The next day is an early start 0700 still quite a way to go and with the road winding its way through the mountains it could well be a long day as it turns out its our most testing of the trip so far, the first obstacle we come across is a landslip across the road with
not quite enough room for us to pass so break out the shovels and spades and the road widening gang get to work half an hour later and we’ll ready to pass or we would have been if Jan acting as official photographer at that point hadn’t stepped on the side of the landslip to get that last shot and promptly sunk up to her knees in liquid mud so we transfer all our efforts into releasing her minus one thong (for all of you back in England that’s not underwear she didn’t sink that deep, but a flip flop and only the new ones that she got three weeks earlier as we entered Nepal)
THE GREAT THONG HUNT IT MUST IN HERE SOMEWHERE !!!!!!!!so a quick wash in the running water at the side of the road and we can resume our journey thong less for some of us. As we move west across Nepal the villages become more rural and use less man made products in there construction straw roofs and mud walls its like stepping back in time compared to Eastern Nepal where a great deal of brick walls and tin roofs are used. 
Our next problem is huge traffic queues as the students are protesting against the government on cuts to their budgets (heard this before somewhere) but after careful negotiation we are allowed to continue on our way providing we keep putting the money into their economy the trouble is every town has a demo going on so we have a few of these to negotiate even one with burning tyres in the middle of the road and nobody seems to care especially the police in actual fact there nowhere to be seen. A stop for lunch at a small roadside cafe for spicy vegetable noodles and soft drink total cost 30 pence each, and then off on part two of our journey which involved driving through rivers because they were rebuilding the bridges what they do is lay a base of stones in the river and then you drive through the trouble with having so much rain the day before meant that it can get quite deep and there was a queue of buses lined up because they couldn’t get through, after offering to walk through to check the depth and realising as I got half way through and it was up above my knees (I know my legs aren’t that long before anyone say’s anything) 
that my wallet was still in my pocket and this was no time to fall over, but I made it and Jacko and the truck followed me through much to everyone’s relief who was in the back.
The accommodation at Bardi National Park sits down a track which is some 12 kilometres off the main highway and look what trouble we had on that earlier on, so we thought there might be a few problems in store for us, the first being a wide river
crossing followed by the standard low power cables that had to be lifted and finally a creaky wooden bridge 
that fortunately for us flexed rather than snapped as the truck passed over it we were going to remember our last trip in the truck one way or the other but we made it safely. 
THE HOW AND HOW NOT TO WEAR MAKEUP
Arriving at the park we were allocated our mud huts! Much to Jan’s concern, very basic, but done the job complete with luminous green spiders and our own pet frog by the side of the bed they had heard that Jan was in town and were keen to meet her, we all booked our trips for the next day and surprise, surprise, Jan decided against the safari walk and opted instead to have a quiet day in the village which as it turned out was quite informative as one of the guides took them around the market and village showing them the houses both inside and out. Some of us opted for the walk and the rest done a rafting safari we discovered that the leeches were again out in force as Jacko and myself got them on our legs and we had trousers on (get in through the little hole where the legs zip off) plus the usual ones on my stomach great fun!, saw some wild boar well we were almost run down by them as they dashed across our path and we had been following some tiger tracks at the time which made it a bit of a heart stopping moment, also got to know a baby elephant who took a shine to Oscar’s hat.
Only had the one day at Bardi and then its off for the border crossing at Bambasa this turns out to be a bridge across the river that is only one foot wider than the truck with a difficult dog leg approach and exit what with having to get the traffic to stop crossing from the other side because there’s no room to pass, and trying to get an Indian to stop do anything when they’ve got it in their mind that they want to cross is an almost impossible task, and yes we’re back in India noisy, busy and plenty of rubbish about again. 
A NARROW BORDER CROSSING
Another bush camp that night in a disused petrol station the trouble with India is, it’s so packed with people or farming land that there is just nowhere to camp and so we have to take whatever we can get and disused petrol forecourts seem to work quite well, although once the locals got to hear we are in town 50 to 60 of them turn up to watch us cook and eat our meal a bit like being back in Pakistan !!! We set off on National Highway 3 down to Mumbai but this is more like a single lane farm track with vehicles having to pull off the highway to pass each other, we think it should be called National footpath 3 not that the indian lorry drivers
are that keen to leave the hard standing and its a game of bluff to see who pulls over first, needless to say progress is painfully slow but we manage to transverse the Indian sub continent and after a couple more bush camps one on a disused factory site and the last one on the grounds of a disused mosque we arrive in Mumbai formerly Bombay and look forward to our first hot shower in four days. 
LAST GROUP PHOTO WITH THE TRUCK Jacko,john,Kat,Mary,Mo,Jan,Rob,Lorraine,Lucinda,Lynda,Oscar&me kneeling
ENTERING MUMBAI NOTE THE TRAFFIC GOING THE WRONG WAY DOWN THE OTHER CARRIAGEWAY BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T BE BOTHERED TO QUEUE
What a difference the last time I was in Bombay was back in 1975 when I was in the Navy and joined my first ship the Salisbury here, the place has changed a lot not surprisingly and most certainly for the better, it’s the best Indian city I have visited so far, cleaner, less busy even with a population of 16.4 million only another 4 million and they would have as many people as is in the whole of Australia, it’s just got a much better feeling to it than any other, we hope to ship the truck back to UK from here after doing some 22,051 km’s since leaving London on April the 6th, but as it turns out this could be a long process to organise so much so Jacko is still back in Mumbai trying to get space on a ship one week after the rest of us have left. We have three days in Mumbai before we get the overnight sleeper train to Kolkata, time to package up our tents and other stuff that we don’t need until Australia and send it on, lightening the load for South East Asia, a trip to the post office via the post office wallahs ( men who sew up your goods into a cloth parcel) ready for taking across the road into the post office for a five day delivery to Oz, lets hope Australian customs and immigration let it all through otherwise we’re be sleeping under the stars. A couple of days sightseeing, India Gate,
and plenty of old colonial buildings with a trip out to Elephant Island to visit some temples which have been hollowed out of the rock. While on the one hour boat trip out to the island we pass the Navy dockyard and there tied up alongside is the old Hermes now sold to the Indian Navy and 
still going strong after all these years she was the other ship that I served on in
NOW WHERE DID I LEAVE MY SEA LEGS
Our next problem is huge traffic queues as the students are protesting against the government on cuts to their budgets (heard this before somewhere) but after careful negotiation we are allowed to continue on our way providing we keep putting the money into their economy the trouble is every town has a demo going on so we have a few of these to negotiate even one with burning tyres in the middle of the road and nobody seems to care especially the police in actual fact there nowhere to be seen. A stop for lunch at a small roadside cafe for spicy vegetable noodles and soft drink total cost 30 pence each, and then off on part two of our journey which involved driving through rivers because they were rebuilding the bridges what they do is lay a base of stones in the river and then you drive through the trouble with having so much rain the day before meant that it can get quite deep and there was a queue of buses lined up because they couldn’t get through, after offering to walk through to check the depth and realising as I got half way through and it was up above my knees (I know my legs aren’t that long before anyone say’s anything) that my wallet was still in my pocket and this was no time to fall over, but I made it and Jacko and the truck followed me through much to everyone’s relief who was in the back.The accommodation at Bardi National Park sits down a track which is some 12 kilometres off the main highway and look what trouble we had on that earlier on, so we thought there might be a few problems in store for us, the first being a wide river
crossing followed by the standard low power cables that had to be lifted and finally a creaky wooden bridge that fortunately for us flexed rather than snapped as the truck passed over it we were going to remember our last trip in the truck one way or the other but we made it safely. THE HOW AND HOW NOT TO WEAR MAKEUPArriving at the park we were allocated our mud huts! Much to Jan’s concern, very basic, but done the job complete with luminous green spiders and our own pet frog by the side of the bed they had heard that Jan was in town and were keen to meet her, we all booked our trips for the next day and surprise, surprise, Jan decided against the safari walk and opted instead to have a quiet day in the village which as it turned out was quite informative as one of the guides took them around the market and village showing them the houses both inside and out. Some of us opted for the walk and the rest done a rafting safari we discovered that the leeches were again out in force as Jacko and myself got them on our legs and we had trousers on (get in through the little hole where the legs zip off) plus the usual ones on my stomach great fun!, saw some wild boar well we were almost run down by them as they dashed across our path and we had been following some tiger tracks at the time which made it a bit of a heart stopping moment, also got to know a baby elephant who took a shine to Oscar’s hat.
Only had the one day at Bardi and then its off for the border crossing at Bambasa this turns out to be a bridge across the river that is only one foot wider than the truck with a difficult dog leg approach and exit what with having to get the traffic to stop crossing from the other side because there’s no room to pass, and trying to get an Indian to stop do anything when they’ve got it in their mind that they want to cross is an almost impossible task, and yes we’re back in India noisy, busy and plenty of rubbish about again. A NARROW BORDER CROSSINGAnother bush camp that night in a disused petrol station the trouble with India is, it’s so packed with people or farming land that there is just nowhere to camp and so we have to take whatever we can get and disused petrol forecourts seem to work quite well, although once the locals got to hear we are in town 50 to 60 of them turn up to watch us cook and eat our meal a bit like being back in Pakistan !!! We set off on National Highway 3 down to Mumbai but this is more like a single lane farm track with vehicles having to pull off the highway to pass each other, we think it should be called National footpath 3 not that the indian lorry drivers
are that keen to leave the hard standing and its a game of bluff to see who pulls over first, needless to say progress is painfully slow but we manage to transverse the Indian sub continent and after a couple more bush camps one on a disused factory site and the last one on the grounds of a disused mosque we arrive in Mumbai formerly Bombay and look forward to our first hot shower in four days. LAST GROUP PHOTO WITH THE TRUCK Jacko,john,Kat,Mary,Mo,Jan,Rob,Lorraine,Lucinda,Lynda,Oscar&me kneelingENTERING MUMBAI NOTE THE TRAFFIC GOING THE WRONG WAY DOWN THE OTHER CARRIAGEWAY BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T BE BOTHERED TO QUEUEWhat a difference the last time I was in Bombay was back in 1975 when I was in the Navy and joined my first ship the Salisbury here, the place has changed a lot not surprisingly and most certainly for the better, it’s the best Indian city I have visited so far, cleaner, less busy even with a population of 16.4 million only another 4 million and they would have as many people as is in the whole of Australia, it’s just got a much better feeling to it than any other, we hope to ship the truck back to UK from here after doing some 22,051 km’s since leaving London on April the 6th, but as it turns out this could be a long process to organise so much so Jacko is still back in Mumbai trying to get space on a ship one week after the rest of us have left. We have three days in Mumbai before we get the overnight sleeper train to Kolkata, time to package up our tents and other stuff that we don’t need until Australia and send it on, lightening the load for South East Asia, a trip to the post office via the post office wallahs ( men who sew up your goods into a cloth parcel) ready for taking across the road into the post office for a five day delivery to Oz, lets hope Australian customs and immigration let it all through otherwise we’re be sleeping under the stars. A couple of days sightseeing, India Gate,
and plenty of old colonial buildings with a trip out to Elephant Island to visit some temples which have been hollowed out of the rock. While on the one hour boat trip out to the island we pass the Navy dockyard and there tied up alongside is the old Hermes now sold to the Indian Navy and still going strong after all these years she was the other ship that I served on in NOW WHERE DID I LEAVE MY SEA LEGSDOLLY BIRD UNDER A BROLLY AND NO ITS NOT RAINING
Navy and its quite a coincidence to see her in Mumbai the same port where I joined my first ship all those years ago, Jan was busy doing her container spotting only Maersk appeared to be running out of this port so she couldn’t tick off any China shipping containers this time. The trip back from the Island turned out to be quite rough and we all got a little wet, but Jan handled it very well, better in fact than the boat trip on the Ganges or the dugout canoe at Chitwan she must be getting her sea legs together now. I was hoping this confidence would carry across to the railway, after reading the rough guide to India which describes the Indian railway system as not only the biggest employer in India but also the most dangerous rail network in the world yes apparently even more dangerous than Network rail (must be bad) with an average of five accidents a month on its network and we were about to embark on a 32 hour train trip from Mumbai to Kolkata we had enough time for one accident maybe even two !! The train journey was quite an experience as you might expect bunks arranged in tiers of three, bars on the windows and usually the doors left open so you can get some air which also allows people to hop on and off once the train slows down enough, which is why your bags have to be chained to the bed to ensure they don’t go walkabout with them across India.
ENJOYING THE EVENING MEAL
VERY PLUSH ACCOMMODATION
Plenty of food and drink which is brought around by the train staff constantly through the journey which in turns leads to quite a bit of rubbish but they come along sweep it all up put it in a bag and then promptly throw it out the doorway while we are moving along, once they even threw it out the door as we passed through the station at speed I hope they all had protective clothing on the platform!, and the term don’t use the toilets while in the station took on a whole new meaning as you could look down the toilet and see the track directly beneath you. But it was an experience we wouldn’t have missed probably wouldn’t want to make a habit of doing it but at a cost of five pounds per head to travel coast to coast across India a total of 1,968 km’s, it’s great value for money.
Kolkata we only have a day here before we fly out to Bangkok on Tuesday the 5th August one day to see the sights, Kolkata is a mix of old and the new rapidly developing India, we walked around in the afternoon coming across people sleeping in the gutter and washing in the streets to only a mile up the road large department stores with air con and all the trappings of any European city it’s quite unbelievable the class system that still exists in India, and the huge gap that exists between the ones who have and the ones who will never have.
So John, Rob, Jan and myself leave India for the second time, the rest of the group are flying out during the next two days to meet up in Bangkok ready for the South East Asia leg, we have managed to travel as far east as Kolkata and as far south as Mumbai overland from London not quite as far as we had hoped to get before having to take a flight but still it’s brings a whole new meaning to the term international dinning what with dinner in Mumbai on Saturday night, dinner in Kolkata on Monday night and finally dinner in Bangkok on Tuesday night. We have now been in Bangkok three days and it’s very nice I can see why my daughter Stephanie enjoyed it so much here clean, modern, cheap and a huge variety of foods and drinks to enjoy, yesterday we visited the Grand Palace
Kolkata we only have a day here before we fly out to Bangkok on Tuesday the 5th August one day to see the sights, Kolkata is a mix of old and the new rapidly developing India, we walked around in the afternoon coming across people sleeping in the gutter and washing in the streets to only a mile up the road large department stores with air con and all the trappings of any European city it’s quite unbelievable the class system that still exists in India, and the huge gap that exists between the ones who have and the ones who will never have.
So John, Rob, Jan and myself leave India for the second time, the rest of the group are flying out during the next two days to meet up in Bangkok ready for the South East Asia leg, we have managed to travel as far east as Kolkata and as far south as Mumbai overland from London not quite as far as we had hoped to get before having to take a flight but still it’s brings a whole new meaning to the term international dinning what with dinner in Mumbai on Saturday night, dinner in Kolkata on Monday night and finally dinner in Bangkok on Tuesday night. We have now been in Bangkok three days and it’s very nice I can see why my daughter Stephanie enjoyed it so much here clean, modern, cheap and a huge variety of foods and drinks to enjoy, yesterday we visited the Grand Palace
HAVING TO COVER UP IN THE GRAND PALACE
and Bai Yoke 2 the tallest building in Thailand spectacular views from the top, last night we took in a Thai boxing match and today Jan's gone off to the MBK 
centre, shopping with the girls while I get the blog updated before we head off north to Chang Mai for three days before going into Laos. Must dash as the green cafe offers free wifi access if you buy a drink so I can update the blog and sup beer while waiting for Jan to return from the great shopping trip perhaps we’re need another rucksack !!!!!!!!!!!!!
2 comments:
hi Vince Jan
I thought we had had a lot of rain think somehow you may have had a touch more,but we did have our own land slide road blocked for three weeks prehaps you shuold have sorted it you would have finished sooner.
Crossing the rivers looks fun out there.
Vince were your sae legs still on HMS Hermes,
Well done with the blog Vince good reason not to have to go shopping did Jan buy one flip flop
Take care
lol
G & V
Hi Jan & Vince!
I've just finished reading the entire of your blog from start to finish as SOMEONE (Judith) kept forgetting to send me the web address. But i'm up to date now and i am so horrendously jealous! The fact you're out riding death trap trains, digging out landslides and riding elephants while I'm sat in an office in dreary London has not helped my Thursday morning blues! But your trip looks so amazing, you've done so many fantastic things, I'm incredibly jealous and i can't wait for the next update!
Take care,
Amy
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