home

We head for home today. We are looking forward to seeing you all again and are grateful for all your good wishes and donations. We have stayed in what is probably the best hotel in Calcutta. It has been lovely but knowing the poverty outside has made us uncomfortable. The trip has been wonderful and we return enriched and invigorated. Grateful for our easy access to sanitation and education, longing for cheese on toast, sad to be returning to restrictive traffic rules and losing the colour,smells, madness and warmth of India. See you all very soon.

hotel

Hotel like Fawlty Towers.We waited 40 minutes for breakfast to arrive - stale cornflakes with warm milk and wevils. Very very noisy. The banging on the door through the night and -I jest not!- sign to the cum spa later explained when we were told we were staying in a brothel. Good party. David and I left on one of the early buses before the young things covered each other in paint. Hence Scarlet's green hair.

Next day to Calcutta. Guwahati airport hot on security but not so good on announcements.We felt like Crocodile Dundee in Calcutta. Traffic lights! Traffic on right side of the road! No spitting! Best spitting story is rickshaw in truck. Truck driver spat out of the window which was closed.. No one staring, no one waving, no one taking photos of us. We feel lost.

Today found an amazing charity to give tent etc to. Looking after street children in many ways. Coffee mornings at the Brow here I come!

Shillong!

We were nervous we wouldn't get Felix out of the mall but when we set off at 5.30 the porter asleep under a mosquito net leapt into action and all was well. There were many roadworks and it was a matter of luck which side of the road we ended up on - not that it matters much. I haven't pulled my weight driving, only doing straight hazard free bits - about 20 yards so far. Shillong is high and Felix struggled. We thought he might break down before the line but no! We came in 8 out of 83 (photo) We are staying in a room in Shillong where there is the usual 2 hour quest to turn the light on.Indian hotel rooms have a dazzling array of switches and taps. We watched other teams come in and heard some great stories. The smog in towns is so bad that one team started smoking as it made their chest feel better.Like their reasoning. One person flown home with a skull fracture.Very cool American lady hit truck, rolled rickshaw and skidded to a halt and asked her husband to take rickshaw off her head. 3 whiskies for £4 and peanuts served with chillies on side...

Shillong!

We were nervous we wouldn't get Felix out of the mall but when we set off at 5.30 the porter asleep under a mosquito net leapt into action and all was well. There were many roadworks and it was a matter of luck which side of the road we ended up on - not that it matters much. I haven't pulled my weight driving, only doing straight hazard free bits - about 20 yards so far. Shillong is high and Felix struggled. We thought he might break down before the line but no! We came in 8 out of 83 (photo) We are staying in a room in Shillong where there is the usual 2 hour quest to turn the light on.Indian hotel rooms have a dazzling array of switches and taps. We watched other teams come in and heard some great stories. The smog in towns is so bad that one team started smoking as it made their chest feel better.Like their reasoning. One person flown home with a skull fracture.Very cool American lady hit truck, rolled rickshaw and skidded to a halt and asked her husband to take rickshaw off her head. 3 whiskies for £4 and peanuts served with chillies on side...

Last days

Road from Shiliguri was lovely, tea plantations with crickets, elephant and tiger reserves. We learnt that "plain" is a relative concept. We had a plain omelette at a roadside stop full of chilli and onion. Delicious but made us wonder what the spicy one is like. Special brew affecting my maths ability. I thought expensive but was in fact £1.80 for 3 omelettes, toast and hot drinks. We stopped to help a team whose wheel had fallen off. We put stones around to indicate hazard (see photo). It is not unusual to see trucks parked in the road with stones around and drivers asleep underneath. I have huge admiration for skills I did not know Scarlet had. She can in her own words drive like a dick. Watch out Brighton on return. She can drive down what look like cliffs in the road and drove smiling past a gesticulating armed police block. It was getting dark and so we pulled into a small town. As ever once we stopped a crowd gathered and eventually someone spoke enough English to direct us to a small local hotel. Pathsala is the only place in India with a rule that is obeyed.The streets are cleared at 9.30 pm. Felix the rickshaw spent the night in a shopping mall (photo) No one spoke any English and many people were Chinese.David went to fetch the special brew and a man with learning difficulties kept forcing his way into the room to show us how the air conditioning working. A slightly anxiety provoking ground hog day ended by David realising he just wanted a tip. Ironically and inevitably we later found we didn't know how to work the a/c ..

lost track of days

Few random thoughts.Railway crossings.Am sending Anna a photo cars go on both sides of the road on both sides of the railway so that when the gates open and jostling for position starts it is on the railway lines. Litter - when we ask in petrol stations where to throw litter they point to the floor. We went through bandit country in convoy. Philosophical point - if you think you are in bandit country everyone looks like bandits. We were stopped in a town by someone who had a gun and a stick shouting at us. We drove on as swiftly as one can in a tuk tuk only to find he was telling us the road was closed.We had to drive past him suitably embarrassed . Later a motorbike pulled alongside us and asked if we had any spare tea... It was edgy though after the road closed. We went across country and were constantly forced off the road by aggressive 4 by 4 cars with flags.Someone stopped and asked if we were British "You governed us. You have no fear?" Well I didn't until he asked.. Then one of the cars in the convoy broke down 4 times ending with us towing it to a mechanic - photo can also be seen on adventurist site. This made us have to drive after dark - not to be recommended. The towns have to be seen to be believed - trying to keep in convoy impossible as vehicles come from everywhere and the tuk tuk is immediately surrounded by people and animals as soon as you stop. We got caught in a procession of children carrying what looked like milk urns which separated us from the others when the gears jammed. All ok in the end by dint of Scarlet hanging onto the roof so we could see them ahead and gears unjammed.Otherwise we would still be there. Dinner was 2 cans of special brew. Much needed.

Today a simpler drive out of bandit country. It took an hour to cover distance which took 3 hours 40 minutes yesterday but even the good roads have a corn crop drying on the hard shoulder, a variety of animals and trucks coming the wrong way.

bandit country

We went on the Ganges in a boat yesterday evening. Usual seething mass of people, colour and smells but strangely peaceful with lots of lit candles floating. Our taxi (a tuk tuk) driver took us there, waited an hour at his suggestion and when asked for the price did the clever thing of asking what we wanted to pay.The look of total joy on his face when we gave him the equivalent of £6 gave us the clue that we had probably overpaid but money well spent. May try it in Haywards Heath.. We set off at about 6 this morning and immediately entered the mayhem of Varanasi traffic.It is fortunate that it is considered a sacred place to die - we helped a few to Nirvana. We are now in bandit country.As soon as we hit a main road we were surrounded by men on motorbikes in uniform all carrying submachine guns and one a grenade launcher. They ignored us but good test of anal sphincter. Thanks then to booking.com and Google maps we are in the middle of nowhere surrounded by paddy fields and Buddhist temples in Gaya. Another early start tomorrow to continue convoy across bandit country.

David goes native

Sunday morning and the Archers will never be the same again...We needed a mechanic before setting off to bandit country. Hotel promised one but we are now learning that people here promise everything in their desire to please regardless of its feasibility..Sunday morning no mechanic in hotel and all others closed. We set off in a pedalled rickshaw to one we had heard of. Yes! He can do it and to get back to him David goes on wrong side of road and Crosses 3 lanes of traffic Transformation is complete.. Drive shaft was in tatters Well, that explains the clunking noise. The people here are lovely but they will scam you and help beyond measure all with the same grace and charm. Really difficult to know where you are! !

Next day

Have lost track of days but got to varanasi. Scarlet has made friends with a very competent team who have booked us into a five star hotel half price. Will sight see tomorrow and get our trusty steed serviced, moving on to bandit country the day after probably in convoy with them. Would have been not much to report if rough guide didn't have hotel in wrong place.Complete jam of traffic in all directions.David is incredible but is a natural Indian driver as he doesn't believe in rules and sees any gap as a challenge. No idea where we were, asked at another hotel who sent us in wrong direction, stopped at station to find tuk tuk driver to follow and someone got in thinking we were local tuk tuk - what? !!!!! Complete nightmare but here now with day off tomorrow. Touch wood no one ill so far and having a great time.

day 4

These are all going to be driving stories but you still won't have any real idea..hit dual carriageway, trucks overtaking on the wrong side of the road, sudden raised bits of asphalt ok in a car terrifying in a rickshaw, an ambulance parked across the road plying for trade? We have got ourselves sorted in terms of: ask directions to get out of town from person who books you into hotel not person there at 6 am, get them to write anywhere you might end up in hindi and then we find everyone else is using Google maps..They think we are really sweet - sexton and the sun.. But - we teamed up with some Americans to go cross country they had Google maps and walkie talkies. They lost us at a toll booth where our less than truthful map gave no indication of where we were. David broke all records to find them again .When engrossed in Google maps they missed the turning to our town and we ended up in a non moving traffic jam. 3 lanes 2 blocked by warring truck drivers unable to get into full motel 3rd lane blocked by truck going the wrong way...was never going to work. Eventually we went through town at high speed ignoring clunks, relieved at end to find no bodies caught under rickshaw. Then usual hospitality and lovely food.