Wednesday, 4th January 2006. Bhairawa to Varanasi (India)

We got to the Nepal border at 6am where after waking up the immigration officer Mark and I were stamped out of the country, then the fun began...

Over at Customs we were told that the customs officer didn't start until 7am and we would have to wait, at this Mark and I explained that this wasn't good enough as this is a 24 hour border crossing, and they would have to go and wake up the officer.  This didn't go down too well and they did nothing so we then kicked up a fuss and made a real nuisance of ourselves and with raised voices protested that this was the worse border that we had come across so far, worse than Pakistan etc etc etc, that we expected a 24 hour border to be open for 24 hours a day, and that we wouldn't move or shut up until the carnet was stamped - we didn't care who stamped it and even offered to fill it out ourselves if they would show us where the stamp was...eventually our whining wore them down and the officer duly arrived just before 6.30am and completed the carnet without even glancing out of the window at Hector so that the actual process only took 5 minutes and then we were through into India.  On the Indian side things were much better: they stamped us and Hector back into India within 35 minutes and this included a quick search of the car.  The first 2 hours drive back to Gorakhpur was both scary and weird.  There was an immense fog which restricted our vision to 3 meters at times, which means that the white, un-lit bullock carts appear out of nowhere and you have about 2 seconds to react before you hit them - at one point we almost had a head on collision with a roundabout and we've never heard the tyres squeal so much.  The road from Gorakhpur to Varanasi was, thankfully, surprisingly good and after only 7.5 hours we had made it to the outskirts of the city.  How we managed to get to the Hotel Surya we will never know, but by sheer luck we arrived safely and checked in, in time for lunch for once!

   Our view from the windscreen going to Gorakhpur.

Thursday, 5th January 2006. Varanasi

We were up at 05:30 to go on our Ganges River cruise.  In the pre-dawn gloom we drove through the deserted streets until we could drive no further and then walked though the narrow lanes of the oldest part of the city to the Kedar Ghat, where we walked down the steps to the riverside and boarded our rowing boat.  Just after leaving the shore we bought a little candle and set it afloat just as the sun was rising...all very pleasant. At this time of the morning there weren't that many people about on the shore, but the river was full of little rowing boats ferrying people around. We had a good look at the hundreds of Ghats (bathing places) that had been constructed on the banks of the river over the centuries, but it was the return journey later on in the morning which was the most interesting. Now the river bank was scattered with hundreds of people, each using the Ganges River water   - which is polluted with more than 1.5 million types of bacteria (average bathing water has only 500 different types of bacteria!!!) and which also has the city's sewage pumped into it - to swim in, to wash in, to drink, to spit into, to wash their clothes in...you name it they did it.  I have to say that this rather turned my stomach, but all of the people performing their ritual washing looked in great health and unaffected by the pollution in the river.  The banks of the Ganges at Varanasi are famous for their "burning ghats" where bodies are cremated in public view before their ashes are scattered into the same river.  We did see a cremation which left us strangely unmoved as it is such an accepted part of daily life here , and our boat-man told us that the different types of wood used are differently priced (sandalwood being the most expensive) and each log is precisely weighed to enable the cremators to use just enough wood to incinerate the body.  It was fascinating watching people performing rituals that have been performed for thousands of years on the banks of the river.

The bathing ghats of Varanasi

When we got out of the boat we visited a couple of temples before heading for a silk workshop where we saw the workers operating hand-looms in darkness to make the silk scarves etc, which was like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. Of course we were also subjected to the hard sell afterwards and ended up buying a couple of scarves...

Working the hand-loom in the dark workshop...

Friday, 6th January 2006. Varanasi to Allahabad

Amy drove today and once again the roads were really good and we sped along to Allahabad with no dramas at all. Soon we were crossing the massive bridge over the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers - one of the holiest Hindu sites in all of India and where, in a few days time, tens of thousands of holy-men would gather to immerse themselves in the holy waters during the Megh Mela festival. We could see the huge tented towns being constructed on the banks of the river and could only imagine the scenes in a few days time. It would have been great to have hung about so we could watch, but we have to push on towards Mumbai and the West coast, so it's one night here for us before heading South to Jabalpur tomorrow.

Saturday, 7th January 2006. Allahabad to Jabalpur

A very long, tiring driving day today - probably one of the longest days that we have left in India (we hope) as we had to do 390km from Allahabad to Jabalpur. I know that it doesn't sound very far but when the road just stops and all there is, is an undulating mess of broken concrete, potholes and mud then the average speed drops and once again we found ourselves grinding along in low box. To be fair, the road out of Uttar Pradesh was very good - but as soon as we passed under the "Welcome to Madhya Pradesh" sign it just stopped and there was nothing to replace it...quite literally there was no drivable surface of any sort, and we saw one lorry which had rolled over as it tried to make it over the mess that was supposed to be the road. This continued for ages - stretches of good road would suddenly end and there would be no road to speak of for ages when just as suddenly a decent road would appear out of nowhere. Not surprisingly we didn't see a single "normal" car on this road -everything was either a lorry or a jeep, and we saw more breakdowns on this stretch of road than on any other - usually an axle had broken or the suspension had simply given up. We also had another chance to observe the sheer lunacy of level-crossings - it never ceases to amaze us how normally intelligent people can behave with such a complete and total lack of common sense as every car, lorry, rickshaw, jeep, camel and elephant rushes towards the barriers like lemmings then, when the barriers eventually lift, charge at each other and try and force the people coming in the other direction off the road. The ensuing mess lasts about 20 minutes in which time everyone could have been miles away...

Eventually we made it to the outskirts of Jabalpur where true to form we took the wrong route into town, ended up god knows where and had to battle our way through the back streets to find a place to park Hector. We've ended up in the purely vegetarian "Hotel Samdariya" which is really nice and friendly. We'll have a bit of a chilling out day tomorrow before heading to Nagpur, the geographical centre of India, on Monday.

Welcome to Madhya Pradesh.

Sunday, 8th January 2006. Jabalpur.

Spent the day relaxing in the chilled out veggie hotel, planning our route to Mumbai, phoning up places en-route to see if we can park Hector etc.

Monday, 9th January 2006. Jabalpur to Nagpur.

The drive here was fantastic, the roads were superb and the scenery was spectacular.  Mark and I are beginning to like India again.  We have noticed that the further south we go the less people we see, and the less pollution there is, thus enabling us to see the stunning views properly.  The people are also starting to change in looks and in attitude and the villages are becoming increasingly cleaner.  We drove through the Pench Tiger Reserve today which was great fun, loads of monkeys on the road (one of which Mark fed a banana to) and really dense jungley surroundings.  The reserve is in the rolling southern part of the Satpura Hills, this is also the place where Rudyard Kipling set his story 'The Jungle Book'.  We had a fantastic time driving through listening to "Bear Necessities" and "I'm the King of the Swingers" on the CD player, and could have even driven around the Tiger reserve in Hector if we had had time - never mind we can't do everything!  We arrived in the outskirts of Nagpur with no hassle at all, but then Mark realised that the map we had printed off of the internet didn't really show the city as it was, for example they showed the 'ring road' as a circle around the city, logical but incorrect, and we found out the hard way.  We ended up getting lost, but Mark was excellent with the navigation and we were soon on the Wardha road leading out to the Airport.  We hadn't booked a hotel as all the telephone numbers in the lonely planet were wrong, but after looking on the internet we knew that there were quite a few along this road.  We drove down the road twice and decided to stay at the Hotel Shivani International, reasonably priced and very welcoming. Nagpur is a great city to drive around - huge, wide modern roads and lots of signposts, and the city itself is very modern and pleasant - it's the geographical centre of India, so we can now say that we've driven right through the middle of India!

Monkey want a banana!!!               Bit more interesting than rabbits and pheasants in the road....

Tuesday, 10th January 2006. Nagpur to Jalgaon (450km!)

What a day! It all started off so well as the road West out of Nagpur was really good and we were making good time - we had planned to stop at a place called Akola which was only 240km away, and were going to spend the afternoon having a look around the place. We got to Akola with no problem, stopped to ask a policeman for directions and then our trouble began. Three minutes after leaving the policeman two of his colleagues came up behind us on their motorbike and signaled for us to pull over, which we did, thinking that they had seen us going the wrong way or something. However, when plod came over (fat with a brush-over hair style and fake Ray-Bans) he asked to see my (Mark) driving license and paperwork. Luckily all our paper work is in order, and we even have insurance (for once) so I handed everything over and asked what the problem was, to which plod replied that he was going to fine us 500 rupees for not having a "pollution certificate"....don't make me laugh...And so the arguing began, with plod trying to extort the cash from us and bizarrely trying to sell us some raffle tickets in front of an ever growing crowd of on-lookers and well-wishers. We argued it out for over 20 minutes, when I said that we would happily pay the fine if he would provide us with a receipt and his name and number so we could go and show the local head of police...at this the excuses came thick and fast...he didn't have his receipt book, he'd have to go back to the station, could we come back in 3 hours (yeah, right...) etc etc...eventually he gave us our 500 rupees back and sent us on our way, after some of the crowd who were on our side started to point out to him that he was beginning to look very silly. All this rather put us off Akola as a city so we decided to drive on to Jalgaon - another 210km away but we thought that we could make it as the roads were pretty good. We did make it and have found a place to park Hector and spend the night before we head off to the Ajanta caves tomorrow.

Wednesday, 11th January 2006. Jalgaon to Ajanta.

A relaxing day today, it's only 60km from Jalgaon to Ajanta so we left at 11am.  The manager of the hotel came down to the car with us as he was really interested in Hector and our trip and wanted a guided tour.  It only took just over an hour to get here, which was great as we found that our room at the MTDC motel had a lovely verandah.  We spent the afternoon on the verandah, lapping up the sunshine and planning our route down to Goa and beyond.

Thursday, 12th January 2006. Ajanta.

After a fairly late breakfast we headed off in our rickshaw for the caves at Ajanta.  When you arrive at the gate you have to pay an 'amenities' fee, and then they make you walk through the bazaar area to get to the shuttle bus down to the caves.  We made it through the bazaar without being collared and boarded our rather crowded bus.  The caves and everything in them are all carved as one piece out of the basalt rock, and everything is situated in a hors-shoe shaped gorge which remained undiscovered from 600AD until some British officers stumbled across them whilst out Tiger hunting in 1810. As impressive as the construction of the cave and statues is, they are also full of some amazing art depicting scenes from the life of Buddha.  The caves were originally constructed around 200 BC and 500 AD by Buddhist monks and used as monasteries, temples etc.  The paintings in some of the caves have been amazingly well preserved and are still full of life and colour, and are fantastically well executed.  As well as the art, the caves themselves are also very interesting, especially the ones which have been decorated with giant sculptures of Buddha, one of which showed the Buddha asleep on one side.  We walked around the caves for a while, and had our picture taken a couple of times by some Indian couples and met a very nice Indian lad who was in the Merchant Navy and who had studied Marine Engineering at Newcastle. He was taking some time off to drive his motorbike around the West coast, and was a great source of info on the road ahead. Mark asked him whether there was such a thing as a pollution certificate, and he replied yes, there was and that all Indian vehicles had to have one...so the traffic-cop in Akola wasn't making it up...oh well.... Having wandered around the caves for a couple of hours we headed up to the view point in the middle of the horseshoe. This almost killed us as it was really hot and there were loads of steps, so afterwards we called it a day and headed back to the hotel.  Back at the hotel mark was sitting on the verandah when a Languor monkey appeared and sat down only 1.5m from Mark. The monkey sat there for a while giving Mark the once over, then got up and walked away, leading his troop past our verandah. Mark quickly came to get me and as we came back out we were surrounded by them.  I got an apple from the room and held it out in my hand to a mother with her tiny baby to take, she did and her hands touched mine.  Her hands were not what was expecting, they were not leathery or hairy but really smooth and soft very much like a humans. We spent ages watching them playing around as the sun set over the garden - a great way to end the day.

Amy outside one of the caves.  Head of the sleeping Buddha.     Sculpture of Buddha

Mother and baby eating the apple.    Female Languor's relaxing.        Having a good old natter...

Friday, 13th January 2006. Ajanta to Ellora Caves,

Despite being Friday the 13th, it was actually a very easy day today. Once again we didn't have far to drive so I (Mark) took it easy over the lovely back-roads towards Ellora. After 50km or so there was a police checkpoint, and typically we got pulled over -"here we go again..."we thought as 2 traffic cops came over. However, to our great surprise they turned out to be two of the nicest people that we've met so far in India. They invited us into their tent for some tea and biscuits, chatted away for ages and spoke to Amy like she was a human being, gave us directions to the caves along some lovely back-roads and even gave us their mobile phone numbers in case we ever needed any help- officers Sunil Patel and Arun Ugle were top chaps and meeting them made our morning.

Following their directions we soon arrived at the motel near to the caves and parked up - they have some super places to camp here and we will do tomorrow. Spent the afternoon pottering around and watching the monkeys clamber all over Hector.

Officers Ugle and Patel with Mark             Oi, monkey....off the car!!!

Saturday, 14th January 2006. Ellora

After having a nice bottle of Indian Red wine last night (we're hoping to visit the vineyard in a few days time) we were up early this morning and walking to the Ellora Caves. "Caves" doesn't really do justice to these things - they are immense temples carved out of the mountainside decorated with fantastic sculptures and pictures...the sheer scale of some of the temples is staggering: the Kailasa temple for example covers twice the area of the Parthenon in Athens, is 1 1/2 times as high and excavating it from the mountain took 150 years and involved moving over 200,000 tonnes of rock by hand. Wandering around these temples in the early morning sunshine was fantastic, especially when we were the only ones there and could really soak up the atmosphere. Three different religions carved out their temples here: the Buddhists, the Hindus and the Jains and the different styles are very clear. As the day heated up the place got more and more busy, and Amy started to get the old "one photo, one photo" from groups of male teenagers, which gets pretty annoying after a while, but it was possible to leave the crowds behind and explore some of the further temples in peace and quiet.

these photos really don't do the place justice, but you should get some idea of the scale...

Sunday, 15th January 2005. Ellora to Nasik.

We were on the road fairly early today and I (Amy) drove.  We're still not sure which road we were driving along as the road on the map was a 'red' main road and the one which we were actually on was a single tracked monstrosity, nevertheless we found our way to Nasik (after being stopped at a level crossing where the car was immediately surrounded by hundreds of men trying to get a closer look) and tried to find the hotel that we had booked the night before.  This turned into a nightmare, we must have driven down every single road in Nasik three times before we gave in and stopped at the 'Dwarka Hotel' on the main Mumbai road, this turned out to be great fun as we had mirrored windows in the room which enabled us to watch the evening chaos unfold on the street below, without fear of being started at from below.

The level crossing crowd.                 Makes a change to be stuck behind an Elephant

Monday, 16th January 2006. Nasik to Panvel.

Our original plan for today was to drive to Thane, book Hector into the Land Rover garage there for a service, and stay in a near-by hotel until he was ready. Unfortunately our plans changed once I (Mark) phoned the garage and they asked if I had the parts with me...if I had all of the parts I'd do the work myself! So we scrubbed plan A (there's a LR garage in Kuala Lumpar so we'll take him there) and decided to keep heading South until we found somewhere to stay. The road today was supposed to take us past Mumbai (Bombay) but somehow we missed the turning and ended up driving straight into the middle of the Metropolis - 16.5 million people all crammed together on top of each other and half of them seeming to on the road at any one time. Before things got silly we managed to turn around and find the right road which took us through some appalling slum areas...a stark reminder that the so-called Indian economic miracle has a long way to go yet. Eventually we were heading South at last, and just before dusk we saw the "Garden Hotel" by the side of he road and pulled in for the night. Later that evening we thought that the place was on fire when we were enveloped in a thick cloud of choking smoke but this turned out to be the nightly fumigating of the building to try and kill off the mosquitoes - can't say that it had any effect at all.

Tuesday, 17th January 2006. Panvel to Murud. & Wednesday, 18th January 2006 Murud.

I (Amy) drove today, and once we'd found the right road south from Panvel the journey became enjoyable.  We followed the Konkan coastal road down to a place called Pen where we made a beeline for the west coast at Alibag, from here we drove along a very narrow white road through lots of little seaside villages lined with coconut palms and lots of greenery before getting our first glimpse of the sea since Turkey - blissful.  We checked into the 'Nest Bamboo House' which is a very basic bamboo hut with no shower, or hot water, but it is right on the beach front.  We met a Canadian Lady called Fiona who is in India photographing street kids.  We all had a lovely lunch on the beach and Mark and I spent the afternoon strolling up and down the deserted sands in the lovely afternoon sunshine. In the evening we wandered along the shoreline looking for somewhere to eat, and ended up sitting right on the beach eating Zapatta (prawn) curry which was delicious.

On Wednesday (after an awful nights sleep on the hardest bed in the world) we had a lovely breakfast at the Golden Swan resort up the beach - a very fancy place with good food.  We spent the morning wandering up and down the deserted beach checking out the rock pools and paddling in the sea.  The afternoon was spent opening and eating a coconut.  We bought it for Rs10 from a tiny shop and took it back to the 'hotel'.  Mark used his leatherman to make a small hole in the top so that we could drink the lovely sweet coconut milk, before using his Khukri to smash open the shell, once opened getting the flesh off of the hard shell proved slightly difficult but we had help from our friend who ran the huts and he gave us a tip after which we had it down to a T.  After a lovely dinner we walked back to the camp where we climbed into a hammock and stared at the overwhelming starry sky. As we had such a poor nights sleep last night we decided to camp tonight so we wound up the roof tent for what seemed like the first time in ages and settled in, being lulled to sleep by the waves gently lapping at the shore.

Our time in Murud has been fantastic, we have had a gloriously sandy deserted beach all to ourselves, hammocks to swing in whilst reading our books, very tasty food, expensive beer, superb scenery and best of all hardly any tourists - what more could you ask for???

(17th)  Amy up a coconut tree and Mark relaxing in a hammock.

(18th) The view from our hut and the palm tree leaf hat that we made.

Thursday 19th January 2006. Murud to Ganpatipule inc; 20th, & 21st January Ganpatipule.

Another day, another beach paradise. The drive here took us ages as it took us over 2 hours to get from Murud back onto a decent road. We did however get to drive past the fort at Janjira which is set on an island in the middle of the inlet and looks very impressive. After a long hot drive (on decent roads for a change) we got here to find another amazing stretch of beach which is almost totally deserted - there's a Hindu shrine at one end and the area in front of that gets pretty busy, but 100 meters up the beach and you have it to yourself. We had booked into the MTDC hotel, which looked really nice, but after walking down the beach we saw the MTDC "Tented Village" which had some fantastic "Konkan Huts" set amidst the palm-trees, so we're going to change to one of these when we get a chance.

Janjira fort, just past Murud                "Konkan Huts" in Ganpatipule

Happy beach-goers                              As it says....

Our time in Ganpatipule was spent walking miles along the empty beach, swimming in the sea, paddling in the bath-like pools, exploring the rocks and trying not to get sun burnt. A great place.

Sunday 22nd January 2006 Ganpatipule to Candolim (Goa), 23rd and 24th Candolim.

We were happily driving along when we got pulled over by the police, Mark got out and straight away the copper said "this is a police check point, money please" Mark could have choked with laughter, but instead stuck with "No", they then made him get out all of the paperwork then having realised that we actually did have all of the documents they asked for some Perfume.  I mean how corrupt can you get...  As soon as Mark had stopped laughing and was back in the car my foot was to the floor and we were speeding off before they could try anything else. We arrived at the Goa border where we snuck through behind a lorry so that the policeman couldn't try anything on with us after our last experience, and drove easily to Candolim.  The signposts are all in English and are everywhere and most people speak English too.  We checked into the 'Sea Shell Inn' on the main road, before heading off for some lunch.  Garlic fried Swordfish for me and fish and Chips for Mark.  We spent the 23rd on the beach soaking up the sun and having a laugh in the sea.  Candolim is 13km north west of Panjim the capital of Goa and really is just like Spain, hundreds of sun loungers and thousands of British holiday makers - just what we wanted as it meant other tourists.  Just south of where we were is the famous 'River Princess' vessel which ran aground many years ago. The ship owners, Goan Government and the Insurance company are still fighting over who is responsible for moving it!!!  Personally I think it will never move now.  We went back to the hotel at around 3pm as stupidly I (Amy) had fallen asleep in the sun and was quite badly sun burnt.  The following day I woke up with a really really sore back, so no sunbathing today.  Instead we spent the day wandering around the shops, we bought the VCD of Madagascar.

Sorry we were lazy with the camera we haven't taken any pictures.

Wednesday, 25th January 2006. Candolim to Palolem, 26th January 2006 to 7th February 2006. Palolem.

As nice as the "Costa del Candolim" was, we decided to head further south to a place called Palolem which is supposed to have more of a laid back atmosphere. We originally booked ourselves into the "Oceanic" hotel which although quite a way from the centre of things is very nice. We stayed here for a couple of days whilst we had a bit of an explore and found somewhere much nearer the beach where we could park Hector - a place called Zappia Campo where a room with attached bathroom was ours for £7 per night.

Palolem is a fantastic place to just chill out and do nothing - it's a small village set amidst coconut trees, behind a crescent of lovely golden sand. There is a local law in Palolem prohibiting the construction of any new concrete buildings on the shore line, so everything is made of Bamboo instead and the beach is lined with tree-houses, bars, restaurants, stilt-houses and cafes all made of palm leaves and bamboo and looking like something out of Robinson Crusoe. The sea here is nice and warm and perfect for swimming in - occasionally there is a little bit of a surf and when there is everyone jumps in to make the most of it with Boogy boards and simple body surfing - all fantastic fun. We had an absolutely marvelous time here, eating fresh sea-food, swimming every day, reading in the sunshine, getting henna'd (amy), walking along the beach playing with the local dogs and exploring the sea-shore. Palolem attracts all sorts of people from gap-year backpackers having a break from the road to retired couples making the most of the cheap accommodation and the winter sunshine so there is a great atmosphere here  - so nice in fact that we ended up staying over a week longer then we had originally planned!

Views of Palolem beach and Mark and Hector outside of Zappia Camping.

Whilst we were here we also started to plan our final driving days in India - we're going to drive all the way down the coast of Kaniyakumari - the "Lands End" of India, then up to Chennai where we're going to put Hector on a boat and where we'll catch a plane. Luckily for us, our friends Chris and Elke have already shipped their motorbikes from Chennai to Port Klang in Malaysia and have put all of the details on their website. We e-mailed the company they used ("Interfreight"), got the times of sailings at the end of February and some rough costs, and decided to aim to get Hector on a boat leaving on 24th February if possible, which means that we need to get to Chennai on Sunday 19th Feb so we can sort everything out from the Monday. Once we have sorted everything out we'll detail how we did it and how much it cost us on the website.

Wednesday, 8th February 2006. Palolem to Mangalore.

We weren't too sure how long it would take us to drive to Mangalore so we left really early - but we needn't have bothered as the roads have now really improved and we seem to be able to make good progress once again. So we bombed it down the coast road with the coconut plantations flashing by and the breeze off the sea keeping us cool until we pulled up at the "Summer Sands beach resort" just outside Mangalore where we drove up to our 1950's style chalet and settled in for the night.

Thursday, 9th February 2006. Mangalore.

Bit of an unexpected and unplanned pit-stop today. When we arrived yesterday Amy noticed a gash in the front drivers side wheel and then we noticed a similar gash on the rear wheel - we have no idea how these happened as we haven't been over any really rough ground for ages. The tyres were still inflated, but as we have two spares we decided not to risk running on them and swapped all the wheels around so the two new tyres are on the two front wheels, and the two good older tyres are on the back. We've kept the two damaged tyres as they may do for emergency spares if we ever have a complete blow-out, and our Carnet lists us as having 2 spares so we have to keep them anyway. After swapping the wheels around we also gave Hector a check over - the usual things: oil and fluid levels, check the condition of the air filter and the brakes, check the prop-shafts, etc etc etc. We also gave him a clean, and took everything out of the back and cleaned that as well. We also measured him to make sure that he'll fit in a standard 20 foot container - he'll fit in the container ok, but we'll have to let some air out of the tyres to get him through the doorway. It took us all day to sort everything out to our satisfaction, but is was great fun.

Mark swapping the wheels around.

Friday, 10th February 2006. Mangalore to Kozikhode (Calicut).

I (Mark) drove today and we reached Kozikhode with no bother at all - but it all went pear-shaped when we got diverted off our planned route and ended up trying to drive the wrong way down a very narrow one-way street. We would have got away with it too (tiny little Maruti Suzuki Vs Great Big Land Rover with cast iron bumpers - guess who's going to be reversing...) if a huge great police tow truck hadn't hurtled round the corner and almost flattened us. We expected the cop to go off the deep-end, or at least demand an "on the spot fine", but he was totally cool about the whole thing, gave us directions and even pulled up and waited for us to go past him as he waved us in what he thought was the right direction, which was very kind of him...but he was wrong. He directed us up a street called "Big Bazaar Road" (doesn't sound like the sort of place to be driving a Land Rover, does it?) which was chokka with lorries unloading their goods into the shops at the side of the road. We managed to squeeze half-way up the road when we got stuck and could go no further. It was now that the shop keepers started to tell us that this too was a one-way street, and that we were going the wrong way...excellent...So, it's 40 degrees in the shade and we're stuck facing the wrong way down a narrow street choked with lorries, rickshaws, hand-carts and cows...a fairly typical situation then. With Amy walking at the back of Hector shooing people out of the way and with the help of some of the shop keepers and lorry drivers, we managed to reverse back the way we had come and found ourselves once again on the main road. This time we went the right way and soon pulled up to the "Beach House" Hotel where we got the last room and settled in. After a disastrous evening meal we turned in.

Saturday, 11th February 2006. Kozikhode to Kochi (Cochin).

Easy driving day today and Amy drove us right into the middle of Cochin with no bother at all. When we pulled up at the Hotel Yuvarani they were really excited to see us, the ladies behind the reception desk were amazed when Amy told them that she did half the driving.

Sunday, 12th February 2006. Cochin

A proper touristy day today as we explored Cochin, which is a really nice place - we're staying in the modern part called Ernakulum and the old Dutch/Portuguese part is a boat ride away across the bay. We walked along the bay-side, through the well tended gardens and the "Cochin Flower Show" to the jetty and got the ferry to the old part of the city where we wandered through the old streets until we came across the Chinese Fishing Nets. These huge cantilevered structures are said to have been brought to Cochin by ambassadors from Kubla Khan and they are found all along the coast where they dip into the water like nodding-donkeys. We watched for ages as the fishermen raised and lowered their nets into the water, then sold their catch straight to the passers-by who could take their fish to one of the "You buy, we fry" stands where it could be served up for lunch - from the bay to your plate in about 20 minutes!

The Chinese Fishing Nets at Cochin

After some lunch and some more wandering about we headed back to the hotel, where no sooner had we walked into our room when the phone rang and a very excited Man from reception told us that there was a journalist and a photographer from the "Indian Express" (India's most popular paper apparently) downstairs wanting to interview us - fame at last!! So down we went, spent half an hour being interviewed, then attracted a huge crowd as we posed on Hector having our photo's taken - all fantastic fun! Apparently the story will run in tomorrows paper, so we ordered 2 copies for our room in anticipation.

Monday, 13th February 2006. Cochin to Kaniyakumari

Wow!! Front page of the "Indian Express" (Cochin Edition) for Mark and Amy with the story titled "Driving around the Globe". Click the picture below to see the article, then hover the cursor over the image. A yellow box with blue arrows at each corner should appear in the bottom right corner of the image - click this to see the "full size" version of the story.

We were really pleased with the article, although the journalist did use a little "artistic license" - neither of us remembered saying that we "cherish each moment" of our stay in India! Anyway, heads swelled to the size of houses we checked out of the hotel amidst many admiring glances and "I've seen you in the paper" type comments and started our drive to the southern most tip of India on a high. Once again the drive was an absolute breeze along some good roads, and we arrived at the town of Kaniyakumari mid-afternoon. It's a nice place, quite quiet and sedate. There are mountains in the background and a fresh wind blowing off the 3 seas that meet here - the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. Getting here is another of our milestones - we've now driven the length of India!

Tuesday, 14th February 2006. Kaniyakumari.

Like everyone else here, today we walked down to the sea-shore and headed for the very end of mainland India. We walked along to the view-point and spent ages at the top looking out at the view. Here we met an English lad who was here for 4 months on his gap year, teaching at a school near Madurai. After a quick chat we headed off to the temple on the shore and walked down to the bathing ghats, where we dipped our toes into the waters.

Us at the Southern most point of mainland India.

Wednesday, 15th February 2006. Kaniyakumari to Trichy

It was a longish driving day today but again the roads were good and we were able to whiz along until we reached Trichy. We only planned to spend one night here before heading off to Pondicherry, so once settled in we walked to the internet cafe, got a list of places to stay in Pondy and started calling them. Every single hotel, guesthouse, inn and home-stay was full...so was everywhere else on the coast. Damn. We've decided therefore to stay in Trichy (which isn't a bad place) until the 19th, when we'll drive up to Chennai.

Thursday, 16th February 2006. Trichy.

We had a good day today - we've booked our flights to Singapore with Air India (£258 for both of us, leaving at 1405 on 24th February) and our hotel in Singapore...we also confirmed our shipping arrangements, so all we have to do now is make sure that Hector is in his crate and on the ship by 11am on the 24th. We're both really looking forward to the next leg of our journey, and to celebrate went out for a slap up meal, served on Banana leaves.

Down-town Trichy                              Our delicious slap-up meal.

Friday, 17th February and Saturday 18th February 2006. Trichy.

Tum-te-tum...did some work on the website...sat around in the sunshine...wandered around the town...killing time really until we can head off for Chennai on Sunday.

Sunday, 19th February 2006. Trichy to Chennai

Our last driving day in India today and it wasn't too bad - the NH45 turns into a lovely dual carriageway about 100 km South of Chennai so soon we were trundling past the airport and heading into the middle of town. For once we didn't get lost as we had a great "Eicher" map of the city and we got to our hotel with only a little bit of confusion when it came to the flyovers. We settled in for the afternoon and started to get all of our stuff ready for the meeting with the shipping agents tomorrow.

Monday 20th February 2006. Chennai

At 10:45 this morning we were sat drinking tea in the offices of Mr I P Prasanna Kumar of "Interfreight Services PVT Ltd" getting the initial paperwork completed to get Hector on the boat leaving on the 24th. We got the address of Interfreight from Chris and Elke who used them to ship their bikes to Malaysia a couple of weeks ago with no bother. We were impressed with how organised they were and how efficiently they managed the process: Initial paperwork completed today, Hector customs checked and into the crate tomorrow, pick up the signed carnet, passports and the Bill of Landing by the 23rd at the latest and then it's job done. The quote for the arranging the shipping was as follows:

Ocean Freight from Chennai to Port Klang for 20' container - $50

CFS Charges - Rs1850

Transportation Charges - Rs3500

Lashing Charges - Rs2500

Customs Documentation - Rs2000

Examination - Rs2000

Terminal Handing - Rs3500

Conveyance - Rs750

B/L Fee - Rs500

Surrender Fee - Rs1000

Handling Agency - Rs5000

Service Tax 10.2% on Agency Fee - Rs510

TOTAL - RS23,100 (+$50) or approx £308.

For anyone else thinking of shipping from Chennai, Interfreight's details are as follows:

Mr I. P. Prasanna Kumar, Branch Manager

Interfreight Services Pvt Ltd

Sivakami Complex, New number 318/Old number 174

Thambu Chetty Street, Chennai - 600 001

Tel: 044 25245245,

e: seaexport@interfreightindia.com

After our meeting we headed back to the hotel and finished packing the back of Hector for tomorrow. We also did some more measuring now that the fuel tank is almost empty, and have realised that it may be "interesting" getting Hector into the crate...the doorway is 2280mm high and Hector with roof-tent is currently 2360mm high, so either we lose 85mm (by letting the tyres down and loading the back with people) or we take the roof-tent off, which will be a right pain! We shall see tomorrow!

Tuesday, 21st February 2006. Chennai

The day of truth and quite possibly one of the most nerve wracking of the entire trip so far as we wondered how much of a hassle it was going to be to fit Hector into the crate. We met the chap from Interfreight at our hotel (New Woodlands) and followed him as he rode his motorbike to the container port area. On the way we stopped at a car wash and got Hector cleaned up for the customs inspection, and then we set off again for the loading area. It was far, far further than we thought from our hotel to the loading area - about 25/30km in total and consequently we ran out of diesel just as we entered the gates of the loading area and we coasted through the guard-gate. I (Mark) persuaded our helper to drive his motorbike to the nearest petrol station with me on the back carrying one of our jerry cans, which he did so we were able to put just enough in the tanks to get him into the crate and out again. 

We sat by the gate for about an hour waiting for something to happen - we'd got there at just before 14:00 and we eventually drove off to the container at about 15:15. This waiting around was to be the recurring feature of the day...Anyway, we eventually found our container sitting in the middle of a muddy area surrounded by blocks of Granite being shipped to Canada. We reversed up to the open doors and then settled down to wait for customs to turn up...and we waited...and we waited...When they eventually arrived it took three of them to poke around but it was by no means as thorough an examination as we had feared, just the usual check of the chassis and engine numbers and a look in the back. I had to laugh when one of them asked me where our other spare wheel was though as he could only see one on the back, the other being cunningly hidden behind the spare wheel cover. After all the waiting customs took about 10 minutes and then we were free to start loading Hector. First we had to improvise a ramp, then I let a load of air out of the back tyres to lower the height a little and edged him forwards with Amy checking the clearance. As the back of the roof-tent (the highest point of the vehicle) neared the doorway Amy signaled for me to stop as it was clear that we wouldn't make it under without some help. So she marshalled together all of the bystanders and got them to hang off the back to try and compress the springs and this, coupled with two guys on top of the crate pushing down, was enough to allow us to squeeze under the doorway and into the crate - success! Now it was just a matter of lashing him down which was easy as we were able to use the lashing points that he came with and that was it...the doors were closed and all we had to do was seal him in, which of course meant waiting around for the customs seal to turn up - which took ages. Whilst we were waiting we had a cup of tea with the lads who had helped us get Hector into the crate and generally messed about in the mud until at 19:00 the seal arrived and was placed on the crate - job done! Interfreight had sent a driver to pick us up and take us back to our hotel and we were chauffeured home very, very happy as one of the major unknowns of the trip had been no problem at all.

Waiting for customs                         Squeezing under the doorway           A job well done!

Wednesday 22nd February 2006 Chennai

Once again we were at the Interfreight offices bright and early - this time picking up all of our completed paperwork: the filled out Carnet and my (marks) passport which had been endorsed by customs so I could leave the country without Hector. The rest of the day we spent pootling around Chennai, updating the website etc etc.

Thursday, 23rd February 2006. Chennai.

Managed to post another load of photos and films home today, and we finally worked out how to delete all of the "spam" messages that we get on the website guestbook - hurrah! We're both excited about the flight to Singapore tomorrow!