, Teesta, West Bengal

made it to the bottom of the valley by walking her the rest if the way and Korma chameleon in front. Looking for petrol station and going to change the fluid. Nice slow drive.@

West Bengal, India

early morning start a lot of ground to cover in the next 2 days. Found a great route out of town with the help of a local, dropped 1200m in 30mins, feels like it's going to be a good day. What's baz doing? Why is he looking for the hand break? Oh shit, no breaks at all!! Tex is yelling "put it it in the wall!" my jandel doesn't seen to be slowing us down either... Some great driving from baz with some reprieve from the gradient on the road we manage to stop. No pressure at all in our breaks, still 10km of mountain to go. Engine bay is smoking. Waiting for the breaks to cool (changing our name to breaks on fire) and bleeding the fluid. 15min later all seems well. Tex is moved to Korma chameleon to help reduce the weight & they will be driving point to act as a buffer incase it happens again.

Wow

So here we are in Darjiling, staying in a lovely old colonial hotel, full buffet, silver service, high tea in the garden, more hardwood and marble than you can shake a stick at.... it is stunning (I'm not sure how Rickshaw Run it is though). We're ahead of where we hoped to be, so have opted to spend 2 nights here in these solubrious surroundings to recharge our batteries and rest our sore and tired backsides! Having said that, we were up at 4am today (earliest yet!) to watch sunrise hit the Himalayas. Very lovely I must say. Korma Chameleon and Keep Korma and Curry On were there with us, even though poor Al looked like death warmed up after a very rough night of tummy troubles. Today is going to be spent sleeping, wandering the markets, doing some washing and enjoying the buffet 

The last few days have been interesting to say the least. After 13 hours on the road, we arrived into Mirzapur after dark and Bob had to drive through rush hour to find the accomodation that Charmaine had found for us online while sitting poolside in Mallorca (thank you darling, saved our lives!) The Indian Tourist Board recommendation however may need to be reviewed, as this was where India finally got to my stomach.  

After a less than restfull night, we hit the road for Patna. A pretty uneventful drive, except when we left the eastern motorway to head north and ended up on a farm track, between two drainage ditches, in the heat of the day, not sure if we were still on the map. In India, the horn is used to convey everything, from "I'm passing you", to "Hi", to "thanks for letting me pass", to "get out of my way before I squash you like a bug". The latter one generally being from buses, who are not speed limited like the trucks. In Patna however, they use the horn simply becasue it is there. Loudest traffic we've been in, and very hard on hearing, so it was nice to find the hotel and offload the bags and Bob, who was over the traffic by that stage. Tex and I then headed into town to find a mechanic to fix the days damage. The farm track had broken the roof frame again, the muffler mounts had finally given in and the gas tank bracket had snapped. So some more "velding" and a new muffler mount and we were on our way. We decided that the cable tie holding the gas tank would continue to do the trick.

From Patna to Purnia, there are 2 main options. South, along the "main road" (by now we fully appreciate that the road descriptions on the map are less than accurate), this being the shorter route, but possibly slower due to the quality of the road surface. Or north, over the longest bridge in India (7.5km) and along the highway (highways we have found to be pretty much as a westerner would expect a highway to be), this being the longer route, but should have a faster average speed. We opted for the faster option, hoping to be in the bar by 2pm. The bridge was of the usual high standards that we have found Indian infrastructure to be (?!?!), the most disconcerting part being the fact that each section of bridge would move up to 30mm in height as the trucks passed over it, so it felt like you were on a teeter totter at the fair! We then carried on north, through various villages and along passable roads. Then we hit highway 57. It was fine for the first hour or so, then it all started to go very, very, wrong. This highway was on both the maps we had, but whoever drew those was way ahead of their time. The roadway is banked up 10 - 15m above the surrounding countryside, so we're belting along this nice stretch of tarmac, hardly any traffic at all, when up ahead the tarmac finishes and it turns into a dirt road. This dirt road, quickly becomes what appears to be a ploughed field, which we battled through for while, until we saw up ahead that they were building a concrete bridge to link the 2 sections of raised "roadway". The dirt road, come field, did not reach the bridge however and we had to double back, drop off the side of the "road" down a dirt ramp, down a track to the level of the fields, pass around the base of the bridge, up another dirt track and back onto what quickly became tarmac again! Wow, that's wierd we thought and carried on..... until we cam to the next bridge they were still building. I lost count how many time we had to drop off the tarmac, around the base of the bridge and back up, but it got pretty thin, pretty quickly! Then, 20km south of the border with Nepal, again driving along the base of a bridge (this one was increbily long), by now driving throigh sand rather than dirt, we came across a gentleman with a machine gun, who was not letting us pass no matter how we pleaded (it didn't help that he didn't speak English and we don't speak Hindi). We managed to flag down a passing car and the occupants that could speak English were nice enough to translate for us that the guard did not believe the TukTuks could handle to road ahead. We explained that the humble TukTuk, whilst looking like a city vehicle with limited range, was in fact the best all terrain vehicle ever made and would handle he road ahead "no problem, no problem". After some convincing and the guard explaining that we would have to pay a tractor to tow us out when we got stuck, he let us pass. Result! To be honest, I haven't had so much fun since I rode dirt bikes up 90mile beach! It was thick sand for the next god knows how many miles, through sand dunes that were 10m high on either side, we could have been driving on the moon, we had no idea where we were. Apart from one incident where an oncoming 4x4 stopped our progress and Korma Chameleon got bogged down, the hardy Tuks handled the situation as we had predicted, "no problem, no problem"! We then rejoined highway 57..... and the road, no road, road, no road started up again. So after 13.5 hours, the last 1.5 hours in the dark, we got to Purnia and were lucky to stimble across the oasis otherwise known as Hotel Shine. A/C, clean rooms, room service, we were in heaven.

 So yesterday, on the road at 6am as usual, for the 4 hour (we hoped) drive to Shiliburi. As we left Purnia, the surrounding countryside just became more lush and green, the air sweeter and cleaner, and Little Tuk (as our TukTuk is now known) just ate up the miles, so for the first time in ages we actually arrived somewhere when we said we would! Shilibury felt like a different place entirely to the last few days. The people up here have more oriental features than elsewhere in India, the streets were cleaner, the faces more friendly. Then the climb into the mountains to Darjiling began, and what a great drive that was. You curl up through twisting roads, through dense green forest, passing through super friendly villages where everyone has a smile and a wave for you. It was great. Half way up, the lack of 1st gear got to be a bit much (we had lost it the day before...... or was it the day before that?) so we pulled over to fix it when the road ran out and the roadworks had started. A hillslide slip had wiped out the road 3 months ago and the locals were busy rebuilding it by hand pretty much. While I tinkered with the clutch cable, the boys went up the hill to help out (and clear a path for us). The local Gurkah people are not big, 5 foot tall and 60kg would be the average I would guess, so when Tex and Aln turned up, who towered over the locals and between them weigh over 200kg, they were quickly pointed toward the largest rocks! Clutch fixed, road cleared and friends made, we continued on our ever increasing merry way. More friendly villages, a spot more welding when the roof snapped again and we arrived into Darjiling abaout 4pm. We had decided to splash out, but when we drove our very dirty Tuks up to the gates, the guard said they were full. Unhappy, we were about to head to our second option when the manager came out and said they had room for us. Another good result!      

As we parked our Tuks, one of the Italian teams pulled in to take high tea in the garden. They had taken the east coast route and arrived a day ahead of us and had stayed at another hotel. While we checked in, another two teams arrived (by taxi from Shiliburi.... ?) to have dinner before heading back down the hill. We showered (hot water!!!!) and popped into town for our first beer in 5 days. Came back for a warming whiskey (it's cold up in the mountains, 26 degrees!) then went through to a delicious buffet, where we discovered Keep Korma and Curry On had checked in too. A few beers with dinner and our conversation soon cleared the room of all the other diners (some of whom included the Butanese royal family), before hitting the pit.

Off into town now to buy tea, what else!

Bihar, India

our shortest day turned into our longest. National high way 57 disappeared and was replaced with a sandpit for 6-7hrs... Leaving us about an 1.5hr short of our target town after sundown, so our first night time motorway drive - will try to avoid that again.

Bihar, India

tuk muffler fixed last night & running smooth again - as well as expected anyway. Had been told purnia was only 4 hrs away and today would be easy and that we might even be able to make Darjiling tonight and spend tomorrow there, but as things go, we've been driving for 4hrs already and still 230km from purnia. Korma chameleon stopped for directions and ended up picking up a couple of passengers. And we got the radio working again! 2 day without, a welcome change the purr of the engine and truck horns.

Bihar, India

today was meant to be the end of the long days, 10hrs definitely not our longest but the days are hot and the team is tired. Into Patna now & it's all horns horns horns. To hot and tired for this today.

Bihar, India

almost midday, turned off the motorway to soon and ended up driving along some backwater path that needed just a little repair work. The muffler is literally hanging on by a thread (a bit of wire suspending from the frame) should be in patna by 3, looking forward to a cold beer.

Uttar Pradesh, India

end of day 8. We didn't make Varanasi today, about 70km short, 390km in total. Chased the sun into mirzapur after more than 13hrs driving. No hotel lined up and the first one we found was fully booked but have found something now which gave me my first night time driving experience. Highlights from today include, being run of the road by a couple of trucks, half dogs, upturned vehicles, pot holes, speed, police, eating bisects for breakfast, tex cutting himself changing the tire & thinking we might loose our muffler in the next couple of days. But we are now a day up and looking forward to shorter drives for the rest of the trip.

Uttar Pradesh, India

end of day 8. We didn't make Varanasi today, about 70km short, 390km in total. Chased the sun into mirzapur after more than 13hrs driving. No hotel lined up and the first one we found was fully booked but have found something now which gave me my first night time driving experience. Highlights from today include, being run of the road by a couple of trucks, half dogs, upturned vehicles, pot holes, speed, police, eating bisects for breakfast, tex cutting himself changing the tire & thinking we might loose our muffler in the next couple of days. But we are now a day up and looking forward to shorter drives for the rest of the trip.

Madhya Pradesh, India

1pm pulled into Rewa to review our progress. Roads had been poor and had to stop for some more welding to the tuk. After about 2min discussion and talk of a cold beer we have decided to go for Varanasi, but will likely end up in mirzapur. Hopefully we'll be able to meet up with bunny chow chow express on day 9 - sounds like they have been having problems since Goa and had to put there tuk on a train & truck.