Perth, Western Australia

Well, here we are.  In Perth, Western Australia.  Not our ultimate destination, but it will certainly do for now!!

We decided to fly to Perth instead of Adelaide because (i) Perth was closer to Chennai, so therefore a shorter flying time, and (ii) my sister and her family live in Perth, so it was an opportunity to see them now rather than wait for Xmas 2015.  We last saw them in Europe in November 2012.

The flights were fine.  Both fully booked, but fine.

Yesterday, at Chennai airport, one of the lovely customs/shipping guys brought our Carnet to us.  Yes, he went out of his way to collect the carnet and bring it to the airport.  He took the bus.  Pretty amazing hey ...

So now we're at another airport (Perth) waiting to be collected by my sister.  All our luggage arrived safely, so that's excellent.

I don't know that we'll have much to blog about now.  Maybe once the Beast arrives in Adelaide.  I can only hope that getting the Beast in to Adelaide will be easier than getting the Beast out of Chennai!!  I seriously believe that if we hadn't told our useless shipping guy that we had flights booked, we would still be in Chennai today.

:::

Funny.  Craig just tried to get some cash out of the cash machine here at Perth airport using one of my Australian bank account passes.  Guess what ... no go.  Nothing works.  I think our first stop tomorrow will be at our bank to get everything connected again.  I do so like to access MY money in MY bank account :-)

Permanent residency in Chennai

Well, we were told yesterday at 4.30pm that all was done.  We were to be collected in a taxi at 11am this morning and go to the Customs yard where we would place the Beast into a container.  It would then be sealed, and we would have all our paperwork returned and we would be free to leave Chennai.  So, we have booked flights...

The taxi did not turn up at 11, so I called our shipping agent at 11.15.  He told me they were waiting on the Customs Officer to give final clearance to pack the car!  I have just called him back (it is now 12 midday) and told him we have flights booked.  He accuses me of failing to tell him this yesterday (apparently that would have made a difference?) and says he will call me back in 5 minutes with an update.  It is now 10 minutes.....

Mirne suggested that he possibly thinks we have taken up permanent residency in the Chennai Ramada.  I'm about ready to throttle him!


-------------------------------------------

It is now just after 7pm and we have just returned from the Customs yard.  Whilst the Beast is in its container, we still do not have our Carnet.  It is at Customs House in the centre of Chennai, waiting for the signature from a man who has left the building (but he will return, honest).  It then has to go all the way to the Customs yard (20 km), get another stamp, and be returned to us at our hotel.  If that doesn't happen by 8.30 we will have to stay another night here...

The final map

Well, here it is.  The final map of our journey.  After this we will be in Australia with the Beast, and no more "foreign" maps will be required.

Distance travelled for this leg, only 960 km.

That's all for this update.

The home stretch

Well, we have finally arrived back at our hotel.  We spent a couple of hours this morning doing the dance with the shipping agent, and finally convincing him that we weren't going to do anything to damage the car (see Mirne's post of earlier today), just so that they could say the car was cleaned!  Then it was a half-hour respite and we were off again, this time to another place to attempt to get the Beast properly cleaned and (finally!) on to the Customs yard.

Turns out the place we went for the cleaning was just going to make the car dirtier.  In fact, getting there and back achieved the same, as it was past several stretches of dirt road which left the Beast with its all-too-familiar-to-us light brown coating.  The cleaning station itself was pretty good, and would have done the job.  A nice pit which we could straddle and then have someone stand under and pressure wash the underside.  The only problem was, the pit was in the centre of a 20 metre radius of thick black mud.  This sort of defeated the purpose, as far as we were concerned.  The shipping agent did not seem to think this was a problem.....

We finally got to the Customs yard, and within about 15 minutes a nice Customs lady came out and checked that the numbers on the vehicle matched those on her copy of our Carnet, she stamped and signed, and the shipping agent took off to the Customs House in the centre of Chennai.  We then proceeded to sit around for the next 2.5 hours, waiting to see what was going to happen next.  After about 2 hours I went and asked the other shipping agent where we could use a toilet.  He showed me, and also went off to speak to the manager of the yard.  Turns out we were done, and could have left as soon as the vehicle numbers had been checked and the papers signed!  GRRRR!!!!

So, the Beast is locked away in a secure Customs yard for the night, and tomorrow morning we are (supposedly, fingers crossed) going to go out there for the final Customs inspection and getting him all settled in his container.  Once that is sealed, we will have the completed Carnet returned to us, along with the UK Registration papers and the shipping documents, and we are free to leave India.

Australia, here we come.....

... shipping agents from hell?

Well, the day started with a big bang ... not.

We had been told yesterday that the guy from the shipping agency would meet us here at our hotel at 12 noon.  So this morning, at around 10.30 am,  Craig happens to be at the car, putting some stuff away, and bumps into 3 guys from the shipping agency.  They're all just hanging around the car, "waiting" for us.  Mmm ... perhaps they should have called our room or something.

So then they start "measuring" the vehicle using their hand spans (yep, no tape measures for these clever boys) to see if the Beast will fit into a container.  Yes, really.  As if we haven't already considered that. Lots of discussion about "dimensions", and then suddenly they're deciding that it will be impossible to drive the vehicle into the container, unless the driver can climb out through the back. So Craig shows them the car is fully loaded.  Then they discuss that the vehicle can be "pushed in". Right. Pushing a 3+ tonne vehicle into a container.  And who will stop the vehicle in the right position? Who will stop the vehicle from running into the sides of the container?  Like I said, not the smartest of men.

After Craig loses his temper with them, I tell them in no uncertain terms that the Beast has been sitting there for over 2 weeks, and perhaps someone should have come out during that time with a TAPE MEASURE to confirm for themselves that the Beast will actually fit into a container.

Craig has just been around to the local service station where the further cleaning was to be done.  The proposal was to lift the vehicle with a mechanical lift placed against the centre of each half-axle (ie. halfway between the diffs and each of the four wheels).  As the axle is a tube and not a solid piece of metal, Craig thought this was potentially damaging to the vehicle.  So declined the offer.

They are seriously trying to con us. They're constantly saying that "it's done this way everywhere in India", then when that doesn't work they say, "it's done this way everywhere in the world".   No joke. As if we were born yesterday.  As if we weren't two educated, professional, well-travelled people.  As if we don't know our vehicle better than they do.  As if we are stupid.

I am well aware that we've been sitting here in Chennai for over two weeks now, whilst they have been doing nothing.  And that is all too clear now that they are actually having to do something.  They keep fluffing around, and in the meantime, we pay ever-increasing hotel bills, and wait for the useless twits to get on with it.

The plan was, and hopefully still is, to get the Beast to customs today, for loading into the container tomorrow.  Once that's done, we can leave.  We've booked a flight, but we can change it if the plan flops.

So.  Further update later today.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday!

Today is Sunday.

Today we are taking the Beast somewhere to get it cleaned - hopefully cleaned up to Australian quarantine standards, so that it doesn't have to be done again when it arrives in Australia ... I hope.

Yesterday evening we attended a function here at the hotel, on the deck outside, next to the swimming pool, to celebrate the 1st anniversary of the Ramada here in Chennai.

That's where we've been staying these last two weeks -- at the Ramada in Chennai. The building which houses the Ramada used to house the Comfort Inn, but a year ago the Ramada took over.

So when we got the invitation we thought "yeah, lets go and have a few drinks and nibbles".  Little did we know that as we opened up the door to the deck, we'd be assaulted by cameras and microphones, then told to stand in front of a Ramada background poster and interviewed about our experiences here at the hotel!  A bit of a shock that was!

:::

Well ... just back from having the Beast cleaned.  What a fiasco.

We were quoted US$75 for a complete inside and outside and engine bay steam clean.  This is so that Australian quarantine services won't charge us an arm and a leg to do it all upon arrival in Australia.

However, the place we were directed to really only cleaned the outside, nicely waxed and polished. They wiped down the plastic top bits in the engine by hand, and vacuumed the carpets inside.  So no way is it what we needed.  We also only paid what it cost us (which was about US$16.50).

Anyway.  It's pretty depressing, having spent 3 hours today sitting and waiting for the car to be cleaned, to then realise it's nowhere near what we wanted (and needed - to satisfy Australian quarantine services) and it is definitely not what we were led to expect.

In addition, one of the over-zealous cleaning crew managed to break one of our two fold-away seats in the load area, which means that now it cannot be folded away.  So, Craig now needs to re-pack the car with a seat sitting in the middle of the load area.  What a pain in the arse :-[

:::

Tomorrow, Craig drives the car for it to go into the Customs custodial area, and then hopefully on Tuesday it gets stowed into its container.  Hopefully.  The shipping agency has so far been totally crap, so we're hoping that it doesn't get any worse :-(

We are both sick of India and really just want to leave now.

Burgers & chocolate

Today is voting day here in Chennai, part of the national election, and a large portion of the city’s 9 million people will cast their vote.  In anticipation of this day, the city’s local council/government/city officials have declared a 3-day moratorium on the sale of alcohol.  That’s right: three days of no alcohol sales leading up to and including Thursday, voting day.  The newspaper warned readers that bootleg alcohol should be avoided as it will more than likely contain dangerous (and poisonous) moonshine ... 

Ever since we entered India just over 6 weeks ago, we've been seeing election prep everywhere we have gone.  In the Punjab, it was free food, in Gajapathinagaram it was campaign promises from competing candidates via loud-speaker on a bike going from 8 in the morning until 8 at night.  Here in Chennai, it's much more subtle - lots of bill-board advertising, and of course, lots of campaign smeared on the tv and in the newspaper.

I think we'll be staying at the hotel today, during voting day.

We had lunch at the golden arches yesterday — haven’t had a chance to do that since we were in the Punjab!  Also had the opportunity to purchase some more books (cheap) which means Craig’s collection of Clive Cussler novels is now nearly complete!

Also found out that Cadbury's chocolate exists in India -- Craig is a big fan of Cadbury's but the only place we've been able to buy it over the last 7 years was in England.  No Cadbury's chocolate in the Netherlands.  We've been enjoying the chocolate ...

I saw toilet paper for sale yesterday - that was kind of huge - that’s the first time since we’ve been in India (actually, maybe since we entered Iran …) that we’ve seen TP for sale.

We had a paddle in the hotel pool when we got home from our shopping expedition, and the water was warm like bath water.  Seriously, it was cooler out of the pool, and given that it was probably 35 or 36 degrees today, that’s kind of scary :-)

Our expeditions out of the hotel are becoming a bit tedious.  Every time we want to go somewhere, anywhere, we have to go by tuk-tuk, and the tuk-tuk drivers just see walking rupees when they see us coming.  So we have to have the tedious negotiation about the fare every single time.  Sometimes I just can’t be bothered, but then I get peeved that we pay 3 or 4 times (or more) the going rate.  Of course, we can afford it, but it’s just so annoying that we can’t just go to the shop without every tuk-tuk driver trying to fleece us.  It will be nice to be away from that.

We are slowly getting all the stuff out of the car and sorting it and re-packing it.  The reason we need to do this is because when the car goes into the container and gets shipped, we won't see it again for 4-6 weeks in Adelaide.  So we need to sort out what stuff we need with us whilst the Beast is in transit, and pack that in our newly acquired suitcases.  Also, because we're hoping to go via Perth, we need to pack for warmer and cooler climates.  Plus, like I said, all our essentials (like lap-tops, cameras, kindles, etc) need to come too ...

In the meantime we are still struggling along with our fairly useless shipping guy here - he says one thing one day, and something different the next.  Typical.  It's costing us a bomb though - staying here for much, much longer than we'd anticipated.

And, would you believe it, we can hear a Muslim call to prayer in our hotel room every day.  Didn't expect that, did you?  We didn't either.  A small muslim population right in the middle of Chennai.

"Is that a vegetable, sir?"

We've been having a lot of fun here, trying to get people to understand what we are saying, and for us to understand them.  This is especially fun when we are ordering room service, as it would appear that the telephone is answered by whoever is nearest.  As they don't all have a fantastic command of English, this can lead to some interesting misunderstandings.

Today at lunchtime we ordered 2 club sandwiches.  15 minutes later we got a phone call asking us why we wanted 3 club sandwiches, as there were only 2 of us in the room.  We clarified the order, and our 2 sandwiches duly arrived.

I have just rung room service again to order our dinner.  The spaghetti bolognese went well for Mirne, but the man on the other end of the phone was having trouble with my "filet of beef".  I repeated myself several times, at which point he asked me "Is that a vegetable, sir?"!!  I nearly fell over laughing, but informed him that no, it was NOT a vegetable (although, to be fair, it is made of processed vegetables...).

Just had to share that funny little tidbit with you all.

Doing nothing in Chennai

Well, we've been in Chennai since Sunday afternoon/evening, but we didn't get to see the shipping agent until yesterday morning.  We are terribly peeved that we wasted 2 full business days before we got to see him.

Today is a public holiday - Good Friday.  I'm totally at a loss as to why a non-christian country celebrates a christian holiday.  I just don't get it.

Next week we have another non-business-day -- on Thursday everything closes for the parliamentary election.

Unbelievable hey!  We have to arrive in Chennai just when there is a bundle of non-business-days.

We had initially thought we could get the Beast loaded and shipped within a week - now I think we'll be lucky if we get it done within 2 weeks.  We're not happy about it.

In the meantime, we've lounged in our air-conditioned hotel room, and even gotten as far as going to a local shopping mall to buy a couple of suitcases (we didn't use suitcases in the Beast, as they take up far too much space -- we used soft bags which we could stuff in where suitcases would not go).  So even though we need more suitcases like a hole in the head, we now have another two to add to our collection. We also bought some lovely earrings for my niece (for her b/day), some great souvenir coasters (yes, really! marble elephants -- how could we resist?), and some nice jewellery for me (as if I don't already have enough).

We also finally managed to exchange our last US dollars (we took euros and us$ into Iran with us, as we could not use any of our cards or withdraw any money from our accounts whilst we were in Iran).  We could have exchanged them here at the hotel, for a fairly unfavourable rate, but the hotel manager decided at the last minute that the money was "damaged" so wouldn't exchange them!! Anyway, there were a few money changers at the local mall (where we bought the suitcases), who took the whole lot off our hands for a very good rate!  Yippee!  No more foreign currency ... except rupees of course :-)

So, we try to keep ourselves occupied, whilst the shipping agent does whatever he's been doing this whole week: probably nothing!  ggrrrrrr.

Chennai (formerly known as Madras)

Well, here we are.  At the end of our Indian and northern hemisphere road trip.

Next stop:  Australia!   A new country and continent for the Beast :-)

We decided to drive to Chennai in one day, if at all possible, and it was.  The road was excellent - the NH5 all the way!  So we got here on late Sunday afternoon, after driving the long way through Chennai to the hotel, because of a road diversion.

It looks like the local authorities are trying to make the NH5 a six-lane highway, and in some places it already was that.  Which meant nice smooth driving at 80 or 90 kph.  In some instances the road was still 4-lane or 2-lane, which meant that we had to follow the "diversion" which was basically a one-lane road through the existing village/town.  At one stage we were driving through a town which looked like it had survived a war.  I was commenting on that fact when I realised that obviously it had been the subject of compulsory acquisition, in order to broaden the highway, and therefore all buildings next to the road were being demolished.  Craig and I decided that it would be a good setting for a movie about war or apocalypse! And what happens here is that only that part of a building which is actually in the way of the proposed highway gets knocked down -- this means that many half-destroyed buildings remain -- and people continue living in them!  It was a very sad sight.  I mean, many people live in hovels here anyway, but then to have the local authorities come and knock down half your hovel, and continue living in it?  I can't think of much worse.

I was thinking about toilet paper yesterday.  Yes, a strange subject, but one of interest to a westerner in India.  Actually, I didn't think much about toilet paper until our prolonged stay in Gajapathinagaram. We've had toilet paper in the car during the entire trip, because toilet paper has been scarce, particularly since leaving Europe.  Hotels, of course, usually supply toilet paper, but we have stayed in some hotels (can't really call them that) which have had no toilet paper.  So we've done ok with our own supply. Then when we stayed in Gajapathinagaram, suddenly the lack of toilet paper became urgent.  We were doing ok with the 3 or 4 rolls of paper we had in the car, when Craig began looking in shops to supplement our rapidly disappearing paper.  And guess what?  No toilet paper to be had anywhere!! He really asked in all the shops and most of them didn't even know what toilet paper was!!!  Fortunately we had stacks of tissue paper in the car, so didn't get to emergency TP status, but now, in the hotel, I appreciate every sheet of TP we have!  Interestingly, the size and quality of toilet paper differs from place to place.  In Sukkur, Pakistan (in the most expensive Pakistani hotel we found -- by accident), the TP was pink, and the bathroom was covered in shreds of pink TP because the paper was of such poor quality that it just deteriorated!!  Also, most TP rolls that we've seen are "mini" rolls -- about a quarter of size of most western TP rolls.  So, the moral of the story is:  don't leave home without your own supply of TP!!

This week we hope to get the Beast ready for shipping, and, when that's done, we can fly to Australia. We've already been in touch with the shipping agent here, and are providing him with the necessary documents and information.  Unfortunately, our timing has been rather poor, as yesterday was Tamil New Year and this weekend is Easter. That means we lose 3 business days just like that :-(  And customs here in Chennai need at least 5 business days to process our paperwork.  So we're likely to be here in Chennai longer than we'd hoped.

Fortunately, we found a pharmacy which sold Malarone!!!  Unfortunately, we paid a huge premium -- the price was euro 4.36 per tablet!!!  Aaaarrrggghhh!!  At least we won't get malaria.  We found this pharmacy because we went by tuk-tuk to one of the top hospitals here, and their pharmacist told us about a pharmacy which definitely had the tablets.  Thank goodness that's done.

The temperature here has hovered around 35-36 degrees every day, cooling down to 25-26 ever night, and it's very humid.  Strangely, the sky is grey -- we haven't seen any sunshine yet.  I wonder if that's because the rains are coming soon ....

Vijayawada

We drove about 380 km today to Vijayawada.  The road was great, dual carriageway all the way here. Lots of toll payments, but we don't mind paying for good roads :-)

We were stopped on the road today at a checkpoint, and the police/MP's wanted to look in our luggage. Then when they found out we were tourists on a long drive, they only wanted to know if we had cigarettes!!

We are now only 450 km from Chennai.  However, it will probably take us two days for those last kilometres!

We have already reserved our accommodation in Chennai, because Chennai (with a population of over 6 million) is not a city in which to drive around aimlessly to "look" for a hotel.

Because we stayed an unexpected week extra, we're running low on our anti-malarial medication.  We are taking the uber-expensive Malarone tablets, which cost euro 2.50 PER TABLET in the Netherlands (and similar prices in other Western countries, so they're just not available here in India; who is going to pay that sort of money???).  Hopefully we'll be able to get some more Malarone in Chennai in one of the big hospitals.

Hopefully we will have a chance to stop on the way tomorrow to visit the Undavalli Cave Temples -- they look pretty amazing!

We heard this evening of some explosions, killing a lot of people, in the Chhattisgarh province (see this link).  We drove through much of the Chhattisgarh province a couple of weeks ago, so the news is very shocking.  We've also been following several bombing attacks in Pakistan (most recently in Islamabad), and seen that 3 people in Pakistan have recently been sentenced to death for blasphemy.  It's a reminder that there was a reason we had an armed escort throughout Pakistan.

A photo below of the garage boys with the Beast:

Another 28 days

Well, we've just spent 8 nights in a small-ish town called Gajapathinagaram.  That was where the closest garage was from where the Beast stopped.

Fortunately for us, almost next to the garage where we parked the Beast for the duration, was a hotel! Really quite amazing :-)  The hotel was owned by the same family who owned the garage :-)

Very basic, but our room had air-conditioning so that was good.  The bathroom consisted of a tap (with varying water temperatures depending on how hot it was outside) and a squat toilet, but even that was better than some of the bathrooms we've had :-)

Only real drawback was black-outs.  The power went out sporadically.  I mean, you could count on it going out, just not when or for how long!

So we sat and waited for UPS to deliver our new fuel-pump from Paddocks in the UK.  They were fantastic and (aside from UPS trying to be dodgy) Paddocks really delivered!

Anyway, we are now out of the boondocks and staying at a nice hotel for a couple of nights to recover :-)

In the meantime, another 28 days passed us by on Monday -- so see below a map outlining our last 28 days travelling through India.

Distance: 2,634 km - not as much as the previous instalments, but we've stopped and seen a lot!

Death, destruction and car trouble

(written by Mirne in the evening of Wednesday 2^nd April, 2014)

We have not had a good day today.

We got up this morning in Jagdalpur, had a very uninspiring breakfast, and went to settle our account for the room and food.  Had an argument with the staff at reception, none of whom spoke any English, about the fact that the manager had agreed a 20% discount on the room rate, and had in fact agreed a fixed amount with us which included all taxes.

Anyone who has travelled in India will know of the taxes which accompany hotel bills.  There’s luxury tax, service tax, VAT, etc, etc.  You can inevitably add an additional quarter of the amount to your bill, and then you’ve got about the right amount.

Anyway, our bill had the reduced rate for the room, but not for the tax.  So they were charging us tax over the un-reduced room rate.  Right.  Paying tax over money which we had not paid.  The staff did not see anything wrong with that.

So we argued for a few minutes and then gave up.  The manager wasn’t there, and wasn’t reachable by telephone.  Right.

On our way soon enough, on the road at 9.15 am, where we quickly realized when we’d left the county/province of Chhattisgarh, because the roads immediately became much worse.

We had planned to drive just over 300 km today, and then stay overnight on the coast – which meant we would then be only about 850 km from Chennai.

:::

I think we’ve written about Indian drivers before.  I think it is enough to say that they don’t fear death, injury, car-crashes or anything.  This is clear from the way Indian drivers overtake other vehicles (whether that be trucks, cars, bikes, motor-cycles, cows, water buffalo, dogs, whatever). 

One of the death-defying feats of Indian drivers is to overtake when they see there is on-coming traffic.  On-coming traffic does not deter the average Indian driver.  The average Indian driver just assumes everyone, including any on-coming traffic, will get out of his way.  This leads to some very near misses, which we see all the time.The average Indian driver also overtakes at speed when he cannot see what, if anything, is on-coming.  For example, when there is a rise in the road, or when there is a blind corner.

Today we saw a feat which did not defy death.

We were more than halfway on our journey, and we were driving through a mountain range.  The road was easily wide enough for two vehicles (often it is not), and we were heading up the mountain, on the left side of the road. We had a truck / lorry (15 or 20 tonne) in front us.  As we headed up the hill, we took a corner which was going slightly left, so we suddenly saw the on-coming traffic. 

Everything is suddenly in slow motion.  Craig and I both immediately see two trucks / lorries (15 or 20 tonne vehicles) coming down the hill, in both the up and down lanes, heading directly towards the truck in front of us and towards us.  Obviously the truck in the left lane had been impatient and was overtaking the down-hill truck, which was (as is proper) in the right lane.

So, we see two enormous trucks heading straight for us, and also towards the truck in front of us.  It is immediately obvious to us that there is going to be a huge crash of trucks.  Our immediate thought is:  “we have to get off this road”.  I said as much to Craig, who was already searching for an escape.  Amazingly, as we had gone around the corner, as we saw the two trucks heading downhill towards us at some speed, we saw a graveled area: a parking place or a graveled track, on the left side of the road. 

Craig immediately pulled off the road on to the graveled area.  The car was slowing down because we had been in 3^rd gear going uphill, but we had lost momentum as soon as we left the bitumen, so now we were going much slower.  Craig said later he had considered changing down a gear, but determined he didn’t have the time to do so.  So he put his foot down, and we increased our distance from the road and the ever-closing trucks.

It appears later that the truck in front of us, also a 15 or 20 tonne vehicle, tried to do the same.  The result was that it was heading slightly to the left of the road, towards the graveled area when the overtaking down-hill truck smashed into the right side of the truck.

Craig and I are still sitting in a moving vehicle.  The Beast is still slowly getting further away from the road.  Craig and I see the two trucks crashing into each other – the downhill one smashing directly into the side of the other.  We see the debris flying everywhere.  We see dust everywhere.  We hear noise. 

We see the downhill overtaking truck smashing into the side of the uphill truck, and then forcing that truck off to the side of the road, on to the graveled area.  The force of the crash of the two trucks has caused the truck which was in front of us to tip on to its side.  The force of the smash and the speed of the down-hill truck causes it to continue to force the other truck, which is on its side, forwards.

It’s the sort of scene I’ve only ever seen in a movie.  And not one I thought I’d ever see in real life.

By this stage the Beast has lost nearly all momentum and we’ve slowed down and virtually stopped.  Craig and I see the trucks crashing towards us, and we both think that we will be hit.  Amazingly, we are not.  Two trucks, mashed into each other, probably weighing up to 30 or 40 tonnes together, come crashing towards us, but the Beast must have gone just far enough, because the fast-moving wreckage of the trucks passes us by.

So we’re sitting there.  In shock.  And we can’t see a whole lot, because there is dust everywhere.

Craig springs into action and jumps out of the car and yells at me to get the first aid kit.  We have a very comprehensive first aid kit, specifically kitted out for this purpose (ie. road accidents).  We don’t normally become involved in post accident events, but the fact is that we were almost part of this accident, so we feel more involved.

Craig runs towards the scene, where the two trucks are smashed, crushed together.  He sees a man lying on the side of the road, with blood on his head, and starts talking to him.  It later appears he was the driver of the up-hill truck.  The truck which was in front of us, also going uphill.  He appears to have jumped out of his cabin before the truck was crushed.  If he hadn’t, he would probably be dead, as his side of the cabin is totally squashed.  His partner crawled out of the passenger side of the cabin after the crash and appeared to have only minor injuries.

I arrive with the first aid kit, and Craig grabs our only pair of latex gloves, before heading towards the squashed cabin of the down-hill over-taking truck.  Other vehicles have stopped by this time and there are men jumping out of their vehicles (mostly other trucks) and are headed towards the other truck.  There are two men in the cabin of that vehicle, and it seems that they are not coming out of that cabin under their own steam.

Several men, other drivers, other people at the scene, are climbing on the truck’s smashed cabin and are using crowbars and other equipment to try to get the two men out.  As I arrived with the first aid kit, I see a man throwing pots and pans out of the crushed cabin – he’s throwing out anything he comes across on to the road, out of his way, in his effort to get to the men in the truck's cabin.

The first man who is taken out of the crushed cabin is brought to the side of the road.  Craig gets involved and immediately sees he has a broken leg, and gets the men to move him to the shade.  Craig uses several cotton scarves to tie this man’s legs together, so that the broken leg is at least placed correctly.

Craig and I see that the driver is still in the other vehicle.  The cabins of both trucks have been pretty smashed up, crushed really.  We both think that if the driver and his mate had not jumped out of the other vehicle, they might not be so lucky to stand there watching this nightmare.

I’m standing on large concrete blocks which line the right side of the road (the downhill lane).  I’m guarding our first aid kit, and have a couple of bottles of water.  One bottle goes to the two drivers from the truck who jumped out.  They use our cotton wool and water to clear the blood from themselves.

In the meantime, as a result of the accident, at least half the road, the up-lane, is blocked.  The smashed trucks are sprawled across the left lane of the road and the graveled area.  Some traffic is still coming down the hill, but most are slowing down, some are stopping to help or watch the scene.  Some trucks barely slow down as they drive past.

Eventually, after managing to hack through the crushed cabin, the men get the driver out of the truck.  His body is limp.  They bring him to the side of the road where his co-driver is resting with his broken leg.  About 10-15 men stand around the two men lying on the ground, and they all look at Craig.  Craig checks the man’s pulse, and then turns to me and gives me a hand signal indicating that the driver is dead.  He tells the other men, most of whom do not speak English – however, one man says to Craig:  “mort?” and Craig nods his head.  The other man signaled for Craig to check again, and again, but finally had to accept that the driver was dead.  The co-driver, with the broken leg, asks Craig about his friend, and Craig tells him his friend is dead.  The man with the broken leg starts to cry.

By now 20-25 minutes have passed since the initial crash.  There are a number of trucks parked in both the uphill lane and the downhill lane.  I think about 10 people have telephoned for the police and/or for an ambulance, yet there is no sign of either.

The road is covered in glass, metal, wood, pots and pans, light fittings, all sorts of scrap from the trucks.  Diesel marks the road along the path of the crash – ie. from where the down-hill over-taking truck crashed into, and forced onto its side, the uphill truck.  The smell of diesel is very strong.

The Beast stands by itself, maybe 10-15 metres away from the road, in the graveled area.

I’m pouring water over Craig’s arms because he has some blood on his skin.  When we go to the Beast, Craig takes off his bloody gloves, and I pour more water over his hands and arms.  Then he washes his hands and arms with Dettol, which I pour.  Then more water. Then a disinfectant gel.

We discuss whether to stay at the scene, or whether to continue our journey.  We decide to continue.

We talk about what happened for half an hour or so, as we drive through the mountain range.  We wonder if the remains of the trucks will be dragged to the side of the road and left there.  We see it frequently alongside the road as we’re driving – a vehicular carcass evidencing a crash.  We wonder how many lives have been destroyed by this crash.  Whether the dead driver had a family.  Whether the drivers were owners of the smashed trucks or whether they were employees.  Whether appropriate emergency health-care will be available to the man whose leg is broken (a compound fracture in two places of the tibia, so Craig tells me).  We stop so Craig can have a can of iced coffee.  We drive as carefully as we can, but we still cannot see what is happening around the next corner.

We decide we’re incredibly lucky that we escaped the crash.  We estimate the trucks came crashing past the Beast with less than a metre to spare (if that much).  It really was horrifically close.  I don’t know if I will ever forget the sight of those two smashed trucks coming at speed towards us.

:::

We continue our drive.  I’m just saying to Craig that we need a toilet stop, when we are stopped by a police check-point.  They speak to us in broken English, but the gist is that they are trying to make the roads safer for everyone.  They send us on our way.

Not much further, maybe 10 or so km, the Beast suddenly slows down.  Craig says that he’s losing speed, and doesn’t know why.  He manages to get the Beast to the side of the road (fortunately a wide road, with a verge big enough for the Beast).

We’re both highly stressed from previous events, and this seems to be the final straw. 

The car is not starting, even though it’s making all the right noises.  Not the battery, not the starter motor, we don’t know what it is.  Craig looks under the bonnet, we put our heads together and decide it seemed like the engine was just not getting enough fuel.

By this time it is 4.00 pm, and Craig gets a lift back to the town with the police check-point to see about getting some help.  I wait in the car.  He is back within 40 minutes on the back of a motor-cycle.  The young man (looks like a kid to me) is a mechanic, who promptly sticks his head under the bonnet.

Craig and I are concerned about what will happen that afternoon and/or evening.  We don’t drive in the dark in India.  Seriously, when you see what is around during the day (including huge holes in the road), no lighting, nutty drivers, all sorts of animals, you don’t want to drive in the dark.  So we always plan our days so that we get to our destination in plenty of time.  Today that is obviously not happening.

Eventually the mechanic advises Craig that the diesel fuel pump is not working. Great. Craig and I think we need to get a Land Rover fuel pump to replace it.  Of course that’s not how Indians think, and the nearest Land Rover dealer is in Chennai anyway, so we wait for a mini truck (really – but it’s a Tata, so it’s all in the family) who then tows us about 10-15 km back to the mechanic’s garage.  Poor Craig is totally stressed by now, as we are towed back in increasing darkness, with only about 2 metres between the Beast and the mini truck tow vehicle.  That’s the first time the Beast has “driven” in the dark in India.  Hopefully, we won’t have to repeat it.

:::

As I’m writing this, it’s just gone 9.00 pm.  I’m sitting on the bed in a room in a hotel (hallelujah!) which is situated almost directly next to the garage where the Beast is.  The hotel is cheap, but the room has an overhead fan and an air-conditioner which currently work, but which we’ve been warned will cease working if and when the electricity stops!  Our bathroom has a squat toilet and a tap.  Under the tap is the ubiquitous bucket and measuring cup.  These appeared in hotel bathrooms when we got to Turkey, and they’ve been in bathrooms ever since.  So, we have no shower, but when it’s over 40 degrees (as it was today, and the last 5 hours of that without air-conditioning), we don’t mind pouring measuring cups of water over ourselves.  At least we have a toilet!!!

It’s now gone 9.30 pm, and Craig’s just been in the room to give me an update.  He has been coming in and going back out to the garage, where there are currently about 8 guys working on the Beast.  Yes, it’s dark out there, but no-one sleeps when there’s work to be done!

The mechanics have stripped out the fuel pump and have confirmed that it is dead.  Apparently dirty diesel and crap roads (causing frequent and continuous shaking) have caused the slow (but final) death of our fuel pump.  Craig says the filters in the pump and in the fuel line itself are so filthy they are almost completely clogging the flow of diesel.  The young mechanic (who brought Craig back to the car on his motor-cycle this afternoon) is going to ring the Land Rover dealership in Hyderabad tomorrow morning. He and Craig already rang the Land Rover dealership in Chennai to see about getting a replacement part, and the service manager (whose mobile phone they rang) gave the number to call tomorrow.  If that brings no joy, then appropriate bits and pieces will be air-freighted to us here wherever we are in this town somewhere in south India from either Australia or England.

So, the earliest we will be back on the road is the day after tomorrow, if the mechanic can get replacement bits and pieces from Hyderabad, or we wait in this town (I don’t even know the name of it) until bits and pieces are air freighted to us.

The joys of overlanding.

Plus (I’ll say it again) we should have put our steel wheels with the off-road tyres on the Beast before we left NL.  Perhaps that would have reduced the amount of shaking and allowed our fuel pump to have lasted to Chennai.Then again, perhaps not.  There’s no point in second-guessing what could have, would have, might have happened.  It is what it is.

Oh well.  At least we didn’t get squashed like bugs by trucks today.  That makes it a good day in my book.

Postscript:  it is now Saturday 5^th of April, 2014, and we are still stuck in the nameless town.  We’ve ordered a new fuel pump from England, and it should be arriving before the middle of next week.  No doubt we’ll be on the road soon after.  In the meantime, we’re “enjoying” our 3x3m room, and our very basic “bathroom” (ie. squat toilet and bucket and tap).  Fortunately the air-conditioning works most of the time, and we’ve found that chapattis are delicious!!  We’ve got half the stuff out of the car by now, and that’s provided us with coffee in the morning!  Won’t be able to update the blog until we’re out of this town – so hopefully around Thursday or Friday of next week. 

White, over-weight, middle-aged terrorists??

Tonight we are in Jagdalpur, which is about 300 km south of Raipur.

The drive down here was good.  The roads were very good — Chhattisgarh (this country/province) is working hard on ensuring they have good roads — and we got the benefit of it.  It’s very green down here, lots of rice fields and forests.

We were talking in the car about how we haven’t seen a police officer (or other official) with a gun/rifle/weapon since arriving in India.  In fact, the only place we saw an Indian police officer or other (military) official with a weapon was at Attari - at the border with Pakistan.  So just as we finish talking about that, we went through a police/military check-point and we were asked to stop.  So we did, and the police/military want to see our papers.  Which papers? asks Craig.  Car papers, is the answer.  So Craig showed them his drivers license and the insurance for the car.  That appears to be sufficient, so we’re soon on our way.  A short time further, we get pulled over again.  This time by a bunch of military guys, who all carry semi-automatic rifles.  Of course none of them speak any English, so their first communication appeared to be that they want to see what we had in our car.  I think they just wanted to look at the Beast, but eventually, it appears that they realise we’re just tourists, and not some sort of new terrorists!  A by-stander (who speaks English) comes to tell us that we may go, which we do promptly, glad that we didn’t have to empty all our stuff out of the car.

Eventually we arrived at our accommodation, which Craig had amazingly picked to within 200 metres on our sat-nav (we couldn’t find it, so he had to compare the Google Maps view with the view on the sat-nav map and say “Go Here”).  It’s a vegetarian, alcohol-free retreat of some sort, in the middle of nowhere.  However, they have the cricket on tv, and a secure car-park facility, so that’s good enough for us.

Tomorrow we head further south, towards the coast, and then onwards to Chennai, which is where we will depart from India.