FIN!

1/13

7:30 Wake up - Mo starts running hot water for a shower. No one showers

8:10 Depart, katie driving. Still no reception Why is it 45 degrees FAHRENHEIT IN INDIA

10:45 Stop for breakfast

11:45 Refuel and back on the road. Katie driving

1:05 Jen driving

2 Mo takes over

4 WE FINISHED! Reaching the palace was such a relief!

The whole place is absolutely stunning For the rest of the night we're exploring and eating and playing drinking games

A dinner for idiots

1/11

6:45 Wake up

7:25 On the road, towards Vadodara. Katie in the hot seat. Mornings in the north are so cold :/

9:10 Stopped for breakfast

9:30 Mo driving

10:45 Jen takes over

12 Made it into Vadodara

12:15 At Laxmi Vilas Palace. Did an audio tour. Beautiful and extremely large.

Had some snacks for lunch

2 Back on the road, towards Ahmedabad. Jen driving

2:10 After asking us to stop, bikers followed us for 5 minutes while interviewing us. The guy on the back said he was from a media company and wanted to do a piece on us, but we don't have time to stop. His name is Chintan. They exchanged numbers with Mo, and will call back in an hour or so.

2:35-245 Chintan calls back and interviews us on the phone. We also record the conversation on the go pro! After the call ends, he texts Mo his email address and says he works for one of Indias largest newspapers, Loksatta

3:10 Refuel and katie taking over

4 Stopped for a nature pee break

5:25 Stopped at a sweet hotel that a friend recommended with wifi and willing to give us an alcohol permit in this dry state.

6:30-7 Took so long to buy alcohol. What a complicated process! They have to have photocopies of multiple pages in your passport as well as proof of address in this town. You're also limited to how much you can purchase within a 10 day period.

7:15 Found a dominoes and Mo ordered an extraordinary amount of food (bicep emoji)

8- Boozing and eating back at the room And a French movie !

The people you meet when nature calls...

1/10

6:45 On the way to Surat. Katie driving

We went on Mumbai expway by accident

8:15 Stopped for breakfast. For three and extra food to go and chai..120 rp

8:30-9 after finishing breakfast we need to use the bathroom so Mo asks around. We find one that was locked but some random guy that is around there unlocks it for Mo after seeing the desperation on his face. Jen goes in to pee, and then as soon as Mo steps in, a different man comes out from the building and starts yelling at him that it's a police station bathroom. After about a minute of arguing the man concedes and let's Mo use the bathroom. When Mo comes out, he goes in. After he comes out, he apologizes to Mo for the way he reacted. Mo starts telling him the reason we're on this trip and what the trip entails. After he hears this, he invites us in for chai and biscuits !

His name is Balaji. He tells us that he works for this police outpost and about the work he does. He feels connected to us because we are raising funds and awareness for a good cause, and his village helps surrounding villages in many different ways. Balaji tells us that he's installed electricity and water lines for 6 villages around his. He shows us pictures of the villages they've been helping. He's really a sweet guy. He tells us about his daughter and shows us more pictures.

After we finish chai we chat for a few more minutes, and he asks for Mo's phone number. They exchange contact info and then we get back on the road.

9 Mo driving

11 Stopped to pee after driving through the insanity of Navi Mumbai and outer Mumbai

11:05 Jen driving

11:30-11:55 Waiting for one way bridge to get across the Vasai creek.

12:50 Stop to cool engine and get chai

1 Katie driving

2:45 Stop to cool engine and have some snacks

3:45 Back on the road, crossed into Gujarat. Mo driving

4:55 Switch to Jen driving

6:05 Found a hotel to stay at

8:30 Everyone in bed. We exhausted.

Repairs repairs repairs! AND FOOD

1/9

7 Mo wakes up to deal with mechanic related things. Mechanics are all being unresponsive but his family and friends are helping him to look for others.

8:30 Found some mechanics but no one wants to work before 10

11:30 One of Mo's uncles- Sanjiv, finds a mechanic to come to our broken down ricks. Sanjiv drives Mo, Marten, & the mechanic to the ricks. He fixes Martens rickshaw but Mo's was out of petrol. Petrol stations wouldn't let us fill our jerry cans so we were gonna drive Martens to the station, fill it and then siphon it into a can to fill the other one. Half a km before the station, Martens rick runs out of fuel !! we convince a local rickshaw driver to push us WITH HIS FOOT to the pump. Then we fill one rick, siphon it, and then drive back to the other one. Fill that one up, and then drive to the mechanics shop to get our engine oil replaced. Sanjiv convinced the mechanic to charge us less than half what he originally asked for. Family for the win !!!!!!

Katie, Jen, & Kay, and Kay's friend went shopping for sari tops and saw a temple

2:15 Reach back to Mo's place, with working ricks!

Kay fed us amazing lunch, then we packed to head out.

3:40 All five of us left together

6:30 Stop in Lonavala at a hotel with wifi, pool table and ping pong!

Make up day!

1/8

6:15 Wake up

645 On the road. Jen is driving

8:30 Stopped for MAGGI ON A MOUNTAIN!

10:55 Mo driving

12:15 Stopped to cool engine. We want to make Pune tonight, to stay with Mo's amazing mother

12:30 Back on the road

2 Stop for lunch and engine cooling

2:20 Back on the road, Mo and the dutchies speeding for 4 hours straight

6:15 Jen driving

8 Both rickshaws break down. Ours just loses power and the dutchies breaks fail

8:40 We ditch the ricks and get two ricks to Mo's moms house

9-10:30 Our personal fan club, courtesy of Mo's mom, come to greet us and have some drinks with us

10:45 Dinner with the five of us and Mo's mom

Not that far after all

1/7

9:30 Left- katie driving. Heading towards kholapur

10:15 Stopped for great breakfast. AND BOUGHT FIREWORKS :)

10:55 Back on the road

11:15 Hit a motorcycle around a turn and crashed into a ditch. Windshield cracked with Katie's head.

12:20 Settled payment at 12000 rps. Pushed and pulled rickshaw to a tire shop but now will have to tow to a mechanic 5km away

1:10 Found a mechanic about 10km away willing to try Going back to get the damaged one

1:20-1:40 Somehow our rickshaw still drives. So we drove it the the mechanic.

1:45 That mechanic couldn't fix it so he sent us to the next one over

2:05 This mechanic says he can replace our front wheels fork. We also have big dents and a broken windshield but the dents are not a driving problem so we're skipping that since it will take too long. We will go to another shop for the windshield and hopefully have everything fixed by tonight

4:15 Pulled into a home stay with a pool but no wifi. About 20km from the mechanic

5:20 Twan Mo and Marten on the way back to mechanic

6 Reached mechanic

Unnecessary sensory details

8:50 Reached back. Driving at night is the worst thing in the world

B3@ch please!

1/6

10 Woke up... recovering

11 Katie and Jen go into the water for a bit

Mo Twan and Marten get food which takes way too long.

Mo wears his pretty pink dress and strides around town.

1:30 Mo driving - destination is arambol, a close by beach so we can have a recovery day

2:15 We honk 5 times- the designated pizza honk, and Twan hands a box of pizza to Jen. Katie feeds mo very lovingly :)

3:15 Jen driving

355 Stopped for chai and engine cooling. The place we stopped is playing an Indian movie called koi mil gaya, a ridiculous film where a blue alien gives people powers

430 Back on the road Jen is driving

5-9:30 Arrive in arambol and scramble to find a place to stay. We met up with the seahorses and the barge mahal so we got one giant room for all 11 of us. Had dinner and drinks on the beach

9:30 The responsible ones head back to the room to plan for the next few days while Twan marten and Mo stay out searching for the party

9:45-12 There was no party to be found so we became the party. Marten lost several foot races to Mo, and after having some funny conversations and having a late night snack, the three also retired for the night.

Goa party!!!

1/5

4am Rooster wake up call

7:40 Started driving - Jen is on.

7:50 Stopped at jog falls - massive canyon with a few small water falls

8:05 On the road again rt 69 connecting to 66 down to the coast, since we're about 150km inland now

10:05 Breakfast somewhere along the rd

10:20 Back on the road- Mo driving

11:10 That feel when trucks actually have to slow down for something... and it's a cow

12:20 Stopped for chai and giving the engines a break

12:45 Katie driving. About 75km from goa party destination

2 Entered goa

3 Reached our tents on the beach to stay for the night. Unloaded our vehicles and got ready to go out. Katie and Jen went to the beach, Mo & dutchies went shopping for swimwear then also beach

5-7 Mo, Twan, and Marten played pool on the beach with a horrible dj in the background

7 Went to Neptune point where the party was, and on the way we lit a paper lantern and made wishes.

7:30-1:30 Amazing party

Rickshaw breakdown !

1/4

7:40 Left the hotel with Twan and Martin, two awesome guys we met last night- mo starts driving

8:30 Stopped for breakfast

9:15 Katie's driving. Breakfast was amazing and so so filling.

9:40 One of the guys got the shits so we've pulled over for a bit.

10:40 Stop to top off gas and cool engine. Headed down what path?

11:15-12:30 Absolutely amazing greenery. No traffic, no pollution, us and the Dutch boys got great film of each other. We took out the drone too. Great smells, great fun. I think we turned off rt 66 at Bhatkal on rt 50. Towards no clue where haha. No reception; no worries The road is only large enough for one vehicle so when a truck occasionally comes rushing at our faces we have to pull off the road and reset

12:55

Still going through the beautiful green mountains.

Katie: "hey guys .. does an alien shit in the woods?"

Jen & Mo "...."

Katie "I don't know but I'm about to"

1:05 Katie poops in the woods and discovers she has parasites. But says at least it was a bathroom with the best view in the world

2 Twan and Martin broke down

2-2:50 Took apart and cleared carborator

2:50-3:20 We towed the boys to the closest town, up and down the hills about 15km

3:20-3:55 We met a local rickshaw driver who asked us to follow him for help. He opened up the engine bay and checked the spark plug a few different ways.

3:55 Twan realized his camera had been stolen - a really big expensive camera. We spent the next hour trying to figure out who stole it. The mechanic - Ismail who was helping us clearly didn't take it. Some locals who were watching us told Mo after about 10 minutes who they thought took it. So Ismail started threatening them with the police. they kept denying, and we had no proof but everyone including us was pretty certain they were the thieves. So as we're calming Twan down, Ismail calls the police. An officer arrives after 10 minutes. mo is the only one who has any idea what's going on because people only speak a little Hindi (Mo's language) or the South Indian language. The officer and the rest of the crowd engage in conversation with the thieves. The cop walks away with both of them to talk, and after about 20 minutes returns with the camera. Twan's relief was worth all the trouble Mo and the locals had to go through to get the camera back.

5 Now that one problem was solved, the mechanic went back to trying to fix the rickshaw. We tried towing again and starting it while it was moving, to no avail. Then Ismail called another mechanic who came and opened up the piston. The piston had a massive hole in it. Ismail, who has already spent hours helping us for free, calls another friend of his to find us a place to stay for the night while the mechanic fixes the rickshaw. We tried paying Ismail multiple times but he truly is just a genuinely good human who wants nothing but the best for us. He has at this point already spent hours helping us with all his heart.

5:45 His friend takes us to a room where all 5 of us can stay for the night. We unpack the rickshaw and grab some dinner right next door.

6:15-645 We go dress and sari shopping, Twan and marten buy mo a bright pink dress which Mo has to wear all day tomorrow, and both katie and Jen both get saris.

6:45-8:45 Went to liquor store, tried on the dress- mo looked fabulous. Played drinking card games.

9:45 Ismail came to get Mo and Marten to work on the rickshaw with the mechanic and the new piston.

11 Still fixing the rickshaw, had to buy the mechanic a beer because he was getting feisty. Ismail was the only reason the mechanic even agreed to work so late. Ismail is the man

11:25 WORKING RICKSHAW

12 hours of hauling ass

1/3

5:30 wake up

6 Checkout, refuel, let engine warm up

6:30 Ready to go! Katie driving. Split from caravan with the Strawberry sea horses and the Barge Mahal

6:48 "Ahhhh spider in my face spider in my face"

8:20 Stop for breakfast at usthad hotel. Amazing amazing food.

8:38 Used a hole in the ground for a toilet. Mo dropped his phone in, and had to reach in to get it out.

10 Stopped for petrol, Jen took over driving - mo gonna nap

12 Pit stop to cool engine and get chai

12:15 Katie's driving again.

1:10 Another rickshaw threw us a banana at 40km/hr ! :)

1:12 Katie slows down to a crawl as Jen is hanging out the side taking selfies with children running beside us

1:45 Bekal fort

2:15 Back on the road - Mo driving

2:57 Got stalked by two guys on a scooter who almost killed us trying to get our selfie. Said they were our biggest fan and then asked the blonde girls for their phone numbers.

3:50 Jen driving

6:10 Found place to stay called Hotel Brindavan

6:45-10:30 Drinks and dinner! Met with a few other crazies that ended up in Udupi as well. We're definitely traveling further than most people so far.

Near death experiences today: 3