Day one dusted
Namaste everybody, thus it begins. Our 4 day prelude in Fort Kochin came to a merciful conclusion last night on Bolgatty Island in a sensibly fenced off area. The French likely prevented drunkards falling into the water. Our story, however, is about The Road. The first proper accident has already struck the runners. I'm unaware of their team name but it seems a male at the helm made a split second manoeuvre to avoid a head on collision with a bus and turned so sharply that the top heavy rickshaw listed quickly to the point of no return and they went over on one side. The machine lost its windshield and apparently only slight crunching damage to the side. One of the runners, also male, had a badly damaged right arm. Eyewitness reports speak of seeing bone visible through the carnage. We will update as we hear more. Pags and I made reasonable progress out of kochi. Traffic wasn't too hectic and busy soon gave way a string a pretty towns. The foliage looked like any I've seen in tropical climates, an endless heavy green. It was quite pleasant. We over ordered food at a restaurant and hit the road 35 minutes later. Stopped in at an old Muslim cemetery and took a few pictures at the small mosque in the centre. After a few minutes back on the road an Indian student flagged us down so we gave him a ride. These rides for strangers are always a courtesy and usually quite brief. This guy ended up riding with us about 10 miles and showing us a beach/harbour area known only to locals. It was nice, let's leave it at that. 5 minutes after leaving the beach Pags stalled King Tuk in a traffic jam. He stalled it a few times because the traffic became gridlocked and hellish. After one stall he discovered that our manual engine crank lever had rather too much play in it and wasn't working properly. This transpires into an eventual new clutch! It's New Year's Day and mechanics are hard to come by. But we found one and he and an assistant did the job for 800rupee (yes, that's a new clutch for £8) but by the time we were good to go it was dark so we bid goodbye to the 20 or so people surrounding us and I turned the headlights on. They didn't work, but by now we had a standby mechanic. It turns out that some parts of King Tuk are not so royal. Some parts are SHIT. We will keep a list as we go along. So we finally departed but disliked the night time scenario so much that we stopped at the first hotel we saw. It nice, wi Fi works, we shall rest and get an earlier start tomorrow. Dave B in a town called Ponnani. It's not listed in most or any guide books but it's teeming with really sweet helpful smiley people as far as I can see. Love to all
