Day 8
I thought the Delhi belly had gotten hold of me this morning. I was up and down the toilet for ages, bloody great! This had better disappear by the time we get on the road.

Ross’s birthday today, so a good breakfast was in order. This is also so that uncle terry can have a peaceful morning ride haha. Well it is included so it would be rude not too! It was all delicious and you felt as though you could eat the fruit and not get a dodgy tummy.
Of course we took some muffins for the road for the road in a napkin and some condiments in case we had to buy some dry bread for a snack.

We waited in the foyre for the hotel’s mechanic. They told dad that he usually comes at 9am every morning. It’s a Sunday though so they weren’t sure he was coming, dad only wanted some gear oil or for them to check what was up from No.2. We decided not to wait and carried on through the city to get out and on the road. We weren’t doing a big kilometre coverage today so we weren’t so hard on ourselves about leaving early.

Dad had it playing on his mind to get gear oil for No.2 so we left hoping that on a Sunday there would be a mechanics open somewhere. We just kept driving and didn’t find one for about an hour and half until we got out out of the city to a little place called Dindori. We stopped on the side of the road, and a man from his shop could speak a fair bit of English so jumped on his litre motorbike with two other full grown men on the back and took us behind a petrol garage to a little mechanic shop. He sorted No.2 out, gave it a new head gasket and cleaned it up after about 30 minutes we started them both up and he told us to stop as No.1 wasn’t sounding good, great! We had a loose bolt on the clutch apparently. For all that he only wanted 75p. He wouldn’t even take the £2 we gave him he didn’t want it. But we made sure to put it in his shirt pocket and bought the kids some sweets from the local shop.

A precautionary service on the shaws and they sounded like pitches running! After a game of snap with the kids we were on the road again by 11.30am and off on our way to Vansda.

I was dreading today because the map showed high terrain on the mountains and there was no way around then we had to go trough them. All I could imagine was that awful day on day 5 again, almost getting knocked off the road and crushed by oncoming lorries and buses on those narrow winding roads.

But much to my surprise it was pretty much open roads, don’t get me wrong it’s like they had used an elephant to pat it out. Bloody awful.

The everything seemed pretty dead, most of the vineyards we passed were dead. Then you would randomly come across a field that was filled with green. Not sure whether it’s he different types of grapes and the temperature they grow at makes a different.
We went passed the strawberry fields, all the locals from the little villages in the middle of nowhere were sat on the side of the road under a a tree selling a dish full of strawberries, all selling the same thing about 25 metres apart from one another. They must also be family members it’s sad, the kids are sat there selling and some were running after the shaws. There’s no way we could have stopped, we would have had to buy a ford full of strawberries that we couldn’t have eaten because we would have most definitely got the s***s.

It was getting super hot, that hairdryer was blowing on us again with no air to breathe. The mountains were picturesque, they looked 2D and had funny jenga boulders on top of them again. It looked a bit like Nevada, especially with the cactus cropping up about the place there.

We continued on the s***ty roads, they gradually got better. You would not want to break down here! There is nothing about, just fields of crops or dead crops at that and you’ll see a litre wooden hut in the distance. Nothing else for miles and miles.

We stopped at about lunch time for a drink, just before the Vansda National Park in Saputara. It seemed like a little holiday resort, with a lake and pedalos, a run down fair and lots of stalls for food and drink. Only it was empty and I think mainly the locals were there surrounding our shaws. The pide pipers were out again, dad was kicking a football back and forth with a tot that was probably only just walking, couldn’t loose her mind she had two ankle bracelets with bells all over them making a racket every time she moved.

We moved on swiftly to the National Park, again more dead... everything. No tea buildings just wooden huts with lots of people say about in but the roads were wide and a lot smoother to ride on.

Half way in we found the ‘dashing darlings’ rickshaw parked up on the side of the road, we hadn’t seen them since day 3! They’re doing well considering they all had raw blisters on their hands the first day because they could do they pull leaver on their rickshaw to start it.

There were kids playing in what was eft of parts of the river, it was super empty compared to what was in their in monsoon. You could see the lines on the banks. Then we went passed another patch of water, they were all fishing with nets. Stood in what would have been stagnant water because there was nothing flowing to it really, one person either end feeling in the water for them and then slipping them in another compartment to the net, or the net of the big ones had a few people holding it up around the outside from the water whilst there were 4/5 people inside it crouched down feeling for fish with their hands. Minging.

Seen a few monkeys in the trees just as we got out of the National Park and then started to see the signs for the hotel, ‘hotel Sayhog’ I was a little skeptical of it as we were in the middle of nowhere and hadn’t seen any proper buildings for a very long time. It got closer and then to the sign that said 0km and an arrow pointing right to a shabby old house, I thought - s***. But hiding behind the trees was new concrete building that looked a bit more promising! We parked up, it was struck stop with a dining hall and a crappy plastics toy shop.

The rooms were lovely, they looked better than the premier inn! Only thing that caught my eye and spoilt it was the big sign stating “liquor is prohibited” that just ruined our day. We asked the guy at reception where we could get some, he laughed and said Gujarat state is DRY. Oh bloody great. We are in this state for another night after today. Now I have to break the news to dad and uncle terry. That’s gunna go down like a sack of s***. ...and it did, their faces dropped to the floor.

Good job Ross had some whiskey, they would have to have a whiskey and coke night in the room. We had good tele, with English channels so that eased the blow a little bit.

But first we had to tackle dinner. It was like feeding time at the zoo, we were on show alright! We had, I would say about 30 pairs of eyes on us. Ordering food wasn’t so much of a challenge as we thought, only he thought we had ordered too much (finding out later that he was in fact, incorrect.) we like curry mate. Get us another plate!
Uncle terry had a cheese pizza and fries, the pizza was small toasted a little too long I think but had mayonnaise in a circle spiral all over it. Aunty Lynne - make him a sandwich with it when your home and tell him not to complain!

We had food at the feeding post, a bit of a downgrade from yesterday with our plastic plates. We got some chocolate and retreated to the room. Bahrain formula one and FaceTime with the women (drunk again, loving life)

The men tucked into some whiskey and I pushed the bot out with two glasses of Pepsi.

Did I mention it was a dry state and we are here for two days! We are not happy bunnies.

145km covered today