The end of the road
Hurrah!
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We have finally made it to Gangtok. What a place - unlike anywhere else I've been in India. The people look different (half-indian/half chinese), the streets are quiet, there's no litter and no one uses their car horn (except for Akshay on the drive into town (we couldn't stop on the steep hills so had to plow through the traffic)). The centre of Gangtok is pedestrianised as well so in a way is similar to Lowestoft (actually, that's the only similarity). Because it's on the side of a mountain you either have to walk up or down some very steep slopes to get anywhere. Sadly, our hotel is about 300m below where all the action is so to get anywhere is really tiring.
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Anyway, a quick recap of the past few days.
Day 12 was our first 'day off' from riding Jenny. We thought she wouldn't be able to make the steep climb to Darjeeling since the engine was hanging on by a thread and she had not much life left in her so decided to give her a rest. This happened to be one of our worst decisions on what turned out to eventually become our ill-fated day-trip to Darjeeling. The ride up the hill in a jeep was more uncomfortable than the rickshaw. 4 of us crammed in to 1 seat for 3 hours. At least the driver was quite entertaining as he was quite possibly the most angry man in India and suffered with serious road-rage. Darjeeling itself was a beautiful, tranquil place but unfortunately because of the cloulds there were no Himalayan panoramas to be seen. We visited a tea-factory which was interesting, sampling, apparently the number 1 tea in the world (I only drink about 10 cups a year so was clueless). The ride back down the hill was the main problem. It was in the dark, the jeep broke down and our driver was a moron, so we free-wheeled down a mountain (with deadly drops all around) for 5 hours with no headlights. Again 4 of us to a seat. To top it all off I lost my wallet in there!! Someone in West Bengal now has mine (and Tom's) driving licenses a card to say they are a registered medical practitioner as well a host of other cards.
Day 13 was our final push to Gangtok and what a day. A leisurly flat drive through the forest turned in to a tough drive all up a mountain climbing 2000m over about 50km. However, there were fantastic views of rivers, mountains and valleys and we were warmly greeted on our entry to Sikkim at the border. Most of the driving was done in first gear and Jenny sounded rough the whole way (I don't think she would've lasted another day)Â even producing a few new disturbing sounds. We had to do a few push starts on the hills as well. Arriving in Gangtok we did our usual trick of getting lost but eventually found our way to the finish line, largely due to the help of all the friendly locals.
We were the 17th team to arrive overall. A great performance considering a lot of the teams a head of us seemed to have quite boring journeys driving on the highway all the way - that ceratinly wasn't the case for us. A few drinks at the finish to celebrate and share tales with fellow rickshaw-runners (one team managed to drive off a bridge) was followed up by a lot of rest today. Tomorrow is the final ceremony, finishing party and a game of football against the local media. Monday we fly to Delhi.
It's been an amazing fortnight and certainly an adventure i'll never forget. Thanks everyone for all the sponsorship money and support - it really makes a great difference.
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Gautam
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 - For my own (and others) interest I will publish some statistics of the trip in the next few days
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