Team Wrong Turn

Day18 We’re done,finito!Helpful local took us to the airport on train during rush hour.Josh is on his way to Bangkok&David to KL.Detail filling in to come soon!

Day 17 - on train headed to Chennai, boiling hot, lovely wooden slat train benches and more of India flying by the window, this is going to be a great 5 hours!

Another quick update (more later, we promise!).  Am glad to see we are able to SMS to this webpage, the Adventurists one doesn’t like us apparently…

Anyways - we have finished!  We arrived in Pondicherry late on the 14th with just over 5250km racked up on our noble steed.  Have been recouperating and hearing the tales from the other teams….They all have great stories and so do we, from Monkeys driving the rickshaw to swimming in the confluence of the Arabian Sea. Indian Ocean, and and Bay of Bengal

Total raised for the charities by all teams has exceeded 5.2 million Rupees and other teams visited some of The Frank Waters projects and saw where the money is going directly, it’s a great thing and thank you so much to everyone who has helped the people over here.

We are off on the Train tomorrow (at a whopping 29 Rupees each - That’s 58 cents American!) to Chennai and flying out late tomorrow night - David to Kuala Lampur and Josh to Bangkok.

As soon as we can get a reliable connection (probably at home), we will get stories and photos uploaded!

TA 877D 165 Day14 Have hit the magical 5000km mark today, left Madurai early this AM as the 130db prayers were being blasted. En route to Reppo…Pondi tmw!

TA 877D 162 Day13 Did a fun 525km tothe tip of India,Ricky has developed cruise control & a penchant for 4th gear,either we’re geniuses or bumpy road is toblame

TA 877D 164 Day12 Finished up day in bustling Madurai,had drinks in what we swear was the star wars cantina & a $5 awesome rooftop dinner overlooking the temple

TA 877D 164 Day12 As if to protest new plan,engine demanding strange thing called “oil”, we sated her thirst & Krishnagiri pros cleaned her carb (she likes that)

TA 877D 164 Day12 Figure there’s still another 4 days of the Run so we’re going for it-have turned away from Pondi and headed for Kanniyakumari weeeeee!

TA 877D 152 Day11 made a huge 755km jump over the Western Gahts (again!) & squeaked into Bangalore, witnessed a local bus burning/riot but kept safe (of course)

TA 877D 111 Day10 gave the Ricky the day off & recouped on Colva’s beaches n Goa,made a sexy music video & shaved chests which got $100 donated, thx Steph&Andy!

TA 877D 121 Day9 got Lopedime 4 Delhi Belly,think we are going 2 live, left Pune & made 520km 2 Colva, lots of monsoon,but sunset swim in Arabian Sea was great!

TA 877D 191 Day8 stopped to have Rick checked @Narayangaon,looks like we never got oil seal last repair,made friends w/ Rahoul & had lunch with his great family

TA 877D 143 Day 7 Made a 400 km day to Nasik! Josh made friends with local Godfather, saw the masses at the Ghats. Dreaded Delhi Belly raising it’s ugly head.

TA 877D 172 Day 6 made it to Indore,found great hotel, ended up with an interview on statewide TV!Saw what happened when drunk Indians argue, but it’s all good!

TA 877D 183 Day 5 blew our first piston, great people in Lalitpur took apart engine & put in new piston for 15USD, and taught us how to play cricket, great day!

TA 877D 165 Day 4 left Kampur, made it to Agra, saw Taj, wow it’s beautiful! Rickshaw is the talk of the town whenever we stop!

TA 877O 178 in Gorakhpur heading 2Varnessi tmw after 2days of fun roaming himalayan foothills,still have 3 wheels,2 teammates,4 gears(we think),this is AWESOME!

It’s 1am here in Bangalore but now that we have cell signal again, needed to do a quick post that:
-yes indeed we are alive and well and having a heck of an adventure
-have put on just over 3800km in the first 11 days (including 1 stopped day, three breakdowns, and the requisite sightseeing stops)
-have crossed our mighty steed up and over the Western Ghats twice now in the Monsoon
-we are only ~600km or so from pondicherry, but heck if we are going to waste any of this fun!, so we have decided to turn away from the finish and use the next 4 days to go to the very southern tip of India and then return to Pondi!

Hope to have signal and time to update from the road (sadly sms not working on either site, sorry about that! )
-J&D

Thought we’d update the animal count, so far we have seen;

-oodles of Cows
-tons of Oxen
-couple horses, couple donekys (usually hitched to carts as are the oxen)
-3 Camels (WAAAY bigger than the ones in Northern China!)
-1 Gecko
-lots of dogs of indiscernable breed (and since we are avoiding meat this trip, indiscernable taste as well)
-no cats (either they got smart or something else…)
-lots of monkeys of all sizes
-amazingly sized and colored storks/herons
-several peacocks and peahens
-1 mongoose (maybe rikki tikki tavi?)
-no crocodiles, tigers, or cobras on the road(thankfully)
-no elephants or unicorns yet (sadly)

The search continues…..

On the road to Agra and Taj Mahal, 50km out and it’s only noon.

We have been keeping farmer’s hours as daylight is precious as driving at night in India takes a death wish. (Specially when your vehicle is very low on the might-is-right totem pole! :). (Don’t worry moms and dads, we’re doing just fine and being very safe, you’d be proud)

Did you know that there’s an average of ~375 fatalities on roads in India every day? We believe it!

Will be playing it by ear today and depending on if we make it to Agra in good time (traffic is a big factor) and see what we want to see, looking at heading to Gwalior for the night

Ahoy! Finally an update, no sms capabilities in upper pradesh where we are now so no updates for the foreseeable future.

After spending 2 days romping through Nepal and taking the safest route out by climbing 4000 meters over the some absolutely gorgeous himalayan foothills (it beats climbing 9000 meters the other way!), we entered India yesterday after purchasing some ill gotten black market Nepalese petrol just in case of emergency (turned out we needed it just 15km short of the indian border). Nepal was terrific, people extremely friendly and helpful (as are the Indians but the cultural differences are harder to transcend the communication with the Indians for the time being, but once overcome they are terrific, most of the confusion lies on our part, getting used to someone shaking their head when saying yes is still interesting). After paperwork snafu on the rickshaw exporting from Nepal that took 3 hours, we shot off to Gorkahpur last night where we noticed engine running sluggish but ok.

Had a great dinner both in Nepal and in Gorkahpur that revolved around the tasiest dish around: Paneer, Naan bread, and jasmine rice.

This morning (the 3rd), still found engine even more sluggish, made it 60 klicks before tracking down mechanics for preventative maintenance, problem was solved by him completely dissasembling our carbouraeur and cleaning meticuously by hand, twice and then taking us for test drives that were very educational.

Took 3 hours but we were back on the road, passed through the holy city of Adoybad with its monkeys and Lucknow during rush hour traffic before squeaking into Kupnor where we’ve held up for the night after putting on a satisfactory 350km even with the 3 hour delay

Up to Agra tomorrow to see red fort, the abandoned capital, and Taj Mahal over the next evening/morning before pointing our nose south and figuring out which of the three possible routes looks best

Rickshaw running great (now) but handles wonderfully and is a blast to drive, both of us are picking up required rules of the road that probably don’t fly anywhere else in the world. Rickshaw is great, but due to carb problem (which the black market gas is suspected to be the straw that broke the camel’s back) and just in general, the spark plug (singular) gets horrendously dirty, have to sand down/clean every day

Off to bed now and up early to hit the road and take advantage of the daylight!

More updates later hopefully!