Done!!
We made it the final couple of kilometres yesterday to trundle over the finish ramp, a quivering wreck of a couple!
Had the best beer in ages, survived the rickety ladder to update the arrivals board and then went to the hotel in the fort to relax and reflect on the most ridiculous, awesome, harrowing, adventurous, scary, insane and tremendous (usually at the same time) couple of weeks!
Today was the 'victory parade' through the streets of Jaisalmer! Having survived that we're off the the finish line party then back to normality tomorrow and work on Tuesday.
I'd love to finish this with a pithy, enlightened thought for you, the loyal readers (all 5 of you), however words fail me.
The only 'advice' we have is this - if you ever, ever get the chance to do this or anything like it - Grab it with both hands!
You will simultaneously love it and hate it, go through peaks and troughs and really really question whose stupid idea it was to sign up for this (well some team members might), but at the end you'll look back at the ridiculous things you've seen and done together and no amount of money on Earth can buy those memories!
Yesterday was a rest day in Jodhpur where we upgraded hotel from this
To this
And spent a few hours exploring the awesome Mehrangarh Fort before relaxing at the pool and preparing for the last long day driving!
We met 'Braking Wind' and Sparky at first light this morning and started the final 286km to Jaisalmer.
Our attitude to disasters and maintenance has somewhat changed over the last couple of weeks. Today's conversation at 06:45am, about 10km into the journey is a good example of that:
M (in the driver's seat) - "I can hear a knocking noise from the rear right wheel, can you?"
K - "Yes, my suggested solution is to turn the music up so we can't hear it".
M - "I was going to suggest the same."
How we've managed to cross the Indian subcontinent still baffles me!
The early morning rush hour consisted mostly of cows in the road and bewildered people on scooters doing double takes whilst our convoy swept past.
We covered a thankfully uneventful 140km by 10ish then ran into some kind of pilgrimage where people walked behind a huge speaker system carrying a horse deity (no one in the convoy spoke enough Hindi to get any more than that)!
The foot traffic shot the 'selfie request' meter through the roof and progress was somewhat slowed until we found a deserted bypass to avoid Pokhran.
From there it was a straight shot through a literal desert (both in heat and lack of civilization) to get to the edge of Jaisalmer by mid afternoon.
Having fallen back in love with the infernal machine we toured a little bit of the rabbit warren streets before heading to the hotel and out for a celebratory drink with Paul and Ellie.
We've about 2km to cover to the finish tomorrow, worst comes to worst, I'll push it and Karine can steer! Still can't quite believe we've made it here in one piece without any major disasters!
Will send out a blog update tomorrow with finish line photos then the final one after the end party!
Today was a good day! 250km covered, zero breakdowns, lots of the usual nonsense stories!
We were on the road by 06:00 this morning with me in the pilot seat and DJ Kaz on the decks spinning tunes.
Despite having very little confidence in the infernal machine we decided to continue with the 'road less travelled' policy and head to Ranakpur Jain temple through the mountain passes. Cue 3hours and 80km of shredded nerves any time the engine skipped a beat!
After some winding roads and mountain passes we hit this point and decided it was all worth it! The picture doesn't do the view justice!
From here we wound our way down the valley to find a very welcome sight - our old convoy buddies 'Braking Wind' in a lovely hotel at a hill station. A breakfast of tea and toast on the terrace overlooking the mountains was very civilized to say the least!
From there we blitzed to Ranakpur Jain Temple (you'll have to google it for more information, as per usual there was a dearth of English language signs), then endured some torture with 'shortcuts' through mud baths and a 'local' road to the highway (for those of you who watch 'the Grand Tour' think the Namibia Dune Buggy episode, for 2hours straight, in a rickshaw).
Everything should have been nice and simple to go the 150km to Jodhpur but as usual India had a couple of surprises in store.
First up was the Jodhpur street vendors 'interesting' tactics to lure you in. They literally stand on the road in the way setting up a ludicrous game of 'chicken' every few minutes between them and 2 Scot's barely in control of a rickshaw blaring out boyband tunes as it goes! Safe to say, they quickly realised we weren't in complete control of the beast and really would run them over if they didn't shift!
Next up was the usual hotel magical mystery tour! Having booked it due to its close proximity to the road we arrived on, imagine our disappointment to find a slum where our hotel should be.
Multiply that disappointment then add in frustration and fear when yet again it was monsoon time and we were getting soaked with rainwater from the sky and sewer water from the streets, whilst negotiating the usual evening rush hour.
In the dark.
And rain.
With no lights.
Driving in bare feet (my flip flops are on their last legs).
We managed to sail the rickshaw to a friendly store owner who confirmed the hotel was actually 1km (isn't it always) further North and on the opposite side of the street!
Having found it, we parked (in between a rat and, I quote my good lady here 'the biggest cockroach I've ever seen') and commenced the laborious Spanish Inquisition/form filling to get a key for our room.
We'll move tomorrow - ideally to upgrade to smaller cockroaches, explore Jodhpur and get ready to cover the final 250ish Km on Friday (fingers crossed)!
Finally, finally, finally think we are sorted (touch wood)!
Found a mechanic in Udaipur who wasn't determined to tell us it was our jets that were blocked! He rallied the beast 1.5km to kill it then totally rebuilt the carb, sorted the gears and changed the oil. Then the absolute legend took it on a 40km test drive to be absolutely sure it worked! Total cost - £8.
To say the last few days have been somewhat testing would be an understatement.
The 'highlights' include:
India's disabled access ATMs (if the pic doesn't load some of these won't make sense)!
A day on Goa's beaches (it is meant to be a holiday after all).
Watching 27 people, take 30minutes to launch a boat.
Staying in Udaipur's equivalent of Fawlty Towers:
The power went off as we arrived. Cue a lot of flapping about trying to reboot the scanner which apparently is much more urgent than handing over keys to the room.
Plus the ridiculous conversation about dinner 'do you have a restaurant?'
'Yes'.
'Where is the restaurant, is it upstairs?'
Blank face.
'Can I see a menu?'
'Yes, we have a menu'.
'Can I see it please?'
'We have lots on the menu, but it's limited to dal, rice or paneer'.
'Can I see it please?'
'We don't have a menu'.
Breakfast (5minutes after the 'menu debacle').
'Where do you serve breakfast?'
'Yes'.
'Okay, where do we eat it?'
'In your room'.
'Great, you'll bring it to us?'
'Yes, 8am'.
This bit is my fault for asking another question.
'Great, thank you. Is there an ATM nearby?'
'7am?'
'No, an ATM'
'Breakfast, 8am'.
'Yes, thank you. Is there an ATM?'
'Breakfast, 7am?'
'No breakfast, 8am. Never mind'.
Breakfast arrived at 07:00.
Finally driving more than 2km in one go without breaking down!! Here's a very relieved me!!!
Back on dry land!
Absolute catch up mode! Making miles to Rajasthan, who wanted to see Gujarat anyway!
226km.
That's 140miles.
That's less than a return trip from Abu Dhabi to Dubai. Or about the same as Aberdeen to Edinburgh.
We've done both those journeys multiple times and can safely say the drama involved in all of them added together is a fraction of that we've had since the last update.
Truth be told when I quote figures, that's the distance the rickshaw made it, we went 7km further to get a hotel (we'll come back to that).
It all started so well 3 days ago, we left Mangaluru at 06:30 and blitzed 30km by 07:00.
The infernal machine then decided it didn't like going uphill. 'We' decided it was Michael's aggressive driving style, changed drivers, restarted it and away we went.
Made it another 5km before it died on a hill. Cue an impression of the Scottish Chuckle Brothers at the side of the road stripping the carb and unblocking the jets (thanks Jay and Mitch for the tutorial in Mussafah)!
Take 3 - Another 3km before it went again. This time we managed to time it to break down within sight of a rickshaw garage. Our wizard mechanic decided there was air in the fuel filter. Rewired the fuel lines and off we went.
Amazingly smooth sailing from there to somewhere in the middle of nowhere racking up 70km, when (you'll see a pattern here), it died near the top of a hill.
Managed to coax it back to life and limp the final 30km to Murudeshawar (which was awesome and well worth a visit if you happen to be reading this from Karnataka).
We decided the problem was overheating so sat still for 20mins there, this wasn't the problem and definitely was not long enough to sit for in any case.
Upon leaving Murudeshawar, spirits were high. We had 30km to go in 3 hours (before dark) to make it to our hotel.
We made it 2km before breaking down.
Let it cool, started it, made it 2km - again. It then started chucking it down, however having plenty of daylight, waterproof jackets and not many miles to cover we decided to wait 30 minutes to 'let it cool right down'.
Started, went 1km, stopped outside the aptly named Manki.
Having now realised it was overheating for a reason we stripped the jets. Totally died.
Luckily there was a rickshaw shop 500m along the road. It was shut.
Some very kind chaps stopped to help. This involved Mike heading off to the next town on the back of their scooter, leaving Karine in the rickshaw - with both phones, in the middle of Manki.
Manki doesn't have any mechanics but they managed to convince one to come from Honnavar (10km to the North).
He coincided his arrival with monsoon rains and sunset. This resulted in a brief look from him, concluding it was a blocked jet. We knew it wasn't but by this point it was fully pitch black, chucking it down and we still had 25 km to go dicing with death buses and HGVs.
However, before we could go on our merry way we had to get 3 million selfies with the chaps and make room for the 6 of us in the 'Shaw.
We made it 2km in the dark, with the 'wipers' going full pelt smearing the river across the windscreen. It was almost a relief when all of our electrics failed since it gave me an excuse to stop driving/ weaving out the way of oncoming trucks.
Again the guys saved us, they phoned a friend with a car and drove us the final leg to Kumta where we slept 30km away from the rickshaw.
Next morning they picked us up at 10, drove south to Honnavar (where they had towed the beast to in the monsoon) and met the mechanic who confirmed it was fixed and that the electrical failure was just a loose wire - it's not. Having now completely lost faith in the mechanic and the machine we just decided to set off in it. More than anything we just wanted to make some progress.
Got it to go a whopping 4km before dying. Cue a ridiculous series of 2km hops to limp us to within 17 Km of Gokarna with 3 hours of daylight left. This turned out to be the worst 17 Km yet. We changed the fuel filter, spark plug, bypassed the fuel filter, cleaned the jets (twice), dumped and refilled fuel, changed to another style of fuel filter, faffed with the carb screws and not a single thing helped us get more than 2km at a time. This resulted in us making 7 of the 17km in 2 hours and luckily team 'the Tuks the limit' stopped when they saw us pushing it the wrong way down a highway (we couldn't get it over the central reserve).
They helped get it to life and limp to within 10km of Gokarna before officially declaring 'your rickshaw is shit'. The absolute legends then made a rope from a sheet and duct tape which we intended to use to tow us. Luckily we'd broken down near shops and managed to get some sorted! Cue a ridiculous tow to a petrol station where we dumped the rickshaw (once again sleeping well over 10km from where we parked it). We jumped in a 'taxi' rickshaw to cover the final 8km to the hotel. It managed 2km before the somewhat bleary eyed driver declared it was also 'deid' (I might have mistranslated that). At that point we were ready to dig a massive hole in the earth and fill it with the burning carcass of every single Bajaj auto!
Finally found the hotel, sent an SOS to Rajesh and went for a luxury shower with the bucket of water we were given upon checking in.
Having seen 5 mechanics in 2 days as well as changing every single part we could whilst falling circa 1,000 KM behind our former convoy buddies 'braking wind' we decided to hit the big red panic button and chuck it on an HGV to make up some miles.
Of course the driver couldn't find us and then turned up without a ramp to load it! No worries though, through the magic of 5 British pounds we hired 8 chaps who were milling about the petrol station to physically lift it onto the truck!
It's currently sitting in Goa somewhere whilst we are in Margao studying maps trying to figure out where best to get it driven to, caught up and fixed!
We're determined not to give up the ghost and to finish this thing, even if we have to freewheel and push it to Jaisalmer!
Day 5
Second day on the road, everything equally as ridiculous as yesterday!
Our rickshaw is starting to feel the pain of me driving full throttle (at a whopping 55km/h) at all times! 2nd gear lines up with 3rd whilst 3rd is now past 4th on the shifter.
Managed to see Kannur lighthouse, Bekal Fort, take part in the Independence Day protests and fit in a lovely drive along the beach!
Finally pulled into some random house down several dirt roads at 18:30. The new strategy for this is to write it up properly when we get back, there's too much to do justice to whilst exhausted!
