The Mystery of Josh Rogan

So we survived the rickshaw part of our trip and now it's time to site see.  I don't know how to remove the link from being tagged on the Adventurist website so I apologize as I'm sure you have zero interest in my tourist posts.  Anyway, after struggling and failing to get a ticket at the Delhi train station (a misery that makes the DMV seem pleasant in comparison).  We booked a hotel in the backpacker area of Delhi and ate a nice meal on a rooftop restaurant.  The room was air conditioned so we slept well later than we had hoped and missed the early train to Agra.  Instead we left around 1130am and arrived around 330.  By the time we got a room, we decided to chill out and have dinner at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the Taj.  The meal was great and we planned to pick up a few beers and enjoy them from the incredible rooftop view from our hotel.  Sadly, no beers could be found.  We looked in Lonely Planet and found a fancypants hotel that served beer.  As it ended up, this was perhaps the fanciest hotel in all of India.  Absolutely stunning with a balcony overlooking the Taj.  We milked two beers as long as we could and enjoyed the sunset.  Truely amazing experience.  We are waking up super early tomorrow to check out the Taj before the crowds.

Also, Manny and I would like to dispell rumors that we are secret CIA assassins that used the cover of the Rickshaw Run to carry out a hit on Bin Laden.  I don't know where this rumor got started but it's false.  

Lastly, of all the crazy things we've seen in this trip, the thing that has stuck out the most for us has been a menu item everywhere called Rogan Josh.  We were confused.  Did India name a meal after the Fear Factor host?  Or is he secretly an amazing cook that introduced a staple dish to India.  As it turns out, it's just a hilarous coincidence.  We thought it was funny.   

 

The Shillongest Day

Day 14 - We are in serious trouble.  Last day of the race.  We have 400 kilometers to go.  We have no battery.  We have to make it before 6pm or we will have to miss our flight the next day. 

 We wake up at the Tiger Reserve around 3am and head out.  The roads are still dark and the emergency brake still out so I hold a flashlight out the back.  Around daylight, the roads turn into two lane highways which offers hope.  Yet India is a crazy land filled with craziness.  The highways are in disrepair.  Since there are two roads, one for each way, the logical approach would be to fix one road and allow traffic on the other.  Not India.  Instead they have one road open for a kilometer or so before they switch back to the other highway for a kilometer or so, then switch back again so that the opposite side can be worked on.  Meanwhile, the haphazardly thrown together joiners are nothing but rocks and dirt, slowing us down tremendously.  Manny, worked like a champ and through shear grit, got us past the highway to Guwahati by 2pm.  This is theoretically enough time to make it up to Shillong just in time.  The approach to Shillong is about 80 kilometers rising high up into the air on mountains that look similar to the Scottish highlands.  Our rickshaw is beat up and can barely make it up these trecherous hills.  We battle on doing our best.  A few miles to go.  So close we can taste it. 10 kilometers left and we have 30 minutes.  We are going to make it!  What's this?  A massive traffic jam.  Yes, in 2 weeks, the second traffic jam we've seen, literally 10 kilometers from the finish line.  The jam lasts more than an hour and we are late.  With our rickshaw barely holding together (only one gear was working) we crossed the finish line.  Out of sheer luck, a representative for Rickshaw Run was still at the hotel allowing us to hand everything in so that we wouldn't have to miss our flight.  Exhausted, we find a hotel room and pass out.  

We flew out of Shillong this morning to Delhi.  Delhi shuts down on Mondays for some reason so we are taking a train to Agra (site of the Taj Mahal) only to bypass it for a nearby site.  We are staying in Agra and hopefully will be able to see the Taj at a rooftop restaurant.  Otherwise, we are waking up early on Tuesday to see the Taj up close.  We are spending Wednesday and Thursday at Jaipur then returning to Delhi for the final two days.  Should be a fun last week, finally getting to see a few sites before we return.  An incredible adventure, not sure how we are still alive, but we made it.  

We've Got A Shillong Way To Go And A Shaw-t Time to Get There

Day 13 - To recap, after climbing up the himalayas on our struggling rickshaw, we are now in a position where we have to drive 650 kilometers in 2 days.  Doable assuming everything goes smoothly.  What could possibly go wrong?  We woke up at 3am to hitch a ride to the high point in the mountain where 3 of the 4 tallest mountains in the world are visible.  As the sun rose, we could see the mountains appear though the haze made Mt. Everest not super clear.  We then stopped by two buddhist monastaries before hitting the road at 8am.  We felt confident.  Studying the map, we saw that most of the mileage is on highways, two lanes going both directions.  We slowly crept down the himalayas and caught the highway.  It was not a highway at all but rather miles of potholes.  This slowed us down a bunch.  When we stopped for gas, we noticed the battery had come loose.  We put it back in and were on our way.  A few miles later, we realized the battery was not properly secured and had completely fell out this time.  Fortunately rickshaws can run without batteries, only our horn and breaklights were not working.  Big problem since the sun was setting.  With little time before driving became very dangerous, we stopped at the first place we could find which happened to be a tiger reserve.  So we spent the night there.  We are in trouble.  No night driving means 400 kilometers to go, impossible if the roads don't improve. 

On Top of The World

Day 12 - Having decided yesterday to chance it and go out of our way to see Darjeeling, we woke up early and heading towards the Himalayas.  The road up was incredible.  We climbed about 7,000 feet in elevation through beautiful mountains up to the top of a himalayan mountain to Darjeeling.  So far up in fact that you are above the clouds. Darjeeling is amazing.  None of the chaos and noise of the rest of India.  Instead it has a feel that mixes Europe and Tibet.  Narrow, steep roads, colorful houses, and people that look more Nepalese than Indian.  Darjeeling is of course famous for tea.  We were given a lesson on tea and took a tour of a factory.  We stopped by a travel agent to plan the rest of our trip.  All the train tickets to Delhi were booked so we bought a flight ticket instead which will give us time to see Agra, Jaipur, and Delhi before the trip ends.  

 

Tomorrow will be an intense day.  We are waking up at 3am to take a cab to Tiger Hill which will give us a view of some of the highest mountains in the world.  This will give us a 7am departure time in which we will have to drop down the mountains, rejoin the highway, with a goal of making at least 300 kilometers (preferably 400) so as to put us in a position to make it to Shillong before the victory party, 6pm.  We are leaving the following day on a plane to Delhi so this does not leave much room for error.  We have to have two productive days in a row and make it to Shillong on time.  No regrets.  Darjeeling is a once in a lifetime site as well as a great chance for recovery and taking care of necessities such as doing laundry.  Our hotel is clean and offers a spectacular view of the mountains.  I just wish I could stay here longer. 

Siliguri in a Hurry

Day 11 - The day got off to a terrible start.  We woke up early and made decent progress on the road.  After about 100 kilometers, we saw yet another truck driver convention (if you haven't read our other blogs, every so often we see miles of trucks lining the road for no reason.  We've named these truck driver conventions).  This caused a bottleneck that created crazy traffic.  Our goal of 400 kilometers seemed to be lost.  However, past the traffic jam was a two lane highway and we hit it at full speed.  We hit the original target, Siliguri.  We found a nice clean hotel recommended by Lonely Planet and encountered 8 other rickshaws (having gone a week barely seeing anyone).  We had a delicious meal in which we discussed the plan to finish the race.  We have two options on how to deal with the three days in which we have to cover 600 kilometers, a distant that would typically take a day in a half.  The question was whether to go to Shillong as quickly as possible and relax or go out of our way to Darjeeling and then book it for the last two days.  We decided to go with the latter.  

Hire an Indian Guide

Day 10 - If you've been following our blog, you'll know the apprehension Calcutta has caused.  Driving through an Indian town of 30,000 people is worse than driving through Midtown at rush hour.  No exaggeration.  Imagine now a city of 14 million.  Add in that the fact we didn't have a clue how to change to the highway we needed to get to.  First idea was to write down the name of the road we needed to get to, NH-34 to bridge the gap of language (All Indians theorectically speak English, but in practice, few speak more than very basic words).  That didn't work.  Next idea was to hire a rickshaw driver to either drive and we will follow or drive the rickshaw itself.  We found a taker on the latter.  Driving in India is a constant melody of honking and this driver was the honkingest driver in the country.  Insanely aggressive, he got us to the location we needed, left, and we were on our way.  Amazing.  Things were looking up, we anticipated found hours in Calcutta and got half an hour.  We decided to use that time to get the gears fixed.  We found a small town with a mechanic to fix it while we sat in the shade and drank Chai.  We carried on.  Unlike the previous day's double lane roads, NH-34 is a series of potholes connected by gravel.  The driving was miserable but we made it to Bahahampur and found an awesome hotel recommended by the guide book, AC included.  We had a delicious meal and went searching for an internet cafe.  I think it's an election day because everything was closed.  We hired a rickshaw bike and after stopping at five supposed internet cafes, we finally found one.  Tomorrow we aim to get within a hundred miles of Darjeeling.  Shillong is starting to look attainable.

 

Notes on hotels in India:  They top out at shithole and go down from there.  One of the first things you learn in India is that a hotel is not a hotel.  "Hotel" means restaurant (perhaps a remnant of the French colonists, Rowe?).  You need to find a lodge if you want to sleep somewhere.  You go to a random town and ask around, they are usually easy to find.  They range in price from $4 to $15 (if it has AC).  The doors usually have a latch with a lock and key to keep them closed.  Rooms generally have not been cleaned since the Carter administration and they always have dirty concrete floors.  Despite the major problem with mosquitoes, windows never have screens so you wake up with a million mosquito bites (we have mosquito nets but ceilings are to high to tie them to).  Other bugs are common house guests (an enormous cockroach crawled on me last night).  Bathrooms are atrocious.  Toilets are usually squatters adjacent to the shower (smelly).  The shower almost never works.  Usually we have to wash off on faucet water.  Worst of all is the noise.  India has a daily contest to see who has the loadest horn.  This contest lasts well into the night when within all reason, you would not have to honk your horn.  Yet they do, constantly and loadly.  

The Legend of Belda

Day -9

We got off to a good start nice and early in the morning.  The goal was to get as close to Calcutta as possible to attach the city early early morning the next day.  Things were going well.  We hit a lot of highways that were for the most part paved.  I say for the most part because it they have the largest potholes I've ever seen.  Often inescapable.  We did our best to survive them and it seemed like we did until the rickshaw started to act a little funny.  The front wheel was not moving right.  We saw a sign for the nearest town.  9 kilometers away was the town of Belda.  We drove on the shoulder as slowly as we could.  Miraculously, not only was a mechanic just off the should. while we waited the hour for them to fix it, we went across the street to the nice air condioned restaurant and ate delicious biriyani.  Couldn't believe our fortune.  What could have easily been a disaster, our rickshaw stranded with night about to set in, ended up working out extremely well.  The rickshaw was fixed and night was setting.  We drove on, looking for a town with a hotel.  We were directed to a town called Debra.  After asking 6 people and being told 6 different directions (in Hindi of course) Manny gave it a crack and found a hotel behind a restaurant.  

Gandhi With the Wind

Day 8 - There is nothing that can prepare you for Indian roads.  I've been to China, Egypt, Italy, etc., but nothing is even remotely close.  Todays journey hit all of the definitive Indian road moments.  We woke up early prepared for a big day.  The goal was to reach the beach town of Gopalpur-by-Sea.  We made great progress early morning until around noon we came upon a massive convoy.  This is not the first time we came across this.  It's one of the most bizarre things I've ever encountered.  Trucks lined up on the side of the road for miles, literally miles.  What are they doing?  No clue.  Middle of no where India with no purpose indicated in any way other then slowing us down.  Fortunately rickshaws are built to get around these things and a little crafty manuevering put us right.  We learned early on in this trip to follow National Highways.  So we are following a national highway up to Calcutta.  Now national highways in India are relatively decent.  Two lanes in both directions of smooth road.  Seems remarkably orderly, right?  Not at all.  First, you have to constantly dodge people and cows along the way.  Not a big deal.  For more incredible is that although they have two lanes partitioned, clearly serving both directions individually, you will often see drivers driving down the wrong direction for no reason at all.  Afternoon, this smooth two lane highway began to unravel.  We hit diversions which are forks in the road that lead you away from construction and towards questional roads filled with potholes and dirt.  We continued onward.  Signage in India is a great mystery.  For about 500 miles, signage was great.  Clear signs indicating where we were, how far we were to Calcutta, where to turn off for different towns.  Around noon time, all signs disappeared for no reason for about 200 kilometers.  We just crossed our fingers and hoped we were on the right highway.  Fortunately we were, but we missed our turn off for Gopalpur because, yup, you guessed it, there was no sign for it.  Crazy how these things work.  I suppose it's a good thing.  We got another 50 kilometers before we called in quits in a random town.  Unfortunately, being Sunday, the mechanics were all closed.  Hopefully LaShonda can hold up another day before we get a maintenance check.

 And another situation of Indians being the nicest people in the world.  We keep all our essentials: maps, guidebooks, cameras, etc. in a little green bag we always hold onto.  We left it at a snack shop.  We realized it quickly and turned around in the highway (our turn to drive the wrong way).  We got back there and surely enough, the little boy operating the shop was holding onto it, not a thing taken.

Tomorrow's plan is to get as close to Calcutta as possible.  Crossing a small town in India is a nightmare.  Crossing a city of 14 million people is a disaster.  We hope to make the cross first thing in the morning to avoid traffic.  We will see how tomorrow ends up.

Looney Tuni

Day 7 - Early start to the day.  Made great progress by lunch, reaching Vijayvada and successfully going on the new highway which we will follow the one thousand kilometers to Calcutta.  We had a close shave today.  We went to a gas station for petroleum only to discover the battery had come loose.  Fortunately, the gas station attendants fixed it for us and refused payment.  We made great time in the afternoon, reaching a total of about 420 kilometers in the day.  We are in Tuni, kinda a neat little town.  Good food and a lot of energy, but not too much chaos.  And we splurged on a hotel with AC and a sit down toilet for the crazy sum of fifteen dollars.  Aiming for the beautiful beaches of Puri tomorrow and for Calcutta the next day.  We are at the halfway point and on target.  If not problems delay us, we should be okay. 

Hydera-Bad News Bears

Day 6 - After a night of being woken up by the usual mixture of horns honking, mosquitoes biting, and the power going off (turning off our fans), we woke up around seven to start our journey to Hyderabad.  At Hyderabad, we were to switch off the luxurious expressway National Highway 7 (they have two lanes in each direction which by India standards is unheard of) to National Highway 9 which we will take to the coast.  In most countries, this is an easy procedure.  Follow  signs and go through the exits until you reach the right road.  In India it's an adventure.  We first tried to follow the detail on our map which made the maneuver look easy.  In practice, however, the roads never fit the map and there were no signs to follow.  We asked about four Indians until we finally got to what we hoped was the right direction and followed that the requisite 20 kilometers or so before a sign appeared and assured us we were correct.  Phew!  Highway 9, unfortunately, is more iffy than 7 and we got off at Suryapet, about 100 kilometers short of our goal of Vijaywada.  The plan is to wake up tomorrow nice and early, get to the shore and go up as far north as possible.  Tomorrow is our 7th day, halfway point on our trip.  Things are looking up.  We are on pace with the other drivers and the roads from here on (knock on wood) should be pretty good.  Manny, although exhausted, is chugging along like a champ.  Meanwhile, he's trying to teach me the ropes so that I'll be street ready in a day or two, ready to close this thing like Mariano Rivera. 

 

Unfortunately we went camera happy the first few days so we are out of battery and in a difficult position.  So you'll get no pictures from the past day of the trip.  Luckily you won't miss much.  The landscape didn't change much from the day before.  Hopefully we can figure something out before we see some beautiful beaches over the next few days.