day 15 - all done!!!!!! in gangtok 0 km

last entry, i (adam) fly out tomorrow. malena is sticking around for a little bit. after sleeping in til the luxurious hour of 11am, we had an english breakfast with tak and pete. comfort food. awesome. we went down to the pedestrianized main road here, which is super nice, MG marg. did a little shopping, then met up with the 150 other rickshaw runners for a small parade down MG marg. (MG = mahatma gandhi, there are a lot of MGs here) the local media came out, the minister of tourism for sikkim greeted us, gave us scarves, gave us the little red dot on the forehead (if you wanted), and we had a short parade. afterwards, it was time to get serious.... there was a soccer match set for us to play in at 2pm for eternal bragging rights, and a small trophy at least 9" tall...... the all-stars of the rickshaw run were playing the press club of sikkim soccer club. the location: sikkim's premier grounds, paljor stadium: http://beacononlinephotogallery.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/bjp2.jpg apparently it was advertised heavily locally, and thousands of locals came out to watch, which meant that that 200 rickshaw runners and sympathizers had to be REALLY LOUD in response. after some ceremonies and pictures, the whistle blew and it was underway. with our buddy pete on the field, the runners pulled out to an early 2-0 lead in the first 30 minutes. undaunted, the press club put in several substitutes and got a goal back near half time. with only a few minutes to go in the first half, the runners may have let down their guard a little. big mistake: the press club bombed a cross in from 50ft out and then finished with an impressive header to send it to 2-2 at halftime. after some kind of orange juice at halftime, the mood was intense and the crowd was roaring. the wave even started in the stands. both teams were cautious, with several chances but nothing close for the first 25 minutes. suddenly, after a shot and a miss by the runners, another one of the runners managed to get the rebound past the press club keeper from several feet away. the 200 runners cheered! in the final 5 minutes, the runners scored an insurance goal on a corner kick to finish it off 4-2. it was a good game, the crowd was awesome, and pete, tak and i all got to play (i was by far the worst). after the game the tourism minister of sikkim awarded us the trophy. its 6 pm now, time for dinner and then we have a farewell party tonight. last blog entry for me. its been real, its been fun, and maybe even real fun at moments. we almost died at least twice on the road driving at night, but thats made me think about some things and given me a little perspective i think. i'll leave you with some funny/scary stories of present/past teams i've heard so far: one team flew off a bridge and rolled down 30 ft down a ravine. broken bones, one of the girls sliced her foot to the bone in more than one place and almost had to have it amputated one team crashed their rickshaw into the back of a truck and somehow made it to the finish with the windshield crushed 4ft back towards the drivers seat one team went crazy in the jungle with their shitty rickshaw and just wrapped it around a tree and abandoned it one team went crazy on the highway and just abandoned it there and flew home one team got in an accident in a big city, tore off the front of another rickshaw, and offered one of their teammates as collateral until they could get the money together to pay the guy off one team went crazy, doused the auto rickshaw in petrol, and burned it one team had a small boulder crush the top of their rickshaw in while driving (no real injuries somehow) one team was stopped by the army in the middle of the night and had all of their belongings searched, then escorted to the next town at gunpoint one team was stopped by the police in the middle of the night, searched, then told they were in militant country and ordered to sleep in the police station overnight one team tried to take a road that didn't actually exist and had to literally ford a river Oregon trail style ------------- i'm sure i'll hear more stories tonight at the party but you'll have to ask me in person. adios!

day 14 - kishanganj to gangtok (FINISH LINE) - 212 km

LAST DAY OF THE RACE. sick and tired of hauling our piece of shit rickshaw, we decided to wake up for the first time in our whole trip at 5am. we were concerned about the mountains on the way to gangtok. our rickshaw was only getting louder, so we needed enough time to battle up and possibly breakdown somewhere in the middle. the owner of the hotel offered us some coffee and pumped with caffeine we took off at close to 60kph. the road was amazing, empty and quiet. somewhere before siliguri (still flat), we bumped into 2 guys on a motorcycle who wanted to have a full on conversation at 6:30am going at 60kph. they asked us a few questions, but with the finish line in mind we said our goodbyes. not content with our hand wave, the driver wanted me to shake his hand. "HOLD MY HAND! HOLD MY HANDDDD!!!"; this was happening while i was driving at 60kph, holding the accelerator with my right hand. "NO! I'M DRIVING. ARE YOU CRAZY?!". he insisted a couple of times and eventually gave up. people on the road here have no concern for safety.we flew through our first 100km. that's when we hit the mountains and not just any mountains, but the himalayas. O.M.G. the views were amazing, but the road! THAT ROAD WAS HORRIBLE! steep, curvy and with chunks of it unpaved. i'm not even talking about dirt roads, just rocks piled on the ground. we seriously thought we were going to loose a piece. the silencer at the very least. we bumped into some teams, but we were just too impatient and overtook them. suddenly, somewhere on the narrow road, we ran out of gas! we switch to reserve and were lucky enough to find a small clear patch to refill. this was our last tank left. we crossed our fingers and hoped it would be enough to make it to gangtok. we switched drivers.we stopped in rangpo, the sikkim border, to get my region permit. sikkim is the border state with nepal, china and bhutan. due to some issues in the past with china, this area of india is controlled and you can't access it without a permit. we thought it would take forever, but in less than 30mins i was the proud porter of a sikkim permit and we were off again. the road got a bit better, but steeper. we drove through beautiful landscapes. the mountains were at first covered in jungle and eventually forest. water ran through at the bottom and the quaint little towns seemed out of place in this corner of india. the people also looked different, more tibetan than indian. some of them were the perfect mix between the 2. we kept driving through steeper and steeper roads.somewhere, at the bottom of the mountain where gangtok is located, we started having issues with our clutch. it kept making noises and the gears weren't kicking in correctly. we just prayed that it would make it up. we started looking for the kilometer markers up to gantok and yelling them out loud. "25 kms!" "20 kms!". we were also cheering up our rickshaw, "COME ON PIECE OF SHIT! YOU CAN DO IT! COME ON, MUCHO NACHO! GET US THERE! DON'T YOU DIE ON US!". we were going up on 3rd gear and, as the rickshaw grew louder and crappier, we had to go down to 2nd and eventually 1st. i considered jumping off and pushing it up or just catching a cab. at this point, my 135lbs were making a big difference. i stayed on. the closer we got to the city, the bigger our smiles were and the louder our cheering got. the markers went down to 10km, 8km. somewhere along the road, we bumped into 5 rickshaws going the opposite direction. we thought of turning around and following them, but they looked like they no longer belonged to any teams. we pushed up the hill. the road was now pretty much vertical. ok, maybe i'm exaggerating, but it was DAMN steep. our rickshaw was barely making it when, out of nowhere, THERE IT WAS: a huge banner that read "GANGTOK. FINISH LINE". we stopped. the rickshaw made an ungodly noise and turned off. we got off. we hugged. we cheered. we kicked our POS a couple of times. WE WERE IN GANGTOK. .waiiiiiiiiit a minute. there was noone there. we assumed this was some sort of quasi-finish line. we still had to make it to the bamboo grove retreat hotel. we thought our rickshaw was not going to turn on. the sound it had made was that of an engine falling off. the loud roar of our silencer went on, we yelled some more and we took off. some guy on the street gave us directions to the hotel. he said there were 2 roads to get there; he pointed at the steeper one and said we wouldn't make it up that one and to take the alternative. "OH. WE ARE MAKING IT". going up the road on 1st gear at what felt like 5kph, we made it to the hotel! the finish line! we got off, hugged again, kicked the rickshaw one more time and celebrated. we wrote our names on the board; 24th team to arrive. not bad for the 3.5 days we were broken down. some team made it in 8 days. another rolled down a bridge!we decided to stay at that hotel. after all, most teams were hanging out there. we dropped our stuff in our room and went to get some food and much deserved beers. we recalled the adventures of the past 14 days. on the street, we bumped into our long lost 3rd team member, chatted for a while, then used the internet, bought more beers and went back to the hotel.we spent the rest of the night chilling, sipping beers, making friends, telling wild tales -but true- of our adventures and having fun. we sat back. amazed by our feat, we smiled. the adventure of a lifetime.

day 12 - rupsa (aka hell-hole) to berhampore - 400+ km

- woke up in sketchy road side hotel. a couple of mechanics came to help us. the looked at the engine and guessed it was the carburetor. they also pulled apart where the line from the carburetor hits the engine. - mechanics decided the gasket was bad. instead of getting the spare gasket (which probably costs less than 1 dollar), they made one out of THE cardboard packaging that comes with the gaskets. fixed it. or thought they did. - around 10km later, we started stalling again. FOL (fuck our lives). - my guess was the carburetor. we started playing with the air and gas valves. after, 3-4 more stalls and playing with it, we got it right. WE BOOKED IT AFTER THAT. - headed towards kolkata. feared the worst. - made it to the bypass and rolled. tried connecting with national highway 34. took for ever. - by the time we made it, we realized we were going to have to drive at night to make it to berhampur. - WORST NIGHT DRIVING EVER. couldn't see a thing. one lane road, crazy trucks coming our way on the ride, sharing the road with bicycles on our left. we were freaking out. - made it to berhampur. NEVER have we EVER been dirtier in our lives. adam didn't look white anymore. my hair was a mass of dust, my clothing and my skin were the same colour. - stayed at the first hotel we could find, which wasn't bad. had dinner at this restaurant that had so many bugs flying around, i thought i was going to end up chewing a grasshopper. - slept like a rock.

day 11 - bhubaneswar to rupsa (aka hell-hole) - 217 km

WHOA. will edit later to tell the whole story. for now, pointers: - left our indian friend's house at 9am to go to the auto-rickshaw shop to make sure they were fixing it - spent from about 9:30am to about 4:30pm there waiting for the rickshaw to be put back together (LIKE ALL OF IT: engine, gear box, carburetor, silencer and axle) - while waiting, went to a restaurant i was sure was going to give me salmonella (but did not at all) - at 4pm the mechanic took us for a ride and for some tea. engine sounded good, rickshaw was back at being powered by petrol and not us pushing it or a rope pulling it. - took off. swore we would drive to medinipur no matter what (320km) - the road turned to shit (potholes and parts of it being closed). the night hit and our rickshaw started stalling again. first every 5km, then 3km, then every 1 km. - we were stalling in the middle of nowhere thinking "FUCK! we are going to have to sleep on the rickshaw on the side of the road!". also, it was really dark and we could barely see the road. - found a sketchy road side hotel (not what you think...wait for it). a mechanic "fixed" the rickshaw. adam and i celebrated and we took off for baleshwar (back the way we came) - 1 km later, we stalled again. back to the sketchy road side hotel. NOWHERE TO GO. - sketchy road side hotel: have you seen one of the SAW movies? LOOKS WORSE THAN THAT. the room was down some stairs (i'm calling it the dungeon), it was in this creepy shade of blue. to my right a cot with 2 dudes, next to the cot a BIG wooden table with a tatami mat, next to the wooden table a fan and a radio blaring indian music. on the opposite side of the room, another cot in one corner and a bunch of dishes in the other. close to the big wooden table, another door that left to food storage (?). the BIG wooden table was OUR bed. A WOODEN MOTHER FUCKING TABLE IN A ROOM WITH 3 DUDES, DISHES AND BETWEEN SORT OF A KITCHEN AND SOME FOOD STORAGE. NOT A FUCKING JOKE. I'M NOT LYING TO YOU. - i barely slept. first, because HAVE YOU SEEN SAW? and infinite, because it was hot, i was sleeping on a wooden table, there were spiderwebs and flies, there were more people sleeping there, some dude kept coming in and dropping -THROWING- metallic dishes on the ground, another kept coming in with a flashlight and pointing it at my face, people were talking outside AND finally, because the second fan in the room sounded like it was going to explode any moment and send blades flying my way. - i hope i don't go to hell when i die, because i'm sure this is probably what it looks like.

day 10 - bhuvaneswar 0 km

we woke up early at the hotel desperate to reassemble our engine and get it working that day. jit and jitu, who had helped us the night before, offered to call their friend who was a mechanic. just in case it didn't work out, i decided to find another mechanic, and a very nice indian [] gave me a ride over to a Bajaj shop in his SUV. although i went to the Bajaj sales place, they told me exactly where the service center was. i went back to the hotel, and jit and jitu arrived with their friend dev, who has a CAR! holy shit! unspeakable luxury compared to the auto-rickshaw. dev very kindly tows us with our ghetto rope setup, and we make it to the OFFICIAL service center by noon. no more drunk mechanics. only..... the center takes a look at the plastic bags full of tiny parts and says itll be THREE DAYS! AHH! our indian comrades talk to them a little and tell us they can probably do it faster. we leave the rickshaw, the pieces of engine, and the bags full of random parts at the center what to do then? drink! of course. we go back to dev's and drink, eat lunch, hang out. very chilled out. later that night we go CLUBBING!!!!!!!!!!!!!, club HR i think. modern place, i would not be surprised to see it in midtown manhattan. fog, lasers, that 'tonight's gonna be a good night' song, the whole nine yards. i wear one of dev's V neck shirts. gotta look sharp for the indian ladies. after partying and dancing hard (jitu has some great dance moves) their friend KJ buys us a late dinner (11!). Dev very kindly offers to put us up in his house by the airport/train, and malena, dev, jetu and i all sleep in a room and have girl talk. someone's phone goes off all night. we are tipsy and full of food but still have no rickshaw. gotta get moving tomorrow.

day 9 - this must be what hell is like - 50 km

FOL! (fuck our lives) nah, REALLY, fol! today sucked! we took off at 8am. we tried to stop by the jagannath temple (more like watch it from across the street; only hindus allowed) in puri and that's when things started going south. we would park and people would come up to us an tell us "no parking" and point into another place. we would move there an the same thing would happen again. we did this like 4 times until we just left the rickshaw somewhere. it turned out the library we were going to watch the temple was closed. when we came back to the rickshaw, we got the "no parking" treatment again and a guy tried to cheat us by saying we had to pay 50 rupees. we battled with traffic and eventually left puri.

the adventurists had told us to switch the engine oil at 2,000km. afraid our engine would break down, we decided to look for a mechanic to switch the engine oil. we pulled into this small garage and the guy got to work right away. a storekeeper gave us free chai, translated for us and helped us get a new SIM card. the mechanic fixed our loose silencer, our reverse drive and switch the oil. unfortunately, somehow, our oil seal broke and we were exhausting a crazy amount of oil. he warned us about it, said we could still drive the rickshaw but that every 100km we had to get the engine oil level checked. DUDE WEHAVE 1500km TO GO we cannot check it that often

we drove back into bhuba, but the amount of smoke coming out from our muffler scared us and we decided to get it fixed. we were making so much smoke it was comical... it was like we had a fog machine and the rickshaw was simply attached to that. a couple of people recommended a garage and we headed that way. from the sight of it, it looked legit: 12 rickshaws had pulled over and were getting fixed. we thought we had found the best place in town! two mechanics fixed all of the rickshaws, rebuilding wheels and hubs and axles and everything.

_adam writing now_

after waiting in line for 2 hrs, we were about to give up. around 3, one of the mechanics finally got to our rickshaw and started taking the engine out. entire thing, out on the curb, before we knew it. but, to change the oil seal he has to get inside the engine, right? no big deal. after taking it out, he takes it apart partially, before walking away again.

OK, so now we cant really leave... but no big deal. we can probably reassemble this if we really need to. the mechanic disappears again, leaving for ANOTHER two hours. wtf! at 5, he tells us he needs 200 Rp for new parts and oil (he has spilled the new engine oil). he takes 200 Rp and comes back with about 100 Rp of parts, drops them off, and goes to work on another rickshaw. wtf?! of course no one here speaks any english. i mean, not a word, only sign language.

(the whole time, a crowd is gathering around our rickshaw while we are waiting. no matter where we are, what time of day, if we stop moving for more than 3 minutes a crowd gathers. some people just gawk, some people try to talk, other people come up to your rickshaw and start going through your stuff. but there are always people everywhere, crowding around, sitting in your rickshaw, and being annoying)

the mechanic finally comes back at 6. its getting dark. how the fuck is he going to fix this rickshaw in an alley in the dark? we're not in a garage or anything, we're in an alley, he's working out of a thatched hut. he seems more energetic than before, but also irritable and crazy, and sociable (although he doesnt speak anything we understand). at one point he hugs adam, runs his hand through adam's beard, and starts kissing him on the neck. but he doesnt do any work.

he FINALLY starts working on it around 7. so he starts working on it, and pulling it apart. LIKE, PULLING IT FUCKING APART. the engine down to the itty bittiest components, the gear box and transmission fully, the exhaust fully out of the car, even removes the axle...EVERYTHING. before we could figure out what was happening, our rickshaw is completely empty. it looks likethe rickshaw had its guts ripped out. AHHHHHHHHHHH! AND NO ONE SPEAKS ANY ENGLISH! and this drunk mechanic is just banging on things with the hammer randomly!

its now 9pm, and the guts of our rickshaw are in at least 300 pieces on the ground, and this drunk guy is just banging on them with a hammer. anytime we try to stop him or say something he yells at us and motions with the hammer. there is a crowd of about 15 indians watching.  this in an alley, lit up by a 40w bulb.

at this point several english-speaking indians (jit and jitu) materialize and ask malena wtf is going on. its now about 930. they recommend we get drunk guy away from the rickshaw, and that malena go to the hotel because its not safe much longer. malena takes the important stuff from the rickshaw and heads to the hotel to try to find a tow truck, while adam stays behind in the alley armed with an LED light and helmet to guard the rickshaw.

let me say, the two hours i spent in the alley sitting in that rickshaw were terrifying. hundreds of random people came by, teenagers, drunk people, old people, people high on glue, roving gangs of 20 year olds, and they ALL came over to the rickshaw and started poking around our stuff, and the engine all over the ground. theres one street light all the way down the alley, and the indians have told me its not safe to stay with the rickshaw overnight. but wtf do we do? leave the rickshaw to be stripped?

so alllllllllllll of these creepy people come around, some kind of chat, but most just leer at me, look creepy, and try to poke through the parts of the rickshaw, and our stuff inside the rickshaw, until i flash them with the light. i am actually ready to cry with despair by midnight. what do i do if someone tries to take something? bash their head in with the helmet? can i fight four teenagers? what if i lose?

i am writing my final wishes into the cellphone when.... malena shows up! with another autorickshaw! and jit and jitu, the two english-speaking americans! its a miracle!!!!! unbeknownst to us, jit and jitu found an autorickshaw who was willing to tow us at midnight. AMAZING!!!

we hurriedly scoop the hundreds of pieces of metal, and engine block, and carbeurator, and muffler into bags, throw them in the back of the rickshaw and get the hell out of there. ive never been so relieved to leave somewhere.

we get towed back to the hotel, buy some illegal after hours beers and drink them with jit and jitu. shitty day...but at least i didn't spend all night in the rickshaw and we collected most of our engine etc.

SMS Update

Adam hasn't showered in three days, we have only had dinner once during that time, we keep breaking down

day 8 bhubanswar to konark and puri, negative 50km

as you may have deduced from the title, we took the day off. i slept until the leisurely hour of 11am, before malena and i headed south to the beach temple towns of puri and konark. we were set tohead south, but had to make one stop.....

the grocery store! a real, large, well stocked and airconditioned grocery store! amazing!!!!!!! we wandered through the aisles somewhat dazed and confused by the state of the place, it could have been a Pathmark or a Tesco or any other real grocery store!

after spending half our daily budget there on vital necessities such as chocolate milk and Dove soap, we headed south towards puri. although it was a single speed road, it wasnt too bad. lots of cows on the road though, walking one way, walking the other, sometimes just standing smack in the middle of a huge intersection, hanging out. oh we also saw a monkey chained to a tree on this road. IMPORTANT!

after reaching puri, our first choice hotel was fullup, unfortunately. no pool tonight! we found another one nearby with clean rooms and a quiet location for 1200 R though. we thought this was a good deal, but the going rate for non whities is apparently under 1000. stuff like thisis constantly happening. in fact, my first default response to any hotel room price is now 'thats too high,' and see what happens

so we dumped our stuff and went to the SUN TEMPLE  in konark. ba ba baaaaaaaa! [http://konark.nic.in/](http://konark.nic.in/) sun temple costs 10 Rp for indians and 250 Rp for everyone else, of course. the temple has some insanely carved sculptures covering the ENTIRE bigass temple. what is even crazier is that is was completely forgotten about and covered by sand for centuries. this thing is like 10 stories tall and several football fields long. very cool though. we bumped into another team, from london i believe, who were at sun temple.

 on the way back to puri, we took a detour to the beach, which was pretty nice, completely clean, nice sand, but quite a riptide. so good for surfing mostly. malena and i went in and practiced some shots for our SI india spread, coming later in 2010. after that, we made friends with 4 indian dudes, who wanted to take a picture with us. i should probably point out that i was wearing a bright orange, yellow, and teal button down shirt, at least 2 sizes too big, with sunglasses, a panama hat, a bandana and a compass around my neck. i look like some kind of insane plantation owner from the future.

so we chatted to the indians for a while, then ran into two teams from belgium. wow! 3 teams in one day, we havent seen this many in a while. we took so long on the beach, that we didnt get back to puri til night, and had to battle some traffic to get back to the hotel. i think the main road here at night is the worst i have driven on so far.

imagine thousands of bicycles, pedestrians, rickshaws, buses, trucks, cars, all smashed up together on a 6 lane road. those 6 lanes arent divided or marked in any way, so they are mostly psychological. pedestrians can, and do go the wrong way. they don't get out of your way. same for bicycles. no bicycle in all of india has a light. to make things more fun, every 10 seconds, some motor vehicle will come directly at you, with no lights on, and no honking. its mostly your job to avoid these guys while not hitting any of the other 3478547689 darkened things on the road. i clipped a bicycle today and im not sorry at all. im conflicted about this.

after an unfun half hour, we made it back to the hotel, grabbed some dinner, and now we are nerding out. i tried to get a new SIM card here for our phone, but the requirements to get a SIM card are:

1) passport style photo 2) passport photocopy 3) visa photocopy 4) signed copy of cash receipt from hotel IN THAT CITY

so, tomorrow morning we'll play scavenger hunt and get all that. tomorrow morning we may also try to look at this cool temple, [http://wikitravel.org/en/Image:Shree_Jagannath_Temple_-_Puri.jpg](http://wikitravel.org/en/Image:Shree_Jagannath_Temple_-_Puri.jpg) . devoted to lord of the universe. cool. fun fact, puri is also known as : The Abode of Lord Jagannath. INTENSE!

uh, as non Hindus we have to pay someone off and go to the roof of a library to catch a glimpse of this thing. it has 6000 priests! SIX THOUSAND! and monkeys live inside! what!

 the rickshaw is slowly shaking apart. fog lights broken, doesnt go in reverse anymore, the backseat has come completely off, the muffler has ripped free and now emits a earth shaking rattle in any gear or any speed... we are cautiously optimistic. tomorrow we go north, somewhere, i dont really know where, ask malena. im going back to the hotel to drink my officers choice whiskey. indian price: 180 Rp. adam price: 280 Rp. [http://s3.amazonaws.com/spinearth-prod/mugshots/4025/Shaun_Officers_Choice_medium.jpg  ](http://s3.amazonaws.com/spinearth-prod/mugshots/4025/Shaun_Officers_Choice_medium.jpg "http://s3.amazonaws.com/spinearth-prod/mugshots/4025/Shaun_Officers_Choice_medium.jpg") a

day 6 - vijayawada to visakhapatnam - 375? km

tak and pete headed out at dawn, aiming to buy enough time to find someone to look at their engine. as usual, malena and i were lazier and slept in and took advantage of the free breakfast before leaving at 845am. getting out of vijayawada was actually not that bad, the daylight makes a big difference! promptly after making it out of vijay, i pull into a gas station to fill up. only, the gas station is closed (abandoned?). to make things even worse, i manage to find the one spot where the sewer grate is not covering the sewer, and drop the back left wheel firmly into place. after some comical huffing and puffing, an indian truck driver produces a metal rod to use as a lever, and 4 of us pry it out. amazingly, the wheel is fine. the wheels must be kevlar. we deserve 100 flat tires by now. day 6 was pretty tame, traffic moved quickly with the occasional horrific accident. about one per hour. trucks flipped over in ditches, trucks and busses colliding head on, charred embers of trucks on the side of the road.... its a little like mad max. we snapped a picture of 7 people on 2 motorcycles in one shot, which is a new record. we saw motorcycles carrying an amazing amount of things: a dead pig (at least 150 lb), a table and chair set, a 55 gallon drum, etc.... at one point, stuck in traffic waiting to go through a toll booth, at least 10 lime sellers came and mobbed the rickshaw. of course we say 'no', but we shake our heads side to side, which means 'yes' here, which only makes them more aggressive. at this point a motorcycle crosses in front of us. but instead of crossing, he stops and blocks our path, motioning at the lime sellers. the lime sellers, now even more sure that we will have to buy something, start pushing into the rickshaw. its all slightly surreal, and malena and i just look at each other, until...... one of the lime sellers starts dancing. spontaneously. with his limes. totally bizarre. she has video. so uhh, yeah, weird things like this kept happening. at one point i had to swerve across a few lanes, dodge a bicycle, and then navigate some speed bumps, and the rickshaw stalled. theres a wall of traffic behind me, busses honking, everything. im struggling to restart our POS and some indian guy strolls up and tries to shake my hand. in the middle of traffic. what?!? eventually we made it to visakhapatnam, which is a nice beach city, which is funny because the beach isnt really that nice, and the city isnt either. but together its OK somehow. we spent 15 minutes making fun of a motorcycle driver we nicknamed 'mr cool' because he loved driving without any hands, oakleys, two bandanas on, mp3 player, everything. of course he ends up being the nicest guy ever and drives us all the way to our hotel in the middle of nowhere, which we never would have found otherwise. karmas not real! proof! so the beach view is nice from our place, but the beach itself is full of coconut husks and corn cobs, ehh. thats ok though because we only have energy to eat dinner and start on my officers choice whiskey. tomorrow: 400km to bhuben! a

day 5 - nellore to vijayawada -250km

make no mistake about the 250km, this was a long day, out on the road from 8ish am, past dark, into the massive city of vijayawada, driving through traffic AT NIGHT IN THE CITY, and then, a blackout on top of everything.

after our free breakfast in nellore we hit the road north. no more bullshit country roads, this is a HIGHWAY! AMERICAN QUALITY! 1500 km alllll the way up to calcutta. no more speed bumps, and fewer goats and cows. the highway has its own problems, though:

 1) when it goes through a town, you are going 55 kmph, and when people jump out to cross at random like deer, it is petrifying 

 2) when people go THE WRONG WAY (on a divided highway) they are often going 70+ kmph at you

 anyway, shortly after leaving nellore, pete( and taks) rickshaw started having lots of problems. loose spark plug, engine problems, some fuel line problems, etc, stalled the convoy for a few hours in the heat (more than 100F). a small army of indians assembled to help them repair it though, even on the highway, which was nice. we ran into another team (get some india) along the road, who had a flat. they are also planning to bomb up NH5 all the way to calcutta.

after a little bit, that rickshaw is running again, and we head north. while driving, though, yet more problems appear on their rickshaw, like a loose spark plug line (wtf?) and also some protector for their rear axle has come off. i can only hypothesize either a haunted rickshaw or SABOTAGE.

eventually pete and tak manage to use duct tape to secure the spark plug line, which melts everything into place nicely, and we stop in ongole for a great lunch. wish i could tell you the name of the place but i have no clue.... its a windowless restaurant with milkshakes though

with 150 km to go til vijayawada, and 4 hours of sunlight, we are racing against the clock. all goes well until we hit GUNTUR. gunts are never good news. crazy traffic, no dividers, no signs anywhere mean we are trying to use the compass to navigate. which is silly, of course, because the best thing to do is lean out of the rickshaw and yell "VIJAY????" and point around

takes us close to an hour to clear guntur, and then we know we'll never make it to vijayawada by nightfall. this gives you a horrible feeling, because the most horrible things in india are (getting more horrible):

1) driving

2) driving in a city

3) driving at night

4) driving at night in a city

5) driving at night in a city without a set destination

6) driving at night in a city without destination, or map, or GPS or anything

we were category 6. apocalypse now. seriously. thankfully tak had a guide with some hotels, so we came up with some ideas. after some serious fucking fast and the furious driving, we got within 1km of the hotel, and were beating it down a narrow alley, when the whole city blacked out. terrifying. the headlights on the rickshaw are less powerful than the average flashlight, and there are people, bicycles, rickshaws, cars, carts, all within 1 ft of any given side.

after half a minute of total darkness, the lights came back, and we made it to the golden palace. of course, no rooms there. they recommend another place, and when we set out to find it.... blackout again. like it wasnt hard enough to find? thankfully, after 20 minutes of stumbling with the rickshaw in the dark, we found it, and our rickshaw is now parked on the sidewalk outside. kudos to pete and malena for doing some sick driving tonight.

 

tomorrow: visakhapatnam. 380km. yep

 

also check out   http://www.trackpete.net/, that is the blog and live tracker of our travel companion, pete. in case you are curious....

 

-a m t