Down but not out

We may be close to 2000km from the fabled city but Delhi belly has struck team Hurricane Run here is Palolem. The culprit- a nasy batch of Tom Yum (or not so yum) soup served up by the Thai speciality restaurant (Thai is definitely NOT their speciality!)

Subsequently progress has stalled over the last couple of days as the boys do their best to lose half their body weight and try and keep as many re-hydration sachets down as possible.  A couple of trips to the hospital for shots and some serious antibiotics have helped though and we plan to be back on the road heading out of Palolem and back down the coast tomorrow, fingers crossed!

From our calculations, if we cover around 200km a day for the next three days, we will still make it to Cochin by the 15th for the official finish. Here's hoping Hurricane Run (the beast and the team) can hold it together until then!

Holy Cow

Let's start with the numbers;

 

- 1146km driven - Lost 6 times  - Indicators used once - Zero is how many times all the other road users in India have used their indicators since we've started.   - Exhaust has fallen off twice (we reckon it's not coming off again)  - Number of warm showers: 0.    - Diverted onto the other side of the road for roadworks 9 times (oncoming traffic has been warned with signage once) - Near death experiences by NZ or UK standards: 374  - Near death experiences by Indian standards: 92   - Near death experiences involving cows: 27

All of that said, things are generally going well and  we are moving steadily towards Mumbai. We left the state of Rajasthan yesterday and entered Gujrat, home of Gandhi and also apparently a dry state.  Needless to say, the Kingfishers have dried up which is not a good thing after driving a tin can on Indian roads for 10 hours at 40km's an hour.  We actually feel relatively lucky to have our tin can as we are sure some other teams have had  more problems than overheating and lost exhausts, some didn't even manage to get themselves out of Jaisalmer. As we write this we're on National Highway 8 hoping to stay somewhere around Surat for the night.  We will however be endeavouring to stay out of the city centre which has been said to be India's "noisiest and most exhausting." We have been lucky to see some of the much talked about "incredible India."  After Jodphur we managed to make it to Udaipur.  After a little help from a local Rickshaw driver and a few tight squeezes, we found a beautiful Hotel that overlooked the lake and surrounding fairytale city.  It was one of our favourites and a breath of fresh air from the frantic, fast paced India we've been trying to get used to. Thanks so much for all the donations still coming in, sorry about the lack of photos so far, they are on their way!