Day 7
6.40am start, we needed to get out of this city before everyone woke up. It would have been manic! We were right by the flyover so it was easy enough to get on it: we don’t like the huge highways but it’s the quickest and easiest way out of the Pune.
As we got around to the north of the city it began to open out a bit, there were pavements! People actually used them aswell!
There was a small city park alongside the road, started planting flowers and building paths. So many people doing erratic yoga moves and running. It’s the first place we have seen anyone doing any exercise. Mind I wouldn’t want to do it with all this pollution and smog.
The cities aren’t like any other city around the aed with high rise office buildings, they just have blocks of run down flats, the business is in al the little shacks or one and two story buildings. It seems to only be a city because of the mass amount of people living there.

We were out of the main city within 45 minutes but there was another one right next to it, we ended up going on the outskirts of it. Oh hey had woken up alright. That was chaos for what felt like ages but was probably only about 30 minutes. Buses flying from everywhere, huge lorries and those little ants everywhere. (That’s what uncle terry calls them, haha) he says it’s like they’ve picked up a load of them and just dropped them out of the sky and they’ve disbursed on motorbikes. Everywhere!

We stopped in probably the only couple of petrol stations that didn’t have oil for 2 stroke engines, so we had to go and search and Indian oil one. He told me he didn’t have any, Ross went and asked and he took him in the office and got him two. He boiled my blood, that man. My face let him know aswell. That was probably because I was a woman.

We cracked on, we started to climb hills again slowly, we were bordering on just over two hours now so time for a pit stop. Especially as Ross hadn’t eaten the night before, was going to stop at some restaurants at the top of the mountain, it had a lovely view, but we kept going as dad is always trying to find somewhere else. I just said to pull over in the end, nobody at the restaurant which is never a good sign but Ross is probably chewing uncle terry’s ear off by now.
It looked lovely and clean and new, but I don’t think they really wanted us to come in. We should have just carried on, our he menu looked okay. We ordered two plates of French fries and four grilled cheese sandwiches (thats fine, head wobble)

Ross noticed there were flies everywhere, trying not to think about it. We thought he went down the field to pick the potatoes.
He finally cane with four plates of triangle cut tomato and cucumber sandwiches with a green curry paste that made the bread a little soggy. When I asked about cheese he just wobbled again, and then said no. So why didn’t he just say no in the first place or not give them us? The chips were spread around a little plate with probably about 25 on each.
Ah gosh, we went for it anyways. It was breakfast and we needed a feed. We wollaped it down our necks and got going.
The scenery was lovely, we were on the top of a mountain looking out onto lots of other mountains, but they’re funny shaped. They’re very strange looking, the only way I can describe is though it looks like Nevada mountains and then they’ve played jenga with a few different shaped boulders on the top of them.
Afterwards, the road after that was long and tedious.

It’s taking its toll on me today, I need to get out of this rickshaw and get in a pool or do something normal.

We pushed and pushed on, for what seemed like forever going up to Nashik. We arrived at about 3pm which was pretty good going. Found a hotel on booking, with a pool and in our price range so we rocked up in our rickshaws. Only for then to tell us they didn’t have any rooms available for the night, but they have seen our rickshaws on tele. Couldn’t believe it! We were gutted we hadn’t seen anything. They said our exact rickshaws they had seen.
You’d think being local celebrities they would get us a room from somewhere!

They tarmac around trees here in Nashik so you have to go around them on the roads, and just like anywhere they have a white painted patch on them at eye level, they’re your street lamps boys and girls. Oh natural!

They sent us 7km down the road, to the hotel express Inn. Getting there though we had to go through the slums, and my god hey were slums. Wooden huts and tarpaulin tents on the side of the road. Chickens and goats running in and out of their houses. Tiny kids carrying tiny babies on their hips. You can’t even describe it, you have to see it to believe it.

And yet 2km around the corner we pull up to a lovely hotel, with about 4 security guards well dressed welcoming us at the door and about 6 valet Parking people wanting to park our litre rickshaws. Well that was a bloody laugh! They were definetly used to parking bikes and cars rather than rickshaws haha. They didn’t know how to use them.

We walked into this huge foyre, were we clearly didn’t fit in and booked a room. But of course they only had executive rooms available for 9000 INR per room per night. So we said stuff that, we will book on booking and wait 30 minutes for the confirmation to go through. That way we got it half price for two rooms - result!

The executive rooms were heaven! Compared to what we have been having. Only problem now is that we have to try and slowly come down from this because it will be a shock to the system if we go back to something that we have had in the passed! We were making the most of all this. Dad and Ross went to the gym, I should have really but I needed to sit on the bottom of a pool and float. So me and uncle terry headed to the pool. It was bloody freezing but we stuck it out. There were some Indian kids in the pool, from a more affluent family but they all had goggles on and didn’t put their face in the water when they flapping about trying to swim. Sorry, I’m totally off duty on this one! I could see uncle terry looking at me and them and in his head he was saying beth go and help them. Haha, no I’m okay today thank you! :)

After we all had a dip in the pool, shower (I showered forever) and down for some dinner.

It’s Ross’s 23rd birthday tomorrow so we had his cards and the waiters got him a cake and sang him happy birthday in Hindu. It was such a catchy tune! He absolutely died with embarrassment! Brilliant! And I have it all on video, haha!

Absolutely shattered, retreated to bed by 10.30pm. We weren’t going too far tomorrow, we needed to find some gear oil for No.2’s engine and we had breakfast included so was going to make the most of that! Me and uncle terry got ourselves excited, we think we may have PORK bacon!

230Km covered today, approx.