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Finally....
Entry 21 of 26 | show all | print this entry |
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We actually had to walk along from the lodge to the workshop this morning, which was something of a shock carrying all our possessions - we seem to have become rather lazy what with pulling up as near as possible to doors in the rickshaw. The heat even first thing, didn't help.
Although we were told last night "rickshaw ready",
there seemed to still be a little work to be done, so we popped out for breakfast. Honestly, in retrospect the town wasn't actually that bad, but when we were served breakfast, nothing could have made us want to come back. It really looked the most unappetising thing in the world, fermented rice cakes with a slightly lumpy pale brown slop.
But against the odds, I ate almost all of it, and it was far better tasting than it looked.
Back at the workshop, it seemed that a local journalist had been called in - he couldn't wait to take our pictures, of us, of us with the mechanics, us at the rickshaw... Possibly big news for a small town!
Finally, we got back on the road, and again set our sights on arriving in Vijayawada. We can only have travelled about 30km when, utterly unexpectedly, the exhaust fell off. Now, I swear I saw someone removing a screw from somewhere in the engine earlier today, but I never thought any more of it - until that moment. So, I walked the 100m or so back, picked up the exhaust and did what most people would do under the circumstances. I stood there waving it in the air, as though it was the most matural thing in the world, hoping that someone passing by might stop and assist....
Eventually one truck did stop, mainly because we were blocking the entrace to a road leading to a quarry which he was trying to access. He got out the cab and came over. We tried asking him if it was ok to carry on driving. Not sure what his response was. I have not come across it elsewhere, but many Indians seem to answer questions with a kind of bobble of their head, and I REALLY struggle to work out what it means. (eg Do you have any rooms? *shoogling of head*. Is that yes or no? Eventually, I texted one of the other teams, two of whom were mechanics, and the consensus seemed to be that we could continue on our by this stage not so merry way.
The noise was pretty loud, but it was the third time we had driven with it, so we were getting used to it. There was no way we could hold any kind of conversation over the racket, but the mood we were both in at this point, we weren't for doing much talking anyway.
We came across a mechanics, and he took a look at the engine - missing screws required - before writing down what we needed. There was no way we were going to buy them ourselves, so we got him to drive us to a parts place, where it cost us 16 rupees before he fitted the exhaust back in place - and didn't charge us!
We carried on into Vijayawada - with some relief and it was great to catch up with two other teams, Midlifecrisis and She's A Goa, and hear about their exploits on the road so far. We spent a very relaxing (and I feel, well deserved) afternoon in Hotel Manorama before an early dinner. By 9 o'clock, we were all ready for bed. Life on the road is a tiring experience!
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