New adventures

We are now in Delhi having adventures of a different kind.

Tomorrow we are off to Agra for two days then home :(

The End!

We reached Gangtok, the finishing line, at 17.30 yesterday (Friday) after a leisurely drive from Darjeeling. It was slightly less leisurely when the brakes failed coming down the mountains, but the nifty use of a large rock slowed our descent.  Although we weren't racing like some other teams, we still managed to come in 20th place out of 70ish teams. Celebrations were had last night by comsuming vast amounts of beer and sharing highly elaborated stories with other groups.

We have just booked flights to Delhi on Monday afternoon, then onto Agra for sightseeing and general touristiness.  Tomorrow there is a football match against the locals at Gangtok stadium which whill be covered by the press and a private party at a resort in the evening. For the time being, it is just nice to relax and wamder without considering how much fuel we have, will we get up that hill, where are we going to sleep tonight, will Randy blow up...etc.

Over and out :)

Darjeeling

Wednesday 7th & Thursday 8th April

Have been relaxing in beautiful Darjeeling for a couple of days; its been so nice not to have to pack up the bags as soon as we wake and get back in the bloody rickshaw. We seriously misjudged the time it would take to drive the road from Siliguri to Darjeeling - only 65km, but the road was one of the worst we have encoutered on our journeys. This time there were no suicidal truck or bus drivers on the wrong side of the road trying to force Randy into a ditch, this time there was shear drops, a climb of 2000m, to and fro-ing across a narrow gauge railway line giant craters and a general lack of road surface.  Our "we'll be there in time for dinner" turned into "oh god, will this ever end?  We've been on this road for nearly four hours".

However, as soon as we reached this road the people seemed to change.  This area is home to displaced Tibetans, whose appearance is so totally different to the Indians that it was almost like we had travelled into another country. Gone were the unfriendly stares that we had encountered in Orissa and parts of Bengal, the Tibetan-Indians are all smiles. As we climbed past the small villages that clung to the edge of Gorkhaland (the separate state they are campagining for) everyone waved, cried out greetings and one old man even saluted.

Darjeeling is an arcitects nightmare. Somehow, it all seems to works though - houses built into cliff faces like birds nests. The town is far cleaner than any of the Indian towns we have visited, there is even a pub - woo hoo!  Yesterday (Thursday) we mosied around, tasting tea, buying woolly sherpa hats and spending an obscene amount of money on souvenirs. We met a few other teams who have also chosen to chill out here rather than push on to Gangtok straight away.  This morning, after a leisurely breakfast, we will make the final 94km drive to the finish line in Sikkim. Hopefully crossing the border will just be a formality as we got our permits issued before we left home. 

The end is in sight...

Saturday 3rd

We're in Puri at the Hotel Gandhara - a few too many mossies for my liking, but great banana pancakes.

Almost knocked a bloke off his bike today, but he smiled and said "ok", gotta love these Indians!  Off to Calcutta tomorrow hopefully, but a very long drive.

Kavali to Rajahmundry

Didn't make it as far as we hoped on Day 5 and stopped in the town of Rajahmundry.  The drive throu Andrah Pradesh has been pretty dull - the long NH5 might be an easy drive but there's not much to see. I have a short attention span and its been stressful!

The wonderful Google maps led us to the Anand Regency hotel... after the hellhole of Kavali last night we were ready to find somewhere with a/c that was half decent. This hotel is fabulous and well worth whipping out the credit card for.  Laundry, room service, wi-fi... all it needed was a pool!

After breakfast we are heading north again, hoping to crank up a fair few km and try and get out of this state (boring) and into Orissa.

Cochin

Just a quick message - slow connection here in Cochin.

Yesterday we had some test driving of our wee shaw. Hilarious, if a bit scary.  Luckily the roads round here are not too busy and its pretty relaxed, not sure how this will prepare us for the notorious indian highways! The weather is hot and sticky with a huge thunderstorm last night. Thank god for A/C.  We had two delicious curries and no sign of the dreaded delhi belly. Yet.

Today we are buying equipment for the run, jerry cans, tarpaulins, amusing horns... The cricket match against the locals is this afternoon, last year the Run scored 20 runs in total - I guess we will be anhiliated again this year.