Day 2 and we were welcomed by a wet morning before sunrise. It had rained through the night. Rohit quickly loaded our bags into the Bolero Neo and we gobbled up breakfast but not before being entertained by some Langurs who fancied a participant’s Puri Bhaji and quickly snapped up the puris from the table. Post breakfast we gathered in the parking lot for our daily prayer. Today we would be covering almost 450 kms to Gajner, the longest drive of the trip. We quickly got rolling and I handed over the keys to Rohit who took to the wheel, his self confession that he wanted to get some drive time on a manual transmission, since he was usually used to automatics.

The convoy started moving and while Rohit was happy shifting gears. I was enjoying rays of the morning sun along with the cool breeze and the title track of Dil Chahta Hai playing on the sound system. Our Bolero Neo had a quick fuel stop and we caught up with the rest of the convoy for tea and pakodas a little later. After that it was non stop to Jodhpur for lunch at The Radisson. After lunch, I took to the wheel of the XUV700 diesel AWD as we departed from Jodhpur towards Gajner. Mahindra has outdone themselves with the XUV700 and it felt fantastic to drive on the smooth tarmac of Rajasthan. A total mile muncher to say the least. I put in a good number of kms till we stopped for tea after sunset after which it was a dash to the final destination for the day. We reached our night halt Gajner Palace Hotel well after 8 pm. The Gajner Palace is a huge property and it was quite a long walk to my room. Dinner was around a bonfire with music and everyone was relaxed as we didn’t have an early start the next day.