Our first two days were spent acclimatising and preparing for the rally. Flying into Delhi, we only had a few hours before catching a 20 hour train down to Calcutta. Having always believed India to be something of a soft-option, travel-wise, I was in for something of a shock. Utterly filthy, noisy, run down, odourlicious and very crowded, it was a heavy shock to the senses. Ben Woods of Yorkshire Lancashire (as opposed to my team mate, Ben Wood of Yorkshire…) was first to test the food, and convulsively brought it back up again 5 seconds later. But the biggest shock of all, and one that all my years of education perhaps should have prepared me for, is that Hindus do not favour the grain. Never mind your Cobras and Kingfishers, you’d be better off trying to find Ghandi than a reasonably priced beer around here. This was an ominous start!
Even more ominously, my credit card had snapped; my debit card would not work; my electrics could not be charged; and we were lacking in much of the gear other people seemed to have brought. This was now a challenge!
But following a pleasant train ride, where we first encountered the very genial nature of the locals, we arrived in Calcutta to find it filthier, noisier, more run downer, and redefining ‘crowded’. And poorer to boot. But what it lacked in general amenities, it more than made up for in sheer personality. It felt very homely, and was intriguing to walk around. In particular, the dingy back alleys of the market bazaars at dusk; where all manner of automotive things were being sold, welded or made. We know this, because we were looking for ‘accessories’ for our brand new tuktuk. Many opted for stereos, lights, and other modcons. We simply wanted a horn. And not just any horn, we wanted an industrial show-other-road-users-whose-boss horn. Having found a suitably deafening model; and taking care to find additional wiring and buttons, we were heart broken to later discover that any attempt to use our new fangled life-saver would instantly drain our tuktuk’s battery. And so all that was left to be done was paint some ‘art’ onto the bodywork (I quote art on the grounds that anyone who has seen me or Ben draw will understand).
The start of the rally - mercifully on a Sunday - was in a local school that lay on some festitivities. These involves the ‘honour’ of the school kids utterly humiliating us on the basketball court - a scene that involved slow, heavyset, white and sweaty westerners vs. lythe, talented, uniformed teens. Worse, - as we later discovered from a hotel manager in a fit of giggles - we’d been on live Indian TV.
With absolutely no test runs (and no clue!) we lined up for the start; and were escorted out of Calcutta by a police convoy that was more invested in getting us out than keeping us safe. And with good reason… Within 5 minutes two teams had broken down; two teams had forcibly broken parts of their tuktuk; and one had ‘tested’ reverse, much to the surprise of the person behind them, and smashed their brand new rear light.
The race had begun!
I would like to make a complaint.
I am Ben Woods of Lancashire not Yorkshire.
See you in the Whitelocks soon.
Complaint upheld.
Whitelocks it is, if you can stop vanity searching for “Ben Woods” long enough to make it out