16/17th August. Vishakapatnam to Chennai - 850km 30 hours. We knew for a fact the worst was over,..in terms of road conditions. We had to make it to Chennai by the 17th of August. The only way to make all this happen was to go all out and rough it out. We didnt have a solid plan we just wanted to make it to Chennai. 850km would take a toll on our rickshaw and on us. We toyed with the idea of loading up our holy cow on a train to chennai,..splendid idea but after further discussion we realized that we didnt wanna loose the essence of the trip. Its gotta be a road trip,.and were gonna complete it on 3 wheels. We planned the route and got down to business. We swapped seats every 75km and took it real nice and slow not wanting to push ourselves and the holy cow too much. This time round we started stretching at breaks. What was really amazing were statues of Lord Hanuman every several kms,.and they were huge. 12 story huge! The scenery changed,.we had beautiful mountain scenery this time. We saw many Lord Ganesh statues being manufactured too. They were really big and colorful. Wrapped in plastic and ready to be delivered. The day drive was smooth. The night drive. Imagine this, our windscreen has many light scratches and each time an oncoming truck or bus approaches, you are blinded by bright lights smudged all over your windscreen. Suddenly the broken lines you were using to predict the bends disappear and you cant see where you are going. With our hi-beam on, Our visibility is about 10m at very best. Each time a vehicle approached us,.we were driving blind. We were relying on the broken middle lane lines to guide us and they werent always there. Our auxiliary battery died and that meant we had no more music and only 1 juice pack to charge our phones to navigate to Chennai. We pulled out another smaller battery and that lasted just an hour to charge up our juice pack. Just about enough juice to get us going. Everything was going pretty okay till we started seeing lightning and rain started tricking. It then progressed to one of the worsts heaviest longest rains. As it is we were driving blind and now with the rain,.our cabin was wet and it was getting really cold. We had raincoats on, courtesy of Asian Box. It was cold. We kept our spirits up and Pursued. The rain lasted about 100km,.and we reduced our speed to 35km/h. The great thing is that by 430am,.the break of dawn starts to light up the sky. We stopped for a Chai at a truckers Dhaba and headed further south. Morning drive was pleasant and smooth. After all that,.we finally arrived into Chennai where my brother in law met us in a busy town and we followed his car to his home where my sister and mother was expecting us. We got home, and it was Such a joy for us to receive some family love. Mum prepared a feast for us all. For starters we had kebabs and frankie. The main course was my mothers famous butter chicken which we consumed with prata, naan and romali roti. My sister kept to her promise and the beers were chilled! We shared stories and mum was embarrassing me with all my stories as a kid. Had a good laugh. We were knackered by the end of dinner, we showered and crashed in the hall. Next day an Australian team The Indiarrrr joined us and crashed at my sisters house too! We had a mini party at the terrace of my sisters house and Italian team Toilet Call joined us for beers. We had a blast. Next day, The Indiarrrr and us decided to buy a BBQ for my sisters terrace. It was our house warming gift to her and her husband. She was really happy and excited. This was our way of thanking them for their hospitality. We got out Rick serviced, (mechanic came over to the house) and charged up batteries. Next day we headed off towards Pondicherry and today were off to Coimbatore. Were 300km away at present. All good under the hood. Peace.
Posted on: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 06:41:52 +0000
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