Clean clothes

Am writing this from Vartanasi, spiritual home of Buddha and some of the scariest city driving seen yet.  Three things are a must for driving through Indian cities: an accelerator, agrresive nature and big f*ck off horn.  We have two of theser things, with an accelerator sorely missing at this point of the race.

Post Gorakhpur; one of the more ordinary towns you'll see on an Indian safari, drove through the night to a little town called Chittapur (?), truck stop in ricksha lanaguage.  Found the tropish dodgy motel, checked in then found the o9nly restaurant in town.  Served wicked dahl, rice and bread and rididulous black tea, and we all sat on top of tables with no chairs, cutlery or lighting available.  The two teams from rikki tikki taxi and Busta Naan have teamed up well, currently enjoying some R&R in a semi-plush hotel in downtown Varanasi.  First (cold) shower in three days was very much enjoyed.

Rickshaw is driing ok, tonight will make it four days since having to seek out a mechanic (harder when you don't speak Hini, even harder when everyone thinks ther'yre a mechanic).  Moving on, looking like we'll settle in here for tonight and possibly tomorrow, will then put the 'shaw on a train and head for Agra (Taj Mahal).  The lads from Ontweeb chose the NOrthern route and headed for Pokhara in Nepal, and while we were keen to join, we didin;t have as much faith in the vehicle and time was pressing.

Lastly, clothes are being washed since first time on the trip.  We stink, its 30+ degrees and beer is easier to find than water. Most of the annyoance we've had from locals is surely related to odor rather than disposition.

Dead dog count on the road is up to 3, but we did see a happy little fellow rolling round with half his head missing yesterday.  No sh*t.  Make it 3.5.

BN

 

 

 

 

 

Update From Gangtok

Well, about 6 days into our Indian adventure and so far no one is sick; although three square meals of curry a day does get a bit much! Day 1 Pete and I arrived in Kolkata at about 9am and caught a taxi into the middle of the city to find our hotel. To say the roads are insane is just doesn't do it justice! The number one piece of equipment you need to have on your car is a horn... breaks are second. I don't know how it works, but it does, and once you have gotten used to the horns and lack of any sort of official road rules you start to get a handle on how things really work. Crossing the road is really just about walking out at a constant speed and not getting phased by the horns being blown at you; they're just letting you know that a car is coming....I think anyway... Anyway, once at the hotel we had a snooze in air conditioned comfort and headed out into the craziness again. You're lucky to see one street sign in a 4 block area in Kolkata so we just walked around blindly until we found something interesting. Needless to say we attracted a lot of attention from the locals and once they found out we we're Australian they were quick to rattle off names like Ricky Ponting, Shane Warne etc.. That night we had a wander around some local markets and made ourselves a friend by the name of Khan, a local merchant selling everything from the finest (or so we were told) silk in India, to carved statues and swords. We went back to his shop for a glass of tea and a demonstration of how you can tell if silk is good quality...something to do with burning the ends of it!? After that we promised to come back for lunch in a couple of days with the rest of the boys once they arrived. The next few days in Kolkata were crazy and full on, so we were pretty happy to get out of there and catch our over night train to New Jalpaiguri. The train was surprisingly comfortable; we had a bed each and air conditioning and ended up sleeping most of the way. Once in NJP we had to catch a jeep four hours up the mountains to Gangtok but the morning we arrived there was a mass transport strike so we were stuck there overnight. No matter though, beds were cheap and there were places to eat and drink. The next day we got our jeep to Gangtok and after fours hours of crazy mountain driving we arrived in a stunningly beautiful city built on the side of mountains. This place is more Tibet than India and people are infinitely more chilled than in Kolkata; at most we get a few passing glances and not the 10 minute long stares we attracted down south! We are staying in a really nice hotel along with a whole lot of other rickshaw runners so the mood is pretty excited as you would imagine. We get to see our rickshaws for the first time today, and finish pimping them! We can updated our website along the via text message, so once they really interesting stuff starts we will let you all know what we have gotten ourselves into! Few points: - Any local we have told about what we're doing either just laughs and shakes their head, doesn't believe us, or offers to drive us in a jeep because they just don't believe it's possible to do it in a rickshaw! - Standing out the front of a busy train station in Kolkata was where we felt the most uncomfortable... the stares from people seemed less friendly curious and more.... 'Look at those westerners bags sitting there!'  (apart from that we have always felt fine) - It's really hard to say no to children beggars, but we made the mistake of buying a pack of gum off one and 2 seconds later there were 10 more of them around! - If you want to endear yourselves with locals, start up a cricket game! We did this in NJP and had 100 people playing 4 balls into the first over! Although I have to say, their bowling actions were extremely suspect! - Oh, and Pete and Matty are pretty sure they were kidnapped for a few hours one morning when they drunkenly let a taxi driver take them on a tour of Kolkata! I won't say exactly where they ended up but their request to be taken back to the hotel fell on deaf ears until about 9am...they had been gone since 4am! That's all for now! Keep checking back for updates once the race starts! Dave, Matty, and Alex