Early the next morning (as usual) we went for a stroll in a garden. And in a city known as the city of gardens, that’s saying something. But we didn’t go to just any old garden, no. We went to THE garden – Lal Bagh. The garden’s construction began in 1760 and is resplendent with kaleidoscopic array of colours, not to mention the colourful people that visit there every morning. Next up it was Tipu Sultan’s palace, whose gates were still shut. After that, we made a little recce of the Bangalore Fort, before heading out towards home – Pune.
The highway leading out of Bengaluru is quite exceptional, mostly straight, very wide, and superbly maintained, this bit allowed me to allow the Fortuner to stretch its legs a bit. So foot down, a pause until the turbo kicks in and woosh! We were a grey-bronze blur, extracting every last horse from the 171-PS engine, basking in the glory of the 360 Nm of twist. What an absolute blast, and the ride quality was so plush that my colleague snoring in the back didn’t even flinch. All too soon, though, we had to stop, and take the turn off towards the formidable and picturesque Chitradurga Fort. We found another puddle there, and this time we made an even bigger splash. Soon it was time to move on. A few hours later and we were finally there, taking memories of an absolute thrill of a road trip, and robust and dependable companion of the Fortuner 4×4 automatic with us.
