Day 3
An 8.05am start with 21947 km on clock, I’m not sure that it is correct, it is an Indian Rickshaw after all. We started on approx 21524km.
Oh well, let’s go for an 8.30am restart! Uncle terry smelt petrol once we got about 1km up the road.. that’s not good when he petrol tank opening is above your exhaust!
We pulled over just before we got back into the main road, on the slip road.
They forgot to put their petrol cap on! Turns out petrol caps are useless on your roof rack.
Me and dad took a turn up the wrong side of the road, dodged the oncoming traffic and headed back to the hotel.
I was hanging out the one end dad driving like he was blind squinting! We got back to the hotel. It was on the floor at reception. Good job we are in India and not UK or we could have said bye to that haha!
Onwards we go. Ross said 5 teams passed them whilst we were scanning the floor for their petrol cap! God damn it! We are not competitive at all remember...
Coming through Mangalore this morning at 8.30am was probably not our best idea. The worst traffic we have seen, oh it’s moving alright but no one knows where they’re going. Pure madness!
We definitely scarred our lunges with oil pollution, phwoar it was awful! The asbestos face masks we brought along helped though, we only remembered when started to go the end of the city.
Excellent driving from the Tikka’s though! We made it out with no bumps! Don’t ask me how!
Although me and dad we’re almost squished between two lorries and imprinted into the back of a bus. Whilst that made Ross stall shaw No.2 with a huge Lorrie having to slam his breaks on behind him as this was on a main road. I s*** myself. A few sweaty feet and palms there guys I can bloody tell you! They were very dangerously close calls for us and the shaws. There were a few too curse words and fingers given through that town let me tell you! I just started screaming at them to get their attention and then they would swerve out of the way, in shock that a white woman with blonde hair was shouting at them in a crazy ass looking shaw! A few times I had the ‘ET finger pointed at me and ‘white woman’ shouted at me. Haha what?!
It started to get greener as we got out of the town. But Mangaore set us back on kilometres we are only 35km down at 9.30am with 21985km on clock.
The lungs feel as though they have oxygen in them now and not oil!
Stop for breakfast at Udupi, we’ll a packet of funky looking fried crisp type things and a bottle of fizzy pop. We bought extra for dustbin. I was dieing for a pee, coincident that we stopped outside a bar! It was super dark, and smelt a little, you know “off”. But I went anyways, that hole in the floor I haven’t got used to again yet, make sure to aim probably or you get a lot of splash backs guys! And you can only use the bottle water to wash your feet down if it’s gone very warm. That stuff is precious over here in this heat!
There were guys drinking whiskey in the back of the tiny bar at 10.30am reminded me of the dukes bar in pontypool town all over again.
As we continued through the state, sticking to the main road.. or what was left of it. They were still trying to make the main road, for what we thought wasn’t far but turns out it was the situation right the way through the state. Absolute nightmare! Road works and this bit and that bit not made so having to detour! Ridiculous. Our poor little shaws! At least the roads were wide so there was less chance of us coming into very close contact with a lorry.
After the main raft of the s***ty roads we stopped at the side of the road which ran alongside a long coastal maravanthe beach. Lots of shacks on the side of the road selling coconuts. We parked the rickshaws bumped into two of the kiwi shaws, they’d had one accident on their first day and tipped the rickshaw but all was good! The locals appeared from nowhere to lift it and they were on their way. Not sure how well their engine took that hit.
Dad Ross and uncle terry took a run for the sea, easy for them to jump in and cool down! Lucky b**tards. I was left with the bags, whilst they ended up with their shorts on their heads (whilst in the water of course!)
After a dip we bought two coconuts and two bags of monkey nuts at the extortionate price of £1.
We set off at 1.30pm with 22072km on the clock. We kept going and headed as far north as we could, this town turned it to be Kumta. What a bloody dive, shaggy litre city! We didn’t have any data or did I have any hotels saved an pinned on google maps to see what the good ones were, if any. Google saved me and I found a few but my god they were shabby! One that wasn’t even open and looked at us very blankly, We just walked away when they said they didn’t have WiFi.
Soon enough though we had to accept hat we didn’t have any in this town and Ross had to top up his indian SIM card that his friend gave him before coming out. What a life saver!
We found a litre place, it wasn’t great but the best we could do.
Uncle terry was first to shower and knock on the door to go, he wasn’t hanging around! He spotted the cockroach catchers all lined across the hallways. Delightful.
We took a walk down the street back and forth, we wandered back and forth to try and find one of those ‘hotels’ where the kitchen and sitting area actually looked hospitable. On this journey low and behold the meaty gliders drove passed us! They ended up stopping at our hotel.
We carried on and thought we found a bar and restaurant (the crystal bar and restaurant) only when getting to the door we realised it was the local pub only it smelt of strong pee the entire way through , rarely any lights and a lot of very stewed men slumped at the tables drinking their way through what ever they could find. ...saying that, it sounds pretty much like some of our pubs at home!
Having had to walk through the kitchen, we were confident we weren’t eaten out of there. Oh wow! That had Delhi belly written all over it. Good job we bought a few packet of crisps on the way through the town. We would have had Pringles but uncle terry forgot them and left them in the first nights hotel. “Bloody marvellous” as he would say. We FaceTimed mum and Aunty Lynne in the dark room we were in - they were very merry to say the least, I think they got so close to the camera at one point we could see their bats in the cave. Haha!
After two each we slipped away very quickly and bit the bullet, we opted for a little cafe next door to ours it looked the most welcoming and cleanest. Mind, that was only because of the colourful patio chairs.
Low and behold the meaty gliders found us again, we had dinner with them. The menu at the restaurant didn’t serve curry?
We had go dry - rice, Indian bread and the chicken kebab meat looked okay so we had some of that. Dad and uncle terry went to the liquor store and bought beer for the table and we were away, not such a dry dinner after all! But low and behold a little later on they brought out a spice ‘gravy’
I went and had a pee in the back yard, gates behind was lots of little dogs. They all look like wolves, very inviting. It was probably best that the toilet hut didn’t have any lights, the smell was bad enough.
Reluctantly we retreated to the rooms but we had oiled ourselves well with the extra strong kingfishers, only 8% vol per bottle.. so luckily we all just passed out asleep straight away, not before putting a towel by the door incase any cockroach’s did decide to take a detour.