Donations raised so far....£5,282.61

We have now exceeded our target for £1000 for Frank Water Projects (£610) and Mercy Corps (£575), so we are now aiming to raise as much money as possible for Education for All 

Thank you for your donations!!

SMS Update

We're skirting an area where Maoist gorilla's are waging war. There are trucks clad with red flags packed with men going past us. Heads down, carry on

SMS Update

Engine cut out. Hopefully it only over heated. Fitted spare spark plug. Its started again now so fingers crossed we'll get to Chandipur before dark.

SMS Update

Some toe rag stole our spare wheel, jerry can & siphoned the tank! Led to an eventful morning. Over 40 degrees, Si's forehead is glowing red!

SMS Update

We've just hit rural India. A 60km dirt track through tiny villages. People sleeping on platforms, washing in ponds etc. Potholes have killed 1st gear!

SMS Update

We're now waiting in a pin dot village for a boat to take us across Lake Chilika to Puri (Orissa). Without 1st gear getting on the boat should be fun!

This isn't working!!

Hi- the wonderful website is not working at all.  Just spent 2 hrs uploading photo's and only a tiny percentage have arrived into the folder. Unfortunately many of these are duplicates. We promise to get the rest up sometime soonish. 

From there to here via somewhere else

Please check out the gallery (click to the right) for a loads of new photos from the last few thousand kilometers. The folder is calkled "morte pictures from the 1 %ers".   Also check out the "comic" gallery to see Al O'Shea's drawings.

Here is an update from the dusty roads of India....  

We're coming to grips with the Indian head wiggle. This side to side wiggle of the head is the most important of gestures used all the time. It means many different things such as hello, goodbye, thank you, yes definitely, I haven't got a clue, ok, a friendly gesture and probably loads of other things we can't understand.  The difference in movement is subtle but we've figured out some of them and use it loads.

Crash rules in India are very different to back home. Here if you cause a crash, regardless of injuries, a crowd will form quickly and take revenge by a mob beating. Passes by and people from the other vehicle will all get a fist in. So we are advised to scamper sharpish if anything happens. Pretty scary.

We've been travelling up the east coast on highway 5. Its a dual carriageway with central reservation which you'd expect to mean two roads of unidirectional travel. Very wrong. It basically means two roads running parallel with traffic going in all directions in all lanes, people walking all over, and herds of livestock milling about. Its absolute chaos!

Driving is all about the beep.  All the lorries have got 'Sound Horn' on the back to let them know you're there. Honking isn't aggressive as back home, its just the language of the road.

All along the road people on motorbikes, lorries and buses pull alongside us to have a close look at us, with a wave and head wiggle. Even shaken hands with guys on motorbikes as we hurtle along the road!  We stop every few hours to rest the engine and grab a coke or a coconut and we always pull a crowd. The rickshaw divers love it and want to see the engine of our superior vehicle i.e. less dinted and broken. We even managed to close off one lane of a city road with the amount of interest in two white boys driving the very indian of indian automobiles.

Our interview with a reporter from the Indian Express was printed yesterday, slightly wrong in some of its detail and blantently fraudulent in its quotations, at least we are as big as a bollywood star now and that literate know who we are and why we are here, the rest are still very confused.

Days driving endlessly along the road does tend to get a little tedious, so we have invented a little game to occupy our time - the banana balancing challenge - place a banana on a part of the rickshaw and see how many km's we can go before it falls of. Fun times!

We had both rucksacs on the roof for the first few days allowing for lots of room in the back seat area. Yesterday we realised that due to all the bumps and shakes, not to mention 2 missing roof supports, the roof rack is now in danger of collapse, we have already bent the supports that hold it up. We also have a steadily failing clutch, I'm sure this will get more attention in later updates.

Friendship and camaraderie has been all good so far, although as we left a hotel Dylan drove off down the road and around a corner set to head back to the highway, the issue was that I wasn't on board, I got out to make sure we could pass under a low roof of the hotel carpark. He only realised a couple of streets away when I wasn't answering any of his questions or joining in on the conversation (so he said). Upon realising this he slammed on the brakes, which in turn launched the stereo, maps, day bags and fuel!!! forward collapsing the back seat (which still isn't quite fixed). As I ran around the corner to find out if I had to walk the rest of the way, there was Dylan looking confused at my missing presence and trying to rebuild the poorly tuk tuk.

So since we went to the festival in Trichy we then went on to Mamalapuram a backpackers seaside spot with some seriously aged India traveller victims. Then onto Nellore where we drove at night for the first time which was gnarly. We couldn't find anywhere to stay so ended up in 3 star up market (for us) hotel. Si very nearly reversed the rickshaw into a mercedes!  Then to Vajayawada where we went to a dodgy local bar to see if Thursday is the new Friday in India. I think every day is Friday for those guys!
Then we hit the road hard and did 437km to get to Waltair and a skanky hotel on the beach. It was like a 70's Butlins that hadn't been renovated since the 50's. En route we had the cheapest meal so far, a roadside thali for 25rupees (30p) that came free with flies. The investment paid off with some toilet stoppage.  After a play on the beach we got back on the highway 5 to Gopalur-On-Sea (love the name) from where this is written on a veranda overlooking the sea. Its a quintessentially Indo-british promenade town where the Kolcatta middle classes come to spend the long weekend of easter. We just had the new record cheapest meal at 15rupees (18p) from the pavillion.  As we helped ourselves to sauce a rat ran into the kitchen! Still it tasted good.  With a bottle of Indian rum and the crashing waves its very romantic!

Big love to all
Dylan & Simon

SMS Update

just met a guy along the road who runs an orphanage & school. Gave him a load of Edwin pens. Nice one Edwin!

SMS Update

power cuts last night meant no pics. Few beers in a spit n saw dust joint- dirty, cheap & local. Guys r pretty touchy feely here so Si started putting his arm round me @ fuel stations to fit in. Aiming for 400k tday - long stint. Ricks holding up so far apart from back seat came off-fixed now.

SMS Update

Seen 3 bad crashes so far tday, most caused by trucks going down wrong side of highway. Sour. Hot hot highway, Major Lazor full blast. Sweeeeet!

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