward to seeing your contributions.

Jeroen

DicKy · 12th September 2022, 13:05

Welcome to the forum G20Rider!!!

Hope to see more from you, including the ownership report of the 3er and the license procdures in Netherland.

Quote:

Originally Posted by G20Rider

Back then we had a car with 1400 cc turbocharged engine that did 0-100 in ~17s....A weird after effect was that for a long time after that till I got my license, I was super confident in manoeuvring in an out of even the tightest of parking spot, but not driving on straight roads.

I am guessing it to be the Indica/go Turbo?

Same here. I was super confident in compound driving, even executing burnouts and 45° handbrake turns with ease. But after getting the license and driving on public roads, I was timid at 45-50km/h for a few months.

G20Rider · 12th September 2022, 15:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Welcome to the forum! There are a number of our members living in the Netherlands and also Belgium. Hope you enjoy my home country.

Look forward to seeing your contributions.

Jeroen

Thank You Jeroen. I’m absolutely loving your country so far, especially all those well maintained highways with no tolls.

On a second thought, Im was not very much in love with the food scene in the initial months.
But I found some interesting kip/kebab/Italian places around following some suggestions in r/Netherlands and I suspect those empty boxes of stroopwafels lying around in my home has something to do with those extra kgs I gained recently. So that’s getting better too.

I read your epic car hobby thread long time back. But I never imagined then that I’ll end up living here one day.

Hope to meet all the members in Belgium and Netherlands soon!

Quote:

Originally Posted by DicKy

I am guessing it to be the Indica/go Turbo?

Hello DicKy, thank you! It was a 2007 Ford Fiesta 1.4 TDCI. Current 3er really reminds me of that beautiful feeling of having a (relatively) heavy and direct steering. In retrospect, I didn’t really appreciate it back then, just knew it was nice. It’s only after the wave of Japanese and Korean cars with EPS hit, I knew what steering feel (or lack of it) meant.

ajayc123 · 12th September 2022, 15:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by G20Rider

I think there were 4 further attempts at registration spread over last 12 years and here I am, Hello!

You made it.

Welcome Dude. Getting a TBHP membership is harder than getting a US visa.

Looking forward to your thoughts on this forum.

Eddy · 12th September 2022, 16:07

Welcome to the forum G20

I was merging your back to back posts and I accidently included Ajay's post in that too. Vid6639 helped me fix it. Aplogise for any confusion and edit notifications that you may have received.

GForceEnjoyer · 12th September 2022, 16:57

Welcome on board! Hearty congratulations on finally making it.

Your G20 looks gorgeous, I'll definitely be looking forward to your review. I'm sure it must be keeping you fantastic company on the open road as well as on twisty ones (the Michelins caught my eye in the photo

). Hope to see you around here soon!

dileepcm · 13th September 2022, 00:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO

We do have a few BHPians from Netherlands

Share pics of your G20.

There are a number of our members living in the Netherlands
Jeroen[/quote]

Welcome G20Rider!
I am one of those members living in NL (& also from Kerala). Good to have you here!

G20Rider · 13th September 2022, 20:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by GForceEnjoyer

Your G20 looks gorgeous, I'll definitely be looking forward to your review. I'm sure it must be keeping you fantastic company on the open road as well as on twisty ones

Thank you, Im loving every second on road. This country is remarkably flat, only twisties I find are the on and off ramps of motorways

Quote:

Originally Posted by dileepcm

Welcome G20Rider!
I am one of those members living in NL (& also from Kerala). Good to have you here!

Nice emeeting you dileepcm, see you around!

UD17 · 13th September 2022, 21:50

Welcome G20rider. The wait was indeed long yet quite fruitful. What a great story to start with. I love the narration of all the actions of the bus drivers, indeed I was having similar experience during my childhood where the govt bus drivers navigate the bus in the twisties of Ranikhet. Every turn and twist looks like your last one yet the adroit drivers always mastered them all.

Welcome again and enjoy your time here. The color of your car is so scintillating to eyes.

11th September 2022, 16:11	#1
G20Rider BHPian Join Date: Sep 2022 Location: Amstrdm/Kerala Posts: 46 Thanked: 286 Times	12 years and 3 countries later, I’m in! So the alarm rang at 7AM. It’s Sunday and I had no intention of actually waking up for the next 2 hours. Glanced at the notifications of phone and saw this email with the words Team-BHP and APPROVED in it. 30 mins later I am on my dining table with a hot tea and typing this excitedly! My first attempt with membership was back in 2010 when I was a college dude using a windows XP desktop+CRT monitor with 256MB RAM and an intel processor pentium hooked up with a dial up connection of few Kbps bandwidth while a Nokia xpress music sat beside me. Now I am typing on a mobile which has many times the hardware fire power while fitting in my palm doing multiple Mbps over 4G while my laptop sits beside me. Back then we had a car with 1400 cc turbocharged engine that did 0-100 in ~17s. Right now it’s a 2000 cc turbocharged engine doing 0-100 in ~7s. Certainly, technology changed exponentially while changes in (IC engined) cars were incremental. What stayed constant was that both the cars were absolutely fun to drive. I think there were 4 further attempts at registration spread over last 12 years and here I am, Hello! I’m in my early 30’s living in The Netherlands, originally from Kerala, India. I (like other zillion Indians living abroad) is a software engineer. I currently drive a BMW 3 series G20 and absolutely love this car. I learnt to drive quite early on and believe it or not, I learnt by observing. Back when I was in 5th standard, my mom joined a driving school so she can drive our new (to us) Maruti 800. Since she didn’t want to leave me alone at home, I had to tag along. Sitting in an old Ambassador in the middle back row crammed with ladies taking lessons, it was absolutely embarrassing for me and I kept it a secret from my friends. But I also enjoyed it to the core as I eagerly socked up all the tips and tricks being taught in there. For some perspective, my favourite seat in public buses of Kerala was the front horizontal row facing the driver where I can just observe and admire the whole process of driving (it was a sensory feat, how those old leyland buses were driven and gears shifted). Getting to sit in those seats in limited stop buses zipping dangerously on narrow sections of NH 17 in Kerala always gave me a huge adrenaline shot. But as with any good things in life it rarely happened. My mom thought (rightfully so) it was too dangerous in case of a crash so those seats were the last priority to be only chosen when no other seats were available. I overcompensated for it when I grew up and started living abroad by always sitting when possible in the first row seat almost parallel to the driver of the Volvo\ Scania \ MAN low floor buses on duty in those cities. Back to me, after the driving lessons ended, one fine day I offered my mom in font a full cohort of relatives to drive the car around in the compound of our ancestral house. My mom was take back asking me silly questions like “do I know which is the brakes” etc. I drove like a pro in that compound, and did a reverse parallel parking. And my whole family was flabbergasted, if I remember correctly even a premium ISD call was made to my dad to check if he had secretly taught me. Proudest day of my life. Unknown to them, I have been training by reversing out and in to our garage for past months. Anyway my excitement soon died out when it was strictly made clear I won’t be allowed to drive in any way and as a consolation price, I was appointed the official parking valet of my family. The only supportive figure was my grandfather who appreciated and encouraged me and I’m eternally grateful for him for that. I savoured the few minutes I used to get when he allowed me to park and take out the car from garages. A weird after effect was that for a long time after that till I got my license, I was super confident in manoeuvring in an out of even the tightest of parking spot, but not driving on straight roads. As fate would have it, I ended up living and working for an extended period (7+ years) in Singapore, arguably the worst place in the world to be a driving enthusiast. New cars started at SGD 80,000+ ( 1SGD = ~ 50 INR) for a bare basic hatch back and life of car was capped at 10 years. And to make it worse the country is too small to drive around. Fact is normally you won’t need a car there as the public transport was cheap, high quality covering every nook and corner of that island. Taxi’s were relatively cheap too. But for me, a car was not a need, but a want. Even then it made no financial sense to put that kind of money and then drive around in the small city state. I had to make do with frequent trips to neighbouring Malaysia were renting cars were cheaper with good quality highways. COVID put brakes on those, and for two years my only option was an app based daily rentals in Singapore. An app called getgo became very popular after 2020 and it was very convenient to use, priced at around 8$ an hour at peak times plus 40cents per km including fuel. Their fleet started with mostly Mazda 3s, but has diversified quite a bit recently to even include full electric models. When we made a decision to move out of Singapore, ability to own a car was one of key factor in my mind. Netherlands is not the cheapest place to own a (IC engined) car, but compared to Singapore it’s a lot more affordable. We moved in early 2022. One of the first thing I did after landing here was to get a car. And things have a knack of working out at the right time. I found out about a Team-BHP meet that happened in the Netherlands which prompted me to try my luck again and here I’m. Thanks all for reading, looking forward to meeting some great people and great fun here. Last edited by Aditya : 13th September 2022 at 16:39. Reason: Where - were
	(23) Thanks

12th September 2022, 11:29	#4
Jeroen Distinguished - BHPian Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Delhi Posts: 8,464 Thanked: 55,161 Times View My Garage	Re: 12 years and 3 countries later, I’m in! Welcome to the forum! There are a number of our members living in the Netherlands and also Belgium. Hope you enjoy my home country. Look forward to seeing your contributions. Jeroen
	(3) Thanks

12th September 2022, 16:07	#8
Eddy Team-BHP Support Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Singapore Posts: 9,439 Thanked: 13,727 Times	Re: 12 years and 3 countries later, I’m in! Welcome to the forum G20 I was merging your back to back posts and I accidently included Ajay's post in that too. Vid6639 helped me fix it. Aplogise for any confusion and edit notifications that you may have received.
	(2) Thanks

12th September 2022, 16:57	#9
GForceEnjoyer BHPian Join Date: May 2022 Location: TS 07 <-> HR 10 Posts: 483 Thanked: 3,362 Times View My Garage	Re: 12 years and 3 countries later, I’m in! Welcome on board! Hearty congratulations on finally making it. Your G20 looks gorgeous, I'll definitely be looking forward to your review. I'm sure it must be keeping you fantastic company on the open road as well as on twisty ones (the Michelins caught my eye in the photo ). Hope to see you around here soon!
	(1) Thanks

13th September 2022, 21:50	#12
UD17 BANNED Join Date: Aug 2022 Location: Dwarahat Posts: 427 Thanked: 1,381 Times	Re: 12 years and 3 countries later, I’m in! Welcome G20rider. The wait was indeed long yet quite fruitful. What a great story to start with. I love the narration of all the actions of the bus drivers, indeed I was having similar experience during my childhood where the govt bus drivers navigate the bus in the twisties of Ranikhet. Every turn and twist looks like your last one yet the adroit drivers always mastered them all. Welcome again and enjoy your time here. The color of your car is so scintillating to eyes.
	() Thanks