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Tuk Tuk
We start off this blog with a symbolic picture of India, the tuk Tuk.Saturday 15 May 2010
I am delighted to be able to write this next blog! It means that we have made our final destination in India before getting the Hillman shipped out to Malaysia; to Port Kulang just 20 kilometers from Kuala Lumpur, and ourselves out of India too. I say delighted because the last week has been the most grueling and testing for both of us, from a physical perspective as well as a mental one. My last blog written on 9 May describing some remarkable scenes we saw as the Hindu ceremony of burning bodies was carried out at the burning Ghat beside the River Ganges (the Ganga to the Hindu) seems such a long time ago when I think what both John and I have been through during the last five days.
We had been discussing before Monday morning the possibility of going to Kalkata (Calcutta) to ship the car to Malaysia and thus leaving us time to visit Darjeeling and some tea plantations but a call to our Australian Cargo Forwarders scuppered that option by giving us information that their agent in Chennai was ready to receive us and that they had informed the agent that we
Oil Leak
One of two photos of our car outside our very Kristna hotel in Umeria, near the national tiger park. wished to get the car onto the ship sailing in a week’s time, that is next Monday! This information concentrated our minds considerably; out went the tea plantation visit, but remaining in was the possibility of a visit to a national park to see tigers! The night before at a very cheap pizzeria, down at Assi Ghat, the most southerly Ghat in Varanasi, we had been introduced to the owner, who discussed with us our choices and who even offered to accompany us to Kalkata if we chose that route. (We have met some really lovely and generous and helpful people during our journey.) He had also said that we would be passing the best national park to see tigers if we went south. So with this information in mind we departed Varanasi heading for Bandhavgarh National Park which was the former hunting preserve of the Maharaja of Rewa and at present is a famous natural hub for White Tigers. White Tigers, now a major attraction around the world's zoos, were first discovered in Rewa, not far from this national park. The terrain is broken, with rocky hill ranges, running roughly east west, interspersed with grassy swamps and forested valleys
Hillman in front of our Kristna Hotel
Our unwell car outside the hotel we elected to stay at to get the oil problem resolved. The hotel was very much run on the lines of strict Kristna rules, and the restaurant below where we took breakfast and dinner was all very Kristna vegetarian so neither of us came away feeling full! In fact after the Tuesday breakfast of two small pieces of jam on toast, neither of us really ate until we reached Chennai Friday, except a banana or several. and is regarded as one of the finest in India harboring the highest concentration of tigers per unit area of forest.
All was going well with the car as we drove towards this park, so we thought, but as we approached the small town of Umaria, about 15 kilometers ouit from this town we lost oil pressure. We only knew that we were this distance from the town when locals who came to our help said so! We were actually in quite a remote part of the country with few signs to direct us - in fact none as where we turned off the main north south highway 7 at a place called Kotni, which on our map was something different altogether, we ended up with a nice local jumping in alongside us in the middle of the town to direct us onto the right road!
But oil pressure was serious. Fortunately neither of us thought the engine had been effected as John, driving at the time, noticed the pressure soon enough. We are both conscious of the need to monitor dials constantly and so we were able to use our remaining oil to limp through to this town called
Another barrier
We continually encountered these barriers where money was asked for to continue our journey. But it was a way of raising money to maybe improve the road at some time in the future. Umaria, where we hoped to find oil and help. We did both. A small hotel was passed and we decided that as night had now fallen, we should cut our losses, take a room and assess the problem. The young manager of the hotel gave us a room for R700 (12 pounds) a night, with AC! And then he produced a mechanic who quite soon identified the problem as a leaking oil filter. Within a couple of hours he fixed it. Well, so we thought! The hotel manager also said he could arrange our trip to the park (it turned out that his father drove one of the safari 4x4s, so wasn’t that convenient?) And it all worked out rather well. The road to and back to the park was reasonable except for the last five kilometers to get to the park, when it erupted into a very, very bumby road compensated by the number of monkeys we saw.
We spent nearly four hours in the park, and saw some wonderful animal life, and the scenery was stunning. Towards evening 4x4s began gathering at one of the favourite watering holes of tigers, and we sat there waiting, and waiting. Until
our very good guide decided to take us away to another one. That was a masterly stroke of intuition because very soon afterwards we came across a tiger right in front of us moving lazily along the track and then into the undergrowth. Despite only seeing one (yes only one!) John and I were chuffed that we were the ONLY people to have seen a tiger that afternoon - well done our guide. Then it was back to the hotel to prepare for our two grueling days of driving south to Chennai leaving at 4am each day to capture the cooler mornings and less busy roads.
Our first problem was a directional one. We were heading too far north of the westerly direction we really wanted to go so we found ourselves faced with a rather circular route to get back to Highway 7 that would take us south. Then shortly after dawn, I noticed that our oil pressure was going down again - oh hell, the last thing we wanted with so far to go. So imagine the picture - the two of us out on this small, lonely road surrounded by grazing and arable land, miles from any
village or township, warning triangle out, and our tools out, to try and sort out the loss of oil pressure. As John revved the engine, I saw that our ‘mechanic’ had not solved the problem - it was leaking profusely, so what we thought to begin with was a matter of replacing a filter turned out to be far from simple. The bloody thing would not come off - and to cut a long story short, I waived goodbye to John as he journeyed off on top of a trailer being pulled by a tractor to ‘somewhere’. And sometime later, about two hours later, he appeared, triumphant at having found a vice and someone to remove the offending old filter. It only took 20 minutes to put back the filter and its manifold and once I had done that we checked again and all was well but by this time the sun was well up, past 9am and we had lost some serious travelling time.
Even in that next hour of driving to meet the highway, we came across two lorries that had crashed during the night! More was to come.
The Indians are building a super highway linking their
4/5 main cities, but there seems no rationality in their building. Bits of road are completed or not. What is worse is that the signage to indicate diversions was terribly poor and caught us out on several occasions; one where the light was fading and all the warning to motorists that the good piece of road was at an end was a pile of earth which I nearly took off on. That day was fraught with incident. John took the back off of a MPV that was pushing in from the inside - our roo bar did a good job there! And I was faced with a man in white, elderly, sauntering across the highway not caring it seemed about vehicles. And I have to admit it was a touch and go thing. Yes, I did hit him but he remained standing and probably only had a bad back, but he had stopped and looked at us approaching him and continued to walk. There is a mentality here that defies belief in respect to road use by pedistrians and cyclists etc.
That night, because of the road conditions, we stopped short of our target, Hyderabad, and stayed in a real
down beat hotel in the middle of a town called Hinganghat. The room cost R200 for the night - a real bargain - three pounds! However, I was violently ill that night, and found myself stepping over sleeping foreign bodies on my way to the ‘loo’, and on one occasion my foot slipped and I thought I was going to fall flat onto a sleeping form!
The next day we set off again at 4am with John in good form and driving and this time the road had improved and we made good time. It was not without incident. I was driving and a young guy was swerving all over the road on his scooter; I hooted and he violently swung into the path of another scooter being ridden by some women and nearly created a distaster there before he then crashed straight into a Tuk Tuk. The stupidity of his riding brought about this disaster, but as I have said before, it seems to be in their blood on these roads here in India. Its worth mentioning too that we have only really seen police in townships along the way - they certainly don’t patrol the highways, and so
Leading the hunt our intrepid guide and terrible driver
We felt very sorry for the vehicle after our trip - we slid backwards down several slopes because our gallant driver found the wrong gears! coming across a very nasty accident where a family car had been badly damaged, and the family with young family were still quite bewildered, makes you wonder how many injured people at the scene of an accident actually make it through.
As an aside, the local paper today in Chennai carried several stories of road accidents; one was where a truck had careered into two Tuk Tuks killing 7 people and injuring the remaining 11; a bus returning from a wedding festival with family and friends struck a pole carrying an overhead electric power cable that came down onto the bus and killed some 23 of the occupants; and in Chennai state alone some 900 people die crossing railway lines, because they quote: “Can’t be bothered to use the appropriate means of crossing the railway”. These statistics are quite astounding - many killed on the railway are actually on their mobiles chatting apparently.
We didn’t make Chennai Thursday night - we stopped some 275 miles away at a place called Viyajawada so another 4am start was called for. Fortunately, this last leg was achieved in fine time along a great piece of road, and without incident. We clocked into the
Hotel Breeze here in Chennai at 1200 hrs.
While concentrating hard on driving, it hasn’t passed us by that the weather and countryside too have changed as we have driven south. We are much more in the tropics here, some 13degrees above the equator with humidity higher than in the north of India, where the weather was dry and hot. Here in Chennai humidity is above 80% and a growing chance of rain as in a few weeks time it is expected that the monsoon rains will hit this part of India. Paddy fields for rice growing were prevalent on the way down as people with their buffalo were ploughing and preparing the water-filled ground while in other places it looked as though rice was nearly ready for harvesting. Coconuts are plentiful and so are many other kinds of oriental fruits.
We are now here in Chennai to organize and await shipment of our car to Malaysia. We had to strip the contents of the car out shortly after our arrival yesterday to make a full inventory for customs, and the Agents are now on the task. Disappointingly, after such a great effort to get the car to here in
time to catch the Monday shipment, we have now been told that it is impossible but the Agent is working on getting the car on a ship on Thursday, sailing that day, we hope. At the moment we expect to deliver the car to the container port some 26 kilometers away on Tuesday morning and once that is done we can make plans to leave here - hopefully Monday morning will enable us to firm up those plans.
We have also covered some 8678 miles of our journey during the seven weeks we have been away, so well over half way to our destination. We have had two punctures which have been easily and cheaply repaired, and all four original tyres are still on the car. When we do retrieve the car in Malaysia, we will be giving it a really good service, changing the front tyres and ensuring all components and suspension parts are nice and tight for the last few thousand miles to Sydney.
So the next few days is battery recharging time, sorting out stomach disorders (me this time), and doing some physical. We are also discussing our future plans in respect to getting to Sydney as
we are aware that despite coming through some interesting countries where security levels have been a concern, we are still faced with possibly more security issues which means that Thailand is probably off our visits list and the latest information being received here is that Indonesia is potentially a problem, especially for two guys driving. So plans may change and I will let you know what we decide to do in due course; the target is still Sydney in early July. We will be talking to our Australian freight forwarder on Monday to discuss options. In the meantime enjoy the blog and photos attached.
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elaine willman
non-member comment
good progress
Well I go away for a week and you guys just keep on trucking. Sounds as if it has been tough. Reckon you need this chill time to give your bodies time to heal. Hope the crossing goes well. Not sure on your time scales. Why is the next bit going to take so many weeks???? Tell us in the blog why it is going to take 6-7 weeks to do the next leg. E