Gordon's Rickshaw Blog

DAY FOURTEEN - TANSEN TO POKHARA

2009-09-27T20:44:00.001-07:00

Nothing could rival the natural beauty of our early morning vista. From the top of the highest local mountain we could see a deep cotton-cloud-covered basin, around which towered verdant green peaks, dwarfed in the far distance by the snow-capped Himalayas etched against a perfect clear blue sky. With the air temperature in the late 20Cs, it would be the ideal day for wending our way to Pokhara. Following some moody contemplative camera shoots, we climbed aboard our trusty li’l lady for the last time and set off.

If everyone could only experience the fantastic beauty of the scenery we drove through, I’m sure we would all value our natural home so much more. For much of our journey we twisted our way through a deep valley following snaking emerald green and white-water rivers. Rising several hundred metres we could see tiny individual brown walled houses dotted up and down the lush green terrain of the opposite side of the valley. Through every village we drove people smiled and children ran out of their homes to watch us put-put by on our merry way.

I’m sorry, but there is no comparison to the diverse India we have experienced and the stunning natural grandeur of Nepal. Although our final 100 or so kilometres would take us nearly five and a half hours, time became irrelevant beside the constantly changing panoramas that we witnessed. These were also the best roads on which to conclude our ‘odyssey’ – rolling corners, tight hairpins, and long freewheeling straights, all framed by perfect wilderness.

On the final approach to Pokhara when we drove past a gushing mountain spring, Katie and I thought we’d freshen up before our arrival (not sure what Shelley’s problem was : ) ) so to cool off we just stood underneath the waterfall, much to the producer’s chagrin ‘cos he wasn't there to film it so apparently we’d screwed up the continuity. So the last ten minutes of our journey as we hit the outskirts of town were spent wafting my t-shirt out of the rickshaw to try and dry it as much as possible.

Our arrival at the finish line was, to be honest, an anti-climax. After 2993km there were no fanfares, cheering crowds, bunting or ticker tape: just us and our camera crew filming our entrance at the Lakeside View hotel under the Rickshaw Run banner. 20 minutes later with beers in hand and champagne chilling, we’d handed over the keys, the tools and the rickshaw’s documents, and that was it. With darkness arriving shortly after us, we sat and chilled out in wicker chairs on the terrace – a team of 13 who haven’t always seen eye to eye or worked cohesively as a group, but who have shared some spectacular sights, experiences and dodgy hotels together. Let’s hope that the footage goes some way to doing it all justice.

DAY THIRTEEN - LUMBHINI TO TANSEN

2009-09-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

What a night! The morning after possibly the most spectacular lightning storm I’ve ever witnessed. At 3am the sky lit up again and again as lighting bolts strobed across the sky and explosive cracks ripped through the hiss of pelting sheet rain. My first thought apart from ‘how absolutely ****ing amazing!’ was ‘ah, torrential rain and mountain drives in a rickshaw don’t usually mix too well’.

We had debated the best route to the finish line in Pohkara – of which there are only two: the safe, long 244km road, and the mountainous 150km pass. As dawn broke the drizzle was still hanging in the air and grey clouds hinted at the possibility of another deluge. We held off our decision until after our visit to Buddha’s birthplace which, we discovered after driving to the gates, was about a minutes walk from our hotel.

I’m not a spiritual person but as with Varanasi and the Ganges I hoped to feel something from visiting Lumbhini and the ruins of the monasteries built between 3 and 20AD. Even entering the very building where a case stating ‘The Birthplace of Buddha’ and in which monks and other pilgrims sat cross-legged and chanted, I was more moved by their commitment to a theology – for want of a better term – than any mystical feeling of spirituality. Maybe I’m just too cynical or rational, even though I agree completely with the teachings of Buddha.

Having bought a singing bowl and a Buddha bust for my wife (I hope this blog goes up after I get back), we reconsidered our route. Locals seemed to confirm that the mountain pass was perfectly suited to our little rickshaw, and as time was of the essence we bit the bullet and headed ever upward. We weren’t quite sure how wise that decision had been when, within the first five minutes, we were reversing up a muddy single lane track to allow a much larger bus and ornately painted truck through. Several tail slides and sections of potholed road later and like a baptism of fire, we were blessed with smooth asphalt which laced its way around the contours of the Himalayan foothills.

With just a 120km stretch to take us to the finish line, we decided to call it a day just outside the small town of Tansen, having wound our way through rocky, tropical terrain and sheer drop-offs with forests of slender trees offering a shadowy canopy to shelter us from the unadulterated rays of the afternoon sun. Through every roadside settlement we drove, we were met with smiles and waves more genuine than even on our travels through India. No tourist brochure could ever capture the warmth of these people and they have a physical beauty that is very enchanting.

We arrive at our hotel in clear, pure daylight and for the first time sit, relax, drink and eat, feeling as if we are on top of the world. But I would really have liked to share the moment of looking out over the distant mountains with my wife. But not long now. I'm counting down the hours to the finish.

We also learned – against all our information and calculations – that we would be a day late, and that the finishing party was going to be tonight. Bugger! Although given the choice of relaxing up here or getting pissed down there, I think I'd choose here. Tomorrow’s final leg is just hours away and we have a very good feeling about what the day will hold for us.

DAY TWELVE - MAU TO LUMBHINI

2009-09-27T20:43:00.000-07:00

What a night! Our hotel in Mau was as close to a prison as you can get. The most surprising thing apart from a relatively enjoyable evening meal was not waking up covered in bed bug bites. So needless to say, we made an early start towards the Nepalese border.

The plan was to hit the border mid-afternoon to give us enough time to locate a hotel in Nepal before dark. But as usual, the last leg on India’s roads proved to be testing and slow. By now we were expecting potholes, so just a hundred yards of smooth tarmac was a real treat. We eventually approached the border town of Sonauli which, if our journey across the country was a novel, this would be the tragic conclusion. It appeared to sum up all the negative aspects of India – dirt, pollution, poverty and despair. We even drove past a drunkard lying in the road virtually unconscious with trucks weaving around him. No-one seemed to even notice or care. If I were Nepalese coming to India in the hope of making a new life, Sonauli would make me turn 180 degrees and head back across the border. But this is the sad part – much of India is beautiful. We’ve visited communities and locations that are very moving in their purity and integrity. The country doesn’t deserve an advert like this.

But it was now fading behind us as darkness began to fall while we sorted out our Nepalese visas – being bitten to death by mozzies at the immigration office – a rundown brick house. Outside the office is an advertisement for Lumbhini, the birthplace of Buddha, where there is a Scared (sic) Garden. So on the spur of the moment we chose to head there and find a decent hotel for the night. With all our papers in order crawled along our first Nepalese highway sandwiched between trucks and pedal rickshaws. Thankfully our escape came just a kilometre or so further on and we travelled the hour’s journey to Lumbhini, pulling into a Nepalese standard 5-star hotel – probably the equivalent of a European 3-star – but after Mau a pile of hay under the stars would have been bliss.

DAY ELEVEN - VARANASI TO MAU - 114km

2009-09-27T20:42:00.002-07:00

It’s dawn. An eerie mist grips the buildings on the banks of the River Ganges and drifts aimlessly across the water. Spired, almost Gothic-style buildings and arched frontages reminiscent of Venice, punctuate the otherwise drab bankside architecture. Run-down hotels and restaurants squeeze through the gaps of stonework to peer at the holy river. In the distance smoke from wood fires mingles with the mist and devout worshippers take to the water either fully or partially dressed to cleanse themselves of their sins. Such is the scene that greeted us aboard our ‘thugging’ diesel boat as we rocked with the gentle current past various ghats (or steps) down to the river.

Our short excursion to the quayside had been through a muddy, urine-ripe marketplace with stalls that appeared to double as living spaces for their ‘holders’. Pilgrims were already gravitating to the water as we climbed aboard with our camera crew.

This is the most peculiar place I have ever visited. I didn’t find Varanasi or the rites being performed on the banks of the Ganges spiritual personally, but I was astounded at the ‘otherness’ of the scene we were witnessing. This would not have been out of place in some post-apocalyptic Ridley Scott movie, with white-faced yogis performing blessings and rituals, the occasional bloated animal corpse floating by our boat as well as bathing pilgrims, and funeral pyres roaring away at the burning ghats where the dead bodies are openly cremated and offered to the river.

The people who visit the Ganges and work here are a world and a half away from my western civilisation. This is a chaotic city of beggars, worshippers, salesmen, mystics and tourists. Remove the combustion engine from the scene and you could have fallen into cultural landscape any time from the middle ages to the 19^th century. Quite incredible. I look around me for symbols that I can reference as if I'm dreaming, but there is nothing. Yet, this place is one of the most symbolic locations in India.

Following a late morning snooze after our 4am ‘call’ to see dawn on the Ganges, we left Varanasi pondering just how different our life experiences were from those we had just witnessed. This is the incredible side to India.

With only a few hours of daylight left we headed for Mau – what appeared to be a suitable stop-over for our journey towards the Nepalese border tomorrow. We pulled up at our accommodation and located our rooms. Now, we’re all pretty easygoing, but this place was something else: within the first hour the power had gone off about four times – which isn’t the most conducive to filming our end-of-day interviews. The bathroom in our room had no bath, or shower, or toilet seat, or running water to start with. It did have a friendly cockroach and a family of spiders hanging from the ceiling. The carpet, bedsheets and pillow cases were stained with years of partial laundering and drying after partial washing. And the mattresses were bumpier than some of the potholed roads we’d driven into town on. The plan: stick it out, get to bed, leave asap in the morning. We have a long day of driving ahead towards the border.

DAY TEN - REWA TO VARANASI - 243km

2009-09-27T20:42:00.001-07:00

Following a day of fun and frolics, today has been quite a drag. We’re in the tail end of the monsoon season but so far the weather has graced us with sunshine and light breezes, with humidity being the main bugbear of our open-sided rickshaw. Today however, showed us just what kind of downpour can come out of nowhere in just a few minutes. And we were ill-prepared. When the heavens opened we had only Shelley’s flowery water-proof coat to cover ourselves – which she chose to wear, so Katie and I got a drenching. To be fair, we did eventually cadge a spare section of plastic sheeting from the support crew and the girls wrapped it around themselves in the back while patching the hole in the roof that the roofrack had torn through with a showercap and some dodgy stitching, with varying degrees of success, it has to be said.

We soldiered on through expansive puddles and driving stair-rods of rain until we crossed into the fifth and northernmost Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, a region that revealed itself to us as we trundled carefully down the twisting mountain pass which had just claimed a victim in the shape of a truck lying on its side in the ditch. Distant hills framed the agricultural valley but we were beginning to ‘flag’ and found ourselves struggling to enjoy the greenery of the landscape.

With light fading we drove into Varanasi – possibly one of the most revered cities in India because of its relationship with the Ganges River that is an artery to the spiritual heart of Hinduism. Tomorrow we see it alive with pilgrims for ourselves but right now the chaos of the traffic-heavy streets is exhausting and our little rickshaw is also continually suffering from light fade – first the indicators, then the headlamp and then the spotlights. We’ve also noticed a slightly strange whining noise in fourth gear – yet another problem that will slow our progress? Great!

DAY NINE - KHAJARAHO TO REWA - 208km

2009-09-27T20:41:00.001-07:00

Today I'm 43. Not many people get to spend their birthday looking at thousand-year-old porn. But some of us are just lucky, I guess. Khajaraho is an incredible if peculiar experience. Located far away from a river or any other vantage point that usually defines the placement of settlements, it is pretty remote – possibly for the very reason that to get there requires some kind of pilgrimage. There is very little known about the history of the temples but history was never my strong point. Erotica on the other hand… We were limited to filming in and around two temples and it has to be said that they are incredible. The larger of the two, the Lakshmi temple looks likes something from a Kurt Geiger drawing from a distance. Almost alien in appearance it is only when you get close up that you see the hundreds of erotic carvings adorning the exterior. These range from subtle male/female coupling to foursome shagging and beastiality. What was impressive was the detail and accuracy of the carvings – regardless of the activity they were involved in. Considering how long ago these temples were built, the artistry is extremely impressive. (I'm hoping these observations make me sound slightly less of a perv.)

What spoilt Khajarho was the street peddlers and rickshaw drivers hounding us for business and trying to flog us Karma Sutra playing cards and bead necklaces. They are so persistent that they pester you like flies and refuse to take polite hints to p**s off!

While we were taking in the porn – I mean, erotic carvings – our li’l lady was undergoing a spinal operation after we found out that she had slipped a disk. Actually, part of the chassis had broken under the hefty pothole treatment we’d been putting her through and she was listing badly to one side. In the meantime, I was treated to a birthday cake and a very thoughtful present from the crew – a keyring depicting a spit-roast threesome a la the temple carvings. Delightful!

With the welding sorted and a bag of grapes in hand, we went to pick up our rickshaw and hit the road immediately heading for Rewa. The ever-changing landscape continued to surprise us with lush fields giving way to jungle-esque forestry. We also managed to sneak a bottle of chilled Fosters into the rickshaw just to prolong the birthday mood. Don’t ask me why but as we knew we wouldn’t be having a party, we decided to liven up the ride with the girls digging out the make-up and making me look like a cross between Jafar in Aladdin and a pirate of the Caribbean.

We only had one slight problem: a couple of kilometres after our daily re-fuel we came to a spluttering halt by the roadside having seem clouds of grey smoke coming from the exhaust. Being a biker I knew immediately what it was - the oil had not been properly mixed with the petrol and a two-stroke engine can't run on oil alone. However, every man and his dog was trying to tell us in broken English and sign language that it was a gasket or the spark plug was knackered. One guy who was apparently a mechanic started to take over. It was no use arguing, so I let him, although I did start to get annoyed with him. Eventually I replaced the spark plug (because the other one was covered in oil) thanked everyone through gritted teeth and did a piece to camera about the incident - all the time forgetting that I looked like a pantomime villain. What a tit!

Once we arrived at our hotel in Rewa, I spent the next 45 minutes trying to find some way of phoning my wife, which proved to be far more troublesome than I’d expected, finally ending up using a dodgy Skype connection to speak. It was after that conversation that I realised how much I was missing her. She is an adventurous woman but like me, India was never really high on our list of destinations to explore. I am really looking forward to seeing her again.

DAY EIGHT - SAGAR TO KHAJARAHO

2009-09-21T21:25:00.001-07:00

We thought it was time we had some good luck. Ever since we’d stuck our Ganesh sticker on the front windscreen, she had seemed to be a curse more than a blessing. But today was the day we sorely needed her to do her bit for the morale and for our continued good progress.

Beautiful roads and a landscape that changed by the minute from rugged outcrops and geological formations to jungle, to lush green fields, meant that the time just flew by. Our li'l lady was running like a dream and as a final ingredient to a smooth and delightful day, around mid-afternoon as we were rolling along past water buffalo and the occasional herd of goats, one of our cameramen – Steve Moro – got on the walkie talkie and asked if we’d seen the fort up on the hill we’d just past. A quick u-turn by our convoy and a couple of minutes later we were following a young boy on his bike and he guided us through a narrow maze of streets reminiscent of a remote Greek village, our group being scanned by inquisitive eyes and chased by laughing children. We had found Garganj and had to go the final climb up to the fort on foot. It was astounding that the whole village turned out to watch us while the men and children accompanied us and showed us round their awe-inspiring, almost hidden gem of history. With much of the stonework still in place albeit overgrown, we could climb to the battlements and look out over 360 degrees of verdant Indian countryside.

I was given the shed skin from a spitting cobra that one of the teachers from the village had just found and he explained that nine people in the area in the last six days had died from bites. Suddenly the warnings to the girls about where to pee by the roadside came into perspective. But we’re learning: pee near cows – they won’t stand near snakes and snakes are essentially timid so they won’t stay around cows.

As the fort was a bolt from the blue we didn’t know what we were looking at and in fact we’ve found it difficult to find out much online about the structure, but the teacher from the village reckons it was built in about 500AD and was the love nest for the mistress of the local landowner as well as being a strategic fortress. Back down in the village and we all had a photo taken with the children while the girls posed beside the village elder – a sort of Indian Hugh Hefner!

We left Garganj and couldn’t believe our luck when we pulled into Khajaraho in daylight with enough time to go up to the rooftop terrace of our hotel and with beer in hand watch the sun set behind the famed ancient temples. This is how we imagined every day of our journey should be. It hasn’t been and we’re now pretty sure that it won’t continue to be. But as ever, we'll enjoy it while we can and we’re up for the challenge.

DAY SEVEN - BHOPAL TO SAGAR - 207km

2009-09-21T21:20:00.001-07:00

I was wrong. Following the high tensions of Day Six, I thought that today would show that lessons about working together and communicating had been learnt. Unfortunately, we had a morning of trying to get across town, first to visit the Bhopal Memorial statue and that to take a look at the new business district. In steaming and dusty city air we took to our rickshaw and set off. But because we had limited time, we were relying on navigation from our support crew. Switching in and out of traffic we found our way to the memorial – a modest sculpture of a woman holding a limp child located directly opposite the site where the 1984 Union Carbide disaster killed around 20,000 of the cities poorer workers. As history has so often been repeated no-one in the US company was held responsible or brought to book. Money must have changed hands to hush the whole debacle up, money which, when you look at the squalid surrounds of the memorial, you realise is still not getting to the people who really need it. Behind the fenced off sculpture stands a wall with fading writing imploring that such a horrific catastrophe doesn’t happen again, but you also get the feeling that the memory of any lessons learnted are also fading in time.

From the memorial we were supposed to head from the ramshackle lean-tos to the city’s new business district, but without a map and simply asking directions from passers-by, our small convoy eventually gave up on finding it. In fact, circumstances conspired to completely change the course of the day. While I was driving down one of the many rat-run backs streets, our roofrack hooked on a really low hanging power cable and before we knew it, one of the legs of the rack had been ripped away and had penetrated the canvas roof of the rickshaw just behind Shelley’s head. With no option but to fix it, we set about finding a welding shop. So although we’d been looking for one story, we actually got a far more interesting and interactive other story. The problem we’ve been finding whenever we stop is that the cameras instantly attract crowds of locals, and the welding shop was no different. Before long we were surrounded by half the city all wanting to see what was going on.

With a rather bent and battered, but patched up roofrack back in place we hit the open road for Sagar without experiencing the business district or a decent western coffee shop which we had all been really looking forward to. On the topic of food, I’m finding it very hard to eat spicy breakfast, spicy lunch and spicy dinner every day of the ‘run’. In most places we’ve stayed the alternatives are ‘butter toast jam’ (an emaciated version of a great British tradition) or ‘corn flex and milk’ (sounds passable but the ‘flex’ come with boiling milk! Yummy).

Once again, the open roads varied from relatively stable asphalt to the sharp-edged rubble I’ve only ever seen before on remote outback tracks in Australia. And our little rickshaw once again was to suffer a puncture as a result. With the sun setting on the horizon some 40km from Sagar on a track that was actually a national highway one if our rear tyres gave up the ghost. Fortunately, we’re a resourceful trio and three lumps of tarmac from the roadside (it would really have helped had it been on the actual frickin’ road!) served as blocks that we built up in front of the back wheel as we physically lifted the rear. With trucks and buses splashing past us we managed to quickly get the spare on and were soon back on the road, once again having to complete today's leg in the dark.

Halfway through our adventure and the easy ride we thought we would have in the first day or so has well and truly faded from our expectations. But with our route map showing our progress as we cut our way across India, we still believe we can make it.

DAY SIX - KHANDWA TO BHOPAL

2009-09-20T13:00:00.002-07:00

Until now the Rickshaw Run was a game: if we had a problem with our little lady we would try to fix it ourselves, but if we couldn’t, we knew we had a film crew and a mechanic who could step in. Today revealed to us that even they can get into trouble on the way.

It started out great. We skipped out of Khandwar early on to avoid the traffic and give us as much time as possible to get the 260+ kilometres for the day behind us. Our planned two-hour shifts of driving were working well, each of us getting a chance to chat to the other in the backseat. All was going well until our lunch stop in a place called Harda. Our original plan was to head along the main highway through the town of Hoshanabad. However, we found out from the staff at our lunch stop that there was a large Muslim festival taking place in the town around the river and the bridge that spanned it, so basically it would be either closed or virtually impossible to drive through – although I would have loved to have seen the festival itself. So a joint decision was made between ourselves and the crew to take an alternative route which would lead us to a ferry crossing further up the river from where we could rejoin our original route. With this decided we set off, all the time being aware of the need to refuel very soon. Unfortunately, the petrol gremlin struck again and while we didn’t run dry, we knew that we would be struggling to have enough fuel for the whole of the journey on back roads down to the ferry and then after. (So far monitoring our fuel consumption has been like mastering a black art – bloody impossible.) To conserve our own fuel we sent a support car to the nearest garage which, judging by the time it took to return wasn’t the ‘4km’ told to us by a passing driver.

One hour later and with the sun just beginning to lose its intensity for the day we had filled her up, had a five-litre container as a spare and were on the approach to the ‘ferry port’. To cut a long story slightly shorter: the ferry wasn't a shiny P&O ship with cafes and souvenir shops. Instead it was a large, elongated leaky metal bucket covered in wooden planks; access to the ‘ferry’ was via quicksand, deep powder sand, mud, rocks and various entangling arms of undergrowth; light was fading for filming the crossing; and as the clock ticked tempers became frayed. First over the obstacle course was the rickshaw which, as much because of its light weight, could almost be lifted out of any ‘stuck’ it got into. So with the help of the crew and locals we managed to get her (yes, she’s a her!) down to the ‘roll on-roll off’ point – OK, the beach.

Then the first four-wheel drive people carrier managed to join us as the sun began to clip the tops of the trees. But it was the two-wheel drive people carrier that buried itself up the wheel-arches in sand and took a good 20 minutes to free – all the time with the producer checking the light in the hope of catching the sunset river crossing on film.

Finally, all three vehicles were lined up on the beach, and it was only when the ‘ferry' arrived that we realised how long the crossing would take: one car at a time on a hand-pulled raft over a 400m wide river. The next obstacle was getting the vehicles on the ferry. Without a jetty, the ferrymen used gnarled wooden planks to roll bikes and cars up. Our little rickshaw needed three planks, which seems to confuse them for a few minutes). After much heaving and ho-ing we were aboard and finally drifting serenely across the river as the sun set in a honey-brown sky.

The mood wasn’t great however, because unknown to me, while I was helping free up the bogged down cars, Katie had been ‘playfully’ slapped by a local. One of our cameraman caught it on film and it looked pretty boisterous. He too was on the ferry and I could see Katie was fighting back the temptation to nudge him into the 60ft deep water and the tension spoilt what would have otherwise been an incredibly calming moment.

But then something amazing happened. As soon as we arrived on the far shore, the two girls bumped into a local woman and through our interpreter Rohan, they spent the next two hours with this woman holding their hands like a mother figure and showing them around, offering them chai and food. For once it was nice to be on the outside of the attention looking in and seeing the unconditional welcome that this lady offered. Meanwhile, the crew almost lost one of the cars to the river as they were unloading it from the ferry. I later heard our main driver, Praveen on the phone to the producer’s wife saying “Your husband – he crazy!” I am kind of tempted to agree.

To be honest, we could have stayed there much longer, the girls being hosted and me stargazing in the first jet black sky I’ve seen for a very long time, with just naked flame to light our faces and the scene. But we still had a trek through jungle – albeit on three-wheels – and a stretch of highway before we entered Bhopal. We drove in tight convoy for safety reasons - it was conveyed to us through one of our Indian crew that we were entering bandit country and there had been several incidents recently of people being robbed and raped. As it had been a long and testing day that would have sort of thing would have really spoilt it!!!

Each evening in our video interviews, John our on-board producer, asks us if we feel any closer to Nepal. Having got today out of the way, I think as a complete team – crew and all – we are closer. It may just have been one river, but it the life of our Rickshaw Run it was a real milestone.

DAY FIVE - FARADPUR TO KHANDWA - 260km

2009-09-20T13:00:00.001-07:00

We kicked off our day with a fabulous visit to the Ajanta Caves: over 1000 years old this amazing location features Buddhist temples and two storey rooms carved into the cliffside. When you step inside it’s easy to forget that a) they were chiselled out of the rockface a layer at a time and, b) that it was done with primitive tools and so long ago. There are the remains of wall and ceiling paintings that reveal a far more advanced artistic culture and style than much later medieval English ecclesiastical art. There are also four ‘musical’ pillars which, when you tap them, resonate with a hollow tone perfectly tuned to each other.

An astounding place spoilt only by the hawkers chasing us into the car park trying to sell their books, cards and elephant-themed stone memorabilia. We ended up racing (!) out of the venue only to come to an abrupt stop when the clutch cable came out of its housing. Without the proper tools – which the kind organisers didn’t give us – we had to rely on our mechanic to fix it. As an ex-biker and motoring journo I knew what needed doing but the production crew whisked us back to the hotel instead of giving us a couple of tools and letting us get on with it, which was disappointing. But time wasn’t on our side.

Today was my first day of not driving and just sitting on my arse in the back – I was intrigued to know what the journey was like from Katie’s perspective! It was also her first major day at the handlebars, so once the rickshaw was fixed and loaded up, we headed off. Then stalled. Then headed off. Then stalled. Then headed off again. Once under way, the word for the day became ‘THIRD!!!!!!!’ Katie has a pathological aversion to third gear. Doesn’t matter if she’s changing up or down, she'll either be revving the nuts off the engine or slogging it to the verge of stalling. Shelley and I were almost hoarse by the end of the day. What made it worse was that after just driving about 70km she took the honour of being the driver at the helm when we crossed the 1000km line. I will go absolutely mental if she gets to drive over the finish in Pokhara! She'll become like the roadkill we’ve seen all along our journey which, incidentally is mainly dogs and the occasional goat.

Tiredness is beginning to set in now. With only a few hours of sleep each night and a mode of transport that a terrier would find it hard to get comfy in, we are starting to feel physically a bit weary. But it’s amazing how the occasional a-cappella Kylie sing-song can pick up the spirits and keep the driver awake at the handlebars. We’re even doing harmonies!

However, we weren’t quite as vocal as we pulled into our overnight stop of Khandwar. The sun had just gone down and the streets were thronging with people, mainly muslims out for iftar and psyching themselves up for a festive evening. It was like driving into an ants nest: everybody knowing where they’re going but barely the room to get there. We trundled in convoy down some pretty narrow streets and I think the crew were concerned about the girls being so visible in the rickshaw – especially as Shelley was driving. We never perceived a threat, it was simply that people were intrigued. After navigating what looked like the roughest part of town (although in Khandwar that is just a matter of degrees!) we arrived at our hotel – The Grand. An old British barracks from the days of the Raj, it looked like the last battalion had just left. I spent the first half hour stamping on large black ants who were happily nosing away at my feet and rucksack.

Tomorrow is yet another long stint up to Bhopal. Looking at the map on the side of the rickshaw, our black progress line is beginning to dissect the country with each day. But long ways to go.

DAY FOUR - BEED TO FARDAPUR - 240km

2009-09-20T12:59:00.001-07:00

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 3^rd 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!

DAY THREE - BIJAPUR TO BEED

2009-09-15T13:33:00.001-07:00

Our good luck with our little rickshaw came to an end today moments after we crossed the border into our third state – Maharashtra. Having just rolled over the Bhima River bridge, we pulled into a fuel station – for yet another pee-break for the girls (I hasten to add, we’ve yet to stop for one for me!!) and discovered we had a rear-wheel puncture – and that we didn’t have a jack! So necessity being the mother of invention we used a block of concrete and a length of wood – plus the weight of the girls’ backsides to raise the rear end off the ground. Ten minutes later and we’re back on the road with our spare and heading back over the bridge for the film crew to shoot us entering Maharashtra again. Loads of weird looks from the border guards (who apparently got a very good deal from our ‘fixer’ in the toilets at the border… say no more!))

With time and the kilometres slowly clicking away, the last thing we needed was to run out of fuel, but when you don’t have a fuel gauge and your calculations are rough estimates at best, it’s very easily done (we found that out later on again with just 20km of our intended 280km journey left to do). We also found out that the reserve tank didn’t work either so we were completely stranded. We’d just left Usmanabad and fortunately rolled up outside a truck stop. Whether it was the girls or a genuine desire to help us, we were quickly surrounded by quite a few beaming guys who turned out to be really helpful.

However, we had a major issue with communication: we couldn’t contact the film crew because the ‘walkies’ weren’t powerful enough and they’d gone on ahead to reccy the next location; the mobile phone we’d been given didn’t have credit so we couldn’t call out; and we were struggling to tell our new friends that ‘yes, we would love to share some chai with them and accept their offer for help but we needed to wait for our back-up to appear' – which they eventually did some 40 minutes later. In the meantime one of the girls went with this really helpful little guy down the road to get some petrol. Obviously the director was livid when he arrived. I’m still in two minds: We may possibly have been naïve or the director may just be too cynical. He wasn’t there to gauge this guy’s character and the fact that he had tried everything else before offering to take us to the petrol station: if he’d wanted to abduct Katie I think he would have been far less contriving about the whole thing.

With steam still coming out of the director’s ears and the ‘bitch bus’ topped up and back on the road we plodded on towards Bid, our overnight stop. Our delay had caused us daylight and now it was getting dark. I don’t know what the candle-power of the headlamp of a rickshaw is, but a candle would probably be more powerful. Even on full beam and with two dainty spotlights, you’re always playing 'Spot the Pothole' on Expert level. Even with one support car up front to follow and the other on full beam behind is to try and light the way, it’s challenging, shall we say. Talking of full beam: one of the delightful idiosyncracies of Indian roads is that unlike in Europe for example where we dip our headlights to assist the visibility of oncoming traffic, here they give you full beam just in case you haven’t seen them! Great if you’re a forty-foot truck with a couple of hundred watts of halogens; not so great if you’re a rickshaw with a puny 6 volt battery. Basically, you see nothing ahead of you for about 300 metres – just very bright lights. You might hit potholes, cattle, people, rocks etc. I said initially that I’m not a spiritual person but maybe India will make me so – it’s at times like night-driving when I have to admit I am praying to somebody to get us to our destination!

DAY TWO - BELGAUM TO BIJAPUR

2009-09-14T12:17:00.000-07:00

My wife’s birthday and I’m somewhere far, far away approaching the heartland of India. Following the hazardous mountain terrain of yesterday, we set off in the morning with higher distance ambitions as we knew the roads would be a lot better and we’d be driving on generally flat terrain between sugar cane plantations and paddy fields. Today was also Shelley’s initiation day as a rickshaw walla and, to be honest, she grabbed the bull by the horns and gave it a really good go. Having never even ridden a scooter, driving a top heavy tuk tuk on Indian public highways was no mean feat. (We’ll see how Katie handles the challenge tomorrow and if we’re still alive to continues this blog.)

There were times – generally approaching and driving through the towns on our route, that I still took over the handlebars because avoiding cattle, goats, dogs, pigs, motorbikes, buses, trucks and other rickshaws is not easy – especially on your first day.

But it was in the towns that we got some fantastic gestures of welcome. On our arrival in Lokapur we pulled over to allow the camera crew to set up further in town and we were instantly ‘mobbed’ by thirty or so smiling faces, extending their hands to shake ours. We were offered the sweet, milky tea (which was right up my street) and some who spoke broken English asked where we were from.

As the camera crew waited at the thronging main junction of what must have been the market day for this town, we eventually extricated ourselves from the smiling crowd, waving, and drove on.

Again we attracted a host of interest in Mudhol while we were filming a brief update on our progress. But it was great to be the subject of their enthusiasm. Many of these towns on any western continent would be called ‘slums’ – and there’s no doubt that hygiene and other things we take for granted are daily issues for these people – but they are always friendly.

Again we came across another group of ‘runners’ who had engine troubles and were being overseen by a swami-looking guy standing in the middle of the road directing traffic and trying to cadge a fag.

We finally rolled into Bijapur – in daylight – and saw the Gol Gumbaz mausoleum dominate the semi-industrial horizon. But to see it up close is stunning – not because it is pristine and overly ornate, but because it has an ageing grandeur and gradual decay which gives it a real historical perspective.

On a general note, the sunburnt forehead now feels like dry leather and the elbow is still swollen and turning blue. At least I’m not suffering from the ‘squits’ like Katie.

Having driven for fewer hours and covered more miles than yesterday, even on day 2 we can see we’re making a dent in this marathon journey.

DAY ONE - COLVA TO BELGAUM

2009-09-13T12:45:00.000-07:00

What a day! A real carnival atmosphere kicked off the Run this morning in sweaty Goa, where so many fantastic creations were line up including an A-Team and a Dukes of Hazzard (complete with General Lee 5-tone horns). Eight and a half hours later and we’ve scaled a range of mountains – the West Ghats – with kamikaze truck drivers bearing down on our tiny little ‘bug’ at every turn, steep climbs and drops over boulder-strewn ‘roads’. We’ve driven our first – and hopefully last – night drive with wipers that don’t wipe, lights that barely light and roads where the centre dividing line is pure decoration – on the rare occasion they exist.

I chose to do all the driving today just because I’ve driven scooters and the theory is the same - and I don't know the girls well enough to entrust them with my life!

My biggest surprise was actually how generally comfortable the rickshaw was considering its rudimentary design – an upturned three-wheel dumpster. Eight hours later and not even a sponge backside.

But there were injuries. The major one happened at our very first attempt to start the rickshaw. Basically, you yank up a long handle which turns the 8hp engine over. I yanked and whacked my left elbow on the framework. 10 weeks of resting up from tennis elbow up the swanny! Nice swelling and stiffness now.

But if you can forget the pain, the sights and people – truckers, bikers, pedestrians – waving and honking at us is uplifting – not to forget some stunning lowland paddy fields we drove past at sunset.

A long, long way to go. 150km down and only 2350km remaining. We made a dent.

ARRIVING IN GOA

2009-09-13T12:38:00.000-07:00

The big reveal. We meet our fourth partner on this adventure – our bright orange rickshaw, just one of among 50 or so three-wheelers all being characterised and painted – some more artistically than others.

For the first time, as I climb into the driver’s seat, I realise just how much of a physical challenge this is going to be. There are no mod cons, just a mildly padded bench, a foot brake and a pair of handlebars. In the rear there’s just a padded bench and a small shelf. This isn’t going to be a picnic.

Even so the mood among our fellow ‘runners’ is expectant. In some ways this’ll be easier for us because we’ll have a support crew, but in other ways it’ll be a lot harder because already we’re to-ing and fro-ing between us taking the lead and doing what we need to in preparation and the crew telling us what to do so they can get the shots they want. This all takes time, but we only have 2 weeks to make the 2,500km journey just like everyone else.

This may test our patience as much as the durability of our backsides.

View my profile!

2009-09-10T03:38:00.001-07:00

Gordon Torbet’s career path has taken him from cardboard packer in his local Co-op store to financial services rep., from actor to motoring and lifestyle journalist. Now he takes on his greatest challenge and the culmination of all his previous experience – avoiding haemorrhoids for the duration of a 3000km journey across India in a tuk tuk.

The preparation has been extensive. An illustrious acting career under the pedantry of various directors in UK rep theatre, touring Virginia, USA, and extensively around the British Isles, as well as various forays into TV furniture advertising in Denmark, has given Gordon a thick skin when it comes to pains in the backside.

Meanwhile the past three and a half years have been an intense study of the nature of advanced motoring mechanics in preparation for the overwhelming seven horsepower engines and extreme handling dynamics of the legendary tuk tuk. Having re-launched the popular UAE motoring lifestyle magazine Car Xpress, Gordon has since toyed with the assistant editor position at Autocar Middle East. However, thanks to the current ‘credit crunch’ now enjoys the liberation and gamboling lifestyle of the freelance journalist regularly featuring in The National newspaper and ‘wheels’ magazine, while also giving him the opportunity to make the most of his own free financial advice.