After a hot night in the only hotel in Sindhari, we started as early as possible towards jaisalmer and the finish line. Only 30 km out of sindhari and already a first break down, our engine is coughing when too fast.
With this in mind we reached Barmer with a mean speed of 35km/h. In Barmer, we were able to find a Bajaj (our rickshaws manufacturer) official service station. After a thorough carburator cleaning and a stop of 2 hours lunch included, we were back on track.
Only 5 km out and the engine starts coughing again... And stops just few minutes later on the side of the road. We then met two Indian travellers who helped us and followed us for about 50 km giving us royal Enfield rides around the highway.
Only the rickshaw was too slow and we wouldn't make to jaisalmer in time. So we decided to tie our rickshaw to the rickchaussettes and we were off, faster than we have ever been these past few days. We finally reached Jaisalmer around 8pm and allowed ourselves a nice hotel for a good rest.
After a hot but restful night in pandoori, we left for Mount Abu. The drive was amazing, slightly foggy and we reached the top, we couldn't see 5 meters ahead of us.
We spent the morning around Mount Abu waiting for the dilwara temples to open. We visited the temples along with a herd of Indians shouting and rushing through the temples. The sculptures in the temple are just amazing.
We left Mount Abu around 2pm to drive towards jaisalmer our finish point. We quickly reached the desert and the weather became more and more arid and hot. We reached sindhari at around 9pm after a little night drive, the struggle to find food and shelter is real!
The morning started with the visit of the extraordinary palace of the maharanas in Udaipur, these guys really knew how to live the good life.
After the visit and a few purchases, we were off again driving through the mountains west of Udaipur until pandoori, little town at the foot of Mount Abu.
After a nice dinner in an Indian bar and a short night sleep in Dharma, we were back on the road. Luckily we didn't have any breakdowns, we learnt that treating the rickshaw well is rewarded with no break downs.
We accomplished a big day with 363km with a good thaali for lunch. We are now in Udaipur for a little tourism.
Rough start today with a first break down at 7:30am, lucky there are mechanics everywhere in India! After a carburator cleaning, we were off again, but a strange noise keeps coming back when we are in high rpm.
We decide to stop in Dhule, the next big town to get the noise fixed as we are stuck at 45km/h. But the rickshaw is always better with an Indian inside and we weren't able to show the mechanic the noise the rickshaw was making. After setting the carburator alright, we were back on the road.
We have now reached Dhar with the rickshaw behaving not so bad if we don't push it too much. But no doubt we'll have many more problems tomorrow.
After a morning driving, we reached Ellora and the caves there. After visiting we got back on the road supposed to be closed due to land sliding, fortunately, the hole was small enough so that a rickshaw could pass.
A few minutes later, we broke down once again. It took 31 Indians to take us out of there, some repairing the engine, others smoking or telling jokes, everyone has his place. We got back on the road smoothly and found a nice hotel to sleep for the night in Chalisgaon.
Two hours pit stop today in Ellora for cultural purpose. The caves and temples are really impressive!
And always more kilometers heading to the north!
So it happened! It rained pretty much all day. From the time we left bijapur (7am) to around 4pm it rained. Rain is not much without the wind though, and what a wind there was... In short, we reached beed dead wet after a full day driving, I really hope we get better days on the road.
We woke up early this morning eager to test our new engine. We reached Hampi at 9am and visited for 3 hours even taking some footage in the middle of the temple.
After a quick lunch, we set our route together with team Rickshaussettes and decided to drive north. We arrived just after sunset at bijapur and tried getting a lodge without success : first 4 hotels we tried were complete and we get dogs not know why. After a nice dinner, we joined a party downtown with hundreds of Indians partying around some Indians trying to climb on each other to catch a jar of a value of 25000, if my hindi is correct.
More adventures tomorrow
After a nice breakfast in Bangalore, we left the jammed city with one thing in mind, driving as much as possible towards Hampi. With a handicap though, our fourth gear is not working anymore...
We stopped in Tumkur to see a mechanic but he told us that everything was fine. We kept going but everything definitely was not fine, our max speed is now 40/50kmh, 20 less than it used to be.
We decided with team Rickshaussettes to stop in kudligi as the night was falling after 310km in a day. We found a cosy place and went out to seek a rickshaw mechanic. After few hours of waiting, we finally learn that we have gripped our engine and that we have to change the piston and the combustion chamber... At 10:30pm we are finally able to go back to the hotel with a brand new engine and an alarm for 6am tomorrow.
