Day 13: Beach retreat - Thottada

Enjoying our deluxe hotel we checked out late, i.e. midday and set off on a short half-day South. The roads in Kerala were absolutely destroyed by the monsoon and have not yet been repaired. We suspect they were not very good prior to the monsoon either. We managed to snap one of the rickshaw canopy uprights so Steve ended up holding half our roof up until we found a place to get it repaired. That only took 10min and soon ol' Herbie was on the recieving end of an oxy torch. 40 Rupees and about 5 min later we were back on the road. After a rather solid drive we made it to Kannur, a beach-side town with many hotel options. Trouble is, most of their hotels list their address as near 'insert name here' beach, which is not very helpful when navigating by self. While trying to find a place roadside a helpful chap stopped, offered us hekp and sunsequently took a 25min detour to help us find a beachside guesthouse, and theb turned back for a 25min return to get to wherever he was originally heading. I don't imagine this happening at home. Turns out this fellow was also the outgoing member for parliament for Kunnar and a very determined personal guide, not for monetary reasons though, he was just very proud. He promised, despite our expressing our need to depart early the next morning, to give us a full day tour of town the next day. True to his word, at 9am the next morning, our peaceful seaside breakfast was interrupted. We spent the next hour convincing our new friend that we could not spend the day with him and that we REALLY needed to get going on the 370km trip to Cochin. We ended up leaving around 11am. We must make mention of the lovely family who ran the guest house, particularly the wife who cooked us the most amazing dinner of fresh kingfish, prawns malabar, a variety of vegetable curries and roti bread. Her breakfast was equally impressive. Their guesthouse was situated on a perfect private beach, 100m long and we enjoyed a morning swim. As we departed towards Cochin, we discussed opening an Indian restaurant and poaching this lady to cook. Brisbane would then have a true Indian eatery. Our current indian restaurants really need to step up, what they serve us, by analogy, would be maggi noodles mixed with tomato sauce and calling it authentic spaghetti bolognese. We set our sights on Ponnani (not my first time), lets see how we go.

Day 12 : Gokarna to Manglore

We made it to a town called Gokarna yesterday. It's a little beachside town and we arrived in the dark. The traffic in this part of India is rather frustrating and the private bus drivers make life rather difficult as they recklessly plow along the road with no concern or respect for any other person that may also be on 'their' road. They also like to race each other in a bid to get to the next stop first which complicates life for the minnows of the road. Indeed there are no stops and one can be hailed anywhere along the road, therefore it is not unusual to have a huge bus, horns blaring behind you, lurch past you to overtake nearly running you off the road in the process and then slamming on the brakes and veering hard across your path only to stop to pick up a passenger. Given there is nothing but a hard shoulder on the left and often not 12inches between Herbie and said bus, things get rather tight and hairy. We'll fill you in on the 'two oncoming buses overtaking each other' scenario when we get home. In the process of getting lost on Gokara we bumped into another team who had found a place to stay, we joined them. We had a great night in a beachside bamboo hut and enjoyed a great meal with cold-ish beer. Even Tammy had a beer that night, and enjoyed it!..... I knew I'd crack her sooner or later. Day 11 saw us tackle the route to Mangalore, but not after enjoying a visit to Om beach which was very pleasant, and watching a Western hippie do yoga on a rock. I often wonder if these sorts would still find this place so 'enlightening and mystical....man' if they weren't bolstered by their strong currencies which allows them to spend months here and not have to earn their living. For the locals here, very little comes easy and for some obtaining water can mean a 2 hour walk each day, food even more work, and a trendy Apple laptop to email your hippy friends back home over a chickpea curry.... The drive to Mangalore was picturesque as per usual and we finally found some beautiful beaches. Indians seem to lack all respect for their environment and totally trash what would otherwise be beautiful places. We found a couple of isolated stretches that escaped the usual fate. Otherwise we meandered through palm-laden villages and tree-lined roads enjoying the usual visual delights Indian roads provide. We were on a small coastal highway and enjoyed a bus-free trip. Manglore is a very nice place, a student town with many universities and amazingly modern shopping malls in one small district. We found a great, new hotel for $50 which would rival any Western hotel. The service surpasses that of any Aussie hotel and the manager gave us her home phone and said if we had any problems overnight or needed anything, we could ring her. Amazing! We went shopping and bought a few nice things. The mall was full of stores selling the same brand-name products such as Myer, especially clothing, most of which is made here, however for a fraction of the price. We also treated ourselves to Dominos pizza, Indian style, the first we've seen since Delhi. It was the only meal we've regretted on this trip leaving that familiar 'brick in the stomach' feeling Western fast-food is famous for. Indian fast-food is by far more ealthier, tastier, based on rich old traditions and most importantly, hand-made. We slept well on a real bed and a normal pillow. Indian beds are usually thin and rock-hard, their pillows even harder.

Day 11 : Goa to 'who knows where!'

Making the most of an actual computer to do our blog updates. Sometimes we are a little behind because Michael cannot often be stuffed spending 1 hour trying to type the blogs into his phone after a day of hard-yakka behind the handlebars of Herbie. We note that there has not been a spot of rain during our journey and are saddende to hear that Brissy and surrounds are copping a shellacking at the moment. Fingers crossed that thigns don't get too bad. We are regrettably heading South today into the unknown. Given we are staying at this hotel right until check-out time we have no idea how far we will make it during our short journey this afternoon. We have 800km to Cochin and should arrive on Sat 15th as planned. Herbie had a 3 hour make-over courtesy of a goan rickshaw mechanic and only charged us AU$6 for his labour. The engine oil also cost $6! He is running very well and has been given the all clear. The brake pedal now feels normal now courtesy of about 1hour of attention to our braking system. Seems that the spongy pedal which never inspired my confidence was not NFI - Normal for India. Could have been helpful to have had this service done before we takled the mountains...

My apologies to the parents who are squirming in their chair at the moment. The mountain journey was almost uneventful except for the time I forgot to put the handbrake on while taking a quick photo snap and Herbie decided to keep on going. Luckily he was pointed at the stone wall barrier and came to a grinding halt 1meter later. The girls did manage to scream like... well... girls and and I

Day 9 & 10- Goan Retreat

We interrupt this broadcast to let you know that we are sitting around a resort pool drinking Corona (the only beer not made in India available at this hotel) and having massages. Pictures of our road-trip so far have been uploaded - in the gallery section. Stay tuned for more updates. Outdoor tandoori buffet at the hotel restaurant tonight.

The Team...Vivanta by Taj, Fort Aguada. Goa.

Day 8 - Devgad

Day 8 saw us heading South with the intent of trying to make it to Goa by Saturday PM and take a little breather from our rickshaw and get Herbie serviced. We set off early in the morning for the monster 400km trip however 5km down the road we hit the Maharastra mountains and Herbie struggled with 4 people and baggage. We found ourselves going up many hills in 2nd gear and the first 60km took more than 3 hours. After about 160km of mountains we decided to retreat to the coastal road in an attempt to seek our flatter roads. The journey from National Highway NH-17 to State Highway SH-4 was amazing. We traversed flat plains, dry and arid but covered in whispy long grasses, albiet brown from the scorching post-monsoon dry. We passed through small villages of mud huts and mango tree plantations. We were incredibly isolated for the first time, hardly seeing a person and enjoyed the stunning silence as the sun set over the plains. Runing out of time we ended up staying in a rather small seaside vilage called Devgad. Devgad may not have seen a Western tourist before and the hotels were rather indicative of this... all 2 of them. We paid 1400Rs for the most expensive room which was a gawdy Mediterranean style room in a very run-down hotel. Mozzies outnumbered us 20 to 1 and the stench of fish filled the air. Needless to say we slept and were up at the crack of dawn to get out of there and head towards Goa. The roads were incredibly poor along this route however and we took the whole day - almost 10 hours to travel 120km. The scenery was amazing though and we were pleased to have taken this bypass as we pottered along tiny seaside roads bisecting palm-tree filled villages. We ate great food along the way and stopped to watch games of cricket in rice-paddys and indeed on the highway itself, if you can actually call it a highway. Thankfully we hardly encountered any traffic. Tired and somewhat battered by the roads we booked into a rather luxurios Goan hotel to escape our buggy and take a needed day of R&R, and drink Western Beer!! We enjoyed clean white towels for the first time on our journey.

Day 7 - motoring on!

No real exciting news to tell today. The freeways South of Mumbai are much smaller, 1 lane each way. This makes for a little more excitement as traffic is now overtaking each other which means head-on fun. Indian drivers while very much in a hurry to pass each other, are very much not in a hurry to move back into their proper lane after executing their overtaking manoeuvre. Indeed they often rely on the oncoming traffic to take evasive action to ensure their overtake actually works. Consequently we are now very comfortable with all sorts of vehicle coming towards is at (relative) breakneck speed, and lurching back to the right side of the road sometimes no more than 10m in front of us. Mind you, we have taken it upon ourselves to adopt all Indian customs (eating with hands, head wobbling, speaking broken English, breaking wind gratuitiously) inlcluding overtaking where there is clearly not enough room while beeping our horns and flashing our headlights. It seems these latter two actions in Indian speak mean : (cue comedic Indian accent) we are coming through, by hook or by crook so get out of the bloody way! We have started to notice when we have another team in front of us, all the oncoming traffic beep their horns, flash their horns and waves at us. Note: when vehicle is on right side of the road this gesture means hello. A subtle difference compared to when they are oncoming in your lane! No surprises then that we bumped into a couple of teams, including an Aussie and we all stopped at a roadside "resort" that had nice grass and cold beer. Indian beer is a force to be reckoned with and would be more appropriately described as firewater. The "resort" had a great lawn garden and we all enjoyed an early finish to the day (5pm) and sat around and enjoyed a beer and Indian snacks as the sun set. We plan on trying the marathon trip to Goa, precisely 400km away as per our GPS, and almost 200km further than our previous big days... watch this space!

Day 6 - The Mumbai detour, that took us to.... Mumbai.

Fearing the worst of Mumbai traffic we decided to get smart and seek a detour around Mumbai. After a few miles on our old friend National Highway 8, we parted company and headed inland to a small town called Wada, pronounced and often spelled Vada... bad move. Our largely empty 3-lanes each way road became 1.5 lanes in total, with more traffic than the freeway, and an unimaginably cratered surface. We struggled to find descriptors for this road. Poor ol Herbie had his work cut out and Michael had a very sore clutch hand after changing gears every 5 seconds. 60km of road took a good 5 hours and there were stretches where we did 45kph, perhaps 20-30 km worth. You do the maths! Well behind schedule we surrendered at 7pm, in the dark, and poor Herbie without lights due to our ongoing electrical short-circuit. Ironically we ended up in an Eastern suburb of Mumbai....ahem.... called Thane. The Mumbai traffic was not that bad.......

Day 5: Vadodara toDaman

We spent most of today on National Highway 8 which connects Ahmedabad to Mumbai. It is a 6-lane monster perhaps not ideal for an autorickshaw. These new freeways are just what India needs to keep moving forward. The old highways were in extremely poor shape, small and hazardous. Efficient transport is a must in any developing country and India is paving their way forward. Cars now zoom along at speeds up to 100kph swerving in and out of the old Ashok Leyland and Tata trucks which have served this country so well. Their 40kph speed limit is their handicap and more modern versions are starting to appear. Indeed the older trucks are disappearing quiker than planned. At one of our spontaneous stops for...... you guessed it, chai, a truck managed to fall into a rather large hole that had been dug for foundations for a new overpass. It literally happened infront of us, Steve saw it, buy luckily the traffic was moving slowly due to the roadworks. It kind of just 'slipped' and fitted rather neatly on its side. The driver escaped unhurt. He probably needed more than a chi after his little adventure, more than the dry state of Gujarat could provide. We felt the same and made a bee-line to Damas. A small seaside village which resides in the small States of Daman et Diu, an ex Portugese colony where natives still recieve Portugese passports at birth and many get the heck out of there and move to Europe to make money. They also sell alcohol here. We were a little disappointed with Damas. Indian beer is quite the challenge to drink, the girls had Bacardi Breezers which they seemed to enjoy. The seafood was rather ordinary, however well spiced. Damas was a quaint town by Indian standards however and we enjoyed the relative peace and quiet. We revelled in a chai, one of our best yet, after gobbling down a roadside brekky for less than $1 for four, and enjoyed soaking up the atmosphere and quiet while Damas slowly awoke to start another day. The beach, on the Arabian Sea was extremely poor, covered in rubbish and was the end-point for the towns sewer... enough said...those prawns were a bit gritty last night! Today we head South with te intention of bypassing Mumbai in Maharastra.