Day 11
Day 11 Well that took a lot longer than we thought. We set off at a good time as the hotel didn’t do breakfast until 8 and we weren’t going to hang around for that. We managed to stop at a place an hour along the road and had omelettes, toast and butter. Some bizarre toast which was really only warm bread and even stranger butter. They appear to have melted it before they served it, so I poured the butter onto the bread, not totally satisfactory to be honest! The roads were their usual pot-pouri of good, bad, excellent, and downright appalling. Kerala as a state we have noticed is a lot cleaner. We are going to ‘fess up here that we have been litter bugs. Both children(ish) of the “keep Britain Tidy†campaigns of the early 70’s we are originally very reluctant to drop even a sweet wrapper. This has all changed over the last 12 days. There are no rubbish bins anywhere. Even in the hotels we have given them rubbish and they toss it out. Everybody does it so you find yourself leaving the water bottle or crisp bag you have just finished on the floor, its something they will have to learn, maybe find their own Ronnie Corbett to disappear under a load of litter, (at least I think it was him in the old ads?). Kerala seems to be different although we have not spotted any bins there is definitely less litter. As we approached the 40 kms before Cochin (our final destination) and Ernakulam its bigger brother the roads were excellent. This led us into a sense of security as when we actually got into Ernakulam it was completely mental there was also lots of turnings off what may or not have been the main highway so we stopped lots of times to ask the way, all the time the clutch was getting more and more temperamental so it was a real battle in the end and when we finally found a hotel we were shattered! So that’s it we made it. The deadline was noon of the 14th and we managed the evening of the 11th.
Day 10
Day 10 We had an early start, not because we particularly wanted one but because we found out we were staying in the front of a hotel at a crossroads of traffic where lorries and night buses seemed to stop and start (and of course the obligatory horn blowing) throughout the night. So we were on the road before 8. It doesn’t seem to matter what we do it always takes over an hour from waking up to getting on the road, and as all the showers have been tepid at best and a bucket at worse we are not lounging in them! There is always a mossy net to put up a device to charge sometimes a rinse of clothes and a study of maps and guide books for the next day. This means every night we seem to have both bags emptied over what ever room we have! The roads were again good in parts and atrocious in many other parts. Bad enough to brake a welded bar holding the canvas roof up. This caused a huge amount of noise so in the end I bound it all together with ductape, it seems to have done the job and is probably better than the appalling welding job done in the first place. We have started to see the sea for the first time as we start to follow closer to the coast, although there are still hills. I am beginning to realise I am at a slight advantage when it comes to junctions. I tend to just drive where I need to go and most of the time the locals hold back and I’m away. I now see it from their point of view. Every day for the last xyz days they have done this journey or one similar and encountered this junction or one similar. What happens today is they glance up and for a second or so think “What the ...... there’s a foreigner driving a tuk tuk with a Mouse face painted on the front†Just enough time for me to nip in front! So maybe Im not as proficient as I think. We bought lots of pens with us from the UK. From our earlier visits its always nice to give the young kids these pens as we travel along. A lot seems to have changed over the years I have been coming. Although the incredibly poor kids are still happy with pens the school kids look at you as if to say “a pen, nice. Where’s the ipad†Tonight we found a great hotel. Its great because it is only been opened 2 weeks so everything is new and clean. No doubt in a couple of years time it will be a dingy hole but at the moment its a bit like faulty towers. The hot water needs to be requested when you need it. This I did only to be told there wouldn’t be any until 10 tomorrow morning. Why I asked, because its solar I was told and isn’t on yet??? I held myself from saying as far as I’m aware the sun has put in an appearance for atleast the last 40 million years. Lights don’t work and I’m sure a fan is going round the wrong way as there is no breeze from it! No room number on any of the doors. “Would I like a tea or coffee†I was asked when we checked in “that would be lovely†says I only to be presented with a bill after we drunk it. Shower is on a bracket on the wall so high that Marion could barely reach it and from the holder it goes out at 90 degrees and hits the opposite wall, but the bed is great and the food was excellent.
Karnataka, India
major repair on rick today going well now. No doubt no www out here in the sticks for a while! - John
Day 7
[]() []()Day 7 – We started with an ambitious task to reach Goa which was about 350kms away. There was a slight advantage knowing there would be accommodation at the end of the journey, this is advantageous as we started this run saying we would not drive at night if was at all possible. The roads are crazy during the day but coming up against lorries with constant full beam is no fun. Because of this “rule†we set ourselves a time of 5pm to start looking for a room which gives us 2 hours until its dark. There are some areas that you can drive for 90 minutes without finding a hotel and some of the places we do see there is no way we would stay there! So we set off early after my scrambled egg in the hotel that looked conspicuously like two fried eggs but the man insisted, and made good progress. We are still in the mountainous areas so although we had a good average it was 20 up the hill and 60 down. The hairpins at the bottom of a hill are a bit tense as the Rick still feels a bit unstable but we stayed upright. During the journey the authorities have started to put little hand painted signs along the road “Safety on the road is safe tea at home†and “This is a Highway not a dieway†Unfotunately they take the same view of these signs as the “No overtaking†ones at various points! We made good progress until about 60k from Goa when the road became a mess of potholes and undulations, not very comfortable at all. We are also at a disadvantage with technology. Now I don’t know how many, but most of the teams we have spoken to along the way have mentioned their sat-nav. We have a map and the spoken (English) language, Hindi would have been better at different times and inadequate road signs! So when we got near to Goa you would imagine that finding the plethora of beaches would be simple – not so. We were all over the place until we were eventually pointed in the direction of Baga beach and right at the end is a very nice hotel we will be spending two nights.
Day 6
Day 6 – PG (Parental Guidance recommended) It turned out to be a stroke of luck that we stopped at the Ramada. Marion was very ill in the night so comfy bed (and more importantly toilet) were a welcome relief she managed to pull herself around and by this evening, although weary she is much brighter, it has left its mark though, as our Geordie cousins would say she has “an aws lick a japanese flug†In case of minors reading I won’t interpret! We will get the other gruesome detail out of the way as we came across our first fatality. There was a huge traffic jam and as we got to the end an old chap was laying in the middle of the road and he obviously wasn’t going to be getting up, It looked like he was hit while trying to cross the road, so it is a stark reminder that India is a dangerous place to be on the road, whether pedestrian or more often (as we have seen numerous tipped over lorries) as a driver. We were not sorry to leave the Navi-Mumbai area. Some local big shot must have had a block paving company as that is what all the roads are laid with. I’m sure it looked lovely originally but now it has all sunk at different area so it is like driving on sharp cobbles (I guess a cobble stops being a cobble when its sharp, but you know what I mean) The term boneshaker was coined for just such a beast as the Rick. Today we started on the hills and they are quite a challenge. Blind hairpin bends hold no fear for our Indian cousins. At least most of the wagons are knackered so they go up hills very slowly and the brakes are useless so they go down sedately. Its the new chaps in their Euro boxes that cause the grief. Trying to overtake the wagons is an art that I am trying to perfect but I need more practice which is just as well as it is hills for the next two days. We also run out of petrol again at a very inopportune place, one lane was closed for tarmacing and we shot through on the open lane only to come to a grinding uphill stop. Luckily lots of tar-covered giggling locals obliged to push us off to a dirt lay by. We have the refuelling from the can off to a fine art now and it only takes 10 minutes. Which is enough time for several of the locals to take pictures on their phones! I am constantly amazed how the children can come out of what is a shack and set off for school in pristine clothes, these must be cleaned on a daily basis as it is rare you see them dirty. We found a hotel that classes itself as a resort, in a place called khed. It does have a pool but it is all well past its best, and no hot water, but the sheets are clean and hopefully we can get a good nights sleep on the board they call a bed (I can see a large physio bill at the end of this) also, as you see they have internet albeit only for twenty minutes, do I dare use in longer and see what happens! - John
Goa, India
crap roads 4 30km before. need to check our fillings! Day off tomorrow so will get down with the kids tonight. M better every day - John
Maharashtra, India
very hilly now and a bit of a struggle but stil hanging in. M under weather yesterday but picked up a bit today - John
Day 2
Day 2. Reasonable night and not too many trains. Set off with
