On Reflection and Finally We Thank You!!

The Rickshaw Run By Numbers

• 14 Days constant driving.
• 10-16 Hours per Day
• 4689Km in total
• Average speed 35-40Km
• 70kmph - Our top speed. once only
• £4690 Raised for the Alzheimer's Society and the Frank Water Project by our team alone
• 0 Casualties - on our team
• 23 mosquito bites
• 75 Strong bottles of Kingfisher
• 84 Curries 
• 2 Clutch cables
• 5 complete brake failures
• 2 spark plugs
• 1600 unique blog views
• 1507 photographs
• 2 hours of video
• 5 flights
• 5 in flight movies
• 1 arrest on board flight at arrival at Heathrow. not us
• 50,000 people at immigration on our return
• 9 English cans of 9% Super Skol in homage to India
• 2 very inspired young men

With the rally now 2 weeks behind us it's hard to comprehend what we actually achieved in such little time. Its even harder to think it only finished 14 days ago.
We have both had a our well deserved break from the chaos that was India, jet lag maybe but we know it was more sheer and utter exhaustion.  There is no way to train for that kind of punishment, in fact, if it wasn't for India being such a marvelous, diverse and interesting country i doubt we would have had the commitment to get out of bed so early morning after morning just to slave over the roads every day. The reality is it was such a wonderful, glorious and colourful experience that no tiredness couldn't have marred this experience, even when Lloyd was asleep in the back of the Rickshaw and James was doubled over in a truck stop toilet they still had little bad to say about the beauty that is India.


What did shock and perturb us was actually the reason we were there. The FRANK WATER PROJECTS was the charity chosen in India to receive our donations. Each team had to raise a minimum £1000 for charity, £500 of which would go to Frank Water. (Albeit to date we actually raised £1020 for FW alone) As most of you know we also chose the Alzheimer's society as our main charity receiver. We would not change that for the world. The guys at the Alzheimer's Society do a splendid job and they deserve all the money they can get. (to date - £3600+)
But what we did become aware of was how much help India still needs. The water situation out there is still dire. the quality of the water, the origins of the water and the amount of times the water is recycled without being cleaned or filtered is really depressing. People are still dying in India as a result of contaminated water.
It was common to see what we thought were albinos but they were not, they had in fact been poisoned and their skin disorder is actually a result of metal poisoning due to mining and or poor quality water abstraction. All we know is that when we told people in India what we were doing and why we were doing it they rejoiced and tried to hand us money, it wasn't until we arrived in Darjeeling one man in particular shook each of our hands and tried to thrust 100 Rupees in our pockets, his words of thanks literally brought tears to our eyes. He could not comprehend why someone from one country would want to raise money and travel to another mans country to help out people we didn't know or would have no direct benefit from. He compared us to latter day saints. Far from what our mothers call us, of this you can be sure, but at that moment we promised each other that we would champion the Frank Water Project as their efforts have such a hugh impact on the lives of people in India. - please click read more

End of days

We left via Shillong Airport which apparently is a an adventure in it own right, due to its mountain location the weather is hugely variable and most flights are cancelled. All i know is the security at this tiny hill side aerodrome is tighter than USA, Russia and China all rolled into one. Lloyd must of had his hand luggage scanned 5 times each time emptying and repacking to point his disapproval must of become visible as the senior guard went thought it with a fine tooth comb just make a point. That aside the flight actually left 30 minutes early and we arrived to hot and humid Kolkatta in 90 minutes. 

Given our flight to Dubai was at 9am the next morning we questioned an airport based hotel with a pool and wifi, or getting involved in the centre and head out to consume the old capital city of India in just one evening. As we arrived early there was no real decision, we jumped straight into a taxi, everyone at every point trying to do something for you to warrant a tip, we managed to get away from the airport more or less intact. Gazing out the window we were whisked down side road after alley, scraping arses of cows and vendors alike we pulled up on Sudder St. Our chosen hotel was The Fairlawn, a 3* with good reviews and sensible price to boot. The place was amazing, the colonial walls adorned with photos of celebrities, guests, the entire royal family, and tat, one persons life time collection of knik-knacks, antiques and colonial left overs, it was truly fascinating if not overwhelming. Our room was hugh and had a big free standing bath, one i wish id actually used, But the streets were calling. 

We heading out to change up some pounds, we hadn't seen an exchange bureau since Cochin and there were markets galore to be explored and not much time. first stop the pub. 2 freezing bottles of Kingfisher strong, a selection of local tandori kebabs and we where gone, the markets bustled with thousands of sellers and buyers bartering for fish, meat, textiles, spices everything, everything you could ever imagine was thrust into the this one giant indoor market. if you look at anything for anyone for too long everyone in spitting distance would try and sell you something. regardless of weather it was their shop or not. buying a shirt involved 10 salesman, buying tea involved 12. the price defiantly goes up at these times!

 the distance in smiles

 Being pulled in a engineless rickshaw! our final tribute to the humble rickshaw walla

We managed to purchase shirts, trousers, tea and could have had anything else we desired but we wondered for an hour or two, sank a few more beers and went to bed. . . For all of 50 minutes before deciding we had in no way seen enough of this great city and tried to get a cab to take us somewhere, anywhere. The cabs were rare,  in fact nothing at all was open. the place was a ghost town but the security guard of the hotel woke up his friend to take us around the city at 1pm. he however knew a late night food joint, the only thing open in the city it seemed.  As this was to be our last meal in india we ordered big and with naan, tandoori chicken, salad and cola underarm scuttled back to the cab to eat our way round the great city. or back to the hotel it seemed.  3pm saw the curtains draw on this epic and most amazing adventure.

Day 15 - totally tuked

Day 15 The morning after the night before. Too used to rising early saw us miss a lay in, breakfast was calling and hair of the dog was coffee blessed with jack Daniels. The resort had been decimated by what could easily have be a cyclone, unfortunately the mess seemed limited to the dancer floor, bar and BBQ areas. There was a large number of odd flip flops littering the ground, together with possible 700 bottles of beer. We spend the morning clearing out and cleaning up Ezme, while the hotel staff did their best for tonight's second party. It was sad times to think our home and ride was about to be taken away for good. We knew every inch of her by now and it's never easy to say good bye to someone you love. Yes, we had actually grown to love Ezmarelda, bless her little rubber socks. The day pasted in in a hazy flash, the swimming pool was well used, we know that because Lloyd has the sun burn to prove it. Many left today, but more new arrivals trickled in with new and amazing stories of their own. Each arrival saw another beer raised. No sooner than we started drinking it seemed the second party had started around us, the music fired up, BBQ was lit once again and warm beer flowed flowed down parched throats. There was a bout of prize giving and much to our surprise were beckoned on stage to accept the award for most KM's. A spray canned gold bamboo chalice was filled and drunk by us both. Recognition of our effort was greatly received and to be highlighted was indeed our own highlight, albeit a very small highlight after the past 3 weeks. Good times.

Day 14 - the final push

Day 14 Woke up surrounded by curry, cockroaches and maps. Left at 0545 for the final push to Shillong. It was with in 170km and if the roads were good we could arrive by mid afternoon. The treasure of information given to us by the saviour of last night was to use the southern road to Gurhwati which was apparently well paved and would save not only time but most importantly our ride. He was right, the road was fairly new and we flew along the engine keeping rhythm with the house music pumping out of the sound system. As we headed into the city it got busier and there were a couple of occasions that reminded us about the severe lack of brakes. It was hard to comprehend that this would be our last day, time had flown and the routine was now so in set that waking up at 5am had become the norm. It was a concoction of adrenalin, excitement and disappointment that gave us the power and concentration to thunder the reminder of the route with mile eating determination, as we left the city behind us the road started to climb leading us on to the plateau that Shilling sits. Each corner brought new road works, more broken and crashed trucks strewn all over the carriage way. We were halted twice to allow dynamite rock clearing of the steep ever widening Tarmac veins of roads. It was 230pm when we climbed over 1570 meters and saw the turquoise water of what we thought was lake Orchid, where the finish line and all the other finishers were waiting hopefully drink in hand. As we turned to cross the lake on one of its many bridges which spans the valley contributing to it fill, we saw a government signpost for the resort, excitement took over as we scrambled to find an appropriate song to blast for our well timed arrival. We had pushed Ezme to the limit and time wise we couldn't have done it better. We arrived as one of the last teams before the finish party, so we had more adventure than those before, yet arrived to the greatest welcome and still the evenings blow out to celebrate our efforts. As we arrived in Barapani we saw the official Rickshaw run finnish line banners, as we pulled into the resort complex foyer 50+ fellow drivers cheers and whistled greeting us with hugs and beers, it was a relief to finally be here with so many familiar faces, some of whom we met at the start, some of whom we met on route, some of whom will be mates for life. There were 45 out of 68 teams now back save and some even sound. We parked up, found there were no rooms left, no mattresses either but apparently there was floor space we could bed down on. Finally a chance to use our hammocks I thought. Until Josh and Vicky the honeymooning couple offered us their spare room, a box room with just a sofa and table. We jumped at the chance and chuckled about ruining their honeymoon. What a great couple! The party seemed to start immediately for us although it didn't actually start till 2000, it was a fitting party for 130+ crazy fools who view life clearly slightly different to others. There were people dancing in the rafters of the temporary bamboo marquee. Bonfires lit in the car park, stereo's, speakers, clothes, anything that would burn and many things that would not, plenty of petrol hanging around may have caused the hotel manager to attempt to cull the fire using a powder extinguisher, this did little, but his clear annoyance soon displayed the rowdy group. This was the party to end all parties. Tomorrow would be our first lay in on over 15 days.

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



 

We finished and are safe and well.

We arrived in Shillong at 1430 on saturday. Covered 4689km in 14days and 3.5 hours. Arrived 46/70 teams. It's not about finishing first, it about all the road!! Our rickshaw is in a poor way but got us here and further than any other team. No injury's, but there were a few broken bones in other teams. Mai blog to follow. Just wanted you all to know we arrived. Full report to follow very soon. Lloyd and James signing off.

Day 12 - day of rest, washing and sightseeing

Nightlife in Darjeeling is fantastic, street stalls, bazaars, food vendors you name it it's here. Fake everything is available. We meet more teams here last night and woke at 0400 this morning at find 7 rickshaws outside our hotel. we ha d a taxi collect us this morning and take us to Tiger Hill to watch the sun rise over the 3rd highest mountain in the world. It was with out doubt th best sunrise we have ever seen dispute having to share our viewing platform with 2000 other eager tourists. We have decided to stay here for one more night. Taking in the smells, sights and food before descending down only a little and heading east for 2 days to our final goal Shillong. Hopefully today we can find a pace to upload some of our massive photo and video collection. Have a good day y'all. Lloyd and James