Rickshaw Run 08

More on Varanasi

The ghats aren't necessarily all that relaxing, though, what with getting clotheslined repeatedly by kite strings, and all the dead people smoke getting in your eyes. Thankfully the latter is only at 2 places on the ghats. Much more numerous are the giant sewer pipes feeding straight into the river. Eeewww. I put a lotus leaf candle into the river and pushed it out, but then I washed my hand. Maybe that's why I got sick.

-- Don

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Made it out

So, after making it to Varanasi, I immediately left and spent the afternoon in the nearby town of Sarnath, where Buddha preached his first sermon. It's a nice little place - very peaceful - and there are lot's of different Buddhist temples from various countries scattered about, as well as some ruins from back in the day. The Karmapa Lama (another Tibetan reincarnated monk like the Dalai Lama) was in town, so there was a big ceremony at one of the ruins, which was very cool. They also have a Bodhi tree that is a descendant of the tree that Buddha originally attained enlightenment under.

Back in Varanasi, I spent the next day on the ghats - the series of steps lining the Ganges River - where everyone does seemingly everything: laundry, bathing, ritual, cremation, kite-flying, cattle "grazing", giving the hard-sell to tourists, etc... It's really neat to hang out there during the day, especially since this was around the time of a big festival which traqditionally includes lot's of kite flying - so there were tons. The kids fly up these simple paper kites really high, and then try to wrap their lines around someone else's kite line and pull it down, thereby stealing it. Very popular.

After that I flew out to Nepal, which was quite the relief after India, especially Varanasi. The streets were clean, the air was better, people seemed to use soap, etc.... Unfortunately, I got sick to my stomach on my last day in India, so I haven't actually been able to enjoy any food since then. Oh well. I met up with Max and Dain (the others flew the coop within 24 hours - I guess they just had to keep on rolling after so many days on the road) and we toured the old city and one of the Tibetan exile temples.

I'm now in Singapore, about to head out to Cambodia for the final legs of my journey. I'm really looking forward to Angkor Wat.

-- Don

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max-finished!

i love nepal.  it is so nice and peaceful and clean compared to India.  Kathmandu and a hot shower (first bathing in four days for those of you who care.  ie like normal)  was so welcome after driving over 24 hours straight over the Nepalese freezing ass mountains.  the view in the morning was great - himalayan peaks, terraced hillsides, grubby little smiling kids, but some time in the night when were pushing the tuktuk out of a dirt ditch i stepped into a puddle and that one foot felt like it froze solid in the following ordeal.  On the way down the mountain Rachel bought more blankets thankfully.  If we rolled then (like a few teams) we would have had the equivalent of the Tibetan airbag surrounding our entire bodies. 

Kathmandu has beef.  I'm normally not a beef person but after so many cows got in our way in India, those beasts fucking deserved it.  We went to the Everest Steak house and three of us split a two foot long meat thing over fries and veg.  Kathmandu also has wood fired pizza.  They didn't get in our way on the road but I ate one of those too.

Spent a couple days sightseeing in Kathmandu - cool squares, pedestrian towns, stupas, etc...  it's nice to not be on the road and look around.  Actually get to have real conversations with locals.  Kathmandu has Belgian Fries.  yum!  the traffic in this country has different rules.  First off, people generally stay on their side of the road and there are a LOT less people.  I just keep thinking there's all this wasted space in India terms.  Much less honking and people use indicator lights - albeit in sometimes different ways.  ask me about it if you care.

Rachel rode the roof rack while we passed through the festivals after crossing the India-Nepal border.  Fun stuff.  we jettisoned the green pillow i peed on btw.

I'm now in Pokhara, a lake town in Nepal.  Closest comparison is Lake Tahoe without the casinos and everything is cheap.  I'm going paragliding tomorrow and spent three hours rowing on the placid lake today.  The reflection of the himalayas on the calm waters is breathless.  Ate real Korean food.  This town is the best thing ever and there is barely anyone here.  The only thing is missing is Nancy Chan. 

I realized the other day that I forgot to pay my January estimated income tax.  Shit, that sucks.  And for those of you at work who are reading this, I'm leaving Delhi the 23rd, which puts me in SF on the 24th I think.  I apologize for any inconveniences.  And for the steampunks, see you guys at the Edwardian Ball.

I love you, my pink tuktuk

It's been less than 24 hours since we left our pink tuktuk in Kathmandu, and already I miss her.  It was really wonderful to have the freedom of getting around India without being harassed by touts and constrained by the train/plane schedules. 

Moments I will forever remember....
We were driving on the NH5 at night.  There were no lights except for the lights for the large oncoming semis, dust was flying everywhere, there were giant potholes every 2 ft.  All of sudden, out of the dust, silhouetted by the truck lights, came a caravan of camels.  They were so HUGE, and there must have been about 75 of them at least.
Driving up the Nepalese mountain, a beautiful girl was sitting by the side of the road, she blows a slow and sultry kiss.
Breaking through the clouds and seeing the clear blue skies after a long long misty and cold ride up the mountains.
Watching the asphalt crumble underneath our tuktuk as Dain maneuvers it across the 4 truck mexican standoff.
Hot water bucket shower in Khargapur.
The eerie tabla music floating out of no where and the stars when the NH5 stopped being a road.

Anyways, we are in Varanasi now, going to see the ganges...
_A

Notes on Stuff to Future Teams

Okay, I guess we're officially 'old hat' at this now, so here's a few tips for next years intrepid souls:

Pimping your Tuk Tuk: Definitely get the Roof Rack, and paint job provided by the Adventurists. We welded and painted our own and it basically burned a day to save very little money. The paint jobs that other folks had done for them looked great, and had a lot of detail, so just go nuts on your design and let them do it for you.

If you want to make some mods yourself, I absolutely recommend EXTRA LIGHTS. Mount a couple up on your roof-rack and one on the front. You WILL end up driving at night despite your best intentions, and extra lights can mean all the difference when that darkened whatever jumps out of the road at you.

Extra Horn - Our friends hooked up an extra horn and put the button for it in the back seat so the passengers could express themselves - great idea!

Honkies - Our friends also scored a smashing hit with their array of 10 honkey horns taped to the running bars. Kids loved them, adults loved them. Everyone came up for a honk. Great way to make friends!

Gas Can - don't be a cheap ass, just get the extra can. Preferably one that holds at least 7 liters. You really will run out of gas - trust me.

Funnel - that gas tank is at a funny angle so a curved funnel will really come in handy. We ho-jived one out of a soda  bottle and ended up with petrol stinking digits for most the race.

Bungy cords or straps - really useful for tying crap on. You can get them in India too, so don't feel like you have to bring them - it'll just save you time the first day.

Happy Colors - We had an absolutely amazing reception almost everywhere we went, and in part because our TukTuk was bright Pink! People loved the festive easter-egg feeling and kids just went nuts. For our future travels we're definitely painting in bright happy colors. Never once were we asked for bribes or harassed - on the contrary, everyone just laughed and came by to find out who these crazy people were. So, I'd really recommend happy colors for a happy time.

Tarp - we bought a big yellow tarp the day it poured like hell in Pondicherry. It was great for keeping our stuff dry, and good for keeping the rain out of the back of the Tuk. It also came in handy keeping the freezing wind off us in Darjeeling and over the pass into Kathmandu. You can quite easily buy one in India, and undoubtedly cheaper than at home.

Things we didn't need:
A lock for the TukTuk - nobody stole it. Just our sandals and our gas can when we forgot it in the Tuk overnight. The steering column in the Tuk didn't really work, but what the hell, it came out fine. One night we got really paranoid and disconnected the sparkplug wire so it wouldn't start, but I think that was just paranoia. I mean, who's gonna get away in a bright pink TukTuk without getting spotted?

An extra vehicle - we'd talked about having a 'chase van' but in the end we were all happier off just blazing along in our TukTuks. It was helpful, especially in the beginning to have Don on the motorcycle zooming ahead, but we separated about half way up and had no real problems without our scout. The Tuks fit 3 people just fine, and we all felt like a team of 3 was better than a team of 2 for changing off driving and having fun in the backseat.

A stereo - there were just a couple times when I wish we'd had tunes, but most the time it's so damn loud with all the honking and the two-stroke engine chugging away that more noise would have been unwelcome. Still, on a couple rough patches it might have been nice to have my favorite song from the Muppet Movie to lift our spirits. So, I'd say if you get it, it might be nice, but you won't miss it if you go without.

But most of all, just wing it. It'll be fine, you'll have a blast, and whatever you forgot will make a good story when you get soaked/lost/break down/robbed/whatever. Just go for it!

Final Score

Here's our Final Score

Things we hit:
1 Sacred Cow
2 Bicycle Rickshaws (simultaneously!)
1 Parked Motorcycle (knockdown!)
1 Pedestrian (sidemirror headslap! pride injury only!)
1 Tin Roof
2 Trucks (Only a Fleshwound!)
3 Previously Roadkilled Dogs (sad and yucky)
2,800 Potholes

Things We Didn't Hit, but Almost Did:
1 End of Road Dirt Berm in the Dead of Night
1 Burned Truck Jack-knifed Across Road in Dark
1 Unhelpful Tree Branch Placed in Road in Front of Burned Truck
1 Water Buffalo (Also at Night)
125 Trucks without Headlights or Taillights (Also also at Night)
Hundreds of Assorted Vehicles Suddenly Driving the Opposite Way in our Lane
1 Nepalese Man in Orange Shirt Looking Wrong Way Crossing Street (so close!)
150,000 Nepalese Clogging National Highway on Festival Day
4 Daydreaming Villagers Crossing Major Highway as if it were their Bedroom Floor
Umpteen Chickens, Goats, Dogs, Cows, Buffaloes, Cats, Birds, Chameleons, and Pigs
1 Very Funky Chameleon
2 Determined Emission Control Representatives Flagging us Down (who knew they were legit?)
1 Pack of Teenagers Selling Raffle Tickets or Something By Leaping in Front of Us

Things That Flew out of the TukTuk:
1 Pair of Flying Pink Panties
1 Sandal
1 Map of India (crap!)
Any Iota of Fear of Doing Crazy Things in Strange Lands

We made it!!!

16 days, over 4,300km in an autorickshaw, and six sore butts later, we
made it; Kathmandu, Nepal. What an amazing trip! These last 24hrs
have been some of the most magical. Check out Rachel's and Annie's
upcoming posts for details.

kathmandu and not dead.

Team quakcitymadcaps rolled into Kathmandu last night at about 5:30ish, we then spent another 45 mins trying to navigate in this mad city to find the rum & doodle pub, where the end point of the race was.  Only 49 teams out of the 64 made it in time for the deadline of Jan 16th, 6:30PM, we were the 48th at like 6:10PM.  Ha!  The crazed weasels drove all night to beat us here, they arrived at 10AM.  Crazy fuckers, wait till I post the pics of the mountain we had to drive up.  But we got to see this awesome view of the Himalayas when  we broke on through the clouds, and all they got was frozen asses....

But most important part!  WE DID IT!!  We drove through the length India on a golf cart like contraption and we didn't die!!  I will miss my pink tuktuk so much.

Anyways, more later. 

_A

Betla Stands For Bison, Elephant, Tiger, Leopard, and Antelope

At least that's why the sign said, although I didn't see any tigers or leopards. After Kolkatta, I decided that what I really wanted to do before leaving India was ride an elephant, and Betla Park in Jharkand was the ticket. I took an overnight train, and then a 6 hour bus ride to get there (arranging connections is much harder than just getting on the bike and going). The place is amazing. I pulled up at about 4 pm, arranged a room in the preserve, with a balcony overlooking deer and monkeys milling about, and by 4:30 I was in a Jeep driving through the park to see animals. There are about a million monkeys (Langurs) and spotted deer there, so the driver didn't even bother to point them out, although I thought it was cool. Even though my grandparent's garden near Monterey was always being raided by deer, you never saw bucks with big antlers the way I did here. Apparently also monkeys and deer like to hang out together. Who knew? We also saw some peacocks and
bison, which was cool.

In the morning I got up super early to have my elephant ride. I didn't see any wild elephants (apparently they come around in Octoberish to eat the local villager's rice plants and accidentally crush their houses), but I did ride on a very nice elephant named Juhi. Obviously a bit slower than a jeep, the advantage of being on an elephant is that the mahout (trainer/something-or-other) can take you off into small trails through the park. We saw many more peacocks, as well as some hornbills. I spotted a bison, and we went off through the bushes right into the middle of the herd! We were about 5 feet away from one of the bison, who was just looking at us cautiously while Juhi munched on some bamboo. I got to see a baby bison, which looks surprisingly like a chubby deer. The adults are black, with horns, but the babies are beige-deerish colored and look like some of those weird asian deer you see sometimes.

Afterwards I wandered off into the park on foot and sat down to watch some langurs forage. It's really neat to see all the monkeys in India and watch them play, groom, forage, etc... While I was there I also got to see a pair of mongoose go in front of me to the watering hole.

Jharkand is kind of off the beaten track, since it's got some rebel activity, although I didn't see anything. Definitely saw more soldiers with guns than on the rest of the trip (although my next stop in Varanasi had even more). As the guidebook said, I was probably the only foreigner in the whole state. As I was about to leave Betla, the state Indian National Congress party came in to have a meeting, so I was taken to meet the party chair and take my picture for the Jharkand state Hindustan times.

After that came my saga of trying to get out of the sticks back to civilization. I took an afternoon bus to the nearest town (Daltonganj) and tried to buy a ticket for the overnight train to Varanasi. Already booked solid, so I wound up with a general ticket (no reserved seat). Not a good sign. I checked into a super ghetto hotel near the bus station to take a nap, since people told me the train left at about 1:30 am. Horrible hotel - 2nd worst I've ever been in. Worst was in China, and it had a roll up door to our room that they locked for the night. This one at least had a normal door. Anyway, got to the sation at 1 am, only to find out the train didn't leave until 3 am. Chatted with some Indians on their way back to Varanasi, which was lucky, because that was the only way I was able to get a seat (they snagged one for me). Slept upright most of the time, and the train rolled into Varanasi at about 10 am. Quite an ordeal, but all I can say is - It's over.

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Kolkatta Traffic

After that last post on the way to Kolkatta, I went to dinner at the place next to my hotel and had the best Chicken Tandoor I've ever had! It was super flavorful, with ton's of spices, and unlike anything I've had before in the states or India. After making it into Kolkata I went to a restaurant Lonely Planet recommended called Bhojohari Manna, which is pretty much the first time I've done anything here in India because of the guide book. Totally worth it. One of the co-owners (the one who's not a bollywood movie star, I think) helped me order. Fish steamed in a banana leaf with mustard sauce - delish. Chingri Malaikari next - giant "shrimp" (langostine lobster?) in a red curry - kind of thai/malay style. Phenomenal. Veggie soup was okay, but mango pudding was great. Definitely the best food I've had in India.

Getting into Kolkatta was a different story, though. Definitely the worst traffic I've been in in India. Going through one small lane as normal, a taxi actually hit me. Thankfully I have a big luggage rack on the back and it just bumped it. Not enough for me to even stop (since it wasn't my fault), much less cause any damage/crash. The bridge into town was a different story. Beautiful new suspension bridge, totally packed with traffic. All the bikes are going along the side because the cars aren't moving along. Aforementioned luggage racks will come into play later. After passing one truck stalled in the left (slow) lane, we all had to pass a second one. As I was passing, the 3 wheeled truck next to me decided to start merging over into me, and i got those luggage racks stuck betweeen the two vehicles. Guess I should have honked that time. It was pretty bad, since the rack was wedged under the 3 wheeler in such a way that neither of us could go forward or back - I was
blocked in. We wound up having to inch forward together until I could get out. Looked back as I was going through and saw my bag squished against the stalled suv, so I figured it wouldn't really get scratched up. Took off, and then looked down to see one of the metal bars that make up the luggage rack halfway ripped off. Oops. That probably did more than scratch the SUV, I think. Then I weaved past a motorcycle stopped on the side and it came off. They held it up to see if I wanted it, but I just wanted to get off the bike, so I kept going. Turns out there was a big accident closing 2 of the 4 lanes, so maybe Kolkatta traffic isn't usually this bad. A big shipping truck overturned (no idea how) and the back of it had squished the front of an SUV. Maybe the SUV rear-ended it and spun it out? Doesn't make sense, but ... Anyway, after I got through this one biker looked at me and gave me the thumbs up because of the luggage rack incident. Hope I didn't give foreigners a bad
name. The SUV folks didn't seem concerned when I looked back - it's an every day thing.

That was the last of the bike stories, and I made it to the dropoff point fine using GPS directions. Now it's time for some train travel, which is supposed to be great in India.

-- Don

P.S. One of the coolest things about the women in India is how they always wear saris (or that other thing that looks kinda like a Vietnamese Ao yai), and they always look so elegant in them. The lines of the saris really look good, even when the women are out laying tar on a new roadway in their saris. Who'd have thunk?

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