The End is Near

We finally arrived in Guwahati at 11:00am after our overnight train. Unloading the Jungle Tuk did not go as smooth as we had hoped. The door we used to load the rickshaw onto the train was a few inches wider than the one we were using to unload. 10 people grabbed a hold of the Jungle Tuk and shoved it out the narrow door of the luggage car at the expense of both fenders. 

They were mad that we didn't want to pay them after they had damaged the Jungle Tuks once pristine exterior. We pushed the Jungle Tuk to the other end of the platform and down a ramp towards the exit. We were halted by armed guards who told us to go to the parcel office and exchange our transit documents for a shipment release slip. This made absolutely no sense at all because the conditions of our transport stated that we were responsible for securing, loading, and unloading the Jungle Tuk. A 20min hike to the parcel office at the other end of the train station led to a 30min wait for the official to finally hand over the release slip and we were allowed to enter Guwahati. We had originally planned to make the 90km trip to Shillong under our own power but after breaking down on the first bridge in Guwahati it became clear that the Jungle Tuk was in no mood for steep mountain roads. 

We were towed to a place with many trucks and began the lengthy negotiations. Things looked grim with the drivers demanding outrageous prices for a 90km journey. A gentleman made a phone call and found someone willing to take us for a lower but still outrageous price. We agreed and set off to find a ATM. First three ATMs had no cash so it was quite the trek. Upon returning with the cash we were told that the price had now more than doubled while we were looking for a ATM. Some soothing words in a calm tone from the mouths of team Bare Necessities let the truck drivers know how happy we were about their honesty and integrity. Just when the team began to lose hope a truck pulled up and agreed to the original price. The friendly jeep operators and locals assisted us with the loading of the Jungle Tuk, and we set off into the mountains for one last ride. Along the way, we saw many teams making the final sprint to the finish. We shouted and waived as we rode by feeling a little bummed that we could not drive ourselves. We received warm welcomes at the finish line from the adventurists crew and other teams who helped us lift the Jungle Tuk from the back of a truck for the last time. We even managed to fire it up and drive onto the finishing platform. We wrote our names on the board and gladly handed over our keys and paperwork. Finding a hotel in Shillong was a bit of a nightmare, but after visiting seven hotels, we finally had our accommodations secured. For the first time in 3 days we were able to plug in our devices, connect to wifi, take a shower, eat real food, and sleep in real beds. On a side note it turns out the case of beer we brought all the way from Jaisalmer will come in handy because of the strange new liquor laws in Shillong. 


Planes Trains and Auto-semi-mobile-rickshaws

Team Bare Necessities has utilized a plethora of modes of transportation during their quest to reach the fabled city of Shillong: 36 hours of plane rides; a taxi; thousands of kilometers behind the handlebar of the untrusty steed, The Jungle Tuk; 2 tows behind other rickshaws; and 3 rides in the back of a truck.

After team Bare Necessities endured a 17 hour, police escorted, ride in the back of a truck from Dumka, the search was on for another truck. All of the offers the team could solicit were for 15000 rupies to get from Shiliguri to Guwahati. Well beyond the teams budget.

Running on daydreams of a good nights sleep at a hotel, the decision was made to press on with what was left of the third piston in the Jungle Tuk. Avoiding the road with a higher speed limit and large hills, Team Bare Necessities bore straight into a traffic jam the next town over. Snarled in the tightest gridlock known to man directly in front of a police officer, the Jungle Tuk threw a hissyfit in perfect toddler form... Time for a time-out on the shoulder.

We spotted some blokes next to a truck and tried to hire a lift. Offers again were exorbatant and out of our price range. As is customary according to locals, we sought answers to complex questions at a nearby school with our new friends. There, the idea to take the train started to take shape.

We let everyone know we were in a hurry, so they took us to their families before directing us to the train station.

Pushing the Jungle Tuk up and down ramps throughout the train station, nobody was able to point us in a helpful direction. We missed 5 Trains to Guwahati while getting tickets and permission to load the Jungle Tuk onto a train. Even the locals who spoke English were astonished by the hoops we had to jump through for the officials.

10 hours after we were dropped off in Shiliguri, we were finally prepared to leave. The Jungle Tuk was loaded in the back of the train, and the door was sealed. Suddenly, their was a ruckus, the seal was broken, anddoor was opened. The locals began ransacking the Jungle Tuk. We had to quickly unload the rickshaw, damaging the fenders, and move it to the front of the train. Setteling in for a long ride on the train, we met a nice family from Nepal that helped us navigate the stations and translate for us.

Our dreams of a night in a hotel withered away to the barely padded seats of second class while we sustained ourselves on bags of roasted peanuts.

Running nearly on empty, we were still better off than our dead phones and dilapidated rickshaw.

Before the family from Nepal left us to fend for ourselves, they found a young chap willing to help us unload at Guwahati in the morning.

Stay tuned for the next installment.

Cheers,

TBN

Breakdowns and Police Stations

We awoke in our hot non AC guesthouse room feeling like we had not rested at all. We grabbed our things, threw them in the Jungle Tuk, and began pushing it to a mechanic. Locals swarmed and eventually we found a mechanic who didn't know exactly what the problem was but he didn't like our 2 day old piston/cylinder setup. He wanted to replace it, but they did not have the correct part in Dumka. We decided a truck was in order, but a nice gentleman who spoke some English explained that we could not technically leave West Bengal in a truck because there was an election in progress... It made more sense in his English. He even said that we might be able to get government permission to leave the area if we spoke to the police chief. Corwin stayed with the Jungle Tuk, while Bryan climbed onto a motorcycle with the two people we had just met, and they went to the police Chiefs office. This wasn't a standard police office; it was surrounded by guards with AK-47s slung over their shoulders. The police chief told Bryan that he would like to send an officer with our team as an escort in order to keep us from running into any trouble. Our friends took us to a nice hotel where we could shower before our trip. We were negotiating with the truck drivers on how much we would pay to get our rickshaw to Siliguri, but we could not afford the prices that they wanted to charge. So our friends called the Police chief back and set up another meeting with him. We drove to a different office where he had a bunch of high-ranking officials sitting around his desk there were also two people from the local press there. He explained to Bryan that because we were doing this for charity, he wanted the police department to donate the truck and the police escort for our journey to Siliguri. A short press interview and a lot of photos later we were loading the jungle tuk into the truck for our journey.  

With Corwin and I riding in the jungle tuk, the journey was supposed to take 7 hours and the ETA for Siliguri was 9:00pm. Unfortunately, this is India, road construction plagued our entire journey and we ended up in Siliguri 17 hours later. The ride was unbelievably bumpy and only one person, the one in the backseat, could really fall asleep. The person in the driver seat was continually thrown around and had to stay awake to avoid smashing there head into the different parts of the rickshaw. It was a long night for team Bare Necessities. 

Dumka?

Team Bare Necessities started out strong. Stopping every 30-40 km to let the engine cool, things were going great...

The engine started bogging and dieing every few km. It is hard to convince a mechanic something is wrong when you can drive to and from there shop.

We have no idea what's wrong, or if the city we were towed to has the parts we may need.

From Dumka, TBN

Burning rubber

A big shout out to the students who took Team Bare Necessities in last night and feed them when their hotel plans fell through. They humbly refused payment and encouraged everyone to pay it forward. Anyways, they now have a shiny US quarter and US flag pin to remember team Bare Necessities by.

The early bird gets the worm, and Team Bare Necessities hit the road early. Well before temperatures Rose into the hundreds, yet again. Team Bare Necessities ran into Two teams this morning and let one of them borrow a funnel to fill up on gas.

Against all of the advice of all of their advisors, they set off through the state of Bihar. While searching for a place to take a break and let the engine cool, Bryan found 10 rupees (15 cents USD) on the side of the road. As the sun set, the engine was ready for another cool down. A cheap open roadside cafe was just the ticket.

After an hour and a half of night driving up strap hills, the Jungle Tuk came to a stop for the last time today after logging 307 km.

The plan for tomorrow is simple... Keep making up the distance we lost due to mechanical issues.

Keep it classy,

TBN

And for our next act, how to breakdown 6 times in 10 km

Today we got a great early start. We cruised along at a fairly slow pace per our mechanic's instructions, stopping every 30 km to let the engine cool. The strategy for team Bare Necessities is now "slow and steady." This was working fine until we saw the our Canadian friends as they overtook us with blinding speed in the shark toothed Tuk Tuk. I think they may be using some sort of performance enhancing substance because they were flying at tremendous speed at the hottest time of day. Our poor Jungle Tuk could never take that punishment nor would we mistreat our trusty Tuk Tuk that way....again. ...

The breakdowns

Yes the part you are all looking for, here it is for all the world to see.

Breakdown 1: driving uphill on one of those long overpass bridges the engine suddenly cuts out, with no shoulder, we were forced to push the Jungle Tuk uphill in traffic and over the bridge until we could finally pull off and assess the damage. After a quick inspection we decided the problem was too much oil in our fuel mix. We were able to push our way to a gas station to drain the fuel and add more gas to the current mix. Bryan managed to suck in a nice mouthful of mixed gas that was quite hot from baking in the Indian sun all day. We were soon on our way again.

Breakdown 2-6: less than 2 km from the fuel station(see breakdown #1) we sputtered to a stop on yet another road with no shoulder. More pushing, a few profanities and we ended up push-starting the Jungle Tuk and off we went until..... A few hundred meter later down it goes. This time Bryan decides to pull the spark plug and finds that he had only hand tightened the new plug back at the fuel station. With the plug tightened, we started off again confident we had solved all of our problems......how wrong we were as the Jungle Tuk sputtered to a stop again! This time we were confident it was the carburetor. Having watched the mechanic fiddle with the carb during our throttle "repair," Bryan took control of this one by randomly turning screws on the carb while during a later breakdown, Corwin pulled the air filter. The cycle of stopping and starting continued until we reached our new hotel destination only to find that they had no vacancy. We were able to limp our way to a truck-stop. Luckily in India the truck stops have private AC rooms, they serve fresh naan, and they will run out to get you a cold beer if you ask nicely.

That's it for now. Stay tuned for our next post it will likely involve a trip to the mechanic.

Past the Taj

The long awaited blog post is finally here. Unfortunately last nights hotel did not have wifi and cell reception cut twice as we tried to post. Everything was lost... So here's the gist of what happened yesterday while we are already on the road today.

It was an early morning for team Bare Necessities. We are stopping and letting the engine cool every 30 km. At one such stop we encountered a nice restaurant and had a hardy breakfast.

Soon, being a relative term, we entered the city of Agra. Determined to get a proper throttle cable, we went to two mechanic shops and a parts store with the assistance of another taxi driver.

We were told the correct throttle cable does not exist in India, but we were able to get our muffler fully attached after a previous mechanic forgot to attach it. We had our throttle cable ziptied together. It should hold. We think.

We tried to find a nice shot of the Taj Mahal, but cell phones died, drivers were lost, mayhem unleashed, locals confused,and wheels kept on turnig. We caught a glimpse as we left town.

It was a hot day, which meant we needed to take many long breaks to keep our engine cool. One one of those breaks we found the best dal we have ever had.

As the sun set, we rolled into Etawah. The streets were jammed and roads suddenly ended.

Finnaly we made it to our hotel.

We headed to the restaurant down stairs to plan the rest of our route. Somehow we turned a dry restaurant into a bar as we did our arith-math-tic to conclude that we need to average 202 km per day to finish on schedule.

Stay tuned for more posts as we are already two stops in to our drive this morning.

Cruzin' then a Bruisin'

Team Bare Necessities started the day off by perfectly tuning their clutch with yet another zip tie, ensuring the Jungle Tuk would enter beast mode.

Team Bare Necessities saw 6 other teams during a 200+ km breakdown free run. Then the adventure started.

The engine cut, and team Bare Necessities was forced to coast onto the cold unforgiving shoulder of NH11.

So began the troubleshooting process.

Is it broken? Yep. Does not start or run. Fuel? Flowing. Spark? Yep. Sparkplug? Fouled. Compression? Less than normal.

So team Bare Necessities did what any normal team would do... They removed the cylinder head. Things looked unhappy, but hey, it's a rickshaw after all.

At this time another team showed up. Same questions,same conclusion. What is wrong with this thing.

At this time a taxi driver arrived with the same make of riskshaw as ours.

Same questions, different conclusion. Let's tow these guys.

Arriving at the first mechanics shop of the day, the same questions were asked, and another conclusion. Let's try a longer sparkplug, which produced disastrous results.

The friendly the taxi driver took team Bare Necessities to another shop. Same questions, final conclusion. The piston rings are seized and the cylinder walls are scoured beyond usability.


As I write this blog the engine is being reassembled.

To be continued when Team Bare Necessities learns their fate.

UPDATE: The engine works, and so does the throttle (for now). The throttle cable is currently a mishmash of parts and cables.

Six hours after the break down, Team Bare Necessities was back on the road in search of a hotel. 2 hours of slow engine break-in night time driving later, team Bare Necessities found a room for the night along the highway.

Mechanical prowess

Three rickshaws stayed at the same hotel. All three went to the same mechanic. Only one under its own power.

After sitting in the bed of a truck most of the day yesterday, the Jungle Tuk was deemed roadworthy after the installation of a spring. Team Bare necessities hit the road with a bright and early alpine start at 10:30 am. We made great progress until the inevitable happened... On a desolate dirt road... The Jungle tuk was stuck in reverse. The culprit, ANOTHER MISSING SPRING. Armed with zip ties, Bryan and Corwin were soon buzzing along again just in time to catch a glimpse of Men Off Track.

A short while later while fueling, the fuel shutoff valve was left off and caused an embarrassing merge back on to the highway. Farther down the road the Jungle Tuk groaned as the engine stopped on its own fruition. Before Corwin could get the camera ready, Bryan already had the Jungle Tuk running with a new spark plug. Unfortunately, the fuel shutoff valve was closed during the repair. Even more unfortunate, it was not turned back on.

We also learned that toll roads present their own unique challenges. Apparently rickshaws do not fit through the motorcycle Lane in a violent way. Six men latter the Jungle Tuk was free to run wild on the highway again.

A googled hotel in mind, team Bare Necessities was ready to end their day when the Jungle Tuk stopped shifting. Narrowly tipping and having to constantly bump start the Jungle Tuk, the team dodged construction and made it to a mechanic. The local mechanics greenhorn mechanic disassembled the cable linkage for the clutch. Bryan identified the problem, a missing bolt for the gear selection linkage. As soon as the bolt was installed and the clutch almost tuned, the team was dogged by construction and busy streets as they found their googled hotel with no vacancy. Three hotels latter the team had a place to stay.

Day two- making a comeback

After three mechanics, two tow trucks, and 6000 rupees, our rickshaw is back in fighting shape. Turns out the "rare" part that was needed to fix the clutch was a five centimeter long spring that can be installed without taking anything apart. For day 2 we are heading towards Jaipur. ![Uploading file...]()