Day 4 - Wednesday 22nd October 2008

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To stop us fighting over what to say, here is a BOGOF blog......

Melvyn's observations

If yesterday for me was all about a natural resource water - (my ice
cold shower after hot night, Jog Falls and driving in the Monsoon),
today was about another - oil! In fact sump oil to be precise. The
rally has unfortunately left quite a trail of it over the lovely
Western Ghats already. In fact 5 cars broke down with holed sumps.
Another ended in a ditch to be retrieved by a farmer and his tractor
before our trusty support team arrived to finish the job. Luckily
though no causalities apart from Phil, one of our motorcycle support
riders who came off and badly banged his head. He came to and couldn't
remember where he was! Once he remembered the Medics made him
travel in one of Ambulances - much to his annoyance.

The cause of all the pollution is of course a deadly combination of
rocks and potholes. After an initial stretch of good road surface, we
started to climb again and went into the mountains. Although the
surface was much better generally than our up hill rally on Day One,
the holes got progressively deeper and also became water filled. This
meant first gear motoring most of the time although I did try my best
with a more direct approach. After dear Maygo had had her bottom
smacked by rocks a fourth time, I had to agree that Dinesh's tip toe
approach was much safer for all three of us!

The ride into Mangalore - in the dark with Dinesh piloting was amazing
- traffic from all directions, big holes in the road and me trying to
read the (very poor) directors provided by Karma by torchlight. Well
we made it in one piece ....................and we didn't get lost
once! Honest!

Dinesh's observations

I nearly forgot to mention.....each car has a number and ours is
19....same as our house number....good Karma there then!!
Not much to add to the above as it is 22.15 and I am knackered. Any one
who thinks India is wonderful needs their head examined! The traffic
is awful, their driving is awful, their driving discipline is awful
and the roads are awful. What's the point of sending a probe to the
moon if you can't build a flat stretch of road of more than about 10
feet before it deteriorates into pieces? After such a day, I think we
deserve a decent hotel rather than roughing it so I am not ashamed to
say that no roughing it tonight. The hotel is not exactly 5 star but
much much better than that we had over the past 2 days.

Ok, so rant over. Honestly the drive was taxing and tiring but amazing
nonetheless. It is proving to be a real adventure even though we
averaged a speed of, wait for it, 20mph today whilst driving 320 km
over 12 hours with breaks!! We came through a tiger sanctuary but
failed to spot any. However, we did see a couple of mongoose and lots
of monkeys. Going through many of the villages it is amazing to see
children and adults line up to wave to us with happy smiling faces. It
was interesting to note that the kids all asked for pens - clearly
there is a shortage of them and they need such basic things. So we
have bought some to give them out tomorrow. We also saw some
breathtaking countryside with lush green valleys and mountains full of
greenery. We also had some more rain today and when high up, the
mountains were covered in mist.


On to Mysore tomorrow - 250km.

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Comments

[Sandeep Sibia]

Maygo well-wishers
Seems like Maygo is a rein'car'nation, especially after its sump getting smacked 4 times. At this rate it will give Landrover Defender a good run for its money. Must be something to do with Indian automobiles. Good luck. Blow horn, OK TATA:-))