10th August, Malda to Calcutta, 390km. 19 hours. Our initial plan was to make it to Burdwan which was 250km away from Malda. Everything was going pretty smooth as planned. We also took a short detour to visit the ruins from 9 A.D. The ancient civilization before the Moghul Period. It is an archeological site. 70% of our route to Burdwan was on asphalt and the rest on broken roads and dirt roads. The highways go through small villages and as it gets darker most of them disperse and head home. The smell of curry would linger throughout the evening. The landscape changed drastically,..at a certain stretch we saw palm tress and shockingly beautiful straw houses put together by clay. Life seemed simple for these country folks and they all seemed happy. From having to stop for cows and goats, we were now stopping for ducks, geese and frogs. Weve forgotten we were in India. Asphalt started to disappear and we started driving on dirt roads. It was dark with no street lights. I was on the wheel when I felt my left rear drag drastically. I stopped and requested for Naz to take a look at our left rear tyre and we noticed we had a flat. We were in the middle of a village and packs of dogs were roaming and we caught a few of them howling into space with their canine exposed. The gnarling dogs were scary. Just before that, one chased us and reached 45km/h. They dont give up. Back to our flat,...Very quickly we plugged in a canister of fix a flat and we were well on our way. We took it real slow,..lasted probably 20km and it was flat again. This time, villagers gathered around us and we pumped the tyre with fix a flat again. The tube carrying the adhesive and air from the canister broke and we were losing air rapidly. The villagers were friendly and offered to help us cross a bridge which was near to impossible for a 3 wheeler. They held on to the sides of our Rick as I negotiated the ruts on the bridge. We had enough air in our tyre just to get by. We shifted our load to take off the pressure on the rear left tyre. Again, no street lights and traffic is moderate with blinding and deafening trucks. We got back on the open roads and shortly after,..the tyre went flat again. We had run out of fix a flat and we had to change to a spare tyre this time. Now, were in the middle of a rice field, no street lights with snakes and wild dogs on our minds. We worked as a team really quick, set up a mini pit garage with efficient lighting. We didnt have a Jack, so Naz and Mo lifted the rear end while I quickly dislodged the tyre and replaced it with a torch light in my mouth. In seconds we were done, almost at F1 pit pace. Now,..the spare didnt have sufficient air. Again, we took it slow and headed towards Burdwan. We eventually got to Burdwan and right from the start we were blasted by blinding lights from a truck in front of us which had people on it dancing to really loud music! We looked around, Mo noticed a street fight,..we turned the other way and tried to overtake this mobile disco truck. Then on the left of the unlit street..thousands of devotees of some lord, were walking barefoot in a single line dressed in orange carrying a rod with 2 pots on each end over their shoulder. Could have been milk in those pots. Very similar to Thaipusam but no Kavadis. Each town we reached had a huge carnival,..and this was nearing mid night. Traffic was horrendous and here we are,..in a holy cow Rick with thousands of people staring at us. We were freaked out. Music was blasting everywhere, drunkards dancing, kids running across the street, trucks honking,..just total chaos. At the end of the street we were on, that led to our hotel had the biggest carnival of them all,..as we approached the procession very slowly,..a guy on a microphone didnt want us to pass through,..instead he handed us 3 glasses of blessed warm milk to drink,..at this time, were already freaked out, and now we got to worry about bacteria in the milk and we had to drink it,..f**k! We each took a small sip, said Shukriya a million times, engaged into first gear and slowly moved off. What a bloody relief! Finally got to our hotel,..and it was closed. We banged on the shutter but the guard said in Hindhi get out of here! No Rooms! But we freaking made a reservation. Along came 2 gents with Whisky breath,..they asked us what was going on,..we explained and they banged on the shutter too. It was a ruckus,..at that point in time,..we said screw this lets go to Calcutta. 100km away. We were hungry, all we had was cheese toast at Malda in the morning. Still we kept it together as a team and got in our rick and got on the highway looking for a Dhaba. Went against traffic made a few U turns and found a truckers Dhaba,.we ate. Disregarded any hygiene issues and ate. We found a tyre shop next to it, pumped our Tyres and moved off. We shared stupid stories on our 100km journey. It was a smooth highway and traffic was light. Got to Calcutta, stopped by cops at the toll. Cop said in Hindhi very angrily whos auto rickshaw is this? Why is it on a Kerala plate? Who are you? Why are you here? He was angry he had a rough night it seems,.it was about 3am,.. I explained exactly what we were doing,..he smiled shook our hands and said welcome to Calcutta, good luck with your journey I told him,..in the next few hours hell see more of us crossing into Calcutta. HOW much more can we take in 1 night? We reached a quiet street where the hotels were, we chose 1, parked our rick and went straight to bed. We woke up in time for breakfast this morning. Got our spare tyre sorted and now were off to Mother Theresas grave and Indias oldest and biggest museum. Tomorrow before the break of down we continue further west,..destination unknown. All good under the hood. Peace,
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 08:17:14 +0000
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