Sunday 4th January 2015
This morning we managed to get a good early start in leaving
town when it was still a bit dark. The
roads were super flat and we made awesome time flying along the motorway
probably a bit too fast for the morning when the shaws hadn’t warmed up
properly. We drove for about an hour then stopped at a petrol station to refuel
after which Rachel had her first go at driving since we left Fort Kochi.
After working pretty well this morning the rickshaw began to
struggle and we came up with a theory that maybe our oil and petrol isn’t
mixing properly (read we are not mixing it properly) the road was pretty flat but
there was quite a bit of traffic about and we kept getting stuck behind
lorries.
We had an extremely hairy moment when we were cruising along
and a motorbike in front of us moved right then moved back right in front of us
and we had to fly onto the hard shoulder not to hit him and we took out a few
sand bags along the side of the road. Luckily we were nothing but a bit shaken
up and continued on our way.
Not long after that we stalled in the middle of the road and
Rach couldn’t get back into neutral I gave it a go and it was pretty stiff but
after a wee wiggle Maezee struggled it into place and we pushed the shaw off
the road and I started driving again hoping to catch up to the guys again. We
hit some big hills and absolutely struggled up them at the top of a huge hill
we found the guys waiting and feeding monkeys (we also saw a squashed monkey on
the road)
At that stop a few other teams pulled in and several others
went past today was defiantly a day for seeing people! Darren (rescued us
again) looked at our engine and our fuel filter was full so we changed that
over then hit the road. As we were driving out we drove along the dusty
shoulder while Blake (from Curry eating Kiwis) filmed us driving out, we were
right at the back driving through the dust storm when I heard something hit and
next thing you know this car has pulled in front of our convoy angrily yelling
that a rickshaw hit him. It certainly wasn’t one of us but he probably was
clipped by a rickshaw or motorbike in our dust storm blindness. I smiled and
said Namaste to them all and by the time we rolled out last they were giving us
just the smallest hint of a smile. pretty soon we were eating the guys dust as
we struggled to keep up and couldn’t they waited ahead for us and we had a nice
roadside toilet stop and gave the engines some cool down time.
We made pretty awesome time doing well over 200km by 1pm we
decided to stop for lunch and assess the situation of weather to call it a half
day and turn inland tomorrow and tackle some national park roads or continue
along the coast to goa. In the end we chose the former and so drove about
trying to find somewhere to stay in Karaw we couldn’t find anything cheap and
ended up having our undies well and truly ripped for a grimy hovel of a hotel.
In the search for accommodation Blake drove our beast and
realised how shoddy it is compared to his (I drove his first gear is a bitch
but otherwise it’s a dream) so Darren took a look at our engine and sure enough
the fuel filter is full again his theory is there is excess oil that is
struggling to get through and that’s what is blocking the furl line so from now
on we are putting in less oil to our mix hopefully that should flush it out!
We headed into town to refuel and try and find a mechanic to
look at our baby but as it’s a Sunday they were all closed and at any rate we
were told the closest rickshaw mechanic was goa so we sacked in that idea.
Maezee and I headed to an internet café and tried to check emails and what not
but the connection was a bit bullshit since the owner was streaming a movie on
the main computer after much whinging he let me use his and I did what I wanted
to in about 3mins flat!
By this stage we had to drive back to the hotel in the dark
which is horrible I already have terrible night vision and rickshaws have no visibility
and everyone drives with their high beams on! We had showers and a bit of much
and the guys all hit the beers and then it was bed time ready for our long haul
tomorrow.
Monday 5th January 2015
This morning we set off to drive through the rain forest we
had no idea what the roads would be like or how long it would take us but we
had a sense of adventure. We set off in the dark just before 6.30am and drove
out of Karaw soon turning off the motorway onto a smaller road, much to our
delight the road through the forest was a dream albeit very hilly.
We drove into the national park waved through by the park
rangers, the roads were so peaceful with only a handful of buses and cars
passing us all morning. We stopped often to take photos of the views and at
waterfalls and look out points. This also gave our engines a little time to
cool off. The hills were super steep but we managed to chug up even though we
did get left behind the convoy a few times.
Going down was another story though we just chucked her
into fourth and coasted down at one point we built up far too much speed and on
a sharp hairpin bend we went up on two wheels and just managed to right the
rickshaw at the last second before we tipped, after that we pumped the breaks a
whole lot more.
The villages we passed through seemed so shocked to see four
rickshaws full of foreigners drive through but everyone was super friendly. We
didn’t see any other teams all day as I think they are all shooting for goa and
we have headed in land.
Our aim was to drive about 200km to Belgum and park up for
the night but since the roads were so awesome we arrived there not long after
1pm we decided to get food and then press on to Nipani. Unfortunately the girls
were out voted by the boys who wanted McDonalds so we went short while they ate
crap.
From belgum to Nipani was mostly three lane highway and was
fairly light on traffic our rickshaw was mostly running pretty smoothly and we managed
to keep up most of the time we stopped often to cool our jets since we were
slamming it as fast as we could go (well the boys weren’t as their rickshaws
all go a lot faster than ours)
We turned off into Nipani and refuelled at the petrol
station. Three of us headed off in one rickshaw to find accommodation the first
place we went into said 500 rupees per room we agreed on the price then went to
pick up the others.
When we got back the dude wanted 1000 rupees per room for a
deposit which I refused to pay on the basis of 1. Deposit for what? And 2. We are
going to be hauling arse at 6am and can’t be arsed to faff around with deposit
refunds. Next the guy said we had to pay an extra 200 rupees for our room since
we had three beds even though when I haggled him first we agreed to 500 per
room since there was nine of us. After arguing back and forth for about 10mins
I got my way and took a huge victory in the saving of $4 NZD (especially since
last night was such a dive)
Once we had all the bags in and the rickshaws locked in the
underground car park a local school kid helped us out by taking us to the spare
parts shop (the guys all needed fuel filters) and to the post office to get
some more stamps and postcards.
Back in the hotel the shower was ice-cold but refreshing and
we chilled out on the balcony with drinks before food.
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