Sailing the Seven Seas to Kathmandu

A transit is quite different from a real trip, we drive for longer, push our bladders to the limit, play music louder and our diet consists largely of snickers, bananas, noodles and anything we can get our hands on from the side of the road.  We are currently on a journey to bring Calypso to Kathmandu for the start of the trip.  If you’d like to follow our progress North through India and then West through Nepal click the “Where are they now” link to the right you will see a marker for our nightly stops.  Once the trip starts we will also be using the Spot Tracker so friends and family back home can keep a track of our progress.  It’s a great thing to let people know as it can take away a little of the worry if they haven’t heard from you for a while and can see you’re still on the move.  Back to India!

Arriving in Kolkata on Rogs’s birthday the hotel kindly obliged with a Happy Birthday welcome sign to greet us at the monsoon affected airport, a taste of things to come.  Rogan is an amusing name to have in India, “a nickname? ” one man responded after asking his name.  Jet-lagged and still suffering from Rogs’s brother’s wedding the day before the long haul flight we managed to fit in a bit of sight seeing to the majestic Victoria monument.  As well as preparing Calypso for the transit, boarding up a broken window, fitting a few new parts, we were ready to jump behind the wheel again.

Arriving in Kolkata on Rog's birthday

Definitely monsoon time at the airport

What monsoon?  Blue skies above the Victoria Memorial

Kolkata morning commute

Calypso and friends

The iconic Ambassador taxi

Quick window fix

Leaving Kolkata was surprisingly smooth, setting off early before the traffic and navigating our way to the bridge across the Hooghly River armed with only a piece of paper with scrawled directions from the hotel, our internal compasses and a GPS system which shows us country boundaries and nothing else.

Hotel directions

Who needs a GPS anyway?

Alternative change at toll booth instead of 5 rupees - a bar of soap

Just about room to squeeze through

Are we in Bangladesh?

From 4.30pm we kept our eyes peeled for a suitable resting place, bush camp or hotel and only at 7.30pm after an hour of darkness, which it is not advisable to drive in, we settled on The Royal Hotel.  Smart on the outside, less said about the inside the better. 

If only we hadn’t noticed and discussed the large heavy duty bolt on the outside of the door, the piddly one on the inside and the barred windows.  Visions of being locked in with no means of escape, the room can’t have been dissimilar to jail cells around the world...  Time to text home…  Nothing for it but to lie on our cotton towels which covered the torn, stained sheet, listening to the endless roar of the overhead fan with only one setting, high-speed, and wait for sleep to come.

The not so Royal Hotel

Don't spit on the walls

Funny, but hotel doesn't look too bad from the outside...

Before we arrived in India we’d been told a 12 hour drive day equates to 200km max, we laughed and shrugged it off thinking, surely not!  We were happy on our first day to have covered 350km, thanks to the express way out of Kolkata.  However the following days we only managed 158km over 11 hours.  We were starting to believe the rumours.  However, the accommodation was improving.  Driving in India is like playing dodgems for hours on end, the noise of horns never ceases, tarmac is non-existent, the swerving and last minute braking for bicycles, trucks, pilgrims, potholes and holy cows (Hindu’s don’t eat beef and the cow is sacred) definitely keeps you alert.

Not so holy cow

Colourful India

Another bridge to cross

Excited to be crossing the Ganges

Oops

Ruined temples or a brick factory?

Child catching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang style?

The following day, after stopping to take a photo of a collapsed bridge we discovered an inner rear flat tyre.  Nothing like setting off from your hotel clean and scrubbed and then having to change truck tyres on a dusty verge in 34 degree heat.  Record distance so far today, covering 45km in 5 hours!  Luckily after 2 frenzied days driving we reached another fairly decent highway and bounced along at 60km per hour to a town near the Nepal border.

Tyre change audience

Bridge just holding out

Quick tyre fix

Super relaxed border crossing the next morning, so relaxed it still took 2 hours for just the two of us and truck.  But did involve a relaxed cup of tea with the customs officials on the Nepal side, what a pleasant introduction to the country.  Tar came back on the menu and a little less hectic but only a little and 110% concentration required at all times.

Looking for a bush camp in heavily populated countries can be extremely challenging.  Just as darkness fell and we’d climbed 20km off the main road into the hills it looked like our luck was running out.  Over the high point and back down the other side, our hearts sank, we might be sleeping on the road side.  However a track appeared which took us across a dry riverbed to a stunning bushcamp. 

Riverside bushcamp

Minutes later, a 4WD vehicle turned up with 3 locals who were concerned having seen a foreign vehicle turn off the road and hurried after to let us know we’d gone the wrong way.  When they discovered what we were doing they were astonished and delighted, on spotting a couple of peacocks they chased after them with stones saying they could join us for dinner!  However stunning the bushcamp was, camping in the humid heat with thousands of bugs attracted to our lights led to a sleepless night as a huge thunder storm rolled in.  We hoped we’d be able to cross the river the next day. 

A 6am start saw us bouncing on our merry way.  A few hours later the monsoon returned and roads rapidly became impassable.  Bicycles and motorbikes up to their waists as rivers came over the top of the bridges and eventually only trucks getting through, finally one bridge could take no more and gave way.  A four hour scenic route back down to the Indian border meant we didn’t make it to Kathmandu today, we’re now holed up in a hotel a few hundred kilometres away and apparently still 10 hours to go.  We look forward to reaching Kathmandu tomorrow, the real start of the journey.

Pilgrims walking in the rain

Overtake gone wrong