Finish Line!

We finally arrived at the finish line today.  This journey has been so amazing. India is incredible in so many good  ways and bad ways.  Everyday I found something new.  We are going on an overnight camel safari tomorrow night and then Sidey leaves Sunday.  Ryan and I are off to Delhi to find cycles to ride to Kashmir and back.  Cheers.

 

J 

Taj Mahal

We made it to Agra last night.  We left at 6 AM from Allahabad and drove 450 KM in one shot.  About 120 KM outside of Agra we heard this loud sound and thought it was a wheel bearing going out.  We stopped at a town and they confirmed it but didn't have the part.  We spent over an hour looking for a shop and decided to just go for it.  20 minutes into the drive we heard another sound and stopped to investigate.  Ryan noticed the muffler was loose.  We tightened it and that took care of it all.  It was just that all along!  Today we went to the Taj Mahal.  I never thought I would ever see it with my own eyes.  The place is so surreal its like being in a dream.  As I type I still can't believe it.  Tomorrow we are off to Rajahstan.  If we wanted to push it we could get there in 3-4 days but we are going to take our time since we still have a week.  I still haven't been able to post pics.  Soon!

Its all about the journey not the destination, right?

The internet has been very, very sparse in India so far.  I really thought there would be more random internet cafes than we have seen.  I guess even if there had been there wouldn't be time anyway because we have been driving 15 plus hours a day.  I could easily right a novel on the first five days so I will just point on some of the highlights.  Firstly I drove our of Shillong leading the pack almost all the way to Guwahati when a monsoon hit.  It was easily some of the hardest rain I have ever experienced.  It pretty much rained the whole 96 KM down.  About halfway the engine stalled out.  It wasn't gas.  We tried and tried to get it started to no avail.  Teams stopped to try to help but it was no good.  So in the middle of a downpour Sidey and Ryan pushed it while I steered.  We got to a bottom of a hill and stopped.  As we are standing outside in the pouring rain, getting our karate uniforms all nice and wet we here Metallica blaring down the roadway.  Who knew our knight in shinning armor would come blaring Metallica.  Sure enough a young Indian got out of his rickshaw and knew right away what the problem was.  The spark plug cap had gotten wet from all the water on the road. He wiped it out and it started first try. 

The next highlight would be trying to find our way to Alli Dupur, West Bengal.  We had gotten turned around a few times on the second day.  It turns out the map I got is total shit.  We have been relying on our Lonely Planet.  Which is still kinda shit but much better than my map.  We thought we were going the right way when we started passing teams going the opposite way.  After the fourth team passed us we flagged them down.  Their map was much clearer than ours.  So we decided to turn around and follow them.  Shortly after turning around a motorbike comes up next to us asking us to pull over because he was from a news channel and wanted to interview us.  Of course we obliged.  So there we are standing on the side of the road wearing karate uniforms that are already filthy after just 2 days with a camera in our faces answering questions to a news reporter!  It didn't take long before 20 or so random people stopped in the road and just stood there watching.  Indians love just standing around looking at things that are out of the ordinary.  Things that don't belong in their normal day to day lives.  I'mglad we stopped but it sit us back a bit. I ended up driving for 3 plus hours in the dark on a road that even in the daylight would be shit.  We finally found a "hotel" in some village that I have no idea what the name is.  Our room consisted of 2 beds with soiled sheets and soiled pillows and a bathroom that stank of old urine.  Thankfully there was a fan or it would have even been worse.  I just slept on top of my bed and used my towel as a pillow.  The food was great though.

Yesterday we left from Siliguri, West Bengal towards Pernia, Bihar or even Patna, Bihar.  The road was the best yet.  We were cruising at 50-60 kph.  Great tarmac.  Again the map failed us because we thought we had already crossed the Ganges when in fact we weren't even close.  Our bike stalled out at some point and we got it started and drove 20 kph to a town that had a mechanic.  Turns out that a piece of plastic from our Pepsi jerry can caps had gotten into the carbirator.  Makes sense.  After 45 minutes we were on our way.  We came across another team that was a bit alarmed to be in Bihar at night.  There has been a history of bandits at night in years past.  We decided to convoy until we found a hotel. Well about that time their bike shitted out.  We spent a good hour trying to get it running. We did but not very well.  They decided to turn around and go back to the closed town and get it worked on and then camp outside the police station. Us, being the men that we are, went forward into the unknowing Indian night.  Time seems to slip by when driving a rickshaw across India.  Before we knew it we had been driving in the dark for 2 hours when we got a glimpse of what might be a hotel. A lot of "hotels" in India so far are just truck stops with a restaurant and a few homemade cots that truckers can't sleep for a few hours.  This was one of them.  At first the owner said no but then he allowed us to sleep in the second floor balcony on a wooden blank that Ryan and I slept on and a couch that Sidey had. They made food for us, that was amazing, and then he kept calling his son and having Ryan and I talk to him.  The food and the fact that we found a place that was secure made the outrageous price he charged us worth it. 

Today we had high hopes of getting pretty close to Varanisi, Uttar Predach.  Shortly after leaving we came to a traffic jam.  We drove around the trucks to the front and saw that they were trying to pull a bus out of the ditch that had wrecked sometime last night or early this morning.  We managed to drive around the crane to bypass it.  Then about 20 minutes after that we see two semis that had collided sometime during the night as well.  That really put things into perspective on night driving.  Not a good idea.  Things were going great until we got into another massive traffic jam near Patna, Bihar.  Again we drove around all the trucks and onto the should to bypass it all.  It still took us almost 2 hours.  It involved hundreds of vehicles.  Of course it turned out to be just one truck stalled.  Instead of pulling it off the road they just left it there.  Pretty standard.  Now were are in Patna, Bihar.  I don't know if we will make it to Varanisi tomorrow or not.  I tried to post pics but it won't work for some reason.  But the karate uniforms have been worn everyday so far.  They are getting nice and dirty, and pretty smelly.  But the smell is alright because we blend in better.  I hope to get some pics up soon.  If all goes well we should be at the Taj Mahal in 2-3 days which gives us almost a week to get to Rajahstan.  Good times, great food, and wonderful people!

Whirlwind 72 hours!

Ryan and I finally made it to Shillong last night.  We left Thursday morning from Denver.  We were both on the same flight to Chicago but somehow we were on different flights to New Delhi.  He flew with American and I was with Air India.  The flight wasn't bad.  I managed to get a few hours of sleep while watching 4 movies that I hadn't seen yet.  When I landed in New Delhi I knew I had 2 hours to wait until Ryan was supposed to arrive.  When I looked at the arrival board I saw that he was delayed.  Well his flight arrives and I wait and wait and wait and I don't see him.  So now I have to play out all of these potential scenarios if he doesn't show up.  Shortly before the flight was boarding I wrote a note for him explaining my plans and what not.  I go to leave it at the counter and I come to find out that his name isnt even listed.  How could that be?  Now I was fully prepared to go all the way to Shillong by myself.  I didn't know if he knew how to get to our room in Kolkata, find the train station, make it to Guwahati and then finally to Shillong.  Fuck!  As I am sitting in my seat looking at the inflight magazine I hear, "Hey is that seat taken?"  Sure as shit there is Fey standing there huffing and puffing, drenched it sweat.  I'll let him explain what happened.  After a few hours we arrive in Kolkata.  Our bags made it in one piece and we managed to get ripped off for our 5 minute ride to the hotel.  Oh well.  That night everything was closed so we just hung out watching the Man U and Aresonal match on the tele, drinking Jim Beam with Thums Up cola, and listening to the honking cars outside.  After a few todies the days events melted away. 

The next day we get woken up at 7 AM with two cups of our first India tea.  It was really good.  We hung out eating breakfast in our room before adventuring outside to get a cab to the train station.  The cab ride was awesome.  The cab didn't have much gas in it so the driver kept turning it off when he could to conserve gas.  I've been to places that have had massive amounts of people but Kolkata was like nothing else.  Where are they coming from?  Where are they going?  It was so fuckin hot too.  Just drenched in sweat instantly.  When we finally arrived at the station and inquired about a ticket to Guwahati we were told they were sold out but we could take the ferry across the river to a place that sells tickets to foreigners.  Great. I didn't want to stay in Kolkata that night to leave the next day.  We couldn't find the ferry so we hoofed it back across the bridge.  After a ten minute walk dodging people and cars we found it just as we were about to give up.  We were also in luck because they had two tickets left but it didn't leave until 5:30 PM so we had 3 hours to wait.  I was just glad that we got tickets.Also the fact we got a sleeper car with AC.  That was the best part. 

The train ride was something even I haven't experienced before.  At every stop there were vendors that would walk back and worth saying what they were selling. "Chai, chai tea, chai coffee, coffee chai." "Purse, money purse, atm holder." "Tshirts, sporting tshirts." "Biryani, chicken biryani, veg biryani." "Water, bottle water."  So many more that I can't even remember.  Plus there was mix of Hindi, Bengali, and a weird hybrid of English.  All night long.  I was so tired that I slept through it all.  The next morning I thought we were close but it turned out we still had 12 more hours to go.  The views were amazing.  It reminded me a lot of Cambodia.  

When we finally got to Guwahati we tried to find this place that shared taxis to Shillong.  We first went the wrong way so we turned around towards the station.  Shortly after getting back a man approaches us and says Shillong.  But of course!  We must have not been the first white people to arrive.  So we follow him over the bridge to the other side.  He tells us we have to wait until more people arrive.  Gladly!  30 minutes later we were on our way.  Not entirely though.  Right after we got into the car we were stuck in a traffic jam for what seemed like an etirnety, smelling exhaust and listening to horns.  I couldn't have been happier once we got moving.  Now we just had a 3 plus hour ride up and around corners, dodging trucks and cars in the night.  It didn't take long for the driver to find out hotel.  Thankfully we had a reservation.  But even better was the fact we got beer!  Finally after 3 days I had a beer.  We ordered up 4 tallboys of Kingfisher.  It was so tasty.  

Now we are just getting caught up on events from the outside world and finding out when the Run's events start.  We finally made it!!!