Leaving Cochin

Ah there you are!

Wow, we’ve been on the road now for a few days, and in India for a week … life is totally crazy.

We left Cochin 3 days ago and headed east into the mountains, up a winding road, and spent the night freezing our butts off as we’d left the sleeping bags at home … not enough space.

Next day we headed down the mountain, round hair-pin turns, towards Madurai. At one point we passed through a checkpoint, at a state border, only to run out of fuel, rolling to a stop directly under the raised barrier – the wee man had to hold the barrier up until we pushed ourselves clear 🙂

Later on, while trying to find a bed for the night, we ended up driving round the narrow streets of a wee town, packed with traffic and people. At one point, while attempting a 3-point-turn, I reversed and came within millimetres of crashing into an elephant, its trunk swinging past the tuk tuk gave me the freight of my life.

A 6am start saw us on the road again … driving in India is a piece of cake … basically it involves tooting your horn a lot – the bigger, louder, fancier horn wins. Driving a tuk tuk however is a skill we’ve still to master. We’re getting about 170km to a tank of fuel which is costing us about 4 quid.

Anyway, we’re in Mamallapuram just now and will be hitting the road shortly, it’s almost lunch time and it’s raining. We have had a change of mind about our route, as we have had several bad reports about road conditions and safety around Bihar, which we’d have to pass through if we went to Varanasi. Anyway, not wanting to be kidnapped, shot, or turned into curry, we’ve opted to head straight for Darjeeling for a nice cup of tea. It’ll take us about 6 days to get there though, so we’ll be suitably parched.

Onwards and upwards,
The Vindaloonies.