The finish line...

After travelling some 4374km over 13 days, we finally crossed the finish line at Shillong a little after 2pm. Korma Chameleon showed its extra pace on the up to overtake the hapless Tuktukonfire and take the title of 42nd (out of 70) finisher in the Spring 2011 Rickshaw Run. Of course it never was a race, was it Bob!? And as we pulled out of the finish line to finally park the shaw, Raj managed one last stall, we're going to miss that tuk.

Was a huge feeling of relief to cross the line and lay Leroy to rest. We had our doubts about him on the first couple of days, but from that point forward, he never put a foot (paw?) wrong. Up and down some pretty steep terain in Darjeeling, through the sandpit that was supposed to be the National Highway 57, through the jungles, deserts, forests, tea plantations, coconut farms and down the many footpaths that enabled us to make up so much ground at truckstops, Leroy was a champ. The auto-rickshaw has definitately won a few fans from us on this trip. I suspect Dave and Rossco from the Bunny Chow Express may not be feeling as much love, having spent some 40 hours with their tuk getting fixed at various mechanics finally to put the vehicle out of its misery some 1000km from the finish line.

We became known as the Tuktukonfire Pit Crew due to their continued need for the tool kit we possessed. They may have mocked the tool kit at the start, but all was taken back pretty quickly into the trip. 24 pounds from Argos. Bargain. They had their fair share of troubles too, mainly losing all brakes on the way down from Darjeeling. I've lost count of how many times we got the signal to pull over, and that they needed some more welding done. On the way up to the finish line, we were stuck in some pretty hectic traffic, then the heavens opened. We've never seen rain like it, of course this part of India is actually the wettest place on the planet. The rain was horrendous. We had tuktukonfire in front of us... with petrol... then no petrol. Next thing Baz jumped out of the car to push, Bob... a little slower behind, to get the vehicle off the road. We probably could have gotten out to help, but the rain... you should have seen the rain!

We did manage to see a wide variety of animals whilst we were on the road. Unfortunately for them, they were too. "Sleeping Dog" became a common call along the way, some dogs were more asleep than others. We also managed to see some not so sleepy monkeys, dolphins, elephants, water buffalo, plenty of cows, rabid dogs, chickens, goats and some massive bird of prey we have no idea what it was. Lets call it a Central Indian Bird of Death. The final party didnt hold as much energy as the starting one. People were truly shattered after some very long days on the road, some teams driving 30 hours straight to make the finish line. We did manage to get properly Indian and travelled to the event whilst riding on the top of a bus. Pretty sure our insurance didnt cover that one. Was great to see some of the other teams and hear some of the stories. A couple that spring to mind:

- one team arrived late into one town, and got befriended by some locals who helped them out, took them around town to help them get their tuk fixed and find a hotel etc. They exchanged details and waved goodbye the next morning. 2 hours down the road the realised their $2000 camera was missing. So they called their friends to see if they had seen it. They hadnt, but suggested they drive back to make a statement to the police for insurance purposes. They arrived and their friends took them to the police station. The police were friendly and asked if they had any suspicions of who might have taken it. They said the werent sure, but suggested it may have been the locals that had been so friendly. The police took one of the friendly locals away, interrogated him, and he admitted to having taken it. I'm not sure what interrogation methods they use in India, but they seem to be highly effective. 

- many teams told stories of being driven off the road, into ravines, getting hit by truck, rolling their tuks, the worst injuries were broken colar bones, and missing skin, so not too bad on the whole. 

- a few teams made it to the Karma Sutra Temple. Enough said.

- a poor fella (not Taj luckily) got bitten by a dog. 

- we were curious on the first day to see the three teams from Hong Kong (the first ever Chinese team to take part, they were extremely proud of this) had no luggage... we asked why... and they said it was all in the 4x4 support vehicle they had to help them along the way. Totally against the spirit of the event, but turns out they only made it as far as Mumbai and gave up, pretty poor effort if you ask us.

Overall its been one hell of an epic adventure. Tuktukonfire were with us the whole way, Bob, Baz and Tex, we salute you! Unfortunatly we didnt see Dave, Chris and Ross from the Bunny Chow's after the first corner (literally) so we look forward to seeing them in Kolkata... sounds like they've had about as much adventures as all the rest of the teams combined. They even made it on TV.

If you go to: [http://goo.gl/mn2Zn](http://goo.gl/mn2Zn) and click on "updates from the road" you'll find a good little montage (we need a montage!) that Bob has put together of the trip. Emotional stuff.

A big thanks to all those that have donated on the just giving site (theres a link on the left if you havent yet) its a great cause, and the money donated will make a difference, and the charity, Urban Search of Rescue, is close to both Raj and Taj, given the events in Christchurch earlier this year

And thats it. Done. Bring on the Adventurists African Rally.... who's with us?

Rehydration Sachets...

After the thrill of the sunrise over the mighty Himilaya's, we visited a monastry and watched 200 Monks in prayer, their incantations were captivating and gave us a small amount of insight into an ancient religion. And afterwards... it was time for some sleep. And in Taj's case, it couldnt come soon enough.

The wonder of Rehydration Sachets... the definitely perked Taj up for an afternoon visit to a Tibetan Refugee Centre to show some solidarity with the Free Tibet movement. The whole time Taj would have just settled for some solidarity in his own movements.

Interesting place, intially set up for some of the 85,000 refugees that fled Tibet in the 1950's when the Chinese took over the country and began destroying the Tibetan culture. 

Some interesting stats about the Chinese takeover of Tibet:

- More than 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed

- More than 6000 monastrys and institutes have been destroyed

- 7.5 million Chinese have since migrated into Tibet and now outnumber the current 6 million Tibetans.

- Tibet is now used for dumping of nuclear and toxic waste by the Chinese. 

- The Chinese language is now mandatory and the Tibetan language is not encouraged and not recognised in government service. 

- India was attacked by China in 1962 and still hold 2500 sqkm of India territory. 

There's more, but we'll leave it there for now. We did buy some shawls to make our contribution to the centre. Not sure what they're made of, Llama perhaps. Dalai Lama that would be. See what we did there?

Taj then caught up with a work friend who was in town, staying with a girl from Masterton that has made Darjeeling her home... and has started a cake making business. Its a small world. 

Early start tomorrow... 4am kick off with some ground to cover to make up for our well deserved day off today. 

Raj & Taj

 

 

West Bengal, India

What a day. They said it couldn't be done. Today has by far been the most interesting of the trip so far. This is what the rickshaw run through India is all about. We headed off from Patna early with a view of getting across the Ganges, driving a couple of hours north before hitting National Highway 57 and taking it for 5 or so hours into Purnia. There by lunchtime for a quiet and well deserved beer. The map made it look oh so easy. What the map didn't tell us, was that National Highway 57 hasn't been completed yet, and to be fair, most of it hadnt been started yet either. We only found this out 4 hours into the trip when a well armed policeman told us we werent allowed to cross this river and the following area in a tuk tuk. He said it couldnt be done. Our options: 1) Backtrack for 4 hours. No chance. 2) At his suggestion, head up into Nepal, which at one point was only 20km to the north and go around. No visas for Nepal. 3) Convince the man with the gun and no English to let us go past. He wouldnt have any of it. Finally a 4x4 came past and convinced the policeman to let us go through. They spoke a little English and explained they had told him they would give us a tow, for a price, if we got stuck. We rushed through quickly before he changed his mind. The 4x4 disappeared into the distance also. The next hour we spent driving through what felt like one big sandpit. Not a piece of tarmac in sight, and nothing but sand. We were now properly off road. And it was scenic. As it says on the tin, the rickshaw is the perfect vehicle for long distances off road, despite being designed for short distances on road. This is surprisingly true. We did get stuck, numerous times. Which means numerous times we had to get ourselves unstuck. But boy it was fun. We haven't had so much fun in a sandpit since we were 4. This fun all came to an end and we back onto a section of road which was alternating new tarmac for 1km, sand for 1km. We did drive through some clean and tidy villages, unusual for India so far, but the North is definitely a lot less developed than the south. It's all relative. This has all put us hours behind, so now it's 18:30, it's dark and we're doing what we swore after the first night never to do again, driving at night. 40km to go... Fingers crossed on this one... And we couldn't be more covered in dust from out off road adventure. Looking forward to a shower tonight, if we can find one. Taj & Raj.

Uttar Pradesh, India

13.5 hours on the road today. Epic. Now in Mirzapur, and shattered. What a day. Good news is we made up a day today and are now a day ahead of schedule. Now sitting in a slightly, actually, not slightly, extremely dodgy looking hotel restaurant were no one is brave enough to order more than a naan and rice. Some very cautious eaters we are after our day of Oreos and bourbon. Bourbon biscuits that is. We didn't arrive into town until after 7, which mean we have now ticked off the night time city driving box, the roads were rammed and Raj did a great job handling Leroy through the throws of people wanting to stick their heads in the shaw and say hello. We were mobbed and Bob Jones signed a few autographs today. Also managed to drive through a rampantly homosexual village, tuktukonfire getting a lot of attention there, we learnt a lesson about keeping receipts for toll gates, saw an over-turned truck and drove through a sandstorm, and had a very senior looking policeman pull over while we were taking a comfort stop... Lucky for us the police seem to be happier to talk about Daniel Vettori and Brendon McCullum than give us tickets. 3 times so far. Early morning tomorrow again, off to Patna, possibly via Veranasi. Taj & Raj

Madhya Pradesh, India

Just drove over the Tropic of Cancer, 52 degrees in the sun, 42 in the shade... Tuktukonfire got run off the road by an on coming truck as well, all ok though, Bunny Chow Express have their tuk on a train from Goa to Veranasi and have just finished an 18 hour ride in a truck to get to Hyderabad. Hopefully will see them in Veranasi tomorrow night. Raj just managed his first proper city drive. We've just left Rewa, mad dash north now...

Madhya Pradesh, India

following on from Raj due to space constraints with updating the blog via text... Yes the dual carriage way 'incident' ... As we'd seen so many cars, bikes, tuks, cows, goats on the wrong side already, it didn't even occur to us to do a u turn and correct the error... "when does the barrier end!! When does it end!!" yelled a slightly stressed Raj... Taj was more concerned with making sure the moment was captured on tape. Lucky we bought that horn. We've also come across a couple of drivers who speed ahead to stop and try to get us to stop and talk to them. Usually we keep going but today there was a truck driver with a death wish and a bigger step than Dom Maxwell. There was no way past so we stopped for a polite "where are you from, where are you going". We saw the same driver about 10 minutes later waving happily with a big cheesy smile from the 'correct' side of the road during the incident mentioned above. So that's 2400km covered, a little over half way. All going smoothly, touch wood, fingers crossed for a good day tomorrow, on the road for 5:30. Time for some zzzzz's.

Kurnool to Nizamabad to Nagpur

Days 5 and 6 involved a lot of time on the highway... the place we were warned about. Turns out... very few cars, a few cows, goats etc, but on the whole pretty good driving. Happy days. But then we hit Hyderabad. Ahhh Hyderabad...Raj had been doing a bit of driving leading up to the run into the city, so handed over the keys 25km out of Hyderabad for a rest, shortly after our little convoy was pulled over by some police who checked our papers but mainly just wanted to gawp at us. We hadn't experienced a real city(town) crush for a long time, al that was about to change. Hyderabad is a city of about 6million people, all of which seem to have a motorbike and a large percentage of whom happened to be using them as we drove thru the city at about 1pm....Taj did well to hide it, but there was certainly some anxiety in him as we careered into the madness of the city in hot pursuit of our convoy leaders (Tuk Tuk on Fire)....left over a bridge, some shouting from Raj..GO GO GO!!! a right into what must have been a bazaar, a scrape with a dude pushing his shaw...think we may have taken his side mirror with us...oops...and a mystery dent above our right rear wheel later and we were almost thru what we thought was the worst of it...then shortly after a u-turn to get back on the right and final road out of the city....a stall at a major intersection, followed by a release of some of the anxiety that Taj had been carrying with him thru the city...'She's gone!! She's gone!!! There's nothing there!! SHIT!!' yelled Taj....'Relax man, remeber the checklist!' Raj may or may not have replied....but it was too late, we both jumped out of the Leroyand pushed him to the side to let traffic past....a moment of serenity....and Taj found his mojo again to pull off a first start of the ignition, followed by another stall, then a start....then away...a brilliant piece of driving cutting across a set of lights into oncoming traffic (not an uncommon occurence) and we were back in hot pursuit of the Tuk Tuk fellas.....a pat on the now very sweaty back of Taj from Raj and a simultaneous sigh of relief from them both. 

So, that was Hyderabad...Taj has subsequently negotiated Nagpur with no issues at all, Leroy has taken a toll booth barrier on and won (with Raj at the helm) and after a quick once over from a mechanic in Nagpur, seems to be running as smoothly as ever.

Diet so far consists of:

1 meal a day

Shared Vege spring rolls (although Taj never actually wanted to share them)

Hottest chicken tikka the world has ever seen

Paneer 65 and Aloo 65 - turns out the have 65 spices...duh 

Biscuits that had to last over a couple of days

Some jungle bananas (the best EVER)

Some sweet bread

A tin of Wasabi peas

Road side coconuts 

PS - not all eaten in one day...we are very hungry, especially Taj who has actually managed a couple of training runs for the marathon he has to do when he gets back to London. Infact, he went fro a run in Nizamabad in some back streets only to be chased by 7 dogs for a block, good thing he has his rabies shots...oh hang on...no he doesn't!!! fair to say he touched cloth, and not because of what he had been eating...

So tomorrow we push on north on the highway again, up early (5:30am) but looking to take it easy as we are a little ahead so can hopefully spend some time at the next few places if we want.

 Stay tuned for further updates and if you use [http://rickshawrun11s.theadventurists.com/index.php?mode=tracking&sub=diary](index.php?mode=tracking&sub=diary) you can follow the run live... the map view shows where everyone is...

Wecome to India....

So here we are, we made it... India. After a long flight through Dubai we finally touched down into Kochi, in the south of India, just after 3am local time. Managed to find all our bags, get through customs (inefficiency isnt really too high on the list of importance here it seems) and managed to squeeze 5 of us, and all our gear into a taxi for the 40km ride to the hotel. We soon learned that passing on blind corners, and on the up part of hills was the norm and the continual beeping of the horn was compulsory. We're looking forward to getting on the road ourselves.

Home in time for a quick kip, then down to meet the beast. This is done by drawing your keys out of the bowl to decide whether you get a new or old rickshaw. With Raj having more experience in this department, it was decided that he would have a crack, and sure to form, he pulled out keys to a brand spanking new rickshaw. 

Now you would think these glorified lawn mowers would be easy to drive. We still havent found reverse. Lets hope some practice will help us along here, I'm sure we'll get plenty of it. 

We managed to find a helpful local to get us started on the pimping. His sunglasses didnt have any arms but still seemed to stay on his face. Most of the time.

So the 'shaw additions thus far;

New sweet paintjob

Team stickers, Pilot # 1 Tuk Tuk Taj / Pilot # 2 Rickshaw Raj and a big 'Korma Chameleon' on the back

Handle bar grips to save our delicate hands...

A flag pole for the soon to be added flag

And an impressive new horn, so loud it makes people flinch or jump when tooted at unexpectedly, it will do the job very nicely

So all that is left now is to agree a name for the beast, if anyone has suggestions we'd like to hear them. Plan is to christen it with a ceremonial beer bottle splashed across it's bow before we depart on Sunday, so get those names to us folks, add a comment to the blog below and we'll choose our favourite. Here's a picture to inspire you:


 

And we have to comment on the first nights festivities here, was great to meet a lot of new people and we managed to make a few new potential travelling companions.

Time to head now... the game of cricket against the locals begins in an hour... and just by looking at the standard of the youngsters in the park yesterday, we could be up against it.

The Tuk-tuk Taj and The Rickshaw Raj