Day 13 - Guwahati to Shillong

Somehow this didn't post....

We made it! 8 hours of continuous breakdowns while driving the final 80km during a massive storm.

Finished! 

Day 12 - Alipurduar to Guwahati

Friday. Two more days of driving.

Friday was a big one, 280km to go. We opted for a later start, finally pulling out of the hotel at 6am instead of the oh so familiar 4am start.

We narrowly missed a thunderstorm thursday night, and Friday the roads/greenery were definitely showing it. Everything is so Green and lush in Assam! Such a completely different feeling from everything else we have seen thus far on the trip.


The drive was great. Naan Factor's Rickshaw broke down about 100 times, we were rescued by a team of crazy scotts who tore apart our engine and fixed it, we picked up a hitchhiker and drank tea with a bunch of locals, and we did some crazy interstate maneuvers with a convoy of 7 rickshaws (footage is going to be great).


Awesome day despite the rickshaw issues and length of the driving.

We arrived at a hotel in Guwahati at about 8pm. Now only 100km to go to the finish line...

Day 11 - Darjeeling to Alipurduar

Thursday

Our "rest day" started with a 345am wake up. We had hired a car to take us up to Tiger Hill to see the sunrise, and from the 2,600m summit hopefully to catch a view of Everest, Kangchenjunga and Makalu. Everest is about 162km away from Tiger Hill. The "world's most beautiful peak", Tibet's Jomolhari mountain, is only 135km away as well.

Unfortunately, visibility was not that great. Although April is a good time of year for views, we couldn't see the peaks. Beautiful sunrise, but no Everest. I guess I can live with that since I got really close in April last year :).

The morning Was absolutely freezing. Living in Thailand and being in the scorching hot Indian heat for a few weeks apparently has made me weak. Good thing I bought a $0.75 sweater that kept me nice and warm... I looked like Mr. Rogers but it was functional.

After the Tiger Hill sunrise, our next stops were to a couple monasteries. Took some photos, saw some stuff, etc.


Then we went to Dung Gon Samten Choling Monastery. This is a typical little Buddhist monastery tucked on a hillside near Darjeeling. We walked around, listened to the young monks chanting, and enjoyed the early morning chilly weather.

While wandering around Dung Gon, we found a stairwell that went up to the roof. From the roof, it happened to be a perfect place to fly the drone :)

We were getting some good shots when we accidentally flew it in too close and too quickly to us for a flyover shot and damn near wrecked directly into the Main building. We were all cracking up at the near miss, when we were surprised to see the 4 stern looking monks coming up the stairs to the rooftop where we were camped out. Uh oh.

Turns out, one of the monks was one of the head monks, and he wasn't angry that we almost crashed into his building - he was interested. He spoke English really well and made it clear he just wanted to see what we were doing. We showed him the drone and some of the footage that we had shot of the monastery and the surroundings. He was fascinated.

Austin somewhat jokingly asked if he would be interested in flying it.

He was.

He surprisingly was a very fast learner and really enjoyed it....


He told us that they had never had pictures taken from above the monastery, and that they were wonderful. We exchanged details and sent him some of the good ones - he was absolutely thrilled. So thrilled that he then invited us in for Tibetan tea and biscuits with him and some of the other monks. This was incredible and ended up being over an hour long conversation with them about myriad topics.

This experience was amazing, and one I will remember forever.


After the monastery, we went and ate a massive breakfast (we woke up at 345, and it was not 11am and I was getting Hangry), went and drank a bunch of tea, and then loaded up and headed back down the mountain to pick up our rickshaws.

We hit the road around 4pm for the 150km drive toward Shillong. We drove until around 10pm, and decided 4.5 hours of terrifying night driving was enough for the day.

Tomorrow's plan is to drive the 350km to Guwahati, which would set us up nicely for the final day's 80km/4 hour ascent to the finish line, in Shillong. We might actually finish on time?!!?

Day 10 - Darjeeling

Wednesday.

Yesterday we decided that it was not wise to make the 2,300m climb up to Darjeeling in the Rickshaws. They have been acting up lately and a 80km 2,300m climb would destroy them, and our spirits. Sad, but the logical decision.

The plan then was to drive to Bagdogra, find a hotel, and drop our rickshaws and some extra gear. Then we'd arrange transport via a truck up to Darjeeling. Definitely would love to drive the rickshaws, but really worried if we would drive then:

A - we might not make it. B - given our tight schedules we have mechanical issues and it takes a really long time and we lose out of seeing Darjeeling. C - we'd cause some damage to the rickshaw and struggle with the remaining 600km blitz needed to go to Shillong, where we don't have any buffer time due to flights, jobs, etc. D - our brakes would go out on the way down and we die.

Given that list. The plan was set.

So Saturday: Early morning wake up. Drive through tea fields. No issues :). Arrived in Bagdogra at 8am. In tiny cars en route to Darjeeling by 930am.

Made it! We had some nice Darjeeling tea by 1230pm. I like this place.

We took the drone up for a spin... ![Uploading file...]()

Plan is see the town, and go up to see some mountains tomorrow am at 3am. Hooray cool weather!

Day 9 - Kishanganj, Bihar

Tuesday.

430km was the final distance. We didn't even stop for food. Literally just ate crappy crackers and drove like maniacs. 4am to 8pm straight. No breaks other than for fuel. Well, that is partially true, we actually had to shut down the Ricksahws twice due to overheating and once because our tire spontaneously combusted.


Also, our convoy was a total failure today. When our tire exploded we pulled over to change it, and since 300 random Indians showed up to see what was going on, the Fast & Curryous boys accidentally drove right by us. We assumed their rickshaw would break down at some point, so they held on to the buffer they had in front of us. They never broke down.... So we drove without them for 2 hours. 

Big day. This puts us 100km from Siliguri, which is 80km from Darjeeling. BAM.

Plan tomorrow (Day 10, Wednesday) is to start really early (330am), and get to Darjeeling by lunch. We then can enjoy the area, do something crazy and have a free day on Thursday before making the chaotic 600km sprint to Shillong via the worst roads on earth in time for the finish party on Saturday.

Then, I will sleep for a month and enjoy many buffet dinners.

Day 8 - Varanasi to Bodhgaya

Monday's drive started early at 4am to go the 260km to Bodhgaya, and then make a 60km push back up to Niwada.

Bodhgaya is where Siddhadtha Gautama achieved enlightenment and became the Buddha. It is the birthplace of Buddhism.

Really fascinating place. We spent a lot of time at the Mahabodhi Temple walking with a Thai monk that was there. He was great about explaining what we're seeing and gave us a few blessings before we went on our way. Hopefully those blessings apply to the rickshaws as well....




After touring around Bodhgaya for a bit, we decided to rest for the night in Gaya. The machines really were struggling in the extremely hot weather and we really didn't feel like sleeping in a dump truck again.

Tomorrow, Day 9 (Tuesday), we will wake up early for another 4am start to make as many km through Bihar as possible. If all goes to plan, this would set us up to hit Darjeeling by Wednesday night for a full day in the Himalayas. However, nothing ever goes according to plan.

Day 6 - Fatehpur to Varanasi

Saturday. 250km. That's it. That's all we had to do. It is a somewhat longer day of driving. But, we did 360km yesterday. Shouldn't be a problem, right?

One would think...

We got off to a later start due to the late finish last night. However we still managed to pull out of the hotel parking lot and hit the road by 7am.

About 60km into our drive Stu and Alex's Rickshaw seized up and stopped. It was too early and we were taking the roads too easy for overheating.... No matter.

We wanted to be in Varanasi for the sunset, so we took a quick break and started out again.

Next it was the Curry mobile that seized up. Presumably this one was due to overheating. At this point, it was about 42 degrees and absolutely scorching. We were waiting for our engines to cool down in that intense heat in the side of a hot dusty highway. Not gonna happen, but we had no other choice as there wasn't any shade.

After a quick meal we were back at it again. Right on schedule, about 40 minutes into our drive, our Rickshaw (such a beast thus far), died in a horrible way. We had dodgy fuel in our last fill up, and the way our Ricky died - we thought it was watered down. We decided to empty our tank and refill with good fuel. Despite the change, No luck on restarting it.


Turns out it that was our turn to melt our piston. Massive hole. Unreal.

We were stranded on the side of a hot highway deciding what to do when a few other rickshaw runners drove by and stopped to see if they could help. Fortunately one of the teams had an Indian friend traveling with them. Thank God they stopped. She was able to chat with the crowd that had gathered and enlist a local tuk tuk driver to drive our Shaw into town (~4km away) to find a mechanic. Good karma for that team!

We were towed by the other rickshaw a terrifying 3km the wrong way down a busy highway in search of a mechanic that could find and install a new piston for us. ![Uploading file...]()

We found the mechanic around 1pm. He allegedly could get the piston and have it ready in two hours. Alex was still very ill, so Team Fast & Curryous stayed with us and Stu and Alex pushed on to Varanasi to get Alex to a proper bed.

Sure enough, he finished in twoish hours. However, after he said it was ok and finished, when we pulled away it instantly died twice within 2km. Not ok apparently.

After multiple hours of tinkering, we were good to go again. We finally started back toward Varanasi at 730pm. Another 140km to go, and the sun was already down. Another terrifying long drive through the night. We were pulled over by our first policeman of the trip. He spoke no English, but somehow made it clear he was asking for a 200 rupee "entrance fee" for the road. I was tired and started to argue with him, etc. when Christian reminded me that it was $6 and we should probably just pay and go. We paid the guy and went on our way. He pulled over the Curry boys right after and when they paid him with a 500 rupee note, he gave them 200 rupee change. Crooked, but fair.

We arrived at our hotel in Varanasi at 2am. Weary from 18 hours of travel and, of course, the hotel only have one hotel room, even though we had called ahead.

5 dudes in a hotel room with one King size bed. Bummer.

Fortunately we had already planned on doing a sunrise boat trip down the Ganges, so we weren't planning on sleeping much anyway.

Plan was to spend the day in Varanasi, we wanted to: see the city, let Alex recover, get Christian to a doctor (infected cut leading to massive swelling in his legs), and have the Rickshaws serviced before the long push toward Darjeeling.

Day 5 - Agra to Fatehpur

Our plan for the day was to sleep in a little, eat our first breakfast of the trip and then drive from Agra to Kanpur, possibly further. Kanpur is about 280km away. Which given our average speed (assuming no breakdowns) on the good roads of 29km/h, it's about 10 hours of good driving. We ate and ended up pulling out of the hotel around 8am.

After warming up the engines a bit, we made a slight detour. The 25km stretch of road between Fatehabad to Firozabad was awesome. Such a good drive through some small villages. In Firozabad we encountered the most intense railroad/intersection I have ever seen in my life. It was unreal. I got a lot of video footage. Can't wait. Can't believe we didn't run over anyone/thing. Fortunately all of the rickshaws overheated while in the chaotic traffic, always fun to push them in that nonsense. Ha!

Met a friend on the way: 

Christian was feeling good and wanted to keep driving despite my offers, so I was of course fine with riding and taking pictures all day :)

Here is a camel guy on the way: 

The roads were wonderful and the rickshaws performed well! Both adjectives are very relative, roads = wonderful, doesn't mean that there weren't any crazy Indian drivers. Of course not. Rickshaws "performing well" means "no massive breakdowns", of course we had the standard overheating issues, tire issues, etc.


We arrived in Kampur at 630pm to find out that it is literally one of the most polluted cities in the world. We should've known, since we could smell it about 100km away, and when we were driving through it our eyes were burning. Obviously, we decided despite the failing light we should push on to Fatehpur, which was another 80km away. I will bring some souvenirs home from India... And I'd prefer that lung issues aren't included on that list.

This was our longest push of the trip. Total was 360km. Which is great because the plan is to make another huge push (~300km) tomorrow (given that the machines work) to make it Varanasi. Then Sunday we would like to spend some time being tourists in Varanasi. Before starting our way toward Bihar, West Bengal and the the Himalayas!

Day 3 - recap


Early morning 5am wake up in Bilara (in our dodgy guesthouse). Not going to lie, we were somewhat surprised to see that our rickshaws are still around and still have engines. Especially given our luck thus far!

We weren't really thinking when we put a massive stereo system/speakers in our rickshaw about it staying outside all alone every night.... Happy to still have it!

We started our day with a 88km/3 hour drive to Dilwara. It was there that we decided to pop in and eat some delicious fried peppers and drinks some tea for breakfast. We were joined by about 20 cows.


It could have been the swarms of cows, or the masses of people around us asking what the heck we were doing, we aren't really sure. Either way, as soon as we started pulling out of town, Christian was surprised to see that his iPhone was missing.

Fortunately, the "find iPhone" app works really well. We were able to track it down (being followed by police and 100 curious Indians) to a school nearby. It was a sight. They all were extremely impressed that we had a "tracking device" to find the stolen phone.

Outside the school, we hit the "play sound" button to try and locate the phone. The phone played and fortunately the teacher heard it. The teacher had seen the massive crowd gathered outside and brought out the phone. Success! That little thieving shit.

Onward! Target city was Jaipur, which is another 185km away.

Good roads. Good weather. The new piston held up and the rickshaws actually performed alright. We arrived in Jaipur around 5pm relatively happy and went straight to a mechanic.

Had some bits tuned and fixed in the rickshaws and we were good! Off to see a few sites in the pink city/forts and eat some weird foods before getting a good nights rest.

Day 4 plan is to make the 250km push to Agra (Taj Mahal). The Taj is closed on Fridays (day 5), so we need to make it there on Day 4! Fingers crossed that we don't have any major breakdowns, etc.

Forward!


Day 1 - continued, continued. Day 2

So we have all 3 rickshaws successfully loaded into a truck with a driver who appears to be relatively sober (no English). It's now probably around 1130pm, and were set to go the 2 hour(ish) drive to Jodphur.

The Stars were amazing. The drive was terrifying.

30 minutes or so into the drive the driver decides to make a pit stop for tea. Then lays down and appears to want us to spend the night there. We make a huge fuss about arriving tonight, started to look like we were going to take the rickshaws out of the truck, etc, so he begrudgingly got up and started getting ready to drive again.

Apparently if your truck driver wants to sleep, you should let him. Big mistake. This guy was all over the road. Hitting the shoulder and then over-correcting and hitting the other shoulder. Clearly was falling asleep.

Without much warning. He pulled over the side of the road and stopped. We thought this was for a bathroom break, but after about 30 minutes, it was clear that he was sleeping. It was probably 2:30/3am.

Since we had no idea what time he was going to leave again in the morning. We had no choice but to sleep in the back of the truck with the rickshaws. 7 grown men and 3 rickshaws makes for a cozy/terribly night of sleep. We froze. Butttttttttt, fortunately my hammock fit.


At 530am, the truck fired up and he drive the next hour into town. Parking way out on the outskirts.

So we arrive far away from any mechanics, sleep deprived, hungry (no food since lunch yesterday), and with a immobile rickshaw that is 8 feet off the ground in the back of a truck.

Again, I'll add more to this later. But a few mechanic trips, food, almost starting a riot with a fight with our truck driver, a long wait for the piston repair and a fort visit later we were on our way.

4pm. Off to see how far we can get with these terrible machines.

This is where I envision Day 2 actually starting.....

Short story on day 2 driving... No breakdowns. Ate a dodgy dinner. Drove in the dark, again, until 9pm. Couldn't find a hotel. Slept in some terrible guest house and worried that our rickshaws would get stolen all night.

On a brighter note, we got to shower and had an actual dinner.

About 250km behind schedule, which is 7 hours or so. Up early early tomorrow morning to try and make a big push!

![Uploading file...]()

Photo credit (both): Austin fromF&C