Our journey to Udaipur was a long one. From Mumbai it was around 750km, meaning it was a two day job as the most we've ever done in a day is 400km. Our journey began early morning, and involved a very early stop with the police, as mentioned in the previous post. We then continued along the national highway, using google maps to guide us as we do for every journey. It's so good to use, and it doesn't matter if you don't have a SIM card with Internet - you can set the route whilst on wifi and then set off with no internet, just using your GPS.
There were so many weed plants growing all the way up the main highway?!
As our engine needs to cool for 30 mins around every 100km, we stopped for a breakfast break after a couple of hours and some lunch later on. Whilst we were stopped I turned our internet and found half a dozen messages from my friend Nisha. She had seen a comment from Ash on Facebook telling a friend that we were planning on making a stop over in Surat for the night, and it turns out her family live there! We sent some messages back and fourth before I have her cousin Nikesh a call accepting the offer to stay at his apartment with him, his parents and his family. I was really looking forward to meeting them, although I think Nisha was actually more excited, making me promise to skype her as soon as we got there!
Hiiii Nisha! Chilling with Grandma, not able to speak a single word to each other. Smiling is good!
When we finally arrived after getting slightly lost, we were greeted with hugs and handshakes. Nikesh and his brother spoke good English and his wife and mum spoke a little too, but it was just smiling and handholding with his Grandma, which was nice anyway! They made us feel really at home, giving us their bedroom and cooking us a delicious chicken curry. We had a few drinks and said cheers to new friends, and eventually got Nisha and her brother on the phone! It was really nice to see her; she'd been away for 3 months in SE Asia so we hadn't spoken properly for a while, and it had been a year and a half for her family, so it was really nice to catch up.
We were so warmly welcomed into the family
Cheers to new friends
After a long day of driving and an evening meeting everybody, it was so nice to get into bed - made amazing by the air con! What a luxury, oh my days!! We got up about 6am the next day and found Nikesh, his mum and his dad already awake and ready to wave us off. I'm so glad we made the stop over and met the family, and hope to catch up when Nikesh and Shilpa come to England in a few years!
Huge thanks to Nikesh and his family for welcoming and hosting us. See you again!
The journey took ALL DAY. I mean from 6:15am to 11pm. We spent a lot of time on paved highways, which are great in terms of not damaging the vehicle or having to slow down, but don't really provide the views that we had on some of our drives in the south. Saying that, we did have some interesting moments, like when a transvestite hopped into our rickshaw unannounced.
We were in heavy traffic near Ahmehabad (???) at big junctions where 3-lane roads all met each other. We saw a "woman" wandering from vehicle to vehicle and getting money, and when she came towards us we realised it wasn't actually a woman. He was dressed quite nicely, with long hair tied back and a nice dress on, but the make up was bloody awful. I'm talking about Sharpie eyebrows and lip liner, with pretty scary eyes. My friend Nisha had told me about this "third sex" before I came away, and that they don't work they just collect money from people who are scared they will be cursed if they don't give any. We're not really into all that heeby jeeby stuff so didn't go into our wallets when she came over. But then instead of moving on, she got into the rickshaw and asked if we could take her up the road. We've given a few people lifts along our way so don't really mind, but our passengers aren't usually touching knees with Ash and checking him out (hilarious for me obviously!!).
We'd just started moving when I heard Ash in the back shout "Handjob?! Noooooo. No handjob", quickly followed by her saying "No! HandSOME!" Hahahaha, good one Ash! So we had a little laugh about that in an attempt to clear the awkwardness and soon she was hopping out at another junction to collect money/get cursin'.
It was crazy how many we saw in that area though. They would walk up the cars and clap their hands twice to the drivers before holding out their hands for money. It was quite awkward when they came over to the rickshaw, as it is when anyone comes over begging, because we don't have doors or windows and so when they linger it gets a bit uncomfortable. So one by one they came over to us and asked for money, and we told them no sorry. They would then stand kind of staring at us, then Ash would say "You look really pretty" or "Beautiful dress" and they would go all shy and coy and forget all about their cash demand - wahey!
The rest of the journey wasn't so exciting... Until we started seeing CAMELS PULLING CARTS! Haha, loved it! The perfect welcome to Rajasthan.