Thursday, December 01, 2005

Driving a mercedes

Yeah finally after coming to Germany did I manage to drive an automobile. Gabor and Joseph were in Koblenz, and walked past a car rental shop advertising cheap rates. So they walk in and enquire and to their amazement they could rent a car in 45 euros for 3 days. (but the catch was without any insurance. The insurance was 66 Euros more)

So while these guys try to figure it out would they rent it without insurance, the Opel Corsa they wanted to rent is taken by someone else, and then as there was no similar car on offer the sales guy offers them a Mercedes B160 for the same price. The east Europeans simply grab the offer, and pay 45 Euros (who wants insurance they say) and without any travel plans they come back in their Mercedes.

Now as they are bragging about it i convince them to let me take it aournd for a spin. So first time in my life i am riving a left hand drive and supposed to drive on the right side of the road. If these restrictions weren't tough enough for my bad driving, the gear system was a wee bit different, but the 6 speed diesel handled wonderfully well. The whole incident was fine, apart from that once I forgot, that I have to drive on the right and entered the left lane (on a left turn) and once drove over the curb while reversing the car during a u-turn went in the 5th gear instead of 3rd and the engine stalled in between the road, and i went speeding at 130 kph in the 6th gear.
All this time Gabor seated next to me, went pale, and was screaming, "I DONT HAVE ANY INSURANCE, PLEASE BE CAREFUL" anyways we (and the car) returned safely and Gabor was kind enough to click some pics, though he feels I do not deserve a driving license (I think Shashu, VJ and Fraud would agree with him after the Mahabhaleshwar trip we had in may 2005)

Here are the pics of me and the MERC


(the pic aint clear and date hides the 3 pointer but its a MERC B160)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey.. the pics are missing!
sahi...merc chalaya...nice!!

having been next to you in your fiat and then in your santro...i wouldnt have done what gabor did ;P

Hemant

Vishal Grover said...

sahi hai. looks like you are making good use of the exchange program :)

Nirav Kanodra said...

@ Hemant
You are different from gabor, he is a generous guy

@Vishal
Exchange is meant to be a paid vacation, why shouldnt i enjoy ??