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 ....