The aim of today was really to cover as much ground as possible to put us in a good location for tomorrow’s early morning visit to the Ajanta Caves – more of that 2moro.
A 9am start meant we could get a couple of hundred clicks under our wheels although, once again, the first – and thankfully only – communication problem occurred. We pulled in late last night low on fuel, so our first objective was to hit the first petrol station we saw, which happened to be a couple of hundred metres up from the hotel. We pulled in (having told one or two members of the support crew of our intentions) and watched everyone drive past while we filled our 7.5 litre tank. Of course, we copped the blame. Apparently as soon as we are out of shot people just forget we exist! But after venting for a few moments, I was calm enough to take the first stint in the driving seat.
And so the plod began again with Shelley and I determined to get Katie to drive. The major surprise today was that, despite a proposed storyline that Katie wouldn’t drive until Nepal, she actually gave it a go (I think the storyline’s out now – there’s no way just two of us could do the whole distance anyway - not without killing the third). As much as I’d love to say she was bloody awful, she didn’t even stall it once. OK, she seemed allergic to 3rd gear and kept revving the nuts off the engine but apart from that she wasn’t bad.
Thankfully, Katie wasn’t behind the handlebars when we had our nearest miss yet. On our way out of Aurangabad after having had a our first Indian Domino’s Pizza, Shelley encountered a subtly suicidal cow which sold us a dummy, made it look like she was going to walk away and then just plodded right in front of us. The crew say we were on two wheels as ‘the Shelster’ swerved to avoid it. I’m pretty sure our rickshaw would of come out of the collision in second place!
The second incident was when I was driving mid-afternoon on a tree-lined road cratered with potholes. We were following a large container truck that was trundling along and swerving now and then to avoid motorcyclists and other taxi rickshaws. At one moment I thought I saw a clear stretch of road that would give our little lady a good run up to pass. So full throttle I wound her up, blew the horn, and we began our mammoth overtake. Then suddenly the b****rd in the truck just pulled across onto our side of the road and Shelley was almost sucking on his exhaust. We had just about hit the grass verge on the far side when I managed to brake and pull back to safety. Lesson learnt: Don’t take the Indian truck drivers’ road awareness for granted. He was probably half asleep, anyway.
Our day was also punctuated by a look around a traditional market that we just happened to be driving past in a field (the market was in the field not the rickshaw!) Amazing colours, fruits and smells greeted our senses. We ended up buying too shawls for the modesty of the girls (although if you’ve sat in the back of a rickshaw with them and heard them nattering, you’ll realise there’s very little of that), and a cashew and almond combo – which we’re sure we paid well over the odds for. But these aren’t wealthy people so being possibly duped by them leaves a slightly sweeter taste in the mouth.
We landed in Fardapur this evening after rolling down a twisty mountain road singing, rather aptly ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain’. Needless to say, tiredness played a large part in how amusing we perceived this to be!
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