Trip Summary
Name: Monsoon Madness
Destination: Mumbai, India
Distance: 2,180 kms (1,360 miles)
Vehicle: Auto rickshaw 125cc
Trip Diary
It’ll be like last time. Only wetter
Goes by the name of Death
Photos
Videos
Goes by the name of Death
Heading west, deep in to the Indian interior things were set to get worse, i.e. better. The second rally stage was along the infamous “road of death”.
There is a one hundred kilometre stretch of (almost) road between Hassan and Mangalore referred to locally as “the road of death”. When a road in India gets a label like that, you take notice. Road accidents here outnumber traffic lights by quite a margin.
Due to flooding and appalling road conditions we were only averaging around twenty kilometres an hour. This was probably a blessing because had the roads been dry we’d have taken to all out racing and this was not the place to do it.
We found a driver in his cab
In a ten kilometre stretch we saw four lorries upside down in flooded ravines. Regardless of the sheer drop off the side of the road, over-taking on blind corners was the norm for these drivers. It’s simply a question of when your luck runs out.
We actually found one driver still inside the cab and mercifully unscathed. He refused to leave the cab however, instead staying to protect what little of his cargo hadn’t been washed away.
A few miles further on a sheepish looking bus driver loitered next to his vehicle which was balanced precariously over the edge of a bridge. This didn’t seem to unduly worry the passengers however who were still on board gazing glumly back at us.
This was a stretch of road which also took a heavy toll on the rickshaws. Suspension breakages, windscreens shattering, and endless problems with the engines cutting out in mud filled craters.This also happened to be the moment Jim and Oz smashed their gearbox in.
Stick a finger in it
There’s a peculiar phenomenon in India that whenever you stay in the same spot for more than five minutes, however remote you think you may be, people just start appearing from absolutely anywhere. Why would anyone be half way up a mountain seemingly hiding in a bush, just in case we turned up?
No sooner were we surveying the damage and giving each other the “what are we supposed to do now?” looks, than several locals had teleported themselves straight to the scene. Then a pick-up pulled up and it became a case of a crowd pulling in a crowd.
We made some hand gestures to explain our predicament. Someone picked up a plank of wood. Just as we thought something had got lost in translation, our rickshaw was being rolled on to its side and the afforementioned plank of wood became a makeshift jack.
Heads or tails
A middle aged man in flip flops dived straight under the vehicle and immediately set to work. The hole in the sump was sized up and after a bit of pocket fiddling that went on just a bit too long, Mr Flip Flop whipped out a five rupee coin.
It would seem that some spare change and some weird gunky paste (that we hoped hadn’t come from Mr Flip Flop’s pocket) is all that you need in India to perform a major repair.
Afterwards Mr flip flop, the plank holder and the assorted helpers all resolutely refused to take any payment for the work, but instead settled for a group picture as if they’d just landed a prize winning tiger shark. With a wave and a cheer off we splashed.
From here on in we were quite literally, “on the money”, at least until the rickshaw starting lurching violently from side to side. And we still had sixty kilometres to go to the rest stop.
