Blog 6 - race day 2 - driving through a tiger reserve in an open top vehicle - well an open top, no solid sides and no rapid acceleration vehicle

INCREDIBLE -im not sure today is going to get topped, what a day - after the shock of the roads yesterday and Tony's side panel re arrangement we were nervous about day two - especially as we " only "had to climb 2500m and negotiate 30 hair pin bends. We left Coimbatore early - driving through big cities in India is like being in a super Mario computer game. On acid. But no extra lives even if you do collect gold coins with your ass. We were headed for the hill stations of Ooty and coonoor . After getting off the main highway , we started to climb and the scenery became spectacular - along with our optimism to get over the mountains . Second only in height to the Himalayas. As we climbed , 3rd gear being optimistic, 4th gear being completely unachievable, we had moments of bliss passing small temples and tea plantations, interspersed with many moments of sheer terror as trucks swung round the hairpin bends into you, the Indian evil kanevil under cut you and the monkeys at the side of the road patiently eye up your rickshaw waiting for you to get splattered so they can feast on you selection of random biscuits bought from the tea shack. 8 cups of the most amazing chocolate tea and a random selection of biscuits - for 50 pence. People are incredibly friendly here - which makes a nice change I hate to say it, from our home of the African continent. No AK 47s being waved at us, just lots of head bobbing and tea. And the obligatory selfies - Laura and I are hot property out here ....! Coonoor and Ooty didn't disappoint - a quick tour of a tea plantation and we drove down the other side of the mountains towards Mysore. Weaving in and out of donkeys, cattle, horses, trucks, buses, monkeys , even an elephant.

Al has taken to wearing his leather man on his belt. Oh yes. Ray meArs and middle aged men having a crisis eat your heart out. He is doing this purely to annoy me and struts around with his shirt tucked in to display his manliness. All he needs is a fanny pack and money belt with a big sign saying " rob me, I'm carrying everything in my fanny pack ".

Ray mears would have possibly been dissapointed with our decision to drive through a tiger reserve in the rickshaws though . Obviously we didn't see any tigers , humans have decimated them, but it did add to the amusement factor .

We arrived in Mysore as the sun was setting and drove past the spectacular Mysore palace - pretty flippin amazing. As we approached the east side we saw a massive roundabout up ahead - imagine the arc de triumphe. But no rules. Who would have thought you had to drive straight at the Centre, undercut three lanes , go anti clockwise for a bit then double back round to negotiate it . So we did three laps just for the crack. At this point I would like to add that we had spent the last part of the drive into Mysore presuming we had indicators . We didn't. One guy pulls his rickshaw up level to beamish and says " hi , what do you run on ? " " petrol" beamish replied " I'm on gas , watch this " as driver flicks a switch and super charges off round the round about. Class. Out for dinner - we met up with Ollie and squirrel in their swanky hotel then took them for some local scram - Ollie claiming he can't do spice ( he's a rugby player - don't they all eat vindaloo and drink 20 pints ?!?!)- but we get him into the local food so let's see where he ranks on the poo chart tomorrow. Ian is very cleverly producing several numbers in one sitting - ranging from 2 to 8.....! We tuk tuk taxi back to our place , guiding the worlds oldest taxi driver - straight apparently means straight, straight straight is left and straight straight straight means right here in Mysore.

Quote of the day from Emma : I'm not going to swear at all today. Most said sentence all day : Don't do it you mother F$$ker, do not over take me , here on a blind bend. Jesus Christ , Ffs, bollocks .....

Said the most by: Emma ( apologies to all my far more intellectual friends who have vocabs that can convey sphincter tightening cold fear without blasphemy )       

Blog 4 ;" google maps says we will be there by 2pm"

What a day. I will say it now and probably say it again - this adventure is crazy , amazing, ring piece-adrenal gland squeezingly amazing ! But before I begin - one last comment on our accommodation in fort Cochin at the anchor inn. Run by the lovely Bunney with his side kick Vishnu ( the Indian man well of fawlty towers) , our stay was, well ,interesting. Me- Vishnu can we have clean towels please ( i'm sat in the kitchen) Vishnu- no we don't have any clean Me- where are they then can you not just send them to be laundered ? V- I don't know where I put all the towels Me- ok , maybe a cup of tea then please ? Vishnu reaches into the lower kitchen cupboard . No cups but four cupboards full of dirty towels.....WTF ???! Me- Vishnu did you put those there V- yes no maybe - but not spoken - just the Indian head wiggle nod side to Sidey thing going on there.

But moving on - race start . A lot of very excited people , 80 rickshaws, the town of fort cochi work force back in full swing - and one ferry - . Seventy seven rickshaws revving their engines. Three rickshaws - us plus Ollie and squirrel - gone for breakfast . Taking our time. Why queue for a ferry when you can be sucking on a chilled banana lassi. 30 mins later - and we set off south. Yes I know jaisalmer is north, but we ain't queuing for no ferry. The traffic is nuts- trucks and buses are the enemy , but as well as the everyday carnage , we are like celebrities - move over Britney - Tony the Tiger and Pascha the peacock are in town. Every car bike bus that passes us, loves us, which is initially great , who doesn't want to be idolized and loved , but after the twentieth undercut manoevre and blind spot hovering for their selfies, I am over being famous . We cruise on out of the city, flying along , stop for a civilized frappe. This is a piece of pish......putt putt putt splutter putt stop. Shit . Broken down ? No we are idiots - out of petrol , although to be fair there's no guage, we were told we would get 300-500km per tank. We've gone 80kms. Ok we were going 60kph. Time to notch it back a bit. We re fuel , and notice a puncture, locals arrive ;" ah sir you have puncture come to my shop , close by". Really we think ? " yes sirs close by". Grishna is shining -close by is 100m. On the road again - beats on - the best of fat boy slim collection , as we start to climb towards Coimbatore. Traffic gets hectic again and I see a bad scouser leaping from Tony giving it some argy Bargy to the truck driver. Don't be Scouse Ian !!! But as we get closer we see truck driver has rammed Tony - wing mirror off, side panels squashed and a pretty scared Somers and beamish ( these roads are NUTS !!!). 2.5 hours later after standing around with the locals, the police, princess Diana and lord Lucan , and ian clutching the truck drivers keys , holding him to ransom, the driver pays us the fine of 3000 rupees - about 35 quid or 600 rand, we duct tape up Tony and off we go.

Long story not so long, haven't quite made it to coonoor, our original plan, but well on the way. Had an amazing 5 course dinner for 50 pence/ 10 rand each, and I'm in an air con room with no mozzies. Bring on day 2...

Quotes of the day : I am yanking it Google maps say we will be there by 2pm We've only got to climb to an altitude of 3000m Do you think our fairy lights compensate for our complete lack of head light ?

T.I.I.      

The off

.

Blog 3- venturing out and NYE

1st Jan Happy new year !

Pimping continued yesterday, Pascha and Tony getting some more TLC prior to the great trek - making them jazzy, sticking stuff on and adding those homely touches. Having been banned from the test ground it Was time to venture out into the streets of fort cochi in search of samosas and spare parts for some more practice driving prior to attempting to drive a tenth of the earths circumference in the lawn mower . Al at the helm we pulled out into , by Indian standards, light traffic , by UK standards , total f$$king carnage. Wing mirrors the size of small jam jar lids, blind spots were larger than the planet of Pluto so we took the " he who hesitates " approach and dove right in! All was going great we pull up out side the mechanics . No Tony. But ALOT of beeping going on at the 6 way stop. There's Tony stranded , marooned , but being engulfed by on coming traffic - Ian sweating in the drivers seat, cranking pulling pumping, pressing , revving. Oh yes and did I mention sweating ? Tony gets pushed into the side- gear cable snapped - well actually not snapped but pulled out of the bracket - a dodgy cable tie job later and all fixed. We feel like mechanical heroes ! Spares purchased , along with some appropriate haggling , a quick bit of man shopping ( apparently it doesn't count if you shop in India ) ( on a side note at this point I'll mention the 50-50 rule. I reckon about 50 percent of the tat you buy on holiday is utter shite when you get back home. Normally. In India increase this to 80-20....!) and we are back in the safety of the test ground. Whilst checking out other rickshaws - to obviously steal cool pimping ideas - we meet Ollie and squirrel. Alsop style Embarrassing conversation number 1 of this adventure. : Ollie- hi I'm Ollie , this is my mate squirrel. Where you guys from ? Me - CT, but about to move to France. Ollie - cool ! I lived in France for a while , played rugby union there. Me- awesome. We've just been to the coolest rugby thing . You might not of heard of it - rugby 7's? .... At which point I launch into a detailed description of the 7s, fortunately stopping just short of the full rules, English winning history , and my favourite players. But finishing off with " you really should try it some time, great day out , you'd love it" Ollie - ( patiently waiting for me to stop talking /nervously chabbering)- yeah. I captained England in that for 6 years and I was the sky commentator in CT . Me- ohhhhhhh. You'll know a bit about it then .

Earth. Swallow me. Whole. As soon as you like.

Not put off by my idiotness , we hit it off with Ollie and squirrel and it turns out they did the clipper race so we bond more over tales of woe on the high seas. Very cool chaps. No mechanical clue but they could carry our rickshaws the whole way if they do break down !

Driving Pascha , is quite simple, but add in Indian traffic , 35 degree heat, 70 percent humidity, no fecking clue where you are, oh and about 5000 other people, goats, dogs, trucks, bikes in to the road , and a bit of a dodgy clutch - then it all starts to bring on a bit of a nervous sweat in your pants. Gears and clutch in left hand , with finding gears an utter mystery, brake under right foot ( I will have the largest right thigh ever at the end , only to be out larged by my right thumb - hovering over the horn button) and those all important revs in the right hand. Three wheeled , high power to weight ratio, top heavy ( once you've loaded all your Indian tourist tat onto the roof racks complete with life size wooden elephant) and a candles worth of illumination. On this trip , I can feel some more sweatiness, more oiliness, more standing round at road sides surrounded by many Indians tinkering with Pascha, along with some being ripped offness, but a lot of potential for comedy moments .....these vehicles aren't designed for the job, but with a good cup of tea in us and some British spirit , South African stubbornness and Scottish Cameron begby ness, we might just make it .

With Tony in the sick bay - hopefully getting new cables before launch, we head if to shit shower and shave in preparation for our NYE party on Bolgatty island.

Another intervention at this point , the poo scale- simple yet imaginative and informative. You want to be "eights mate" : 1 minestrone soup ( no croutons) 2 hot chocolate 3 hot chocolate grand ( with marsh mallows ) 4 mr whippy 5 mr whippy with flake 6 choc cake mix 7 unset cement 8 dah daah daaaaaaah da dah: the chocolate log of perfection 9 a brick 10 AK 47 bullets

And just for Somers , 11 the ghost poo- going through the motions but the cupboards are bare for 3 days 12 the pogo stick - day 4. In the words of Somers " I don't do small bullets you know".

NYE party. Great.fire eating, knife fighting, banqueting on Indian food - just like a night out from my uni days in Liverpool then-! Terrible Indian DJ but we rocked our socks off to hard core Indian techno and brought in the new year in style. If style is sweating a lot in a dodgy sequin dress with a string of massive mozzie bites across your forehead.

One more day of relative sanity and safety , with a cricket match ( and I would imagine a damn good thrashing from the locals) , a small carnival ( about 1000000 ![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()[gallery] Drag and drop images you wish to upload within these gallery tags. [/gallery] people ) and probably more beer before race start tomorrow ...........

Blog 3- venturing out and NYE

1st Jan Happy new year !

Pimping continued yesterday, Pascha and Tony getting some more TLC prior to the great trek - making them jazzy, sticking stuff on and adding those homely touches. Having been banned from the test ground it Was time to venture out into the streets of fort cochi in search of samosas and spare parts for some more practice driving prior to attempting to drive a tenth of the earths circumference in the lawn mower . Al at the helm we pulled out into , by Indian standards, light traffic , by UK standards , total f$$king carnage. Wing mirrors the size of small jam jar lids, blind spots were larger than the planet of Pluto so we took the " he who hesitates " approach and dove right in! All was going great we pull up out side the mechanics . No Tony. But ALOT of beeping going on at the 6 way stop. There's Tony stranded , marooned , but being engulfed by on coming traffic - Ian sweating in the drivers seat, cranking pulling pumping, pressing , revving. Oh yes and did I mention sweating ? Tony gets pushed into the side- gear cable snapped - well actually not snapped but pulled out of the bracket - a dodgy cable tie job later and all fixed. We feel like mechanical heroes ! Spares purchased , along with some appropriate haggling , a quick bit of man shopping ( apparently it doesn't count if you shop in India ) ( on a side note at this point I'll mention the 50-50 rule. I reckon about 50 percent of the tat you buy on holiday is utter shite when you get back home. Normally. In India increase this to 80-20....!) and we are back in the safety of the test ground. Whilst checking out other rickshaws - to obviously steal cool pimping ideas - we meet Ollie and squirrel. Alsop style Embarrassing conversation number 1 of this adventure. : Ollie- hi I'm Ollie , this is my mate squirrel. Where you guys from ? Me - CT, but about to move to France. Ollie - cool ! I lived in France for a while , played rugby union there. Me- awesome. We've just been to the coolest rugby thing . You might not of heard of it - rugby 7's? .... At which point I launch into a detailed description of the 7s, fortunately stopping just short of the full rules, English winning history , and my favourite players. But finishing off with " you really should try it some time, great day out , you'd love it" Ollie - ( patiently waiting for me to stop talking /nervously chabbering)- yeah. I captained England in that for 6 years and I was the sky commentator in CT . Me- ohhhhhhh. You'll know a bit about it then .

Earth. Swallow me. Whole. As soon as you like.

Not put off by my idiotness , we hit it off with Ollie and squirrel and it turns out they did the clipper race so we bond more over tales of woe on the high seas. Very cool chaps. No mechanical clue but they could carry our rickshaws the whole way if they do break down !

Driving Pascha , is quite simple, but add in Indian traffic , 35 degree heat, 70 percent humidity, no fecking clue where you are, oh and about 5000 other people, goats, dogs, trucks, bikes in to the road , and a bit of a dodgy clutch - then it all starts to bring on a bit of a nervous sweat in your pants. Gears and clutch in left hand , with finding gears an utter mystery, brake under right foot ( I will have the largest right thigh ever at the end , only to be out larged by my right thumb - hovering over the horn button) and those all important revs in the right hand. Three wheeled , high power to weight ratio, top heavy ( once you've loaded all your Indian tourist tat onto the roof racks complete with life size wooden elephant) and a candles worth of illumination. On this trip , I can feel some more sweatiness, more oiliness, more standing round at road sides surrounded by many Indians tinkering with Pascha, along with some being ripped offness, but a lot of potential for comedy moments .....these vehicles aren't designed for the job, but with a good cup of tea in us and some British spirit , South African stubbornness and Scottish Cameron begby ness, we might just make it .

With Tony in the sick bay - hopefully getting new cables before launch, we head if to shit shower and shave in preparation for our NYE party on Bolgatty island.

Another intervention at this point , the poo scale- simple yet imaginative and informative. You want to be "eights mate" : 1 minestrone soup ( no croutons) 2 hot chocolate 3 hot chocolate grand ( with marsh mallows ) 4 mr whippy 5 mr whippy with flake 6 choc cake mix 7 unset cement 8 dah daah daaaaaaah da dah: the chocolate log of perfection 9 a brick 10 AK 47 bullets

And just for Somers , 11 the ghost poo- going through the motions but the cupboards are bare for 3 days 12 the pogo stick - day 4. In the words of Somers " I don't do small bullets you know".

NYE party. Great.fire eating, knife fighting, banqueting on Indian food - just like a night out from my uni days in Liverpool then-! Terrible Indian DJ but we rocked our socks off to hard core Indian techno and brought in the new year in style. If style is sweating a lot in a dodgy sequin dress with a string of massive mozzie bites across your forehead.

One more day of relative sanity and safety , with a cricket match ( and I would imagine a damn good thrashing from the locals) , a small carnival ( about 1000000 ![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()[gallery] Drag and drop images you wish to upload within these gallery tags. [/gallery] people ) and probably more beer before race start tomorrow ...........

Blog 2 : tuk tuk test drives and pimping the peacock

**So the sunbeams arrived safely on Thursday and the awesome foursome is complete. On Friday we registered and began getting to know our mighty vehicles that were going to bump us, grind us, swerve us, carry us safely up through the heaving belly of India.

There she was - gleaming in the corner of the test ground , winking her peacock feathers at us - Pascha the peacock. It has to be said - she's a beauty, the local guys loved painting her as the peacock is the national bird of India. Pimped up with some fairy lights, jingly jangly elephants and some roof rack peacocks ( our version of the rolls Royce flying lady) she is good to go.

After a 5 minute guided tour round her engine I jumped into the hot seat to strut her round the test ground. And stalled . Stalled again . The subtleties of gear location can only be experienced, not described , but once off , oooooh she purred like a beauty. Als turn - well - he is the pro of pros - the Vespa back home having trained him well. After razzing round the test ground on two wheels , doing several donuts and a side slide stop he is politely asked by race management to please refrain from driving in the test ground as well, quite frankly he is making the other drivers look shite, and he's creating a massive fuck off dust bomb as he rosbergs it found the ring ! ![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()![Uploading file...]()

Off into the real street we go- a bit of begby road rage is pretty welcome out here to be fair.

Test driving done - we settle down after several beers and g and ts to plan our first few days up to goa for the party there. I'm optimistic picking a town only 250 km away at an altitude of 2100m . In for a penny in for a pound........we all opt to go inland so hairpin bends here we come - sunbeams chariot is Tony the Tiger- here's hoping tony and Pascha get their jig on , the stars align and we romantically sweep up into the hills and tea plantations of the western ghats.

Just a small New Year's Eve party and festival to get through first though ......... **