Wednesday 7th January 2015
This morning we had bit of a sleep in which turned out to be
a bit of a bad idea since we had to drive out of Pune and by the time we left
at 8am the traffic was already pretty heavy.
On the way up an overpass we suddenly lost power so pulled
over on the hard shoulder and pulled the back of our rickshaw open to see our carburettor
hanging off. The other night Rachel and Blake tightened up the bolts on the carburettor
and in the process they stripped the inside as the bolts are steel and the carb
is aluminium
Luckily Darren was behind us and managed to cobble it
together with cable ties which actually seemed to work better then the bolts
anyway. He also made the spark on our spark plug bigger which made a huge
difference and soon we were back on our way.
We drove along the highway for a while and then stopped on
the side of the road and had some street veggie burgers before turning off the motorway
and taking some smaller roads for the afternoon. Up and down the hills we
stopped to look at a small shrine of Ganesh.
About 3.30pm we started looking for some accommodation on
google maps we could see a place called dreams so we headed there but it turned
out it was just a restaurant but the guy was super helpful and rang one hotel
for us and proclaimed it was too expensive and that we should go with him to
another hotel down the road. Darren went with him in his jeep and the rest of
us all pulled a four way U-turn back onto the highway and drove about 1km to
orange valley. We checked it out and the guy bargained with them but they settled
on a total price of 4200 rupees for all nine of us as the other place was a
resort and had quoted 5000 rupees for all of us but had a pool with water
slides we decided to check that out before we made a choice. So Rodney (Tuking Disaster)
Fraser (intrepid brothers) and I took one rickshaw and whizzed around to the
“resort” the place was a dump the gardens were over grown, the water slides
rusted, the pool full of green slimy water and the room the guy showed us was
covered in rat shit and there were a whole load of cigarette butts in the
corner by the rubbish bin.
We got back in the rickshaw and drove back to orange valley
where the others had haggled the price down to 3800 rupees for the nine of us.
We split into two groups of four and Rodney splashed out on a room of his own.
With accommodation sorted we chilled out on our balcony and
ordered in beers then had a massive feed downstairs in the restaurant before getting
a super early night in.
Thursday 8th January 2015
This morning I wasn’t on alarm duty and so our room was
behind schedule. It was super cold again this morning which I was less than
pleased about shivering away in the back. We set off in the dark with Maezee
behind the wheel with the plan of checking out some lake the only snag was that
there was a dam that we couldn’t drive across so would have to drive up take a
look and then double back so in the end we just drove alongside the dam and
didn’t get to see the lake as there was a massive ditch preventing anyone from
climbing up.
We did however get to drive across the skinniest bridge on
the far side of the dam which was quite fun and we stopped there to take loads
of pictures. On the far side of the bride the road turned to shit and on a
particular large pothole we snapped something we could hear it rattling about
and the roof rack was my guess but it kind of sounded like it was coming from underneath.
We pulled over and the front left corner of the roof rack had completely
snapped we cable tied it up as a botch job and later on stopped and got it
welded which the guy did for free.
Most of the day was spent shuddering along bad roads but
none the less we made good progress. We stopped in a small town to check maps
and had a lunch break of samosas and some other fried potato ball things and
some onion pakoras and got absolutely mobbed by kids all taking a geez at us
and trying to get into our rickshaw. We had some snacks to hand out to kids but
that wasn’t an ideal time as they were fighting each other just to get a look
at us.
The roads didn’t improve as the day went on and the shaw
took another beating in another massive pothole while we were on a fast
decline. We decided to head to Ellora caves but were fast running out of
daylight so thought it best to press on and find some accommodation first.
Heading down a steep hill we got stuck behind a truck and
then vehicles continued to overtake us so we ended up behind a line of traffic
all trying to get around one massive truck on a narrow hill very high up which
had lots of gaps in the guard rail where it was clear vehicles had gone over
the side. But once we were at the bottom we were right where we needed to be
and managed to haggle a hotel down from almost 500 rupees per person to 200
rupees and head and found a mechanic to come and service all the shaws in the
parking lot.
I needed the ATM which was in the market and we couldn’t
take our rickshaws in there so Fraser and I both jumped on this dudes motorbike
and he drove us the 10meters we needed to go to get to the bank (he obviously
wanted to show us off) but when we got there the ATM didn’t work anyway so we
just walked back taking in the fish being scaled, the chickens being killed and
the random tool and blanket stalls.
Then Maezee and I headed off in the other direction to the
post office which turned out to be non-existent (so sorry for all you peeps
waiting on postcards!) but the walk was nice and we saw a heap of weird monkeys
and almost got charged by a stoned looking bull.
We stopped and got snacks that I don’t think have seen the
light of day for about 20 years and then headed back for the worlds coldest
shower that came out of exactly three holes in the shower head.
The mechanic was still working on the shaws so we grabbed
some beers and food and chilled out for the evening.
Friday 9th December 2015
We started early again this morning which is getting harder
and harder the further north we go as it is getting colder and colder in the
morning several teams (ours included much ton Maezee’s disgust) “borrowed”
blankets from the hotel to add an extra layer in the freeze mobiles.
In the morning we stopped at a brick making factory and I had
a go at making a brick, they looked at it in disgust and didn’t even wait for
me to walk away before they demolished it. We had a whole load of snacks in the
Rickshaw so we handed them out to all the wee kids that were hanging about before
continuing on our merry way.
We drove through another national park I heard a rumour from
the boys that there was tigers and sloths there but we didn’t even see monkeys
and there certainly wasn’t enough vegetation for a tiger to be hiding in the
park itself was awesome though although we did have a few cut outs going up the
steep hill and at one point had to do a push start with a huge truck charging
up our rear.
Our convoys had a few breakdowns throughout the day but for
once it wasn’t us so we just chilled roadside while the boys sorted things out.
We arrived into Khargone about 3.30pm and set about finding
a mechanic for the boys which we did almost instantaneously so while they were
getting their rickshaws worked on Blake and I and a random Indian dude who
wanted to help us out went to look for a hotel. The first place was too
expensive the next too dirty (shit all over the floor and toilet and the toilet
seat on the floor!) but the third was perfect it was a bargain at 2000 rupees
total and had a bar and restaurant. I haggled the price shook hands and went to
get the others who were being absolutely swarmed by a mob of locals at the auto
shop. Maezee and Rachel were looking a bit shell shocked from all the hand
shaking and photos.
We drove back to the
hotel but when we got back the hotel manager said they didn’t have a tourist
licence so we had to wait for the police who were going to come and we needed
to fill in some forms but it wouldn’t take long.
An hour later and still no police and suddenly the staff
were saying that the police weren’t coming and that we had to go to the police
station to register so off we trooped. We had to hand over our passports for
copies and sit in the chief’s office while he frowned at us then we headed
outside and got a ton of photos with all the offices and a bunch of kids who
had come to check out what was going on. This all took a further hour or so
then we had to follow a policeman to the only hotel in town with a tourist
licence.
That’s where we introduce hotel swastik a dive if ever there
was one with the biggest ass clown as a manager he wanted to charge a total
price of 8000 rupees then came down to 7000 rupees and wouldn’t budge. That’s when
I stepped in and haggled we argued back and forth for a while (there seemed to
be some sort of “miscommunication” apparently we told him we wanted AC… ummmm
its freezing we defiantly don’t want that!) next thing you know its 2900 rupees
total which was a spectacular rip off!
Then came the mission of getting everything inside, getting
clean rooms after the ones he gave us were dirty, Fraser going back to the
police station to get scans of all of our passports endless paperwork and a
million photos with all the locals crowding in the door. By the time we made it
to dinner we had been in town for close to four hours and had achieved nothing.
The food in town was good though and after a freezing cold
shower we retired to bed with the atmospheric red porno lighting on.
Saturday 10th January 2015
This morning was super cold again but at least I had a whole
load of extra naan from last night which kept me going. We needed to drive
480km today to make it to Udaipur for the night so the roads we picked were
highways. We pretty much gunned it all day stopping only to pee and refuel.
We had a breakdown this morning and it was so cold we lit a
fire to keep warm while the rickshaw was made road ready I was reluctant to
leave it and get back in the shaw!
On the road we saw one other team although you could hardly
call him that his team mate pulled out after three days and he has been going
it alone ever since! We ran into him at a rest stop but he didn’t stay long to
chat and we didn’t see him again all day.
We made up some pretty epic tunes in the rickshaw and had
several awesome sing-alongs. We drove close to 13 hours with Maezee pulling the
first shift and me taking the afternoon and her driving the last hour again as
it was getting dark and my night vision is terrible.
On a hill this morning we had a few hairy moments weaving in
and out of trucks and buses that were all congested as they had to go so slow
then on the way down we started to see trains of camels and knew we were close
to Rajasthan.
Most of the day the roads were pretty awesome and we could
just fly along but after the Rajasthan border there was road works for miles
which really slowed things up as we struggled against all the traffic driving
towards us the wrong way. We left the main road and flew through smaller towns
which was pretty cool. At one point we got left behind after a herd of goats
decided to cross the road directly in front of us.
We planned to stay just outside of Udaipur but the hotel was
too pricey so we moved on the next one we came to was even more expensive and that’s
when the group split Tuking Disaster and Curry eating Kiwis headed back to the
first place whilst Intrepid brothers and us headed into the city.
Udaipur is a great place and we were super charged whizzing
around the streets there was a whole heap of teams in town and we found a place
pretty quick parking was a bit of an issue as the roads are narrow but we
managed to get some off street parking for 50 rupees and headed up to the
hotels roof terrace for beer and food. The kitchen was a one man band so by the
time we had eaten it was well after 11pmthe staff all left us to finish off our
beers after we were given a lesson in how to shut the door and switch off the
lights.
Then we all made the most of the Wi-Fi not minding the late
night as we have a sleep in tomorrow as we wait for the others to get into town
to meet us!
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