Potholes, Gaffa and Cable Ties

Quick blog to update on the last few days .... it has been a few since we last had web access....

Sarah will be blogging her reviews of hotels ;) - suffice to say it has been a mixed bag.

In terms of the journey - following a News Year Eve party complete with Indian royalty, the race started in the sun and hangovers of New Years Day - exhilirating to finally get underway - and yes, we found a replacement tuktuk for the torched What Ho '1'.

Whilst many teams headed south to risk the direct desert route, we opted to head southeast along the roads to Jodhpur - having come that route to the start point, we knew that the roads were relatively smooth and even had the benefit of tarmac :) From there we planned to turn south and head down some of the larger roads towards Mount Abu, Udaipur and then towards Mumbai.

The roads themselves, even if they are large, have a number of regular features to the unwary driver - potholes, cattle, lorries, unmarked speed bumps, ditches and I think worth mentioning again, lorries. We had one very near miss today - Rich and Chrissie were very pale when they witnessed how close a coach came to close contact with Sarah and I in Tally Ho. The last couple of days our journey times have been about 11 hours each day - heading out at 7am to catch first light and the quieter roads.

At the time of writing this it is the end of day three of driving - we are in Udaipur - having already learnt a lot of lessons enroute. I always knew that cable ties and gaffa could be useful.....but I am now a raving fan boy for them - Tally Ho is quickly becoming held together by them...and yes, it is only day three of the race! We have experienced a variety of problems - What Ho only made it about 10km before suffering a puncture - Tally Ho has suffered repeated problems with the spark plugs and cabling.

Problems with the tuktuks have been such a hindrance that we are already considering sacrificing half a day of travel time to get them in to a garage and thus serviced....we figure it will save time in the long term. I am however, not going to let Rich commission any welding work.....given the fate of the previous tuktuk!

Arrival, the power of the wallet and the chaos of the roads

 Effectively ‘day one’ of our trip – we thought it would be one of the more sorted days – get on a flight, get on a train, arrive at first hotel...job done. But such is India and the nature of our trip that I suspect every day will be a challenge.

 The flight with Jet Airways was uneventful – we did hear that some flights in to India were being delayed or cancelled due to extreme fog, but our flight was thankfully relatively on time. A shade under 8 hours, the journey time passed swiftly; punctuated by movies and the now statutory games of Bejewelled.

Delhi airport was hectic. Massive queues and much shuffling in mobs meant that it took us over an hour to get past passport control. The man in the booth seemed bemused that Chrissie and Rich were a married couple but let Chrissie in anyway.

Relieved to finally be in India but apprehensive of the chaos of Delhi, we were keen to get across to the railway station so as to get our connecting 18 hour train journey to the start point of the race, Jaisalmer. Rich headed off to manfully negotiate a price for a taxi; I headed to Costa Coffee (are they really everywhere?) to get fleeced for four cans of Pepsi. Costa did me for 200 rupees (about £3) – not bad you may say...but not so when compared to the cost of the taxi - £6 for a forty minute journey. Do Costa maintain the same prices regardless of location or has Rich simply found a new talent for bartering?

The taxi ride was eventful in that it revealed to us the chaotic melee that is the Indian road system and especially that of Delhi.  Traffic seems to be not dictated by side of road, road markings nor any form of ‘highway code’ (remind me why I bothered to get an English licence...?). The law of the road seems to be dictated by a strict pecking order according to holiness, size of vehicle, crushability and fearlessness. Being sacred and thus untouchable, Cows are the top dogs. Lorries come next – slow and ponderous they only alter course for the aforementioned cows. Everything else tries to overtake the lorries by trying to dodge between them. No signalling or observational skills are used (see my previous thought on the value of my licence); the preferred option adopted by all bar the cows is the use of the horn. Whilst in the UK we may use the horn to loudly pronounce our indignation of another driver’s talentless driving, in India it has a variety of uses none of which include road rage. As to whether any driver in India pays any attention to the persistent blaring is questionable as its consistency makes it a background noise.

We knew that driving tuktuks across India would be tricky, but after seeing the seething traffic of Delhi we have all already resolved to avoid city centres if at all possible.

 So it was that we were deposited at New Delhi train station. Chrissie was adamant that we had come to the wrong station – in that we needed the ‘old’ station – and she was shortly proved to be correct. Regardless of the incorrectness of the station, an alarming but persistent rumour was told to us - that most of the trains were being cancelled and delayed – this included our one which was apparently said at that time to be running with a 9 hour delay and would later be reported as cancelled. Initially we were told that the fog was to blame (and to be fair, everywhere was shrouded in the stuff); later we were also told that protestors to a new government policy have also been disrupting the trains by putting debris on the lines (an act that surely puts in to perspective the recent deeds of our own student protestors, young whipper snappers that they are).

This could turn in to a much longer ramble recounting our chasing around to find alternative transport to Jaisalmer – but I will cut to the outcome. We eventually ended up in the office of a Chap from the IRDC (can’t remember the full version but suffice to say it starts with ‘Indian Railway....something, something’). He came across as an efficient and effective gent in a rather nice if somewhat sweaty grey leather coat. In the hours to come we would as a group go on to ponder whether he was a Gentleman and a Scholar (a jolly decent chap) or actually whether he was a Charlatan and a Scoundrel (not such a decent fellow). As per the title of this tale, the solution to our travel problems was found at the bottom of our wallets.....and thus it was that The Man in The Grey Coat acquired us a nice car (come people carrier) along with a driver willing to take us the 16 hour drive to our required destination.

With our backpacks strapped to the roof, thus we were set to head off. Chrissie asked our driver his name; he said it was long and complicated – he suggested we called him ‘Dave’, to which we agreed.

In to the darkness and the fog we headed. Dave seemed a nice enough chap. Collectively we hoped that he was not in-fact a serial loon armed with a machete and a group of angry mugging mates waiting for us just around the corner....I am writing this entry whilst in the back of Dave’s car – studiously trying to ignore Dave’s passion for playing ‘Full Beam Chicken’ with oncoming traffic ....so tune in next time to find out our fate......

Love,

Si

The Off!

Righto Chaps!

 Christmas Dinner has been digested....and thus it is off to India that we head....packed far too much stuff....and I am not sure Sarah can lift her bag - she had to make some tough choices as to what to leave behind...

Heathrow beckons - then Delhi - a few hours there before getting an 18 hour train journey....let the adventure begin!

We will be trying to blog regularly and will be adding photos - so check in and laugh at our plight

 

Chinchin

Si