Darjeeling

MOre detailed blog to come tomorrow from Davo, but to very quickly keep everyone posted we are now in Darjeeling !! As you may have read, after mechanics in Mokama not being able to put our machine back together, nor being able to find the spare parts we need (new gearbox, new coil, new clutch plate) we decided to retire our beast and opted to instead go into holiday mode and start by enjoying a game of cricket with the owner of the hotel we were staying in, and his mates. Yet again, the Indians have shown us what hospitality is all about. Just incredible and they have been so accomodating, and facilitating with our situation, helping us as much as they can. After a sad goodbye to our machine, which has been layed to rest at the hotel in Barauni, we jumped on a 2:30am train to New Jalpaiguri which is the big junction giving people access to the mountains. After an 11 hour journey in a 3 tier carriage (and suprisingly alot of sleep!) we arrived, and jumped in a jeep to start the three hour journey to Darjeeling. Very soon after getting out of yet another crazy, noisy and dirty town we started driving into tea plantations and the start of very well protected forested areas. The very tiny, very zig zaggy roads carried on going up and up and up and up and up, quite literally into the clouds. The temparature started dropping and the views became more and more incredible. After some very scary close calls, driving along narrow ridges we started going through hill top towns that were far more populated than I was expecting. After the 3hour journey we arrived in Darjeeling and had to put jumpers on it was that cold in the cloudy mist.

We have checked into a very cozy, very well run hotel which has every aspect of a ski lodge. I am literally in a cozy lounge area, next to a heater, with a fluffy nepalese doggy at my feat, woodend walls and ceilings, long pants, socks and jumper on. IT really does feel like a ski lodge ! Quite a change from the unbearable, 40 degree heat we have had over the last 2 weeks.

The next few days we plan to be in holiday mode and make the most of our time left in India.

More blogs to come tomorrow.

Ross 

 

RIP - Mokama

We now know what the maoris felt like when the english first landed in NZ, only difference is, the people of mokama (250km east of varanasi) had learnt a bit of english before first laying their eyes on us white folk!! another huge roller coaster ride for the BCE was install for us when we left varanasi, the most amazingly chaotic place in the world.... hugely mind blowing, with burning bodies on the ganges to dust storms at dusk.... but after the tuk had spent the best part of 2 days in the shop... it was returned to us ... in working order & with the electrics at last working.... we awoke to chris feeling feverish & looking in a bad way, i had the runs, & the credit card keeps getting declined (lou?? ;) ....however, despite chris soldiering on, & a running tuk, our luck was extremely short lived once on the road! we started as usual well covering 200km in the first half of the day..... but disaster again struck in the middle of 48degrees and in a whole lot of nowhere! once again, we owe huge respect to 'what tuk tuk shillong' and ross's tow rope. the mechanic lottery continued as out tuk was leaking oil, smoking and 1st & 2nd gears were lost in oblivion! the mechanic spent 3hrs making in worse whilst pocketing the 200 Rupees for doing so! ...the word ryhmes with hunt & the bugger also 'borrowed' our map!! all extremely demoralising! we were towed 60kms at at faster mileage than we could do ourselves wehn 'fully' operational! we pulled into gaya before the sun set.... the people here were extremely friendly, and we made the the local tv for a 2nd time this week (3 in fact) we were whities who demanded thru no fault of our own a huge gathering xtremely scary and overwhelming!! once fied 4hrs later it was dark and the search for a hotel began!! the next morning, we left at 4am and made it through to mokama just short of the x-over at the ganges and the final push home!! THEN again..... we were felled .... the gears went, the clutch plates fell out, the engine smoked, and we were deflated again.... the words could not describe the emotions were experienced.... this is an adventure we will never forget thats for sure!!! our mates towed us again to mokama BUT at some stage we knew we were holding them back big style.... and that their generosity must be severed.... they had to push on, and push on they did making it just short of darjeeling with an overnight effort (we are extremely jealous)!!! MOKAMA was intimidating, terrfifying, yet humbling at the same time.....we were mobbed by the whole village, people asked for our autographs, took oics of us like we were in a zoo, the showered us with kindness, but it was all very weird and we had never prepared ourselves for the onslaught of interest we experienced for 7hrs on the main street!! we have left the tuk wth the mechanic and high-tailed it 15kms away to a hotel sanctuary - stress free!! again we chucked the guy the key and said "when you fix it, drive it to us and we will sort it out". the spare parts we needed were being delivered by a guy from patna that evening so god knows what the end result will be! throughout all this we have learnt that finishing the rickshaw is not a bad thing, we tried, we gave it our best, and are thinking of a cermonial burning of the shittiest tuk in history!! thus fofeiting our deposit, which is unfortunate given we have broken down badly at least once every day and have only managed a top daily coverage of 258kms (before blowing up in kannur)!!! as a team and with chris having to fly out on the 3rd and the huge unreliability of the tuk..... we have decided to receive it back, leave it at the hotels parking space, with keys at reception and make the final part of this adventure a holiday & check out darjeeling!! so thats about it folks!!! thanks once again!! bunnychowexpress ou!

Day 9

Gary and Muff from team What Tuk Tuk Shillong were the first to leave for the train journey this morning. Now something I didn’t mention before was that the REAL train journey time is 28 hours (as per the ticket), which means in real life it is probably a 30-32 hour journey….

Because we need to still take the jerry can’s up with us, and one of them was full of petrol, Tom did his best to sell it off to local tuk tuk drivers. Difficult doing, but eventually sold off about 8litres for 200 rupees (would probably pay about 500 for it at a station). As the day is a bit of a non event while waiting for our train journey tomorrow, Tom and I decided to hire a local tuk tuk driver for a few hours, to drive us around the city so we can see if there are any sights to see.

First stop was the big park next to the lake in the middle of the city. Now..this lake is not quite like lake Geneva. It turns out, that the sewerage from the city all drains into this lake and his basically one big toilet! It’s not something you can really believe, because it is quite massive, but the first thing that knocked us as we walked closer…was as you can imagine the smell. It was so rank we almost up chucked right there and then. Now this park, next to the lake, is known as ‘lovers park’ and is the place to go for a romantic stroll or picnic with your partner. I understand and appreciate that the park is on the one hand an oasis from the chaos of the streets, BUT why you would want to go anywhere near the place given the smell I don’t know. Maybe its just the norm. Then the closer you get, you can actually SEE that the water is a nasty green with lots of floaters everywhere. To top it all off…there is a dinghy sailing club on the edge of the lake. No jokes.

Other sites we went passed today…some memorials and water parks dedicated to bollywood actors, a tomb which was quite impressive, and then the big attraction it seemed was Snow World…an indoor centre where it snows...fair enough.

Managed to buy some speakers for the ipod today so that we have something to listen to when we get to doing our last 5/6 days on the rickshaws and managed to eventually find a bookstore to pick up a read for the epic train journey starting tomorrow…wish us luck !!

Day 8 .. IPL !!!

Hi !! So if you have looked at our map you will see that we havn't moved since yesterday (becoming a trend for us !!). Now I know that you all might think that we are being really lazy but I can assure you we are not !! Everytime we make a decision or come up with a plan, the reality of organising something in India quickly changes the goal posts and we have to rethink almost everything. After dropping our stuff at the hotel last night a few of the chaps went off to the relatively nearby train station to see what we can make happen in terms of gaining ground again (I think there are about 8 or 8 train stations in greater Hyderabad so it was a shot in the dark at first. Others went off into the absolute madness of this city to see if we can get the usual electirc and mechanical problems sorted out.Keep in mind this is now probably at about 8pm. Stepping out of the tranquility of our hotel, into the insanity of these streets is something we'll never forget. You have to be on your guard at all times because cars, people, rickshaws, motorbikes, dogs, beggers, street vendors, rats, spit, dirt, poo, rubbish etc come at you from all sides ... and if you think you are safe on the sidewalks..you are not as they are mostly used as convenient places for people to have a poo whenever needed. 

I got a few texts from Chris saying 'call me urgently', and when we spoke it turned out that they had figured how to get the shaws onto the trains. YES YES YES, I know, it might once again seem the lazy thing to do but I promise you if we did not make a plan to do this, we would not make it up north for our flights let alone to the finish party. And besides, having the experience of negotiating 2 rickshaws and 6 people onto alternate forms of transport in a way that is not the norm, has been incredible and I wouldn't change it for the world. We have had to have so many random conversations with random strangers about doing randome things it has been an eye opener, and once again, it is incredible how the majority of the people we ask for help from, will drop everything and do what they can to assist. AND the idea of some teams driving 300-400km a day on highways just to cover the distance seems a bit boring to us !! So Chris and Gary worked some kind of charity story into convincing the station supervisors how urgent it was for us to get the shaws up to Varanassi and they managed to get both of them booked in for an urgent transfer. Everyone converged back at the hotel for more decision making (over beers and while watching an IPL game on the big screen). Having heard that there were no 1st class tickets for us to book onto, we decided to book the shaws on the train anyway and settle ourselves into cattle class for the 22hr journey. The shaws got driven back to the station (bunny chow express with no lights or hooters .. but to be honest neither would help if I could only describe these roads to you in words that would do the chaos justice). At the station, the shaws had to be dismantled and have the petrol drained. Finally back to the hotel at around 1:30 am !! Somewhat comfortingly, another teams shaw was spotted at the station waiting for a transfer too, so we felt a little reassured :) 

I need to mention our 'Ask 3 people' rule when trying to get things done, or find out directions. We learned the hard way that you don't necessarily get the correct answer straight away and that you need to back it up with a majority opinion. We quickly discovered that when asking for directions, locals would very quickly and very confidently say 'straight straight left'. So the first few times we did this, and realised they were talking bollocks. Somehow, somewhere in the evolution of india, they all decided that those three words on the default directions to give to any whitey's trying to find there way across India!!). So now, without hesitation we always ask three people before making a call !! :)) 

...Back to Day 8 

After a brekki at the hotel, we went off to 'Paradise corner' a few blocks down the road to find some travel agents. I don't know who came up with the name, but my g*d If that is there version of paradise then I fear their version of normal life.To avoid having to go the cattle class route on the train (22hrs sandwiched between locals with no guarantee of a seat, and without Aircon wasn't appealing) we decided to see if travel agents had any touristy type exclusivity to 1st class. No luck at all, basically not possible through an agent and had to be through the station. SO, with passports in hand we went off to the station to see what we could blag our way through and into 1st class. After talking to a grumpy station manager we discovered they had 2 tourist tickets per day avaiable in aircon sleepers .. not first class comparatments but better than nothing. 2 tickets per day, meant splitting up the group and staggering our journeys up (bearing in mind we have to get up to Varanassit to pick up the shaws to avoid hourly fines). So straws were drawn and our fates decided. 

With tickets in hand, we decided the next best thing to do for the day was to see if we could get into the IPL cricket game playing in the city at 4pm. With no idea where the stadium was, and knowing that the game was already sold out we decided to head off anyway!! after about an hour in the rickshaw we arrived at a stadium (hoping it was the right one) and discoverd chaos so decided this must be the place !!!! We walked up to the stadium only to find ques of people about 400 / 500 meters long. We very quickly began asking anyway and everyone how we could all get tickets..but same story, sold out sold out. But we carried on, even tracking down reports and getting our pictures taken and telling our story to see if it would help (it didnt). Then eventually a local guy quietly nudged Tom and said 'follow me i will help'. So not quite knowing what the deal was, we followed this chap who was clearly keeping things discreet, and having just seen a sculper get the sh*t kicked out of him by cops we appreciated the need for sensitivity. We pretty much followed this guy to the other side of the stadium, and along the way Tom had negotiated a deal with him. We would follow the guy in using the tickets he 'said he had;, and we'd only pay him on the other side. He wanted 2000 rupees for 300 rupee tickets (well worth it to get the opportunity to go in!!). Somehow it worked and we avoided ques. WE WERE IN and felt like we had achieved the unachievable !!!

Free for all on the seating front so we plonked ourselves down in the upper tiers (the only space left) getting high fives and chrips from locals along the way. No doubt..we were the only whitey's there !! Along the way, we tried to jump up and down in front of all the TV camera's so hopefully we could get into the highlights or something. What a great afternoon. Deccan Chargers vs the Mumbai Indians with some great players like Tendulkar and Malinga playing. The atmosphere was chaotic and electrifying - these folks are cricket crazy for sure, and they worship Tendulkar !!!! We were just so chuffed to get the opportunity to go and see one of these games as it is the biggest event in India at the moment. (ps..getting home was an interesting experience too !!) 

Another big event of the day was hearing that one of India's most renowed spiritual leaders, Sathya Saibaba (The guy with the big afro), died. So as you can imagine this was all over the news. 

Back to hotel, and trottled down the road to a locals favourite place to have dinner. Two things stand out from this 1) we have never ever ever had so much garlic in a garlic naan before...chunks of raw garlic everywhere (i loved it!), and 2) the manager of the place who became our translator...was a ginger haired indian...never thought we'd see that. 

:)) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 7 .. our first and hopefully last big city experience

20 hours in the truck, no sleep, less comfortable and a hell of a lot noisier than the rickshaws....what a night !!!

 Back roads all the way with speed bumps every 20meters (not fun in a truck), very slow progress. Stopped at a truck stop for dinner...rough place, but the food was fantastic !! driver stopped for 2.5hours somewhere along route to sleep on his roof (a good thing we all decided), boys in the back tried sleeping on there mats next to the shaws, gary and I didn't sleep at all up front (I was on a wooden plank..no jokes). Watched the sun rise while once again driving in the middle of nowhere.

 Instead of arriving at 7am, we arrived on the outskirts of Hyderabad at 2:30pm. Used a rubbish mound to offload the rickshaws (and once again surrounded by hundreds of people). Found out that we were still 15km out of the centre of the city (which we couldn't believe cause it was so nuts already). 

Hired a rickshaw and put dave in it, so that we could follow through the choas into the city and find a hotel. (bearing in mind we still have no electrics...no horn, no breakdlights...so there was lots of hand signals and shouting at other cars/tuks/bikes/people to get through). 

Eventually found hotel at 6 ish  which has turned out great ... got upgraded and for 20 squid a night... living like kings !! :)) well deserved I think. 

Looking forward to a good nights sleep before starting the next lef of the journey.....getting up north !! :))

 (ps. Everyone is well and safe, and we are all loving the madness of this experience !!) 

Day 6 .. inland (eventually!!!!)

realising we are probably about 3 days behind many other teams (well, those that we know of who headed inland early), we set off at 6am aiming for Hubli, to follow our one and only hope of making some ground. We somehow did our best day yet, and covered around 270km without too many mechanical mishaps (rare!).

along route we drove passed a 5km long que of trucks waiting to load at a mine .. no jokes, it was ridiculous and just went on and on and on and on. We climbed an epic mountain ranged and stopped when we came across some monkeys. THEN...we took a right onto a gravel road, instead of the easier and more sensical left. About 10km into this drirt track we decided there must definately be a better option and this cannot be the highway we were supposed to be on (it turned out that they were resurfacing 61km of road...). We eventually came across a tiny villiage in THE middle of nowhere. we were quickly surrounded by about 10 cute kids who had most definately not seen whitey's before let alone camera's, sunglasses etc. They were great fun and when the bag of marbles came out and they all got 2 each, they were totally ecstatic. A local teacher pointed as in the right direction, 3km back and turn right down another better road (didn't turn out to be by much). We carred on (with What Tuk Tuk Shillong still) and went through some of the most rural poorest villiages that must exist. It was quite unbelievable. Beautiful to see, and to an extent I am so glad we were off-route because it was an amazing privelage to see !

After a few hours of being in the middle of no where (and thankfully not breaking down because there was no pass through traffic other than shepards and theire goats/buffalo's).

 By the way, all day everyday we thank and rub our Ganesh sticker on the inside of our windscreen to keep us safe (I think Ganesh is the good luck god or something like that). 

 Eventually we got back onto a proper road, and made our way to Hubli. We hit some nasty traffic jam, got stuck in some aweful roads but eventually found our 'post code man'.

We followed him to the truck depo...and were surrounded by locals immediately. Although now a normal occurrence where ever we break down or stop, it is still v over whelming when you have 20-30 people crowding around your shaw wanting to talk and find out whats going on. 

Having done almost 12 hours on the road, in close on 40 degree heat the truck stop spot was quiet hectic experience. Watching the shaws being put onto the back of the trucks was a whole other experience. probabaly 20 people lifting these things onto the very high trucks ... incredible. 

SO with two rickshaws now in the back of the open air truck, we then met our driver..asked the post code man to ask the driver to go very slow and safe (our driver didn't speak a word of english!), piled our luggage in, and were ready for the next leg of the journey to hopefully make some ground. We had paid the guy to take us to Hyderabad, which they said they could cover by 7am the next morning. 

2 of us in the truck drivers cabby with him...and the other 4 guys in the shaws in the back (the shaws were very tightly secured by the way). We nervously set off, but were relieved to get away from the craziness of the depot. 

With 12 hours of tuk tuk driving done, 2 hours of loading, who knows how long this night was going to be !! 

 

 

 

 

Day 5..Goa (again...!! :)) )

lazy start to the day in Palolem (such a nice beach). Along with thee boys from What Tuk Tuk Shillong, our mission for the day was to look at options on catching up with all the other teams who'd have probably made tons of progress while we've been lazing in goa. Hoping for a second night in Palolem but everything was pointing towards heading up to Margoa to sort things out. Spent 3hrs at train station waiting to talk to the 'parcel office commercial supervisor'. he eventually got back from his lunch break at 4:30pm. nice guy and v helpful but basically our only option was to chance a train journey to mumbai which we all voted against in the head. next option was trucks..no luck either as most in the area only did up to mumbai. realising that we were probably going to need to head inland anyway at somepoint, we decided to go find a hotel for the evening. bit of a mission tonight as there were lots of fancy resorts along the beach. Eventually found some kind of Russian friendly resort, and got some very nice rooms for the night.

Quick sunset swim followed by beers in a beach bar to discuss our plan of action. While relaxing a local indian guy starts chatting to us, and starts asking where we were from and which neighbourhoods (all of us based in the UK). I swear to g*d, he knew everysingle one of our post codes and when we started testing him with previuos addresses he continued to rattle them off. Amazing. He also spoke some afrikaans, and some mauri ! Anyway, we thought we'd chance it and ask if he knew any truck drivers..and he did. and asked why....SO we told him what we were up to. He through himself into helping us. .. amazing turn of fortune !!! 

by the end of the night...he arranged to meet  us the next day at 12:#0 inland at a town called Hubli where he had some friends who could help !! Yes please !! :)) 

didn't cover much distance drving today, but the Goa roads are incredible and we saw some amazing sights coming up from Palolem. 

Got our horn fixed..or so we thought...but it stopped working again soon after !

day 4

after 4 days of hard graft.... and a number of tuk tuk malfunctions we are sitting on a beach in goa having a few beers with our new found friends "what tuk tuk shillong"!!! JUST WATCHED A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET and about to have another chilled bottle of kingfisher whilst we wait for others to join us at the guru bar next to the red flag!! good god this rickshaw run caper just seems too easy!! ;)

 last night we stayed in another beachside resort and yes another wonderful sunset, although the cracking thunder and lightning session that fell upon us woke us up from our slumber... how inconvenient as we were hoping to sleep in til 9!

in all fairness, we have slept in a prison type hotel for 1 pound each, lost all electrics again!!, the horn is always bust even after tightening, been run off the road 4 times, blown out our carborator which we handed to a stranger who took it and 400 rupees away with it yet amazingly returned 3 hrs later with a little piece of magic!, our front tyre blew out on a national highway, we have broken down 4 times but the best time was in traders alley in god knows where in 40+ and were quite the centre of attention as the traffic jam we created was quite memorable!! the guy who fixed our engine, also stripped 2 'non-essential' pieces off our engine and tied a piece of string around some cables to hold them in place!!... oddly it now makes our lemon taste sweeter than on either days 1 or 2... however later that day we broke down again and spent 3 hrs in sweltering heat trying to not pass out with heat stroke.......whilst trying to track down a non-diesel tuk tuk mechaic .. hence the resort and the concierge ... what a guy he was!!and today after a magical run of 258kms we are stuck having to find another mechanic to fix our wavering steering and bent front wheel, and wonky under carriage .... i can sense another day in palolem beach resort coming .... lifes tough!!!!

 your faithfully bunnychowexpress