Day 13 - into Assam

After a days rest bite we left the cliff clinging town of Darjeeling to traverse back down the mountain heading east, the road down was a well earned rest on the engine, the brakes were no way near as lucky. We must have dropped over 2000m in under 2 hours. We had to stop a number of times during the decent to pee on the brake drums. A rancid bellow of steam rising and dissipating as quickly as it has appeared. While we waited for the cooling effect Lloyd got caught short by a team of tea pickers also making their way down to the field for the day. (It may be wise to avoid tea from darjeeling for a couple months unless you want to feel slightly closer to Lloyd.) At the bottom of the mountain we stopped again to relieve ourselves and the brakes, stopping just sort of a rickety old wooden bridge, while we sat there in the sun a young man approached us and after noticing our fishing decals pointed to the river and said the magic words we had been longing to hear for the last 9 months, "GOLDEN MAHSEER" we beckoned him into Ezme and he pointed us round the feet of 3 adjoining mountain valleys to a point where the two rivers flowed into each other, a dedicated but empty fishing lodge sat nestled on the beach of pebbles washed down stream by millennia of erosion. Apparently it was built by a wealthy disillusioned mayor who expected it to be a tourist/fishing hot spot, alas it was neither, had we of known about it the night before we would have undoubtably used the hammocks and camped here. The locals were very helpful, they pointed to the slack water where the two body's met and said "plugs and spinners." We scrabbled to tackle up as quickly as possible and waded into the torrid water, it was only 0930 so we agreed in 2 hours of feather flicking. They had never seen a fly rod and took great delight in watching lloyd attempt to cast directly into a 35km headwind. 

Lloyd fly fishing for rare and beautiful Golden Mahseer..

 Several snags and hook ups later lloyd put down the fly rod and picked up a 13ft beach rod, maybe slightly over cocked compared to the locals fibre glass rods, but I was expecting to lock on to 30kg+ Mahseer, easily capable of snapping such a lesser rod in water as fast as this. We took solace and were also slightly disappointed to hear that no Mahseer had been caught this season, and in fact only one fish had been taken in the last 24 hours, by a chap using bottom bait of paneer at 0300. We are never disappointed to blank during a fishing adventure as fishing is a state of mind, today it was the fish who won. It truly was one of the most impressive and powerful places we have ever had the fortune to fish and if the pollution decreases and damming is halted one day we agreed to return here and tame the dream fish. 

We didnt get to meet the Mahseer but what a location...!

One of the fishermen worked for immigration and he kindly requested we let him have our passport and visa details so as to monitor tourism and just in case no one knew where we were and we vanished. This was slightly perturbing as it insinuated us not being seen again. He was actually very well educated and we spoke about many things before parting, he'll be our guide on our return one day. Thank you sir for all your help. Back on the road and our brakes had literally vanished, pumping 3/4 times saw us slow to walking space. Eventually. This continued for almost the entire day until we decided we must be able to improve the situation as set about fiddling, it was a choice between no brakes and top speed or losing 15 kph on flats. Speed was of the essence so caution was paramount and the amount of attention required was demanding enough with out lacking the facility to emergency stop. Used daily until today. The road for the next 8 hours was fairly good, as we drive through tiger and bird reserves we managed a constant speed of 60 kph. As darkness drew in we were 100km from our target town of Bongonaon. The road immediately changed for the worse, similar I'd imagine to driving over the giants causeway. Each pot hole just blended into the next no wonder the exhaust had once again rattled its self lose, we preferred the shrill husky bellow of the wincing 2 stroke to bother to attempt to fix it again, plus we calculated it was only 14 hours drive to the finish line. I started the night driving and after a few hours handed over to james, we were both almost delirious by this stage, we have been driving for 15 hours straight and the brick wall was approaching fast. I somehow managed to get a couple hours sleep on the worse we had driven during the last 2 weeks. James powered on in to the night making only 25km per hour at times. The night literally eating our poor and dimming lights, the drain on the battery was greater than the power being put back in and slowly all the lights dimmed to almost nothing, James managed to flag down as passing car and convinced him to slow down and allow us to follow closely behind him using his lights as ours. 30km still from our destination and the road was still not showing any mercy but now we were also on the reserve tank. We had not yet established the distance achievable on reserve as it seemed to change every time, between 40 and 10km had been recorded. What was certain was we had no spare fuel, there hadn't been a petrol station for at least an hour and the ones we had gone past previously had been closed. It was not looking good at all. Our prayer was answered after 30 horrible minutes and we saw a gas stop. As our lead car pulled in the attendant was securing a padlock to the pump and had a already turned off the fuel supply. Our salvation stepped forwards and spoke in Hindu to the attendant who preceded to unlock and reopen the pump for his and our last refill for the night. The lead car turned off 5km shy of the town and he gave us directions for the best hotel to rest our wiry and frustrated heads. But true to form we missed the turn by some distance. Pulling over a local rickshaw taxi James offered to pay for a lift in to the hotel, 5 minutes he said while I drop off my passengers then I'll take you, we though he suggested. 25 minutes later he returns and we clarify where we want to go. He takes us to his lock up to try and repair the exhaust pipe we had decide no to. This is not what you want to be doing 2235 at night after a 15 hour drive. We said again the hotel name and it all got a little weird and sinister, we literally demanded he take us to the hotel or he should "do one!". He scuttled back and sped off, us not sure to follow or not. 20 minutes later we arrive at Hotel Konstani, a true sight for sore eyes. We checked in, ordered dinner, ate little of it both passed out shattered minuets later. Day 14 to follow shortly