North to Mumbai !

We finished up our time in Goa with some more beach time and some more Indian Brandy, resulting in a day in bed for myself (Ships) and the Camel (Matt).

The journey north to Mumbai proved to be quite long and more difficult, mainly due to Fyvie being a bit ill and it being extremely hot. The Crow is still proving to be a ridiculous piece of engineering, with still no repairs made and only a small bit of oil usage. It is starting to complain a bit during the heat of the day - particularly as we've been dragging it up some pretty big mountains, lots of second gear, 20km/h climbs. Stunning scenery throughout. We have to stop during the absolute heat of the day and remove all of the kit and the engine cover just to let it recover a bit.

While preparing to leave Goa we realised that we better wash some of the more disgusting of our clothes and so the first bit of the drive was 'laundry hour' with various wet t-shirts and boxers decorating the crow, accompanied with classical music hour and Rhydian, producing even more wierd looks from locals than usual.
We have also had a few firsts during this phase of the journey - first crash witnessed, saw a 4x4 smack the side of a bus just in front of us, aswell as a lorry swerve and almost overturn, there have also been a lot of wrecks on the side of the road - mainly buses and the odd obliterated rickshaw!! We have also had our first few police encounters, generally seem fine and just want to say hello, one wanted a bribe. One very frightening encounter was a woman who decided to walk out in front of the rickshaw while carrying her baby and then promptly fell flat on her face! We came to a stop quite easily before her, but had we been in a bus or truck.....

Both Fyvie and Matt are feeling a bit rough now, food during the night stopover on the way was a bit suspect, quite a remote place, the restaurant staff and locals came to sit and watch us eat. The following day saw a big lunch order in a roadside cafe, three cokes, three plain naans and a boiled rice!!

There also seems to be a lot going on in the country at the moment, as we drove through Mangalore a plane crashed, yesterday a train was derailed too, therefore we're still backing Rickshaw as the safest method of travel.

The journey up to Mumbai saw the Crow pass through the 1500km marker, with the last 50km into the city proving to be pretty horrible with ridiculous traffic. Upon arrival we weren't sure that we were allowed to take the Rickshaw on the toll road in - went for it anyway and just got a big laugh and cheer from the toll booth staff, got pulled over a bit later on and fined by the police, 3 quid well spent. Also, in town, we noticed that there suddenly were no other rickshaws (we later found out that Rickshaws aren't allowed in the southern part of town where the hotel was) but just decided that ignorance was the best policy and carefully evaded policemen!

The people in Mumbai seemed to be even more friendly - nearly every car laughing and waving. We had 3kg of Bananas tied up in the back and chucked them out into passing rickshaws, much to everyones surprise.

First night in Mumbai, met up with Charlie, a friend of Fyvie's brother in-law and his colleague Martin. They took us to a ridiculously nice bar on top of a skyscraper, even got driven there by their chauffeur - bit of a change to the Crow!!
The day after the roof top bar and Charlie offered to show us around the city, again with the help of Jay the chauffeur.


We visited the Darubi slum area - where slumdog millionaire was filmed. Very humbling to see the area, unbelievably big - apparently around 40% of the cities population (of 20million) live in the slum, we only strayed a few streets from the car but it was very interesting to see the hive of activity surrounding the recycling that goes on.

Afterwards we retired to their private members club and had some drinks in the sunshine, a very contrasting day for what seems to be a very contrasting city.

This Will Improve

We'll put pics on etc when we get a bit more time to make it less boring, just a bit of a ball ache at the mo! Off to Mumbai tomorrow at 5am!

Tarmac Terrorists with our Weapon of Choice - The Crow!

Finally we were ready to depart early doors, lead to the boat by Prem (chief of the homestay). Looking at getting some miles under our belt we prepared for the long haul, heading roughly north with the help of a compass we had acquired. (This has proved very useful with the lack of any road signs!)
The first few hours were basic familiarisation, especially for Shippers who had never even been on a scooter! Anyhow we were off, making good progress all the way up to Kannur (somewhere on the west coast - 320km north of where we left off) So not so bad in a skip on wheels, 14 hours later. Seeing it in shop windows is hilarious and does remind you how actually crap this thing is. 395cc, with 8 fine horses under the boot!

En route we managed two boat rides, a bit of night driving (which is not recommended due to the drunk lorry drivers, bad enough in the day let alone night with no lights and crap road discipline, but we made it after a lot of perspiration and nervy moments in the cab of love. First nights accom was pretty shit but did the job and in the morning after finding that the chef hadn't turned up by 0830 to cook breakfast we made off like a donkeys dick and hit the road!

Day two was eventful to say the least, Chico didn't see a speed bump which would cripple the Crow if hit hard (imagine a pissed Indian trying to build Everest with crap tar old bits of road and anything else he can find, and put it randomly in the road, unmarked of course) and so we all shouted, at this point, poor lad, was a tad maxed out, went for the brake, forgot the clutch, belted the speed bump and rolled very quitely into the town in a stalled rickshaw, all of us in fits of laughter with the town in silence and disbelief at what they were seeing. The India flag was also still paying off, bringing with it muchos encouragement and waves along the way, all very friendly! The only other thing to note on the road was an attempt by Shippers to embrace the Indian driving methods and try and overtake uphill on a blind corner doing 29km/h with the truck in front doing a mere 27km/h! Apart from that all was going well! The day ended at Maventhe in our second state Karnataka, along an idillic stretch of beach that only locals go to, stopped off and went for a swim much to their amusement as most of them can't swim and generally count putting their feet in the water as an aquatic adventure! We then stumbled upon a government approved hotel, which was bascially paradise with its own private beach for about 7 quid each, after several beers and a curry we hit the beach with a bottle of brandy (marked for Indian Defence Personnel Only) that Prem had got for us somehow and lay under the stars talking shit, it was brilliant!

Next day up again early but Chico had lost his wallet (or so he thought), the place was torn apart, steps re-traced, 2 and half hours later he realised that he had put it somewhere 'safe', 2 minutes after all the cards had been cancelled, we now look after it for him, not that it is much use now! We set off again soon after that towards our third state, Goa, looking for a bit more luxury, just one night in a five star! This was reasonably un-eventful, of course the roaming cows and cheering bystanders were still present and generally crap driving, but the roads were good and we were just eating up the kilometres, oh we also bought a branch of bananas for the Crow which we mounted to the roof inside the cab which is basically a mobile boudoir!

We entered Goa, the first night we stayed at Palolem beach, quiet tranquille place for some sheesh and a chillax, the second, 30km up the coast in a booming 5 star. We did stop off on the way for 24 bottles of water, and 3 big bottles of brandy at a costly sum of about 8 beans (pound sterling). Initially after ringing the manager explaining they had a banged up rickshaw with 3 lads in it looking to stay at their hotel the response was, we're sorry we are full, after getting dressed, and vaguley presentable we were allowed to walk in only and have a word. 10mins later we were given a presidential suite and allowed to use the facilities for the whole next day, with a slightly stunned manager who didn't believe that what we had done was even possible. Another night on the beach with a bottle of brandy had to be done!

After a chilled day in the sun which was ridiculous, about 40 degrees we whizzed a bit further up to package-holiday-centrale to see what the crack is via the tourist office in the capital to see if we can change our visas, but it seems this can only be done in Kathmandu, a small risk may have to be taken... wrtiting this just before another night on the sauce..

Chow

Pimping out and legalising "The Crow"

With the drunken decision made to go for this particular Rickshaw, we woke up the next morning not really knowing what we'd agreed to! O well, time was pressing so we went to withdraw the small sum of 85,000 Indian Rupees (about 1275 pounds) from a HSBC branch (apparently not the worlds local bank!) and headed off to the backstreets of Kochi where the purchase was to be made. Again, lots of bemused looks to see westerners down these backstreets but still all really friendly. We were lead into this old mans house where him and his family made the final checks of the paperwork before we handed over the money, Prior being more interested in the monkey in the driveway. The actual deal was sealed when the eldest of the house got up and handed all the paperwork tо Matt, obviously being quite a big deal to them. (We were all very glad he wasnt to know the real destiny of his beloved Rickshaw).



Once we had possesion of the Rickshaw, the transformation of taxi to private vehicle began. With the use of masking tape, white paint, thick brushes, sandpaper and turpentine, we gave her 3 hours of loving attention to cover all the yellow taxi paint with white paint. White paint even made it onto the Crow at the front of the Rickshaw, so with a white crow on the front, there was only one stupid name that we could give her to match her ridiculous appearance.....The White Crow was born.

As for the legislation, we had to legally try and make her ours as a private vehicle........peolple said it definitely couldnt be done, completely impossible.....we thought otherwise and used bribes.
With The White Crow now ours (not legally however as foriegners arent allowed to own vehicles in India!) we began preparations to make her road worthy for a 3000km trip. A full service for about 20 quid, tyre changed and various water and food stores on board she was ready to go! Just the addition of some graphics on her sides and beak and an Indian flag flying from some electrical piping made her complete! We were on our way.

The First Few Days

We had read a bit on the internet about the problems associated with buying a rickshaw as a foreigner, particularly as they are almost 100% registered for use as commercial vehicles and how changing to private use was very difficult, again especially as a foreigner.

To be honest we had no real idea how we were going to actually get to buy a rickshaw, we just decided to gamble on the flights and see what we could sort out when we arrived.

Our initial idea was to ask everyone we met and hope that we would bump into the right person. During our first breakfast we asked the owner of the hostel we had stayed in - he rang his friend, who asked another friend.. etc etc. By the end of breakfast we had an appointment to view a second hand rickshaw in the afternoon. During the morning we paid a rickshaw driver to show us the town and again asked everyone we met. Most laughed and said it was not possible. We visited the auto-consulat and they said that even if we did buy one it would take at least 30 days to transfer the paperwork into our names and to -register as a private vehicle. Shit.

After asking a load more people we found one person who said they may be able to do it in ten days. We were beginning to be a little disheartened by this, being as we only had a limited time for the trip we couldn't afford weeks of waiting. Nevertheless we decided to press on with our viewing of the rickshaw in the afternoon.

Around 8 guys turned up to show us a 2006 Piaggio Ape - a slightly bigger rickshaw with a diesel engine rather than the two stroke petrol - better for our trip. It was in fairly bad condition with a cracked windscreen and lots of dents. We dicked around pretending to know what we were looking at and even went for a terrifying test drive, with Prior continually changing down when he meant to change up and us kangarooing down the road. One of the guys - who seemed to be the main broker despite not owning it said he could sort the deal and transfer the paperwork within three days. We were skeptical but said we'd have a think and call them in an hour.

We decided that we'd really like to see at least one more before plunging into a deal as it was a reasonable amount of money for something that we knew next to zero about, but the lure of having the difficult paperwork done in an impossibly quick three days was tempting. We rang the guy and arranged to meet him again, he said that he had a friend who was the local rickshaw secretary and that was how he could sort the paperwork, he also said that he could show us another rickshaw although it was older. By now we had started to get the feeling that this guy, who was called Shakira, might be worth trusting.

We arranged to view the older rickshaw later in the evening, it was again the slightly larger model - perfect for our slightly larger size and weight (Fyvie). We decided to go out for food and discovered a nice restaurant by the sea with cheap premium Kingfisher beer. For some reason we lost track of time and after a big meal and quite a few beers suddenly realsied we were late for our appointment, after legging it back we just made it in time to meet them. Shakira was there again, this time with a completely different group of around 7 guys. The big factor in this meeting was the 'several' beers we had beforehand, this time, despite looking at it in the dark, we were confident. We kicked the tyres and looked knowingly at the engine, this one had the added benefit of chrome, spear type things on the side, a rubber crow type bird mounted above the windscreen and also 'disco' style headlights. After a risky test drive we all agreed we were in and so 'The white crow' was purchased.

The Idea

With late notice of a months worth of time off, we decided to do something unusual. Despite almost no time to plan, we decided to fly to the south of India with the specific intention of driving the length of the country in a rickshaw - the end destination being the Himalayas. After a rushed two day visa application and flight booking the day before, we flew out to New Delhi and then on to Kochi, Kerala in the south of the country.
We arrived in Kochi at night and decided that we better have our first Rickshaw experience. We managed to pile into the first we could find with the driver telling us it was 45km to the hostel we had booked and that it would be more sensible to get a taxi. We declined.

For the uninitiated reading this, a rickshaw - or more specifically an autorickshaw, is basically a modified motor scooter with a kind of golf cart body over the top, it can fit a driver in the front and 3 in the back with a small amount of luggage. It is ideally used for journeys of 1 or 2 km around town, 3500km into the mountains was not in the design profile. It is noisy, bumpy and slow.

The next few days would be spent trying to find and buy a rickshaw, which we had heard would be difficult.....