How I explored 4 states in 4 rented cars: A photologue

It has been a refreshing travel down the memory lane, and long buried photos & videos in the SD card got to see the light of TeamBHP!

BHPian GhostRider28 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

This is a rather long story about my last 4 travelogues - across 4 different places in the last 2 years. Yes, I have been too lazy to write the travelogues for each, after the trip end. But to my defence, I have a small kid and a busy office schedule (life is hard, and I am trying to make ends meet guys). Also, I have probably reached that age where you think more and wonder whether I have given something back to the society. So I thought Teambhp might be the best place to start, and thought about sharing a travelogue - or rather 4 travelogues (as 4 threads).

To justify the title, this took 2 years of procrastination and then another 4 weeks in the assembly line.

Who will find it useful to read? People who still ask about the experience of rented cars and would love to read about the Himachal, Goa and Uttarakhand; and I have now tried all 3 of 1. Zoomcar, 2. Local hires and 3. Institutional alternatives to Zoomcar.

Gone are the days of driving across the length and breadth of India and enjoy the drives. One - Wife and Kid will have to go via flight and I don't have the energy (and leaves) to drive from Kolkata to Chandigarh alone in an ageing Duster - the decibels inside the cabin are now probably more than the remaining BHP number.

Himachal in a hired Ciaz - June 2023

When we were a couple, we always avoided peak travel seasons. But now we have a kiddo and if we have to stay true to our motto of at least 3 vacations in a year, summer, winter and Durga puja vacations are must. So summer holidays in Sangla, it is!

I looked up Zoomcar options, and since I had spent fortune on flight tickets to Chandigarh from Kolkata, being late in booking, the only proper budget option left with was a Ciaz, apart from the Thar, which I had to rule out due to luggage space constraints and strong objections from my wife. I have heard good reviews about the car, so locked it in.

I picked up the car from PanchKulla (from a fairly desolate place, don't remember exactly where), in the middle of a dust storm! Not a good omen, I thought; and naturally realised within 10 mins of starting that one of the headlights are off. Those who are thinking it is going to be a horror story of the Ciaz, please keep your hopes down. All I had to do was wake up an hour earlier than the already early plan, waited at the gate of the of the nearest workshop from the hotel at Chandigarh, and got them to replace it. I thought I also caught sight of a sewn together accessories belt, but cajoled myself that I must have seen something wrong with my groggy eyes.

No other fiasco on the way, apart from a loose mudflap, which got fixed at a shack and a slow but steady increase of noise which I attributed to the front right calliper.

The first view of the mountains anyways cheers you up!

We reached Narkanda late in the evening (Google suggested the main highway instead of the narrow Shimla bypass road despite being the peak of summer and it was the correct recommendation).

Next day the target was Sangla, a long journey.
Ciaz was extremely comfortable and my son who usually had a bit of motion sickness didn't complain at all. This circuit has been covered several times on TeamBHP and I will just let the pictures do the talking.


The beautiful roads soon disappeared into broken patches just after Jeori to almost zero tarred roads after Karcham. Being used to the Duster AWD which just gallops over broken streches without so much as a trifle to the riders, I had already started to curse my decision for a Ciaz. We were already running late and a torrential downpour after Jeori was just the icing on the cake! But, the story of ice/snow was just about to begin and we were rewarded with glorious views just after the rain stopped.

We were staying in the Banjara resort and steep slippery incline to their parking was not helping the Ciaz. "We should have stuck to getting a Thar" (I had by that time repeated myself hoarse). But it was one of the best places we have stayed, just beside the Baspa, and surrounded by snow capped peaks; and all the pain just melted away.

That was our cottage just beside the Baspa.

But the road next day to Chitkul really strained every bolt of the Ciaz and I even risked it down a muddy trail where local Innovas refused to go. But all the tips by TeamBHP offroad veterans didn't go to waste on me

We missed the Rakcham meadows as only 4WDs were being allowed (cursed myself again).
We touched Kalpa on our way back to Sarahan. Sights at Kalpa were so breathtaking that I promised myself a trip to Spiti soon!

Sarahan is one of the prettiest little hamlets I have been to. For the night stop, we realised that Booking.com has not even bothered to send our booking to the hotel, but the manager was kind enough to give us a splendid room at 70% of the price (Himalayan Heritage, right on the highway).
The entire road to the Bhimkali temple in Sarahan is lined with quaint little cottages with gardens. Just point your camera anywhere and voila!

We stayed the final nights near Kufri and made a quick trip to Shimla. No prizes for guessing which cafe in Shimla this is!

We had a flight in the evening and started well in advance. The noise from the front right side had grown worse and by the time I was almost off the hills, I had noticed a slight lethargy in the brakes kicking in. On hindsight, I should have got it checked immediately when the sound started. Long story short, by the time I had filled up the tank and was a kilometer away from the drop off place, brakes had to be jammed in with full force to get a bite and downshifts/parking brakes and 1st/2nd gear was the only option. (Brake oil levels etc were all surprisingly okay). I notified the pickup person, who seemed to be handling a fleet. I completed all Zoomcar formalities, but did a cardinal mistake. I took all pictures through the Zoomcar app itself and successfully ended the trip. I was well on time for my flight back to Kolkata from Chandigarh.

3 days later I got a bill from Zoomcar saying I have to pay for a tankful of fuel! Zoomcar support is one of the worst, and after 1 week of to and fro, they were apparently able to recover pictures from my app, which showed a picture of an absolutely empty tank! (Yes, I ensured that the odometer reading was visible when taking the fuel gauge picture, before anyone jumps!)

Long story short, after 2 weeks of fighting, I could not get them to recover the original pictures of the full tank gauge I had taken through the app. I did not have the pictures on my phone library and ended up paying 4k to get a peace of mind. I have also never seen a worst customer service. Moral of the story: Click the pictures first on your phone and then use the Zoomcar app to upload.

Never again I would book Zoomcar, I thought. But fate had other plans.

Continue reading BHPian GhostRider28's travelogue for more insights and information.