Palolem-cochin

Palolem-malpe We had a whole day off from driving so what else is there to do but get hammered with some other teams and sing a few songs around the guitar on the beach. I'd purchased a drum from a guy on the beach earlier in the day so we had some bass as well. The next day it was my turn to do the morning drive, but although I love driving this rickshaw, doing it on a hangover was just a bit too much. However I was slightly rescued by the 'full monty' fry up that I managed to track down for breakfast. The next destination was malpe, a small seaside town recommended to us by another team. Unfortunately when we got there it turned out to be a small seaside town next door to the worlds most rotten stinkiest fish factory. I was soon used to the smell though and a few beers with a fish supper went down a treat. Malpe-Thadodara Not long after we set off Grant almost took the wheel arch off on the wall of a bridge. Nothing a few kicks couldn't sort out though. For lunch we stopped off at a random amusement park in the middle of nowhere. We were soon getting mobbed by loads of kids and a girl from one of the other teams was trying to give out pencils until the whole box was soon up in the air with pencils being snatched and snapped all over the shop. A few more clicks down the road and one of our rear tyres decided to blow. We soon had the rickshaw jacked up with a big rock and had to borrow a wheel brace from a local rickshaw driver as our one didn't fit the nuts on the spare wheel. We reached a nice hotel on the seafront quite late and proceeded to drink until the hotel had ran out of beer. Which is probably a good thing as the beach in the morning was allot more enjoyable without the hangover. Thadodara-Cochin we didnt leave until midday as we were enjoying the scenery too much in the morning. This meant that we were gonna be doing some night driving for the final stretch along with a few driver switches whilst moving to avoid wasting time stopping. And some insane night driving it was. We had to hammer it (as much as you can in these things) in the pitch black with the blinding lights of on-coming traffic. For most of it you are literally blind. Luckily i was able to follow in the slipstream of a couple of police cars to make good time to reach our final destination for about 10pm. clucking for a celebratory beer we headed to the local bar but for some reason they wouldn't let us in. Luckily we bumped into one of the event organisers who knew another bar that would illegally give us beer past the normal serving hours along with a few bowls of chips and ketchup. We then got a load of takeaway beers and carried on the night back at the hotel with a couple of other teams. Cochin To top off what was already the best holiday I've ever had we hired a 4 bed house boat for 2 days with 3 other teams complete with that would cook us whatever we could rustle up from the local food markets along the river. A nice swim at sunset (although i cut my foot on a rusty nail hanging out the hull of the boat), some ridiculous drinking games and lots of local booze topped off the holiday nicely. Not to mention the awesome closing party the next day that ended up with half the rickshaw runners in the hotel pool, although one poor bloke seemed to have stood on a rather sharp object which had allowed a few buckets of his blood to wind up on the hotel lobby floor. Cochin-Delhi With the worst hangover ive ever had we said out goodbyes and flew back to delhi for one night before we were due to head home in the morning. The post holiday blues was kicking in already. Looks like we might have to start planning another adventure already.

Daman-palolem

Daman-Murud So we were relaxing it up in daman with a complete day off from driving. Not long had passed and we already had. Call from one of our other rickshaw buddies to let is know that they'd broken down about an hour down the road. Being the good Samaritans that we are we happily purchased them a new piston kit and hired a car to deliver it to them. Half way there we got another call to day that they didn't need it anymore so we informed the cabbie that we could go back. Unfortunately he spoke no English and it took us about 20 minutes until he finally got the message and turned back.

Gandhinagar-daman

Gandhinagar-daman We heard there was a touristy drinking town in gujarat called daman so decided to set off to there first thing in the morning. It was about 300km away so we knew it could take all day and require the rickshaw to hold up. After about 10 minutes the thing was conking out again... then again... then again (the last time we got stiuck on the middle of the train tracks). The carb was taking in more dirt so we decided to spend some time at the roadside and flush out all the fuel that was in there and stick a fresh clean batch in. After that the baby was running like a dream. To male good time we decided to take te expressway but at the entrance we were told 'no three wheels'. We politely explained we were driving for charity an the checkpoint guys happily let us on. Unfortunately, about 15km down the road we got pulled by the police. Who then took our keys off us and drove our rickshaw with us in the back up the hard shoulder the wrong way to where we had got on. Thinking that we had a nice smooth drive on the other highway we were soon Undertaking lorries on the hard shoulder, dodging an overturned lorry and swerving out the way of oncoming traffic even though we were on a dual carriageway. At one point we had to hit the breaks to avoid being ploughed into the wall by a lorry changing lanes. It soon became apparent the we were gonna need to drive on this crazy road in the dark with no rear lights and a break that now needed 3 pumps before it would work. So rather than bottle it we soldiered on through till we finally settled down for a long overdue beer and a dodgy curry. Daman As we'd made good headway we decided to book another night in the hotel (the nicest yet) and expected to take a look at the nice seaside views in the morning, get the rickshaw fixed and get some laundry done. We had the brakes, horn and lights fixed by a local mechanic that we managed to track down by asking the local rickshaw drivers for 100 rupees (that's about a quid fifty to you and me) which was a touch. However, the seaside views were left a bit to be desired. I'm not sure that black sand and what looked like a rubbish dumping ground would be a tourist hotspot back home. As the laundry wouldn't be ready till 8 we were stuck here.

Jaisalmer-gandhinagar

Jaisalmer-barmer 1st day of driving and everything is going smoothly. After an awesome new years eve party with fireworks in the desert and a stinking hangover we set off on the rickshaws. I needed a hair of the dog to sort me out for the initial run and off we went. Our baby chugged along nicely for the first 150km and as it was now getting dark we found ourselves a cheap place in barmer to spend the night. After a disgusting hair ridden sweet and sour chicken meal across the road we settled down in our cockroach infested room with no shower and the next door neighbour blasting out the tv with the odd intermittent noisy trip to the bathroom (on top of grant that is!) Barmer-mount Abu So everything was looking good so far and we headed south at the crack of Dawn from barmer. A few push starts and the rickshaw was chugging along like a dream. After hitting sanchor about 120km further south we decided to get a little bit more adventurous and head east to mount Abu via some smaller roads. Straight away we had our first break down and had to clean out the carb as we'd somehow been pouring dirt in with our petrol. The road ran out after a few km and we were bumping about the place like no body's business dodging out of the way of oncoming lorries and foot deep potholes. After finally getting to a decent road we discovered we were on the complete wrong side of the mountain and it was now pitch black. That was on top of having to stop every half hour to clean our carb out whilst being surrounded by everyone in the local villages watching us, chatting and even trying to help (although sticking their hands in our engine and pulling on pipes was not useful to us). There was no where in sight for a hotel so we decided to plough on in the dark. The route however involved another horrendous road but this time in te dark. After clattering along again out breaks we're no longer working properly and we could barely see the road with our little headlight. However we finally managed to make it up the mountain (which is about 1km up from the ground) and find a reasonable hotel at about 10pm (12 hours of driving!) Mount Abu-Gandhinagar Waking up in the morning and seeing the place in the day made the whole day worth it. A beautiful lake, amazing view (from honeymoon point might I add) and a couple of jain temples made for a pleasant mornings sight seeing. We decided to head to Gandhinagar via the highway this time in order to get some good km's under our belt with minimal abuse to our rickshaw. However, the previous day seemed to have taken it's toll when all of our lights, apart from the headlamp, had died along with our speedo and tachometer.by the time we got to a decent hotel we had been driving for at least a couple of hours without anyone being able to see us from behind! After getting here we found out we were now in a dry state, which meant no booze! We're aiming to get right out of this place tomorrow asap!

Jaisalmer

So... It was our last day in Delhi and we realised that we were going to need sleeping bags for the sleeper train so decided to venture back into the city centre.  After purchasing a couple of smell ridden 'adidas' sleeping bags and getting molested by somebody trying to flog a hand massager a nearby shoe cleaner pointed to my shoe... 'shit on shoe' he says... i look down and on my brand spanking north face shoes is what appears to be a giant turd, which left me no choice but to ay the man to clean them.  After doing a bloody good job on them we hastily tried to get back to the tube station when all of a sudden i hear another shoe cleaner pointing down saying 'shit on shoe'!!!  So there seemed to be some sort of shit shoe cleaning operation on the go so we decided to get out of there asap, but at least we got what we had came for.

 The sleeper train to jaisalmer was actually fairly pleasant, although the toilets were pretty grim.  A couple of immodium tabs did the trick and kept me from going there the whole journey.  Delhi belly still hasn't hit us, so fingers crossed!  Lots of Indian music and chai guys dishing out hot beverages at every other stop.  In the day we were able to hang our heads out the oped side doors and take a look at the baron wasteland.  We also met some fellow rickshaw runners on the train as well who turned out to be pretty sound and are now gonna be part of our first day convoy.

 We've been here for 3 days now pimping up our richshaw and getting some practice runs in.  However, although we were thinking this might e a non-drinking holiday we've been getting smashed until 3-4am every night.  The doors at the hotel close at 11pm so we've been slipping the guy that sleeps by the door 100 rupees to let us in each night.  Thats after walking back from the venue and trying to avoid all the rabie infested angry dogs that are patrolling the streets.  Grant is petrified of them and is usually 20 yards up the road leaving me to fend off the bastards!

So it's a new years eve party tonight with about 200 fellow runners and some belly dancing antics.  Then it's time to set off tomorrow on our journey to cochin.  Gonna be horrendously hung over but i'm sure we'll be fine.  I tried uploading some pics but this PC is useless...

Delhi

We arrived in Delhi yesterday on Christmas day, checked in and headed straight to the city centre for some food and a beer. Christmas dinner consisted of spring rolls, winging and sweet and sour chicken (well... chicken fat anyway). Managed to find a decent bar and get pretty hammered. Met some decent people (english, Irish, American and of course some native's). Then had our first rickshaw experience from a local taxi driver on the way home. God knows how we're gonna drive one of those things! Went to Taj Mahal today (what else ya gonna do on boxing day aye!). Awesome site but had the most annoying tour guide ever, was tempted to hit him and chuck him in the river behind. Was a 4 hour drive there and back of pure and utter madness. The road eticate is non existent and I'm surprised we actually managed to survive. At one point the guy drove te wrong way down the middle of a dual carriage way! I had to try and sleep all the way as was terrified. Cross roads in the inner city don't even have traffic lights, it's a pure free for all! I'm sure our silky driving skills in the rickshaw will get us to the end in one piece. Off to jaisalmer on the night train tomorrow. The first 3 classes were full so we're slumming it in sleeper class with the locals! I've managed to hold off the Delhi belly so far but just ate a maharal mac from mcdonalds ( their curried chicken equivalent of a big mac) and it's not looking too promising! They don't eat beef so you can't get it anywhere. All the cows are just trundling along the main roads everywhere too, hope we don't hit one in the rickshaw otherwise we'll probably get killed!

Charity money coming in thick and fast

Thanks to a number of good samaritans at work we seem to have made some good ground on the charity donation front.  Friends and family are still yet to be hounded, so if any of you are reading this, dig deep!

 After a 5 day binge and a body in shut-down mode, it seems to make sense to take next week off to start drafting some company/press letters instead of hitting the boozer, well thats what the sensible part of the brain is saying anyway....

Getting Started

Well, here's our first blog which i'll keep short and sweet.