Justine's blog

New website!

justinecutler — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 14:49:00 GMT

Hi everyone - we've started planning for our Sahara trip end of 2014. Starting to post chronicles of our planning and have created website. Check out Sahara planning, India, Sierra Leone, Cupcakes and more.

www.projectjoyglobal.org/

Photos: India 3

justinecutler — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 13:22:00 GMT

India 3

Photos: India 2

justinecutler — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 13:21:00 GMT

India 2

Postmortem

justinecutler — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 14:44:00 GMT

Our journey has nearly ended. We took a five hour taxi ride from Jaisalmer to Jodphur, and now waiting in the airport to fly to Delhi and on to Dubai for a couple of days, then home. Thank you everyone who kept up with our posts. You can't believe our much we appreciated your comments and words of encouragement.

All in all, what an adventure! A training ground for the next one. We definitely saw more of the country than we would have in a train or a car. In a rickshaw you can't doze off, read a book, write a story. In a rickshaw you see every person that stares, laughs, or yells at you, every flick of a cow's ear dislodging a fly, every patch of shade on the side of the road, every discarded shoe, every child squatting, every man sleeping. In a car we may have missed seeing goats standing on two legs attacking a tree and the tractor covered in a three dimensional design made of cow patties. We may not have needed to rest so many times for cups of tea in derelict towns, on derelict tables, surrounded by people taking photos of us. We may never have eaten the strange food not served in restaurants. Never have felt that secret fear that with every bite we might get sick. Never have resented a hidden speed bump or pothole so much, leaping out at us unexpectedly. My feet would not be so tan, looking ridiculous with the crisscross of my tevas. Our ears would not have been attacked so ferociously, by the unique jingle jangle of a truck horn; the eerie, high pitched crooning of a tractor's stereo; or or the eerie high-pitched screaming from me. We would not have smelt the air - full of exhaust so thick it gave us headaches; grass, so fresh in the countryside; and rain, cleaning everything. We may not have met so many wonderful people, helping us; or unwonderful people, taking advantage of us.

So what was unexpected?

That we didn't get runny bottoms

That we'd enjoy the occasional chat with the few other rickshaw runners we met along the way

That Rick would take so well to driving

That the traffic flowed so well (except in the presence of the three stop lights we encountered)

The high price of gasoline

At the sheer number of people, everywhere - we couldn't find solitude besides a few times in the last couple of days

That I'd be so disgusted with bugs and giant ants, inch long, crawling on me

That the women were so hidden, both by their clothes and their presence. Look at the photos, to come, and note that 95% of the people that approached us were men

How addicted we were to Facebook, our excitement by wifi, in those rare times when it was available

That we'd be quite such objects of curiosity

That most of the terrain was so similar until we reached Jaiper

At how shy, fearful, so reluctant to accept gifts the children were

To find an awesome pair of Converse in Shillong

How pleasant the police were

How safe our stuff was, not a single person tried to pickpocket us or nab anything from the rickshaw

That the food wasn't spicier

That we didn't see more beggars - only a couple our whole journey

That out of the 256,000 cows we saw, only 6 were female

That we wouldn't see a single street sign

That our rickshaw would break down so consistently and so thoroughly

To get a giant hole in our piston

That the bandits of Bihar would come in the form of a deceitful old man and a snooty hotel

And what was not unexpected?

The traffic

The fabulous food

The poverty

That the rickshaw broke down

High points:

Every time the engine started

Monkeys on the side of the road

Mahout on elephant

Lime juice served on arrival at the Gateway Hotel, Agra

[for Rick] Rick finally winning a game of backgammon at the bus stop

The view from our fort balcony in Jaisalmer

Getting engaged!

Low points:

Every time the engine didn't start

Nearly taking out a motorbike and scooter while trying to find the nonexistent Hotel Bliss

Breaking down in the middle of nowhere in torrential rain, feeling out of options, alone

Most useful items:

[by far] The India map app

My sarong

Parachute cord

Tool kit

Ativan

Vicodin

Most useless items:

Strapless dress

400 pencils

Things we should have brought:

Sandpaper

A broken hacksaw blade

An extra plug adapter

Things we lost:

1 bottle of conditioner

1 pair of tennis shoes

Things we gained:

1 flute (which broke in half)

1 singing bowl

1 rusty padlock

1 rusty knife

2 scarves

1 sandalwood bracelet

1 silver necklace

1 engagement ring

237 ants

Several potentially fatal diseases

Things we missed from home the most:

Salad

Sushi

Potable water

Regular toilets

Toilet paper

Red Bull

Good coffee [Rick]

Yoga

Thanks for your support. Stay tuned for our next adventure circa November 2014: Driving across the Sahara - and this time it won't be organized by anyone besides ourselves!!

Everybody loves a happy ending

justinecutler — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 23:28:00 GMT

Phalodi to Jaisalmer

We spend half an hour trying to find our way out of town, because the app is set to 'select most complicated, most obstructed, least intuitive route possible.' We drive and drive. Interesting things probably happen but all we can think about is finishing. Our bodies are like the rickshaw, shutting down. Rick has a cold and I have every ailment known to man. I have a pharmaceutical stash the size of a small planet, but for every drug I take there is some side effect, such that I'm going round in circles, curing one issue after another only to be left with the very thing that was amiss in the first place. We are running dangerously low on gas, but we feel miserly. We don't want to give a single drop back to The Adventurists. Precious, my precious we croak golem-like, hoarding droplets like gold. It's mine. Mine, mine, mine.

And then thirty kilometers from the end we come to our senses and think that it would be just plain idiotic to run out of gas right before we finish. But we are out of luck. The first gas station has no gas. There's one up the road, they say. Indeed, there is. But that too has no petrol. There's one up the road they say. Yes, thank you, but we'd like the one up the road with some actual petrol. To no avail. 13 kilometers. The engine stumbles. I'm calculating how far we can reasonably push. Five kilometers maybe? Is Jaisalmer on a hill? Could a camel tow a rickshaw? 10 kilometers, another cough. 9 kilometers, there's that sound like it's powering down. Come on little guy. You can do it. We limp our way through Jaiselmer, and there, rising from the ground, glorious, beautiful, is a cheap plastic archway with the words "Finish line." I expect crowds cheering, confetti falling from the sky, balloons and fireworks exploding, perhaps the Queen to make an appearance, shake my hand. But no, there's Matt from the Adventurists and a couple of his buddies. He's seen it all before. Two broken pistons? You pussies, one team last time had seven, suck it up. He gives us free beer coupons and lead us inside the Maharaja's Palace, where we rest on comfy floor cushions and order Pepsi.

We are in no mood to socialize. We certainly don't want to hear of anyone having a more adventurous time than us. Surely our rickshaw was the crappiest, our troubles the most painful, our experiences the most chaotic? We hitch a ride to the hotel. Weird, both sitting in the back. We wander around Jaiselmar. Rick buys a singing bowl. Yes, you heard that correctly. People continue to take our photo, even sans rickshaw. Do we really look that freakish? We meet a man who knows us by name. Knows our rickshaw, even has a photo of me no less. We are beyond being surprised by such things. Obviously Hollywood has us in its sights. He introduces himself as Dr Bhang. His English is blissfully fluent. He owns a restaurant and the Lassi Shop. It used to be called the Bhang Shop but the government sold the naming rights to an unworthy competitor. All this drama for a milkshake? But no, not just any lassi. Bhang lassi. Ah, I see. Bhang is marijuana, legal here. So Bhang lassi, Bhang chocolate, Bhang cookies. Dr Bhang shows us a video of Anthony Bourdain taking advantage of his store's delights. It was pretty cool. We get Ajuverdic massages for $10 a piece. I buy Rick a rusty padlock and an old knife. I negotiate fiercely - getting the price down from 4,800 rupees to 3,100 - and then pay in American dollars, rounding up and giving the guy more than he asked for in the first place. Genius. The shopkeeper smiles, we smile, shake hands. Rick is happy with his old padlock and rusty knife. I'm $50 lighter.

Our hotel is nirvana. Hotel Victoria. It's in a giant fort, 600 years old. We're in the top of a rampart. One of 99 ramparts in total. The sun is setting, the fort is a blaze of gold. We sink into deep, dark pink silk cushions on a small balcony with intricate designs carved into the stone. The stones are warm. The temperature is hot, but there's a light breeze. Bats are beginning to flit, doves circle, a lizard stares at us curiously, or perhaps dispassionately. Rick reaches into his pocket. He has a ring from an Indian market. He says, nervous, "Justine Cutler, will you marry me?" I make a sarcastic comment. JUST KIDDING - you don't think I'm that much of a bitch do you? Of course I say yes. Rick has tears in his eyes. I smile and lie there, breathing in the magic of our surroundings. This is the India we will remember.

...

Going insane

justinecutler — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 23:23:00 GMT

Naguar to Phalodi

The days are merging into one long dream. I feel like we're in the desert (well technically we are in the desert) and there's a mirage in the distance called the Finish Line. We drive and drive but that mirage, our oasis of safety and comfort, stays as far away as it always has until we start to wonder if we are imagining it. We wonder if we're destined to repeat this day, over and over, like groundhog day. We pull ourselves hand over hand across the sand, our last drop of water teasing its way down our throats yet our destination grows no closer. I'm sure we stopped and had chai and played bouncy balls with the kids, I'm sure we passed a truck piled high with giant rocks with nothing tying them on, I'm sure we saw mile upon mile of shoes discarded on the road. Hundreds, thousands of shoes. I'm sure we searched and searched for air at gas station after station not having it and our nerves wearing thin worrying about a flat tire in the middle of the night. I'm sure we had to place rocks under the rickshaw tires when we stopped on a hill, because the handbrake is broken. And I'm very sure that in one of my customary side-of-the-road toilet stops I dropped my sarong right in The Nastiest Prickles Known To Man and had to spend an hour removing them with pliers. But I can't remember when, or where. Our hearts are in our throats with every crank that doesn't start, every hiccup, every rattle. Just one more day Little Pi-tuk, one more day. Why would that rickshaw mechanic know anything about rickshaws? Of course you're going to make it to Jaisalmer. We assign human-like qualities to it. We hate it and we love it. One moment it's the plucky little engine that could. The next we despise it, we want to do cruel things to it, but we know that to do so would only make it angry, more spiteful, and refuse to start. It's our lifeline but we resent it. We pretend it's our friend but we can't wait until the day we never see it again.

But yet, we reach Phalodi, our last stop before Jaisalmer, if it exists. We are pathetically grateful at finding a hotel. We feel love for the kid on a motorcycle that leads us there out of the goodness of his heart, through winding streets that cause the GPS app to flash maniacally and spin in circles. We don't mind that the restaurant doesn't serve naan (no naan at an Indian restaurant?) or that the power keeps cutting out. We just want to finish. We will finish.

One more day.

Photos: India 4

justinecutler — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 13:15:00 GMT

Off-roading

justinecutler — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 23:18:00 GMT

Ajmer back to the middle of nowhere and on to Naguar

The cab driver last night was a godsend, if you overlook the 1,500 rupee charge. He made a call to someone who knew someone, who happened to be a rickshaw mechanic. A real one no less. The driver explained our problem and where the rickshaw was and made arrangements for the mechanic to meet us at the hotel at 11am. He also came in ...and relayed everything to the hotel staff.

At 12:30pm the mechanic shows up in a rickshaw of his own and we all jump in, all the way back to the Pi-tuk. His engine sounds even worse than ours did which was a little concerning, and the ride takes even longer than the cab because they travel at 35kms per hour. He tells us there's no way we should be driving one as fast as we have. Turns out, after much kajinkering, that we need a new piston because the previous mechanic didn't know what he was doing and had put the thingy with the whatzit when it should have been kazoomazilled. However, with a broken hacksaw blade they do a bushman's fix-it and with a bit of cranking the engine starts! I'm expecting we will owe money for being allowed to park in the hotel garden, but Gagan won't accept anything and between him and the cab driver my faith in the human race is restored.

The mechanic says he will drive us to the hotel, but for some obscure reason proceeds to take a 15 mile detour and gives me the hand when I ask why he's not driving us there. This doesn't frighten me as one might perhaps be when driven in the opposite direction you want to go, because I was so annoyed at all the delays and could sense Rick was too, that I figured with the adrenaline we could take out a gang of mafioso and a few monkeys if needed (well, maybe not the monkeys). I did move my knife to the top of my purse, just in case. So that you don't doze off, I kindly summarized our day in a few sentences, but it was actually spread out over another gazillion hours, and we don't end up leaving the hotel until 5:30pm. We are somewhat trepidatious, because the mechanic's parting words (and another 3,000 rupees) were, translated by the hotel manager: "this rickshaw WILL break down again, you shouldn't drive it, you need to get another one".

We set a destination we can reach before nightfall. There's the occasional camel sighting and one donkey wearing a blindfold, plus a few guys who try to drag a steel gate in front of us yelling "road tax! road tax!" This is absolute poppycock and fortunately they were distracted by a cow, not subject to road tax, so we speed through, clipping the gate in the process. Unfortunately, while we reach the designated town by dusk, there are no hotels in sight besides one with no windows and pigs nesting in the front room. Blurgh, our next best option is four hours away. As we've lost two days we throw caution to the wind and decide to do the dreaded Night Driving. This is not nearly as bad as last time because no one in their right mind would have chosen the route we did. We certainly haven't seen another rickshaw runner in days.

Our journey went like this:

Single lane paved road -->
Single lane gravel road -->
Single lane dirt road -->
Dirt track wide enough for a rickshaw, we get edged off the road several times -->
Nightfall hits -->
Road stops altogether, blocked by a pile of brush -->
Navigate through people's back yards making several wrong turns to get back on track -->

Back on track and road disappears again. Just completely stops. There's a washout in the track blocked by several 6 foot piles of rubble. A bit of a conundrum. Wave down bus. Oh there's a detour, that's helpful, where does it take us - Kansas? Bus drives off, people on bus cheer wildly. Three boys on a bike and one jeep appear from nowhere. The boys are yelling that we should go in one direction, the man in the jeep is yelling at the boys saying we go in another direction. The boys look smarter (and made it through the roadblock on their bike) so Rick clears away some of the larger rocks blocking our path and we navigate right over a tiny gap in the debris, between meter high drops on either side. Ah, now we see what the man was talking about. At the next village the entire road is under three feet of water for the next 100 meters. Umm, Rick, do we have 4WD on this thing? No dear, we only have three wheels. But the boys are awesome and have been keeping an eye on us, and very helpfully point us through some more back yards, and we're on our way.

We arrive in Naguar close to midnight and there's a hotel that looks like a palace right on the edge of town. We cavort with glee. Crackers and curry flavored chips for dinner and I fall asleep facing the wrong way on the bed.

P.S. Curry flavored chips are disgusting.
P.P.S. Only two days to go!

Killer monkey

justinecutler — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 23:15:00 GMT

Middle of nowhere to Ajmer

I'm mentally preparing myself to sleep in the rickshaw for the night, thinking it's got to be more salubrious than some of the hotels we've stayed in, but first we make a last ditch effort to tell the taxi drivers where we are. Rick walks off into the darkness in search of a local and I wait, alone, wet, and getting cold, occasionally poking my head out ho...ping my deathly white face will somehow shine like a beacon in the moonlight. And hark! The cab arrives. Momentary panic when Rick doesn't materialize but no, he's back. Turns out we are very close to a truck stop. So close in fact, that we are blocking trucks and rapidly getting boxed in. I get out and sink three inches deep into dirt that has turned to mud during the thunder storm. Much conversation goes on between the cab drivers and Gagan, wonderful owner of the hotel that houses the trucks. We are allowed to keep our rickshaw safe in the backyard, and while the cab drivers are dealing with our luggage Gagan walks me around the moonlit garden showing me his father's pets. To my joy there is a monkey. I want to pet it but the monkey turns out to be evil and attacks both Rick and the cab driver, gnashing its sharp little teeth with malicious intent in its glowing red eyes. There are cute rabbits - not evil; guinea pigs - males, females, and babies all kept in separate cages (because they breed so quickly); sparrows; Australian parrots (actually imported from Australia); a budgie; and an Indian parrot. The whole thing was surreal. The cab ride takes forever and I'm in much pain, but we get to the hotel, which turns out to be nearly as fabulous as the Gateway, and they are warm and welcoming despite the fact that we are plastered in mud and tracking footprints through their nicely decorated hallways. The bed is the most comfy yet, also to be covered in mud, and at about 9:30pm, after ten grueling, boring, anxiety-ridden, but drama filled hours, with no idea how we're going to get a dead rickshaw 600kms to Jaisalmer, we fall asleep.

This sucks dogs bollocks

justinecutler — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 11:12:00 GMT

Jaipur to middle of nowhere

Today was far and away Worst Day EVER. We left Jaipur stupidly saying that the last couple of days hadn't seemed as adventurous. Should've known not to tempt fate. I am going to make this post boring and tedious to help share the pain of this boring and tedious day. It was actually boring, tedious, and scary, but I'll get to that.

About 11:30a...m the cr$pshaw flat out died on us, in the middle of the blazing heat. Fortunately we were able to push it off the highway to a bus stop (must be code for 'not-a-bus-stop' as we never saw one, and trust me, we were there for a lonnnngggg time). Rick spent the first hour cleaning the fuel filter (which was on backwards) and taking apart the carburetor, to no avail. Crap. What to do. 17 helpful but useless guys turn up and one by one tell us our rickshaw is broken. Yeah, really. We think one guy is telling us he'll go on his motorbike to get help, but after another half an hour we realized we'd interpreted wrong and help was not, in fact, anywhere on its way. Well, there's a lazy boss man here who's dropped some women off in a truck and is watching them sweep dirt around the side of the road (like, why?). Maybe he could help. We asked if there was a mechanic nearby. 13 miles east, 70 rupees to take us there. Hmm, ok. What, now it's 600 rupees to take us there. But you just said 70. Screw you dude. Why dont you get off your skinny ass and help us for free rather than sitting around watching everyone else work. Well, there's a motorcycle mechanic on the other side of the highway. Oh gee, thanks for not telling us that two hours ago. The unhelpful man finally does something of value and tells an under-age cowherd who'd turned up to watch the hoopla to go get a mechanic. The boy returned with an extremely competent (we thought) motorcycle mechanic and the women cease sweeping and sit around us watching.

The mechanic pulls apart everything and we immediately spot the problem. Even I, clueless about nearly everything mechanical, could have trouble shot that one. There was a giant hole in the middle of the piston. This apparently is not good. Mechanic calls the other mechanic, the one 13 kilometers away, but no, they don't have a piston. Why would they? So, the nearest shop with the right parts is in Ajmer, 50ks away, which in Indian time is about 200 miles. After a bunch of discussion, he set off on his motorcycle.

We settle down for another long wait. The lazy man and curious women finish their obscure task and drive off. We play backgammon. I crush Rick. I paint my nails. The cowherd scratches his head in bewilderement, or maybe he had lice. A girl with a baby shows up. I try to be amusing and blow bubbles from little bottles. Baby emits piercing shrieks. Girl disappears and three men in a road works truck take her place. The men go bananas over the bubbles and the useless yo-yos I'd bought. We take lots of photos, they all want to be seen shaking hands with Rick, and we are all best friends. After a couple of hours they tire of us and I breathe a sigh of relief as I'd desperately needed to take a pee. I start to creep round to the back of the bus stop but a truck pulls up with a flat tire. Crap. It takes them an hour to change. Phew! Ah crap, the cowherd is back. Cowherd disappears for a second. I seize the moment, race around behind the bus stop, fall down a small bank in the so doing, stub my toe, get dirt in my fresh nailpolish, but ahhh sweet release. Oh crap, I hadn't noticed those two passer-bys staring at me like who-the-fk-is-this-weirdo?

Finally, 3.5 hours later the mechanic shows up with a shiny new piston. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. Prior to this stage, while our minds had gone soft and numb from boredom, we weren't that nervous, like what's he going to do, steal our broken piston? He quickly installs the new piston and rings, and we get it started - but Rick is a bit nervous because he thinks in his haste, the mechanic may have missed a part. He then jumps in the rickshaw loaded with all our stuff, money and passports included, refuses to let Rick drive with him, and takes off. Oh crap - now wtf do we do? Both of us pretending to act casual and both of us knowing neither of us is casual. After about 15 min Rick starts down the road after him? Just then he returns and our hearts start beating again. You know how frigging long 15 minutes is when you've been sitting in the sun for 5 hours and someone you don't know has just vanished with everything you have. You start getting paranoid about the entire world, all the nice people you meet, you forget them, everyone looks like a scam artist, every whisper you swear is a plot to kidnap you and take all your money. Been there?

But all good, rickshaw works, hugs and handshakes all round, to mechanic, his slimy friend that had turned up, and the cowherd. 3,000 rupees later We are back to being fierce adventurers.

But what? You thought that was it? 5ks on the engine starts making the most awful screeching, clanking, grating sound, and stops. Only this time there's no bus-stop, no shoulder, and a great big wall dividing us from getting off the road. Now instead of dodging and weaving, we are being dodged and weaved and honked at and yelled at, and the nearest 'off-ramp' (i.e. piece of dirt that lets you get off the freeway) is a half kilometer away, with poor Rick pushing like there's no tomorrow, and me trying not to hit the wall or swerve into traffic from either direction. But we make it. We both have mini-heart attacks. We are swarmed by unhelpful helpful people. Everyone knows a mechanic but no, no one is a mechanic. Okay, where's the mechanic then? Just around the corner. We push to the corner. On the way we have our first accident. Pushing, engine not even running, oh that's right, it doesn't run, we sideswipe the bumper of an SUV. Rick makes a half hearted attempt to fix whatever it was we'd knocked off. Where's the mechanic then? Oh, not that corner, the corner 5 kilometers away.

By now we are starting to get a bit freaked out, as there's nowhere to stay that doesn't look like something out of the movie Hostel and no one speaks English and we're in the middle of god knows where. I ask someone to write down where we are but turns out I can't read Hindi. Finally! A teenager that can write the name of the town in English. Something like blahblabblalabab. Rick starts pulling the engine apart again to see if the mechanic had indeed forgotten something, But hark! Word has got out. The original bike mechanic appears like Jesus in that picture where he's floating down from heaven in all that golden light. Or is he floating up? Anyway, you get the gist. My faith in humanity is restored. He tinkers around doing f-all but the machine starts again, suspiciously though, with a jump start. We're off!!

Happy daaayyyyz yeah nah. Another few kilometers and splut, splut, grind, clank, we die. Will this frigging day not end?
I jump off the rickshaw as it slows, holding on with one hand, pushing as fast as I can, looking behind me jumping out the way as trucks thunder by. Yay, started again.
1 kilometer later engine dies.
I push.
500 meters, engine dies.
I push, the road is starting to incline.
200 meters, engine dies.
I push, no more puff in me, we decide that at this rate we'll reach Jaisalmer in 2016.

We catch a break in that there is a large shoulder to pull off in and no one around. Breathe a sigh of relief before realizing now we're totally up sh$t creek. The cell phone battery is dying. No one in the world can help us. We call the hotel we'd planned to stay in and try and explain we're driving a rickshaw that has died. We need a tow. Very difficult trying to explain the word tow. But helpful hotel clerk makes a few calls. Calls us back. No one will tow a rickshaw. What? No one ever? No, no one ever mam. Would you like a taxi?

We don't want to be separated from our rickshaw, but what else can we do? Okay, can you call a taxi for us please? No, I can call and tell them you'll be calling. That makes no sense but we're out of options. We call the taxi, I struggle to explain where we are "some number of unknown kilometers west of blahblabblalabab. You can't miss us, we have a New Canada flag flying. We're the two looking sorry for ourselves".

Okay, 45 minutes.

But brain child Justine, even a resplendent New Canada flag can't be seen in the middle of the night, and as 45 minutes means an hour and a a half we're sitting here in the dark, a thunderstorm has started, lightening is flashing everywhere, we're getting soaking wet, cell phone battery in the red zone, no idea how to tell the cab drivers how to find us, wondering how long our hazard lights have before they die, doubled over in pain from unknown ailment. Everything looks sinister. Want to burst into tears but holding it together, just. This is scary and M.I.S.E.R.A.B.L.E.

The Taj Ma-what?

justinecutler — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 03:51:00 GMT

Agra to Jaipur

We'd driven all this way, it would be a shame not to see the Taj Mahal right? We didn't have time to go in, and with our rickshaw with all our stuff in it it was a bit dangerous to leave it, but we thought we'd at least drive up and snap a picture. This would have been easy except it is surrounded by a giant wall. Rick went in search of a decent place to take a shot. There was an hour long wait to get in, and 750 rupees for a single photo was a bit much. A man told him that for 300 rupees he could see the back view, which turned out to be exactly what you'd think when looking at the back of anything. They bribed a gardener to hop over a fence and Rick tried to head down to the river to take a better photo when a group of police, WWII rifles and all, began yelling at him. He was thinking he was about to be thrown in an Indian prison for trespassing, but what they were really saying was "Cobra! Cobra! Get out!"

Anyway, our photos of the Taj Mahal are a bit lack luster but I don't care much for old buildings anyway.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, with the most dramatic event of the day being Rick being asked by the hotel staff to write his contact details in more legible handwriting. We had a lovely moonlight swim in the pool, the result of which is I have contracted some type of affliction that causes me to need to pee every three seconds. I have taken to doing like the locals, and just pulling over and squatting by the side of the road. At least it's helping even out my tan.

She touched my b@@bies!!

justinecutler — Sat, 14 Sep 2013 12:26:00 GMT

Kanpur to Agra

We left the ripoff yes-no-wifi Citi Club Hotel and continued on countless miles of paved highway, which is getting a bit tedious, but the alternative is worse.

We stopped for breakfast at a tea shop to be stared at again, with me trying to unsuccessfullu sneak a use of my left hand when no one is looking (how does one tear naan with just one hand?).

Stopping for gas we realized that the petrol tank had all but fallen off. The spot welding on one bracket had sheared away and the tank was hanging by a thread to the remaining bracket, which was about to snap. Rick had some parachute cord, so with some effort he tied it all together and fastened it to the back seat. Seems to be working so far - how do we tell it's not? Do we explode in flames?

We've not been having much luck finding hotels, with the app leading us to the middle of nowhere yesterday. This time we were super organized. We phoned, made a reservation, all that good stuff. The app led us right to the hotel (even the traffic was okay...suspicious). Might I say, Gateway Hotel in Agra (home of the Taj Mahal) might be the best hotel in the world. We walked through the door and instead of jumping three feet back and calling security, a wonderful lady was standing there and put a dot on my forehead. I scanned quickly to make sure I hadn't walked into a shooting range but no, she was leading us to cushy couches and said she would take care of everything. I could have spent the night on that couch it was so comfy. Turns out we might have had to. In our brilliance we had somehow made our reservation at a completely different hotel so needless to say we did not appear in the Gateway's booking system and they were fully booked. Oh god, drive across town after we'd finally made it here, please no. But no, they were figuring something out and told us to relax. They even bought us the most delicious lime juice in the world in little red glasses while we waited. In a fairly short time (impressive) the lovely lady came back and had found us a room. It was a nice room, more expensive than the one we'd planned, but less expensive than I thought it would be, given the super high end decor of the hotel.

In part of the Adventurists' disclosure it mentions "this is not a spa vacation". Screw that, I'll make it a spa vacation if I want to. We booked ourselves massages which were right up there with the best I'd ever had. I'd been feeling like the harlot of Babylon wearing tank tops all the time instead of head to toe covering like most women in this region seem to dress, but apparently in India the good stuff goes on behind closed doors. She started massaging my err, frontal region. Oh well, felt good so I went with the flow.

No bugs or ants in the bedroom (yet), and hot water and wifi. They even had yoga which we'd been sorely missing. It was just us and a yogi in his eighties looking fit as a fiddle. The first thing he told us was that it wasn't 'yoga' - that was in fact a slang word and the correct pronunciation was 'yog'. We learned that we must empty our bladders after each meal, even just a few drops, followed by sitting on our heels with straight backs. We learnt that yog can fix a slipped disc fully guaranteed. In fact, we learned so much stuff that we didn't really do much yoga, except for a good cobra position. It was beautiful outside, by the pool, early morning with no one else around, until...the ants spied us. They came creeping all over our mats and skin and as I'd heard that it was a sin to kill a living thing in yoga practice, and because the holy yogi was right there in front of us, instead of squashing them I brushed them away, to which they just laughed and bought more of their buddies back with them.

Returning to the room, we had a little surprise in store for us. Hundreds of little surprises in fact. While we were doing the yoga, outside in the beautiful garden, all the ants that weren't crawling all over us when we were doing poses had decided that the cough lollies in my purse would make a tasty snack. In fact they'd decided there was so much good food there, that they were going to move in forever, with their cousins and aunties and uncles too. In the hotel with no one looking I felt no compunction to not harm a living thing, and killed every one without a trace of guilt.

Walking out after the massage we were accosted by a man about to give a puppet show "ten minutes". We certainly didn't care much about a puppet show so we said we'd be back not intending to be back. We went for a walk around the grounds and as luck would have it we returned exactly as the puppet show was ready to commence. No one else was there so we felt bad as he'd set up two seats for us, so we settled down for some puppeteering. It was actually pretty cool, there was a belly dancing puppet and a snake charmer puppet (with snake puppet) and others. The puppets made really creepy squeaking sounds. Anyone a puppet expert? Is that normal or were they suffering from some sort of intestinal problem?

Our stay there was so wonderful and they were so welcoming. If anyone is in Agra I would certainly recommend Gateway Hotel. An oasis away from it all. A man had even cleaned our rickshaw when we went down in the morning (little did he know how fruitless that was).

But now, back to the road, and the dirt, and the bugs, and the pain, and squat toilets with no toilet paper. Bye bye lovely hotel. I will miss you forever.

Great monkey bollocks

justinecutler — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 04:27:00 GMT

Sarnath to Kanpur

We awoke to the sound of monks doing martial arts and left Sarnath for Kanour. Not before stopping for more chai, delicious lentils, and sweets, all for 30 rupees ($0.50), served by friendly people who insisted I take a photo of their son, to be posted.

For some unfathomable reason we came across a highway that was virtually pothole free and smooth as can be, so I ventured behind the wheel again. I say virtually because thanks to actually being able to go more than 11 kilometers an hour I sustained my biggest bruise yet when Rick hit a speed bump going 60 and I was thrown out of my seat, landing full body weight on my arm. My legs are covered in bruises and I've drawn blood in places. Why do they put speed bumps in the middle of a highway? Tell me.

In addition to needing to drive with the choke out, leaking petrol, and a busted clutch (anyone know that sound? It's the mechanical equivalent of fingers on a blackboard), our rickshaw has started chirping. I presume it's not a grasshopper from the last hotel so hopefully it's not the front tyre coming loose.

We saw quite a few police today, and have done since we started (always on foot, we've never seen a police car). They are absolutely charming, and while they look stern they usually smile and wave. There are a lot of signs saying "Police, please stop" but the police are usually hanging out in the shade and no one ever stops. We were a bit nervous today because we'd been told it was sometimes necessary to bribe them and we happened to pull over (i.e. break down) in an area where a bunch were congregating. One by one they walked over, looked at us, and walked away to confer. Eventually the head guy (or maybe the guy who'd drawn the shortest straw) came to talk to us. He was covered in purple paint. He had a purple face, a purple mustache, and purple all over his clothes. I can't even begin to rationalize that. We thought he was telling us off for parking in a police area, but when he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered us one we realized he was inviting us to hang out with them!

Later down the road it looked like they were handing out traffic tickets to automobiles, and we were pulled over. The gruff looking officer asked us something, we had no idea what, so Rick just said "Canada!" and he smiled and waved us on. He obviously knew he'd never see a dime from a Canadian.

Finding a hotel was very stressful today and half of Kanpur is probably talking about the two mad white people. After nearly taking out a couple on a motorbike and causing a mother and daughter on scooter to lose their shopping, the app lead us to the Bliss Hotel down a dead end street piled with rubbish. Unfortunately there was no Bliss Hotel and thus no bliss was to be had. So, we ended up at the Citi Club Hotel to yet again receive both (much) less and (not much) more than we had expected from our money.

Before we entered reception a very nice man approached us in the hotel parking lot and asked if we'd mind answering a few questions about our rickshaw. It turns out he was the local dealer for one of the three rickshaw companies, Bajaj. They were having a party the following night which he warmly invited us to attend. Apparently the latest Bajaj model is about to be launched, which we were told was much better than ours (uh duh, I could have told you that - a one legged blind horse with syphilis would be better than our piece of junk) . The new model will have two headlights and more legroom. Two headlights? Mon dieu! Would this mean we could see the road when night driving? The man was the rain-man of rickshaws and obviously had a high degree of job satisfaction. He took photos but unfortunately we weren't able to attend the launch party as we were leaving the next day.

We were rather cross, because before checking in we were told there was wifi. When we got to our room and discovered they was not wifi, the ensuing conversation went like this:

"So you don't have wifi?"

"Yes sir"

"But you just said there was wifi?"

"Yes sir"

"But now you say there's not?"

"Yes sir"

All said with a smile of course.

People have a strange way of moving their head so that it's both a shake and a nod at the same time. It's hard to tell whether this means yes or no but in fact it means "I have no idea what you are talking about but I'm too polite to say so". I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt and put it down to communication differences but from this we learned a valuable lesson - whenever we think we are being scammed and being asked for money that we shouldn't have to pay, we do the head bobble until the engine starts, and drive off.

Our disappointment at the lack of wifi and overpriced room was partially offset by Rick's encounter with the local wildlife. And not bugs! He was walking down the stairs pre frustrating-head-bobble-conversation when all of a sudden a huge monkey startled him from behind. The monkey nimbly jumped over the stair rail 9ft to the lobby below and sauntered across the lobby with its huge furry balls swinging left and right and its red butt in the air. He then stopped, turned back to Rick and gave him an insouciant glance, then opened the front door and walked out.

The desk clerk was laughing at Rick who asked, incredulously, "does the monkey live here?" - to which he got the yes/no head shake, so we'll never know.

I'm jealous! I want to see a monkey with furry balls and a red butt too!

Creepy Crawlies

justinecutler — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 01:09:00 GMT

Patna to Sarnath

We left Patna, our least favorite city so far, and the horrid Hotel Chanakya, probably to the relief of all involved. Our free lassi had leaked all over the rickshaw in the night so unfortunately we had to divest ourselves of that, in their men's bathroom. Ha.

Getting out of Patna was almost as bad as getting in and matters weren't helped by one enormous pothole that sent our water bottle flying and me looking like an idiot running down the street after it (this is not specific to India, I look like an idiot when I run anywhere). What are people doing up at 6:30am? There is certainly no shortage of an audience to laugh at me in this country. After driving mile after mile after mile at an average speed of 11kph and swallowing cupfulls of dust I have to admit we both independently reached the same thought: "Would it be cheating if we put the rickshaw on a train, and caught the train to Jaiselmar?" But if we'd done that we would have missed the high point of the day.

We were very disappointed after seeing signs back in West Bengal saying "Elephants have right of way" and not spotting any . Imagine our delight then, when driving down a dusty little road a thousand miles away we saw a massive, beautiful elephant making its way, towering above us with its mahout atop. We wished we'd stopped to talk to him.

We saw two new breeds of cow today. Bathing Cows, swimming in waterholes of muddy water and bright green slime, submerged all the way to their heads; and Curious George Cows who stick their heads between the wheels of parked trucks (one even stuck its head in our rickshaw!). We've seen goats hanging out under trucks too so I presume it's for the shade, but I hope they know what to do when the engine starts or there'll be a lot of decapitated livestock.

The trucks are crazy. Huge and colorful, green, yellow, and red, often with intricate designs and "please obey road rules" painted on the back (funny, I didn't realize there were any road rules). They are everywhere and the rickshaw is too small to be noticed, so we need to make liberal use of the horn when passing - which we are sometimes able to do going downhill with the wind behind us. There are often miles and miles of dead trucks, three abreast, and every 3-4 minutes one can count on seeing one stopped in the middle of the road with drivers changing a tyre, impervious to the traffic racing by them. And in case you fail to notice a giant truck forcing you off the road, they also have elaborate horn systems that provide a tuneful jangling sound that would wake the dead.

We reach Sarnath, where the Buddha gave his first talks under the bohdi tree. We visited the vihara, the temple he spoke at there, and saw the Stupa - a giant stone monument to him.

After the nasty folks at the Hotel Chanakya (yes, okay, I'm sure you get the drift) it was so nice to be welcomed at the Hotel Buddah International. They didn't blink an eye at the rickshaw and the room was <$20. We didn't mind the large, cute lizards on the walls, or the black mold on the yellow walls, and who needs sheets, towels, electricity, and toilet paper anyway? There was a very nice little garden and we felt very relaxed and relieved to be out of the hubbub. That is until we saw massive creepy bugs crawling all over the bed, ants all over the floor, and beetles and a black grasshopper in the bathroom (green grasshoppers = cute, black grasshoppers = not cute). At night I could feel them crawling all over me. Correction, I could feel and see them crawling all over me - even on my face and there was much shrieking and leaping (Rick was dead to the world). I thought I'd never sleep but eventually I put earplugs in so they wouldn't wander in and eat my brain, and nodded off.

The long, and windey, and painful road

justinecutler — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 03:58:00 GMT

Our days have been longggg. We leave 6amish and usually drive until 5, stopping once or twice for tea breaks. It's back breakingly exhausting. Three of my vertebrae have fused together and two have shattered entirely. The traffic is usually so intense that our conversations mostly consist of mono-syllable words and one sentence sound bites. For instance:

"Don't do it you stupid [insert_animal_name_here]!"

"Jesus christ that hurt!"

"Look out!!!"

The pothole situation has been upgraded from meteor site to minefield. There are more potholes than there is road and some of them are deeper than our wheels. It's not like we are only on back roads either. National highways disappear into rubble every half mile, and sometimes this goes on for hours. The concept of the divided highway has been implemented in places, but everyone drives in every direction anyway, so it's kind of pointless besides giving the cows more room to sleep. Several times a day my suitcase goes flying out of its spot in the back of the rickshaw to which I either (i) get hit in the back of the head if I'm sitting on that side, or (ii) make a frantic lunge to stop it falling into the road. Eventually we got wise and started tying things on, which was fortunate because on one particularly hairy leap into the air (not just us, rickshaw too) my handbag with money and passports was left dragging along the ground attached by a bungee cord until we realized that for once the strange noise wasn't coming from the engine.

The roadside signs are fabulous. "Enjoy STD" has been surpassed in awesomeness by "cum restaurant" and even better "anti-transparent cum stress relief". Okay, okay, I'm juvenile, but what else to do for 2,500 miles? Other notables include "Swastika Hardware", "Gurkha - Blood and Guts!!!", and on the mountain range, a road sign of a car falling over the cliff. Comforting.

The Bandits of Bihar

justinecutler — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 01:50:00 GMT

Purnia to Patna

We'd been warned that Bihar was renown for bandits so we wanted to make quick time across the state. However, it wouldn't be a good trip if we didn't get ripped off at least once a day, so not to disappoint, we chanced across a few of our own. While not waving swords and chasing us down the road on horseback, these surely deserve the title of bandit.

We stopped for tea at a falling down stick hut, and settled down on the ubiquitous plastic chairs by wood bench tables. A kindly man procured not just tea, but plates of sour yoghurt and sugar. Not wanting to be rude we ate, tentatively, waiting for the cramps and nausea to commence. He then plied us with gifts. First, wonder of wonders, a flute - that he played badly and we couldn't play at all. Then a plastic Hindu deity, which I've actually always wanted, and finally a GIANT bowl of yoghurt for the road. We tried to give it all back, figuring these we important possessions to him. He took back the deity but refused to accept the flute. And when we told him that a half gallon bowl of uncovered yoghurt wouldn't travel too well, he insisted on pouring it into a two liter soda bottle and turning it into lassi. I felt very guilty as there was no way we'd ever be able to drink it given that it wasn't made with bottled water. Anyway, it was all very sweet and we felt much love for the generous people of India.

We asked for the bill, thinking it would be less than 100 rupees (<$2) as all the other places had charged 60-80 for a similar amount of food.

"Ten THOUSAND rupees"

WTF!!! $200 for a cup of tea and rancid yoghurt. No way dude - I don't care how well your flute plays.

"Okay, okay, ten HUNDRED rupees".

You have got to be kidding me. Rick, give him 200 and let's get the f**k out of here.

We made a dash for the rickshaw but six guys materialized from nowhere and surrounded us. Of course the piece of crap machine picked that moment to not start again.

With Rick repeatedly cranking the starting lever (which is so stiff I can barely lift it) and me frantically trying to throw the guy his flute and lassi back we finally got the engine running and hightailed it out of there - with the men grabbing onto the rickshaw and trying to hold us back.

The next few hours were spent dodging the usual menagerie of animals, humans, trucks, and motorcycles. We've clocked levels 1-10 in space invaders and now oxen have been added to the mix - plus avoiding random stretches of road that people commandeer by placing rocks in a rectangle and laying out grain to dry. We stopped in a temporary spot of solitude under a tree to eat some apples and a pineapple that we'd bought, only to have a skinny old man with a giant stick and orange underwear walk up and stand six feet away, just staring at us. He was soon joined by another octogenarian trying to sell us little green birds (birdcage included). Given that those cute little birdies would last all of two minutes before being squashed to death by my flying suitcase (see post on traffic, to come) we politely declined. After all, we have all we could ever need what with a flute and rotten yogurt.

But the real bandits came in the form of the Hotel Chanakya, which is shortly going to receive the worst review Trip Advisor has ever posted. To get there we stupidly ended up in the middle of Patna in rush hour. Patna district has a population nearly 2x that of the entire New Zealand and a population density of 1,132 people per square kilometer. To give that some context, NZ has around 20 people per square kilometer, and Canada has about 5 (which seems a bit high don't you think?). Kudos to Rick for having cojones of steel as the traffic there was by far the worst of the terror inducing experiences we've had thus far with the exception of Day 1's night driving

[side note: one team, also rocket scientists like us and driving at night, was pulled over by the police and told it was too dangerous to be on the road and were escorted to the nearest hotel. If the Indian police are telling you it's too dangerous to drive then you know I'm not exaggerating]

It seems that those 1,132 people per square kilometer were living up to their reputation in every roundabout we went through. The roundabouts are huge and have a gazillion entrances and exits, and no one gives way or obeys any form of logical order. Combine that with the heat and the noise and the fact that we had no idea where were and that the clutch had decided to quit again (I guess that's what you get for $8) our nerves was stretched to the limits (yes, we might have got a wee bit snappy with one another). But Rick zipped and zapped and was possibly as obnoxious as every other driver (did I really call the traffic 'fluid' in my first post? Ha.), cutting off all those trucks, buses, cyclists, horses, old woman, children, nuns (gotcha) like there was no tomorrow. Don't mess with the Canadians!

We'd found a hotel online that claimed prices started at 1,900 rupees but when we got there in person the only thing even close to 1,900 rupees was extra toilet paper. 9,800. Ye gods. Of course it happened to be that the only rooms available were the most expensive. Yeah right. They sneered at us like we were bed bugs. To caveat somewhat on their behalf we did look like something the cat dragged in, with our hair plastered to our heads, rivulets of sweat leaving streaks on our dust stained faces, and dirt all over our clothes; and it probably didn't help that we reeked of petrol thanks to the jerrycan spilling all over our backpacks making just about everything a potential Molotov cocktail, but still, roll with it guys.

Because it's annoying me just thinking about how snotty they were, I'll paraphrase their incompetency. Besides the misleading advertising on the pricing, they ...

- said they had wifi but couldn't figure out how to get it working properly. It might sound high maintenance, but when you're on the road for 10 hours a day exposed to nothing but sun and noise and struggling to have the most basic of conversations, checking FB and email at night is like a little breath of fresh air (so those reading, thank you so much for your likes and comments on my ramblings)
- delivered someone else's laundry to us and later charged us for it
- while decent, had the blandest food we've eaten yet. Side note: the food here is absolutely delicious - whether it's at a restaurant or from the side of the street it has all been fabulous (except the rancid yogurt, and even that wasn't bad)
- added an extra 1,000 rupees onto the bill for there being two of us (which would have been fine if they'd mentioned that first, but felt deceptive at the end)
- had the temerity to call and ask if everything was to our liking, and when I said no, the Internet doesn't work, they said, very good mam, have a pleasant stay
- said they had no idea where we could buy a plus adapter (it was an international hotel, of course they knew, they probably had a stash of them behind the desk)
- when we checked out they tried to keep our bill open, saying Rick was still in the room. No, he's right there and just handed you the key you ejits.

Sigh, I guess it was frustrating that we paid 10x as much as most of our other hotels, and they were mean and didn't have wifi.

Zen Justine, stop complaining, let it go. Ommmm.

Ode to our animal friends

justinecutler — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 03:41:00 GMT

There are many types of cows here. They are light brown but there is considerable variation in the attitude and intelligence of each. Let me start with Sensible Cow. Sensible Cow wanders to the grassy divider strip (when one exists) and settles down for a good old bunch of grass- a-la-dust. Then there are the Nonchalant Cows who blithely wander all over the road impervious to the traffic around them. The third type of cow is Lost a Few Brain Cells Getting High in College Cow. These decide to sleep in the middle of the road. Related to these are Borg Collective Cows, who are also fond of sleeping but organize themselves in groups strategically set so it is impossible to drive around them and the only way to get through is by going up on two wheels. There are poor Wasted Cows, who are living skeletons with more bones than meat. We have also had the occasional sighting of Angry Cows. Rare, but spectacular to observe, these cows start fights with dogs and goats, no doubt a result of poor parenting.

It must be said though, that there aren't really any cows in India. They're all male, either steers or bulls. We've yet to see a female. They must keep them barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen somewhere.

Goats have less variety. There is the Cute Baby Black Goat that you want to take home (for a pet, not for dinner). There are the Ménage de Trois goats who sleep in packs of three (on the road of course) and the Suicide Goat, who stands by the side of the road and at the last minute rushes in front of the rickshaw. Lastly there are the I'd Rather Eat a Dirty Hat Than Perfectly Good Grass Goats, and of a similar variety, the the I'd Rather Eat a Smelly Shoe Than Perfectly Good Grass Goat.

As a side note, Rick hates goats with a passion. This must be an unresolved childhood issue, as who could hate a cute little goat?

There is only one kind of dog. This is the Are You F@@king Stupid Why Don't You Look Both Ways Dog. Cows and goats are usually either stationary or moving very slowly. With the exception of Angry Cow and Suicide Goat they rarely make any sudden movements. Dogs on the other hand don't look where they are going and run helter skelter every which way.

However, given that we've seen no dead cows, no dead goats, and only one dead dog, compared with one dead human and one half dead human, one might wonder who the least intelligent of the animal kingdom is.

Do we really need a clutch?

justinecutler — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 01:35:00 GMT

Siliguri to Purnia

We're off, we're off! Oh, no. What was that? Oh rats, the leaking petrol. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that we break down every two hours. Fortunately we had picked a good night to stay in a nice hotel. The staff at The Cinderella Hotel couldn't have been nicer and arranged for a guy to take us to the rickshaw fix-it shop. Well, except we didn't make it out of the front gate. This time it spluttered along for twenty feet and died altogether. Um, Rick, do we have gas? Oh, right, need to turn the fuel switch on. Off again. Oh crap, what the hell is that sound?? A grating metal against metal noise. This is not looking good. As in, this is looking expensive. We limped along to the shop only to be told the mechanic wouldn't be there for an hour and a half. What? Then why do you say you open at 9? Oh, okay, here he is after all. Lots of standing around talking - turns out that leaking petrol and driving with the choke on is perfectly normal and nothing there needed fixing, but that the clutch was in pieces (the mechanic communicated this by holding out his hand for us to smell...interesting, good thing we didn't need a plumber). Cha-ching, new clutch needed. We groaned in expectation of the bill. Here it comes... 130 rupees for parts, 200 for oil, and 150 for labor. $8! Ye gods, why didn't we do this 500kms ago?

11am and we were on the road again, making five minute friends over tea every few hours and eating our way through India. The guys at the roadside stalls insist on cooking for us even if we only want tea. We don't want to be rude and refuse, so the way we're eating, we will be over the weight limit on the plane ride home. We bought dozens of bouncy balls for the kids (thanks for the suggestion Chirag!) and they've been a hit.

The new clutch stopped working again but Rick did some mechanic-y stuff and can now change gears again. We've run out of rupees and no ATMs in sight so we may be bartering our shoes for lodging tonight. Oh, speaking of shoes! Found some great black and red Converse for $20. Was very pleased at my new kicks until a truck drove into a small pond overtaking us and drenched them in mud. Now they are growing mold and gathering mosquitos somewhere in the depths of my suitcase.

More dodging and weaving, miniature horses and brown pigs have been added to the mix, and we've seen two goats and one cow all painted pink. Very fetching. Got to Purnia in decent time only, to spend an hour looking for a hotel because the one we'd found on Trip Advisor had its outside sign written in Hindi. A nice man jumped in our rickshaw and showed us the way. No towels, no toilet paper, the shower stopped working, and the phone was broken, but too tired to care. Until tomorrow.

Spot of tea anyone?

justinecutler — Mon, 9 Sep 2013 03:34:00 GMT

Goalpara to Siliguri

Today started well enough. The rickshaw decided to run after about ten minutes cranking in front of the hotel staff who kindly helped us push it out of their parking lot. We reassembled the flag, not so high this time, and set off at about 6:30am - determined to make Siliguri by nightfall. Twenty miles later we broke down again, losing us valuable time. Still, for some reason the piece of junk refuses to die and eventually it started. We've bumped into a couple of other rickshaw folks - one group of guys had their roof rack break and had to find a welder in the middle of the night, and another group had their battery catch on fire and their muffler fall off. Is it mean that this made me feel slightly better? Much later, after seeing the one half dead and the one full dead body, we thought it was about time for a cup of tea. We pulled over to a road side stall (quite challenging because it's hard to tell which places are selling and which are people's homes - although everyone here is so kindly it probably wouldn't make a difference) and asked for tea. They didn't understand tea but offered us chai so all was well until we became like monkeys in the zoo. One, two, within minutes about 50 people were surrounding our outside table, staring and taking photos while we ate (they'd given us some delicious bread and small sugary balls of something). One lady held up her little grandson. Eeek! He started shrieking and trying to squirm away. I haven't combed my hair in three days but I didn't think I looked that scary.

When we went to leave they surrounded our rickshaw like a bees on a hive and kept taking more photos. Everyone was very friendly. We can't understand much of what people say but everyone has heard of New Zealand (of course) and one or two even know of Canada. I was surprised at how well people seemed to remember my name, until I found out they were getting me confused with Justin Bieber. A murmur of disappointment spread through the crowd when they learned I couldn't sing and that I wasn't a teenage boy. Please do check out the three short videos I'll share after this post as they are really cute.

Next stop, several dozen miles and several hours later. They didn't understand chai but they knew tea so the world was still well. No staring village but 6-7 guys trying to talk to us, and us trying to talk back, and no one getting much of anything but in general having a right old time. They were blown away to see that I had American $1 bills and were super excited when I handed a couple out as gifts. Unfortunately we were not able to communicate that we wanted food, so we bought a few bags of chips from the guy in the stall next door who'd also rocked on over to join the conversation. He refused to accept any rupees but when I asked him what I could pay then, he smiled and said "One American dollar". He even gave us an extra bag of chips ("Tomato Mischief"). We were all pleased as punch and left to lots of waves and cheers.

Our final hour before ending the day was spent in traffic almost but not quite as hellish as yesterday. We (when I say we, I really mean Rick) drove through a spectacular but incredibly windy gorge with sharp drops, washed away pieces of road, and obvious evidence of where cars had plunged through and plummeted hundreds of feet to a sure death. It was very steep and didn't help our engine problems or our not-so-clean clothes any when cars in front us got stuck in foot deep potholes filled with muddy water. But the crowning glory of the day was driving by about a hundred monkeys just hanging out on the concrete guard rail. One was eating a pack of chips (Tomato Mischief maybe?) and there was even a little baby monkey just 6 inches high. The photos I took are absolute crap but I'm posting them anyway so you don't think I'm making it up.

We rolled into the first hotel we saw after fried nerves from the traffic. I figured it might be a tad fancy when I noticed them sweeping the grass. It was way more than we'd paid to date but it had a pool and wifi. Nirvana. They didn't blink an eye at our ragged appearance and the rickshaw in the parking lot, just politely pointed out that we were leaking petrol. Screw that, that's tomorrow's problem. Time for bed. Zzzz.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/aphs.worldnomads.com/justinecutler/45672/Menstaringintorickshaw.jpg

I dream of ... cows

justinecutler — Mon, 9 Sep 2013 01:27:00 GMT

I've started taking malaria tablets, as one does when going to far-off lands. The doctor informed me these could cause wild dreams. He said they could be very scary or very romantic. I said, what's the difference? Anyway, here's a sample of my wild nightlife:

9/6 I left the hose on while power washing the house and it flooded the world. Everyone died except Nathan who was wearing a top hat and had a nose made out of a long pretzel (he'd managed to procure a canoe).

9/7 The world was ending and I was supposed to write the Business Requirements Document for it (thanks Esurance for the residual work memories while I'm on vacation). However, I'd written the BRD incorrectly so the launch was off schedule. We tried to stock up on food but the only thing left on the planet was salami.

9/8 I was taking a cow (the Indian variety) on MUNI but the cow ran out the back door and escaped into the city. I spent all day searching for that darn cow.

9/9 We left the hotel door unlocked and bandits came in and stole all our money (actually a true story, happened to my boss Krishnan).

9/10 We were in a large village in India and the entire town was having an underwear sale and it was gridlocked and impossible to pass through.

So much for romance.