Alipur Duar, India
Been on the road for 3.5 hours now after a good 5.20am start. The roads have been pretty kind so far, seeing a lot of good tarmac at the moment, relatively at least. Lee is at the controls for this first stint, and we've just crossed the state border from Assam into West Bengal, our third state so far. Jabba is doing well and we've fortunately not had any real issues yet other that a few bumps and a couple of bolts vibrating off. Some of the other teams haven't been so lucky. On the good roads we can easily overtake all the trucks and buses, which we're quite suprised at given our total weight. Currently approaching Alipur Duar and planning to keep driving all day and try to reach the Nepal border tonight, about 8 hours away if we can keep this pace up. We have a great view of the Himalayas off in the distance in Butan, can't wait to get a bit closer. Bob
Assam, India
We're staying in a very grim motel tonight as the landscape so far doesn't lend itself to camping. This place has it all, cockroaches, spiders, and even a lizard in our room. No air con so we're all currently laying on our bed dripping with sweat as it's so got here, even in the dead of night. We've been out to a "restaurant" tonight with some of the other teams. It was located in bodged together room above some small shops, up a ladder! Not exactly five star but it was tasty and very cheap, about £1.50 each. Most people on the rally have good vegetarian for ugh trip, wisely so given some of the meat we've seen for sale on the streets. I went for some Paneer Massala and Naan, but Lee and Tesh are being wimps and stuck to a plain potato pancake. Sleeping is going to be difficult from this heat and humidity but we want a 6am start to try and get near the Nepal border. Bob
Assam, India
After getting blessed, all the tuk tuks set off in one long line, led by a vintage 1940s Jaguar. Lee had won the toss to drive us over the start line, and did us proud driving down the winding mountain road toward our first main town. After having seen nothing but a couple of drops of rain since being here, not half an hour after we set off the heavens opened and we experienced the first of the monsoon weather. The roads turned to rivers, and the sheer drops to our sides seemed all that much closer. Lee handled it really well, as well as the never ending trucks over taking just inches away. We've also discovered just how exposed to the elements we are, particularly the passengers in the back, as we ended up drenched. At least it was still warm enough that it didn't matter too much, but we'll probably try and add some makeshift side curtains. We've now made it to Guwahati. Bob.@
Meghalaya, India
After a lot of waiting we finally got our accelerator cable replaced and went for a last practice spin. Then we ran out of fuel. We've been to buy a jerry can and fuel to take with us now to prevent such problems again. We've just been watching some traditional dances by local tribes f ** some text is missing **
Meghalaya, India
Early Technical Issues - We've been using all our spare time to get to grips with our rickshaw - Jabba. Driving the beast on local rural roads around the storage depot. Driving Jabba has definately been a challenging experience, as we've had to master the alien controls and also avoid the crazy Indian drivers (kamikaze might be more appropriate). However we wish this was the worst of our troubles, as we've had a number of technical issues over the past couple of days. First off we've broken down about 4 times with fuel issues and today on our second session with Jabba we snapped the throttle cable and this final issue left us stranded for about an hour. As they say - every cloud has a silver lining and we'd rather discover these issues now than when we're on the run. We hope so anyway. Tesh@
Kitchen Sink
Let's cut to the chase here. This Rickshaw thingy isn't a walk in the park and as Mr. T once famously said (...well he did say it in the A-Team once) "Hey fool, this ain't no football game!". This challenge is going to need some serious kit and of the right calibre for the job. We have to remember that we're three muscular chaps (some portlier than others - I'm not mentioning names), with three heavy bags plus our tent, but our 2 stroke rickshaw will only have 7 BHP and a maximum permissible payload of 333kg. So taking our rough body weight into account, a maximum payload of 333kg leaves us about 80 - 90 kg for all of our equipment. I know what you're thinking. Three guys can surely pack within these princely limits, but you have to appreciate we're covering nearly 3000 kilometres, across some of the most challenging environments in India and likely to be driving for 10 hour stints regularly. Doesn't sound so easy in essentially an L plate scooter with 3 seats, 3 muscular chaps and 90kg of baggage aboard!
 So how do we intend to overcome this little problem? By ensuring we only furnish ourselves the lightest and most compact equipment we can possibly find. Anyone can walk into a high street store and buy a sleeping bag, but we're not going to do that. That would be too easy and wouldn't really help our weight situation (again I'm not mentioning names - It's not how I roll). A standard sleeping bag will weigh roughly 1.5 kg, but an ultra light sleeping bag that is just as suitable will only weigh about 500 - 800 grams. A standard 3 berth tent will weigh roughly 6-7kg, but a lightweight tent providing exactly the same functionality will weigh a paltry 3.5 kg. I think you get the gist of how just much weight we can save. Ultimately the aim is that we can keep the collective baggage weight down below 50kg, with the added bonus of saving space also.
Given that it's only 6 weeks before we set off from gorgeous Gatwick, we'll need to start shopping like a euro million rollover winner. I can however reveal that we're well underway to having all of the equipment we require for our month travelling across India in a rickshaw. Well I hope so anyway.
*Tesh*
