Suzuki Wagon, Esteem, Honda City and Toyota Innova

Been India for two months.... it is quite interesting to observe the auto market here.

The first car I got when arrived at Delhi is Suzuki Maruti Wagon.
A small compact car. It was so small that two adults - driver and myself, plus luggage almost explode it. It was smelly. But seems very good on maneuvering (I am never the driver). However, it is just too small to handle my whole family (even partially). Thus, with less than 2 weeks, Wagon disappeared



The second car was a black Suzuki Maruti Esteem. (Oh, Suzuki Maruti is the brand name here... It is a joint venture between Suzuki from Japan and Maruti from India local, typical product of automotive protectism). It was less smelly. However, I guessed it might be used as a racing car or something before. The chassis seems going to break into pieces at any moment. Can hear the squeezing noises all the time on India's bumpy road.



The third one is a white Suzuki Maruti Esteem. It is also aged like previous one, but slightly better. Our daily driver apparently know how to handle this car extremely well.
However, because seating posture, Wagon actually sit more comfortably. But Esteem apparently is more space and have more juicy (still limited).




I accidental got a chance to take a Honda City. It was a funny experience. The reason was I need to visit Honda facility here at Noida for two days. So, implicitly, my company had to arrange a nice, clean, almost brand new Honda City to sent me there... Honda City is extremely popular here. It has right size and right price for india market... It is very smooth, enough space and quite powerful (has VTEC!)...My boss who used to drive Acura in US have to downgrade to drive a city here :) as this is the best option (the car here is generally at least twice more expense than in US, we checked with couple dealers!). But the traffic cross Delhi was so bad.... less than 50Km but took us around 2 hr... and I got dizziness after the long drive.....

One worth mentioning is Toyota Innova here. It seems extremely popular here. We arranged to have it (with different driver) multiple times whether family go out together for a mid/long-range trip, Delhi, Jaipur, Tamil Nadu etc.... It is very spacy and comfy, by far, is the best car we had in here. sorry, only one picture showing the same model on bumpy road here.

Driving in India

Driving is definitely a challenge in India.

Driving on local is one experience, unruled traffic, endless honking, unexpectd U-turn and reverse diretion drivings are all eyes opener..... some time back when driving in England, I suffered from the "implicit rules" at round-about. Here, the rules aremuch more implicit and sophisticate thus too complicate to be understood by foreigners.

This is the ordinary road after moonson season.









Driving on highway is another one. Firstly, the definition of highway here is quite different than whatever the highway or autobahn is. You will be able to see ALL KINDS OF weird things happening on highway. Pedestrian crossing, cow cart (or camel) and rickshaw on highway.





Pedestrian crossing highway










Safety load limit? forget it.











What safety instrument required on vehicle? Don't ask something like Air bag or child safety seat here.











Complain about honking? Horn please!!!








The key is just whether you can get a good driver :)




Take it easy, we still can handle this with one feet up.

Gurgaon India - where is here!?

So, Gurgaon, India, a new born city southwest of India. Other than these malls, these are still a lot going on here. Transportation is always a challenge.

The raining season, which caused a signficant damange of the road, just over.... So, it is all bumpy road everywhere.

And on the way to office, on a fine day, it is dusty all over the place...

and you can see a ayuveda clinic on the road side... Yes, that tilting tent....