Day 13 - Home Straight
Today was our last big drive from Jodhpur 280km up to the palace in Jaisalmer.
We had a huge day ahead of us and wanted to make sure we made it the whole way up to Jaisalmer so we set our alarms for 5 and were on the road by 5:30. We were in the outskirts of Jodhpur when Elmer spluttered and conked out but we put it down to fuel so filled up from our Jerry and kept going. She spluttered and stopped again about 5 minutes after which was pretty demoralising as we tried to gear ourselves up for a very long day...after one more breakdown another 5 minutes up the road, we finally got the bit of cotton blocking our fuel line out of the carb and Elmer was golden.
With way too much confidence we thought we should get straight off the motorway and head along some back passes through the mountains and rural villages. We stopped at what turned out to be one of the pilgrimage water and food stations that people set up and pay for to help the pilgrims along their gruelling 700km walk. They didn't speak English but they watered and fed us, brought us tea, gave us this weird little nugget of bitter tasting something to make us strong, gave us bracelets and marked our foreheads with red dye, all while trying to understand what on earth we were doing there. They weren't very interested in money so as an attempt to thank them I went and dug out the chillam from the day before and gave it to them to have a go. Their eyes lit up and they promptly passed it around between themselves. We said our 'Tanyevars' ('thank yous' we think) and hit the road. We put in a really good stint and made it till about 1:30 after a few wrong turnings and deciding to travel along a dirt track through the desert rather than taking the motorway. We arrived at this small town in the baking heat and were ushered over to a guys food shack. There was a camel sat behind the Chapatti cook and about 30 guys staring at us wondering if they were hallucinating or not. We ordered 3 veg lunches but before they arrived this small old man appeared behind us and pulled this long ornate pipe out of a bag he was carrying. He squatted and just started playing to us on what seemed to be the Rajasthani version of bagpipes. Everyone including the locals came and watched him play to us and he continued sporadically playing through our meal. We were brought some lassis which is a traditional milky yoghurt type drink. Webby and Simon gave them a shot and after the first sip looked like they had regretted it. Simon ploughed on and finished his off much to the discontent of his digestive system. We got on the road and came across about 25 camels wandering along about 50m from the road. We stopped and went over to have a look. There were a couple of young guys herding them and we waved as we walked over. One of them immediately ran over to one of the camels with a dish, tied it's front leg and began milking it. He came over and offered it to us but while we hesitated he just necked the dish himself. A young guy pulled up on his motorbike and the farmer accidentally ripped off the windscreen while playing around, after realising they were pretty bonkers we said thanks and bye and kept moving.
After another 4 hours or so driving through some very arid and sparsely populated areas we saw the palace of Jaisalmer on top of a rocky outcrop in the distance. The sense of relief and achievement was overwhelming. Drenched in sweat, smelly, dusty and generally pretty disgusting we hauled our bags up through the palace entrance and made it up onto our rooftop guesthouse in one of the old palace wings. After some very long showers we got pole position on the rooftop lounging area and ordered 3 extremely well earnt kingfishers overlooking the city below.
We made it!
Day 12: the Pilgrimage
The penultimate day on the road was here. After leaving the amazing Udaipur, we headed north again for Jodhpur.
After an hour or so of boring roads, we nipped off into a small single track lane through the hills to our destination. We pulled over in a small town to get some "veg" snacks - within minutes some of the old men with weathered features but incredibly kind eyes offered Crosses some of their 'chilam' (an old smoking pipe), as a sign of greeting/peace to their village, we accepted. The oldest turbin wearing man of the group then produced a brand new chilum and got one of his young guns to say the word "gift" to us. He then went about doing a whip-round with a little bag and all the old men put some of their tobacco in there.
With it being 10am or so, we weren't really in the mood to be testing a pipe. However it was again such openess and kindness shown to us by people who had only known us for a 10 minutes. Feeling all warm and fuzzy cos we were given a gift, we got back in Elmer who then brought us back down with a series of undiagnosable breakdowns (not enough fuel but couldn't find any blockage) before lunchtime.
When a breakdown is undiagnosed, it pulls a slightly heavier emotional toll as there is little knowledge of when it might happen again. All hot and bothered, we pulled over in a town to get some water as this would help settle frustrations - before we knew it there was a group of people beckoning us to get out the car. We were quite frustrated so declined then really had to say no we need to go. The people were very insistent and they had all but blocked the way so we had no choice. We grudgingly got out and walked through a gauntlet of beaming smiles and then we were sat down in what appeared to be a barber shop (wierd but ok). From there a man wearing bright orange robes and an orange turbin appeared before us and started producing magic tricks with money and coins - he was performing for us (I appreciate the ridiculousness of this). The locals around us gave little claps when each trick was done. The frustration of our previous situation kind of flooded out of us due to the ridiculous situation that we'd landed ourselves in.
Throughout the whole of our journey to Jodhpur, we passed people walking, cycling, on tractors and motorbikes. All in a 250km long line with bright colours and loud music. This was an annual pilgrimage to a temple between Jaisalmer and Jodhpur. We later found out that these people were walking day and night to get to the temple for Monday. The pilgrimage is a once or twice in a lifetime thing to do and that 400,000 people attend every year. People will walk over 700km (a lot of them barefoot), some even crawl there. Having this procession brought us down to Earth when getting frustrated with our temperamental tuktuk.
Eventually after some more hours on the road, we arrived at Jodhpur. "The blue city" was amazing and we wandered round a few of the site's before settling on a rooftop restaurant that had been recommended by our hostel owner. As we sat down, the castle/fort that loomed over the town was turning into a silhouette as the sun set. Then, kites started to go up from rooftops around the city, with those pulling the strings out of sight - it was like dozens of birds jinking over the rooftops. Beyond that, there were hundreds of actual birds doing that thing where they all fly in sync and it looks like a single wave or some other being It was pretty awesome and great to be able to start reflecting on the happenings in this trip. A hefty day tomorrow, no doubt with its own challenges but next stop Jaisalmer (*touches wood*).
Day 12: the Pilgrimage
The penultimate day on the road was here. After leaving the amazing Udaipur, we headed north again for Jodhpur.
After an hour or so of boring roads, we nipped off into a small single track lane through the hills to our destination. We pulled over in a small town to get some "veg" snacks - within minutes some of the old men with weathered features but incredibly kind eyes offered Crosses some of their 'chilam' (an old smoking pipe), as a sign of greeting/peace to their village, we accepted. The oldest turbin wearing man of the group then produced a brand new chilum and got one of his young guns to say the word "gift" to us. He then went about doing a whip-round with a little bag and all the old men put some of their tobacco in there.
With it being 10am or so, we weren't really in the mood to be testing a pipe. However it was again such openess and kindness shown to us by people who had only known us for a 10 minutes. Feeling all warm and fuzzy cos we were given a gift, we got back in Elmer who then brought us back down with a series of undiagnosable breakdowns (not enough fuel but couldn't find any blockage) before lunchtime.
When a breakdown is undiagnosed, it pulls a slightly heavier emotional toll as there is little knowledge of when it might happen again. All hot and bothered, we pulled over in a town to get some water as this would help settle frustrations - before we knew it there was a group of people beckoning us to get out the car. We were quite frustrated so declined then really had to say no we need to go. The people were very insistent and they had all but blocked the way so we had no choice. We grudgingly got out and walked through a gauntlet of beaming smiles and then we were sat down in what appeared to be a barber shop (wierd but ok). From there a man wearing bright orange robes and an orange turbin appeared before us and started producing magic tricks with money and coins - he was performing for us (I appreciate the ridiculousness of this). The locals around us gave little claps when each trick was done. The frustration of our previous situation kind of flooded out of us due to the ridiculous situation that we'd landed ourselves in.
Throughout the whole of our journey to Jodhpur, we passed people walking, cycling, on tractors and motorbikes. All in a 250km long line with bright colours and loud music. This was an annual pilgrimage to a temple between Jaisalmer and Jodhpur. We later found out that these people were walking day and night to get to the temple for Monday. The pilgrimage is a once or twice in a lifetime thing to do and that 400,000 people attend every year. People will walk over 700km (a lot of them barefoot), some even crawl there. Having this procession brought us down to Earth when getting frustrated with our temperamental tuktuk.
Eventually after some more hours on the road, we arrived at Jodhpur. "The blue city" was amazing and we wandered round a few of the site's before settling on a rooftop restaurant that had been recommended by our hostel owner. As we sat down, the castle/fort that loomed over the town was turning into a silhouette as the sun set. Then, kites started to go up from rooftops around the city, with those pulling the strings out of sight - it was like dozens of birds jinking over the rooftops. Beyond that, there were hundreds of actual birds doing that thing where they all fly in sync and it looks like a single wave or some other being It was pretty awesome and great to be able to start reflecting on the happenings in this trip. A hefty day tomorrow, no doubt with its own challenges but next stop Jaisalmer (*touches wood*).
Day 11 - Holiday
Having been told that we need to spend at least five days in Udaipur by all the enthusiastic locals, we decided to give ourselves abit of holiday on this holiday that is anything but, and aimed to arrive around midday so we could spend the afternoon there.
We set off on our usual schedule (alarm at 6, up at 6:15, on the road by 7) and made our way through the small winding roads of the national park that we had stayed in, in the crisp morning sun. It was glorious and Elmer agreed, she ran well all day only spluttering to a hault on a couple of occasions to ask for a drink.
We made it to the outskirts of Udaipur at around midday with Simon at the helm and me navigating. My directions became more and more suspect until we found ourselves on a steep winding street, no wider than Elmer, that was far from empty. The trusted U turn was not an option here so we persevered, politely asking people to move and apologising profusely for our presence. Feeling very British we eventually emerged onto a road that supported vehicles, with only two crashes to add to the tally.
We dropped our stuff at a suitable hostel and asked for the nearest bar. The nearest bar happened to be situated on the roof of a building on some sort of peninsular, in the middle of a lake, 20m from where we were staying. Weirdly there was nobody else there at 1pm so we had the 360 degree views to ourself. Plans of being a tourist went out the window and as one thing led to another, we ended up with a suspicious local green drink in our hands. Beyond the point of rational decision making we finished the drinks and went for a wonder. Before long we were in another very comfortable rooftop bar where we sat for the next few hours and watched the sun go down, as we began to feel heavier and heavier. Eventually the early starts, many beers and suspicious local green drink caught up with us so went to bed. At 9pm.
Holiday a success, excited to get back on the road tomorrow.
Day 10 - Pandemonium in Parsola
Today we thought may not be one of the longer blog entries but after our evening in a small remote village called Parsola, it's going to be a tad longer than anticipated..
We started the day as per and got on the road not long after sunrise, we had a big day ahead of us as we wanted to crack 300km so we could spend the afternoon in Udaipur the following day. Elmer went strong for a good stint and we stopped for some Aloo Paratha which we thought weren't that far off giant stuffed tattie scones so they went down a treat.
We got back on the road and headed towards the world's biggest statue unveiled only last year. We arrived before the ticket office opened but after chatting to the guards, they let us drive up to see it anyway. At 182m it was quite a sight to behold and after a few photos, we hit the road again.
Elmer had a couple of hiccups so I decided to give her a full service whilst Webby and Si decided they would be most useful playing with our vortex in the field next to us. Mid service a truck pulled up and offered help which we have become very accustomed to now on our travels. Upon realising what we were doing, they became even more interested but my two apparent team members seemed too engrossed in their game leaving me to service Elmer and to entertain the locals. After finishing botching the fuel system to bypass a faulty valve and saying our goodbyes to the locals, we got back underway North.
About an hour later Elmer started her spluttering again but we all let out a big cheer upon realising she was just out of fuel.
We pulled up for lunch at a biker/trucker/labourer stop and had 50+ pairs of eyes on us so we scoffed our kaju masalas and kept moving.
We had a great afternoon driving with Elmer on top form and navigating through wildlife reserves, spirits were high. Because we had set an ambitious destination, the sun started setting while we were on some of the very rural pothole ridden back tracks. With a good hour to go and the sun pretty much gone we came across a group of boys playing cricket on the side of a hill. They had sticks as stumps, a single bat which weighed about half a ton and what I can only describe as a very weighty brown tennis ball. There were about 20 guys aged from about 5-25 and they looked like they were having a lot of fun so we decided to ignore the setting sun and go and join. We had a hilarious time as did the locals and we all lost it when Simon went into bat after a quick over bowling and he mis hit the ball sending it somehow directly on top of his head. He made a run passing the bat to a young boy halfway up the wicket and we called it a day, shook hands and got back in Elmer.
The dark set in so we decided to stop at this very small remote rural village called Parsola. It was dark but we found a helpful local who took us to some blokes house who turned out to have a room for is to stay in. He was very loud and old but after some hardball haggling we put our stuff in the room and wandered back outside to try find some food. We went about 1km down the road and sat down on some stools at the only spot that was still open. Within about 20 seconds every teenager and young man from the village had encircled us. We quickly found out no tourist had ever been to their village and we spent a couple hours chatting to them. One of the guys took us to an ATM but not without introducing us to his entire family and giving us a tour of his handmade furniture showroom first. They were a lovely family and after some photos we made it to the ATM. I popped in for what couldn't have been more than 2 minutes and I came back out only to see Simon sat in the centre of about 20 old men in a circle who were all apparently cousins. We got back and paid for our food while the two main guys we were talking to were discussing whose house we were going to. After some deliberation they decided we would go to one of their houses for snacks then the others for a full meal of Parsola cuisine. We had eaten and had been up and on the road for over 16 hours at this point but we couldn't miss an opportunity like this so we gladly obliged. They told us about their religion Jainism and some of the history of their village, Rajasthan and India. After our snacks and after thanking them for inviting us into their home we went onto the other guys home for a full meal at about 11pm. We ignored the pleas from our stomachs to stop eating and sat down for a platter each of an array of food. As you might have guessed the food was incredible as were the family. We took photos and ended up on a video conference call with one of their friends, mother, brother and brother's wife before being introduced to their pet turtle. The father insisted we stayed the night but our stuff was on the other side of town so we said our goodbyes and made it back just past midnight.
What had been a fairly standard morning evolved into one of the most interesting, eventful and enjoyable days yet. Elmer oot.
Day 9: Gujarati hospitality
Simon typing. For our first full day clear of Mumbai, we set ourselves a goal of getting some strong milage under our belts. The plan was to hit it up the motorway for 3/4 hours before finding some more interesting roads. We now have ~5 days driving left to get across our final 1100km.
As we are starting to get into the North, we have noticed a few tell tales of the changes. The first is the increased volume of cows on the road (not sure the reason but it's definitely a thing) and then we also saw our first camel (won't be the last).
Breakfast was at a truckers lay-by. There are so many lorries on the roads, when talking to a few of the drivers, we discovered that a lot of them are making the journey north to Kashmir. Government supplies etc still being sent up in bulk to the disputed region. It is still very much in people's minds as we found a couple of days ago, we were loudly accosted by a villager because we'd not drawn Kashmir into the map of India on the side of Elmer (we allowed him to draw it on).
We have now crossed into Gujarat state (PM Modi's home state which we were excitedly reminded by some elderly selfie requesters). After some more motorway, we had enough miles under our belt that we allowed ourselves to veer of the motorway. Elmer obviously had other ideas and minutes later started making a noise like we were dragging something behind us. Inspection of the engine showed that the exhaust pipe was loose and banging against the side of Elmer, this is a fairly straightforward fix. In looking at the exhaust, we also noticed that our gear box (specifically the reverse gears) seems to be leaking a sticky black oily goo - this is not a straightforward fix at all. For the former, we got a mechanic to chuck a bolt in, for the latter we have wiped it and agreed not to look at it again or mention it. Also, any reversing will be done in neutral and pushing.
We continued in a bit further then heard the exhaust again, it seems as though the mechanic hadn't screwed the bolt on, just put it in the hole so we were now in danger of dropping our exhaust at every bump until we got to another mechanic.
We found another mechanic, who did the job and in Gujarat style didn't want to take any payment. This also happened to us at lunch where we proved there is actually such a thing as a free lunch. The owner of a small roadside restaurant was thrilled to have us and also wouldn't accept payment. We found this generosity again when we later broke down in a small village. We had lost our smallest screwdrivers a few days ago (left it on the roof and drove off) and we needed to get one to dismantle the carburettor again. The people of this village set to work and within minutes, we had 3 of these screwdrivers at our disposal. Finally, we managed to explain we only needed one and set to work.
During this fix, the people of the village were as usual very interested in what 3 lunatics were doing driving a glorified lawnmower across their country. One particular moment saw an ambulance approach with full sirens on as it weaved between traffic, when it past us though, the driver slowed down to a crawl to inspect what we were doing (sirens still on). Interesting priorities.
The last few hours were fairly nailbiting as we all yearned that Elmer would get us through to our destination without too many toys being thrown. After a couple of minor fuel issues, we got to our destination and settled into our lodgings for the night. 298km done which has made that our biggest day (we considered driving round the block a few times to get it to 300km but we're a bit too shattered).
Over and out.
Day 08 - Elmer’s toys
With half a mind on my dissertation which involves Indian cricket, I persuaded Crosses and Si to delay our departure from Mumbai so that I could visit the board of control for cricket in India, in the hope to further my research. Naturally, having made no prior arrangements, I wasn’t allowed through the front door so we hit the road.
I took the helm and having done some quick calculations we estimated that we had roughly 1200km to cover in five days, starting tomorrow. Our aim for today was to make it out of Mumbai and to eat into the total distance by as much as possible. Conveniently we spotted a high speed city bypass bridge thing built out at sea so set course with all the other cars aiming north. Less conveniently, it transpired that the high speed city bypass bridge thing was cars only. This became apparent when we were pulled over half way across the bridge by the security bloke who had clearly just hitched a lift with a car behind us. He spent five minutes trying to make us turn around before we eventually persuaded him that that was a ludicrous idea having come this far and he let us carry on. We were welcomed at the far end of the bridge by another security man who also explained to us that we should not have crossed it, but for the price of a quick photo of the number plate and my drivers license, we were allowed to continue.
Having bypassed half the city we were feeling pretty good, this was when Elmer threw her first toy out of the pram. Now on the outskirts we were again met with an agonising loss of power so we pulled over to inspect. With no obvious issues we put it down to overheating, waited abit then set off again, only to be hit with an instant rear left puncture. There goes the second toy. Such is the nature of India that within about 10 minutes a man had pulled up beside us, replaced the puncture with our spare, escorted us to a puncture repair shop, asked the owner to repair our punctured wheel whilst we recharged in the restaurant next door and instructed the restaurant security to guard Elmer from thieves.
The best part of an hour later we emerged from the restaurant, collected our spare wheel and set off again, feeling revived and extremely relived that neither of these issues occurred in the chaos of Mumbai. Unfortunately the high of a full stomach and smoothly running vehicle was short lived. Elmer coughed and spluttered before throwing toys 3, 4 and 5 out of the pram. We took the carburettor apart (crosses took the carburettor apart), gave it a clean and tried to clean any and all other connections in an attempt to get her going again. With no luck Simon and I hailed a tuktuk to the nearest mechanic who was about 2km away and sent a couple of drivers back to collect Crosses and Elmer. It dawned on us as we sat there twiddling our thumbs that we probably should have gone with them as Crosses was about to be greeted with two impatient non English speaking Indians that were going to try and steal his car. Fortunately Crosses worked out what was going on and managed to follow the locals to the mechanic where we spent the next two hours trying to solve Elmer’s problems. Eventually we set off again, a bundle full of nerves with zero confidence that any of Elmer’s toys were actually back in the pram.
Despite today’s events we opted for a back road through the rice paddies and villages rather than the safe but boring motorway option. Just as we were daring to believe that Elmer’s tantrum was over she threw her final toy out of the pram as we spluttered to a halt in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately a general service got her going again and we tackled the last couple of hours though the backroads of India unscathed.
We rolled into a hotel exhausted after another rollercoaster of a day. We have covered very little ground today but have made it out of Mumbai which was the only real aim so we’re content.
Day 07 - Mayhem in Mumbai
This morning at 05:30 we met at our two not so trusty rickshaws so that we could head over to Kate's point to watch the sunrise with the aim of reaching Mumbai by early evening, get comfy it's another long one...
We started the day in pitch darkness winding our way up yet more hills with Elmer getting us up to over 4600 feet. About half way up one of the steeper hills our two German friends pulled over and asked us if we needed them to take Simon in their car again much to my and Webbys amusement. Elmer seemed to be right as rain thanks to a good night's rest so we politely declined and we somehow made it all the way up. We arrived to a misty panoramic view over an entire valley and were joined by a pack of monkeys. They climbed in and on top of our tuk tuks which made for some good photos but we did lose a permanent marker to a particularly cheeky one. We then had to try make it up another hill and Elmer spluttered them conked out. We pushed and freewheeled down to a petrol station after we reached the top, only to be told that the remaining fuel in the station was reserved for the government and we couldn't have any. After a bit of sweet talking the attendant came around and slyly poured us our 8 litres. When Elmer only took about 3 litres we realised it was another breakdown not a lack of fuel... A quick service of the fuel system sorted us out and we were back on the road (blocked fuel line). We vowed to not subject Elmer to any more hills if we could help it but when our fellow rickshaw asked if we wanted to go see an ancient mountain top fort, we couldn't help ourselves. The views were breathtaking and again we were joined by monkeys but these were the more wild/timid species so they kept their distance.
We had some beige potato fried disks with some chilli's for our spicy breakfast and drove for the entire morning with no further issues in convoy. After stopping off for a hearty lunch we carried on towards a ferry that would take us over to the southern tip of the Mumbai peninsula. Except it didn't, the ferry doesn't run until September apparently so we had to go the 4 hour long way around which meant driving through the whole of Mumbai in Elmer, not the result we were hoping for although, we were all secretly excited. After Webby nearly shattered all our spines by hitting every speedbump for 20km at full speed (unintentionally) he handed the reigns over to Simon who had to navigate 1000s of lorries through the dust all going to and from a gigantic steel works. We had a minor altercation with one of the lorries which left a hole in Elmer's canvas but we kept cracking on. After a couple more hours of lorry dodging and just as darkness fell, I took over the driving again. There is no highway code with 5 odd lanes of traffic and no road markings and everyone is diving for every little gap. We made it into southern Mumbai with a good few more notches on our near miss tally and found out rickshaws are now banned in the southern district. We seemed to get away with it and the traffic police turned a blind eye. We got into our lodging and had a very refreshing bucket shower and finally managed to sit down for some well earnt Dosas around 10ish.
We had a stroll around the area on our way back to the lodge to digest our food and try let the day's events sink in. We saw what we're sure was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of extreme poverty and rough sleepers which was very sobering but all felt like it was another part of life in India we should see first hand.
All in all it was a mental 18 hours from driving along the top of the plateaus to the lorry dodging to downtown Mumbai, fair to say it left us all absolutely shattered but what a day. Elmer out.
Day 6 - The theory of thermal mass.
Simon writing. Today I learned all about the theory of thermal mass. Basically when a thing gets hot (e.g. a 2-stroke tuktuk engine), it just stays hot for ages and doesn't cool down ever.** That's pretty much all there is to the theory of thermal mass. (Remember this point for later).
---
For the first time on our trip, we tried to get some sort of route planning done so that we could be sure of hitting Mumbai on Sunday evening. Therefore today has been a zigzag between different national parks with incredible roads, awesome views and hills, lots of hills... (Will explain later why this was an issue but it's linked to the thermal mass thing).
The day started well with a routine breakfast stop by the road in the middle of nowhere. The man waved some eggs at us which was understood to be the offering of an omelette - the day has started well. We polished it all off with the routine cup of chai (a small shot of tea with 15 tablespoons of sugar).
The first nature reserve was amazing albeit for the inevitable potholes. The benefit of driving a 3 wheeled vehicle is that you can drive the front wheel through small gaps between potholes - the backwheels then take all the impact of the bump and the passengers get thrown into the roof of Elmer. This has become the accepted way of making sure the two in the back are paying attention.
Soon after we bumped into another suitably ridiculous looking tuktuk and pulled over to catch up with the first rickshaw runners that we'd seen in 3 days. In convoy, we climbed up to over 4000ft round hairpin after hairpin in the reserve.
This basically meant that our engine was working very hard (too hard for something designed to nip around cities). The engine overheated and Elmer stopped working when we reached the top. Luckily, we were able to give the engine a bit of a rest and let it cool down. Thanks to the theory of thermal mass (see para. 1), this did not happen.
We managed to coast back to the main road but then had a 25km climb up to the town we were due to stay in - odds very much against us when any extra heat gets supercharged with what is already present in the engine. We did a lot of starting and stopping but weren't really getting anywhere. We removed the back panel of the tuktuk (like driving with no bonnet), to help cooling. We removed the sparkplug to get hot the hot air straight out the cylinder. Nothing really worked and things were getting a bit sketchy - pitch black, lorries coming past at a speed with limited lights (deja vu?).
We finally decided we needed to reduce the workload on Elmer - i.e. lose weight. With our fellow rickshaw-ers still with us, we chucked the bags on their roof and decided that someone should go in their rickshaw to lighten the load on Elmer. After some quick BMI calculations, it was agreed that I was marginally the heaviest so should go in their rickshaw. This got the result we wanted and we were able to push up the winding road to our hotel. Not a quiet day.
**There are probably other interpretations on the theory of thermal mass
Day 05 - Out in the sticks
After a slightly tedious day yesterday on the motorway we set our eyes on the narrow winding mountain tracks, in search of more adventure - we got it. On the road by 7 and before 8 we found ourselves on a moist grass track that Elmer only managed to complete as gravity was on our side. Our efficiency has plummeted but it is infinitely more fun.
Breakfast today was provided by one of the many men with a large silver tub outside his house. On the menu; a plate of rice shaped potato with some unidentifiable bits, and of course an insanely sweet chai. Having politely excused ourselves from the crowd of 30+ people that had inevitably gathered to see what on Earth three sunburnt white blokes were doing in their village, we set course for the mountains.
The weather seems to have an inverse relationship with our ponchos. The problem with this is that once you have put it on, you can’t take it off without it starting to rain again. Never the less we climbed a winding mountain road up into the clouds, negotiated the vast potholes and bipolar weather conditions, to be rewarded with stunning views and multiple monkeys.
Back on the flat only to be hit by the all to familiar loss of power. We optimistically got out our Jerry can but we’re sceptical that the issue was fuel as we had filled up a mere 20 miles ago. The gears are also beginning to go, we have lost first which is manageable but are in danger of losing neutral as well, which would not be manageable. We managed to fix the loss of power by cleaning our fuse box which has clearly been submerged in muddy water at some stage in its life, and drove to a mechanic who kindly installed our spare gear and clutch cables.
Obligatory signatures, selfies and handshakes complete, we hit the road again filled with that warm fussy feeling that occurs when Elmer is happy. A couple of hours on a larger road and we have arrived in Langa, the smallest town we have been to yet. We really are out in the sticks now but fortunately we have found a hotel, that we’re told will have electricity by seven, and a restaurant that serves beers (frustratingly rare) so all is good.
Looking forward to day 6.
