Day 3 Vellore - Bangalore 170 clicks west

Unfortunately your usual blog artist "Dirk Diggler" could not make it to the keyboard today as an urgent meeting was called between his ass and the nearest toilet... our thoughts are with him at this painful time!! In lighter news your guest blogger today is Jimmy "bone dog" Moulds who managed to postpone all is meetings until his bum implodes creating one super dense meeting with the floor/bed/tuk tuk.

People said;

Maximus Rod "So how far south have we come since chennai?" (200k west)

Dirk "Isn't that Michael Jackson from the Simpsons?" (Lisa it's your birthday)

Kong (Aka Daisy) "I like to observe"

Bone Dog "This is the worst game that ever existed" (8 player wallet squing pong)

After some... er curry and a well earned rest the night before we were ready for the second stage which would take us into (so we thought) the heart of Bangalore "A sprawling mix of the ancient and modern". 'The dukes' had spent much of the first stage sucking tuk tuk fumes as we could, unbeknownst to us, only manage 3rd gear and a howling top speed of about 25kph. Now with 4th gear available there was a fresh sense of hope in the air (apparently hope smells of open sewers). The bom-butt boy watchers had had a successful previous day although with various pimps still missing they were not the finished article.

Escaping Vellore was the first real taste of rush hour city driving (after the police escort we received in Chennai) and it was the first chance to put into practice the aggressive skills we were advised to adopt. Kong and Dirk were at the team’s controls and, heavy on horn and low on brakes, they took to the challenge like a petrol tanker to a ravine… easy!! The city folk still had us firmly fixed in a sub category between a sacred cow and Ganesh (the half man half elephant god of 2 stroke oil); their smiles and whooping set us confidently on our way.

Once out of the city it would be mainly highway driving until our next destination. After a short stint we were ushered into a decidedly tight village pathway where we were greeted by the local rotary reps who introduced us to some local children and the resident monkeys. We enjoyed some photos and sweet tea while the monkeys enjoyed a piss in Team ‘Dick Shore’s’ tuk tuk. Back on the road it was a straight run with few stops other than fueling up and the odd stop to check all tuk tuks were accounted for. The vehicles, purring like a group of three legged cats chewing popping candy, were proving ridiculously resilient and could match most of the vehicles on the road in terms of speed if not maneuverability.

Into Bangalore we were actually stationed 20k’s outside the city in a village horribly low on much needed alcohol. We parked up next to the hotel and were immediately swamped by the local school kids who were as interested in shaking our hands as they were of stripping the tuks of all fixtures not welded down. ‘The dukes’ left over pack of fig rolls seemed to satisfy and we were off to our rooms.

After an unreasonably short rest we were summoned to what would prove to be the last rotary club meeting. The local chairman gave a presentation that at best could be described as boring and at worst… well… very boring. He thanked everyone he new and they promptly thanked everyone they new and then we all celebrated with some good old hindi song with most of the audience drooling and rocking in their chairs calling “mama… why won’t the pain stop”. We drank the hotel dry within about ten minutes and rumours of the one other “wet” bar in town diffused through the mob and the search began. When the proprietor saw the melee it was like all his duvadis had come at once; the boxes of kingfisher he’d been saving for the end of the world were cracked open and a social gathering of sorts was organized in the roof top bathroom. The highlight being Neidermeier (uncannily resembling the Michael Jackson character from the Simpsons) seeing off two 1/2 ltr bottles of whiskey in as many minutes and then sitting in the fridge looking like all his world was pain.

After a quick game of 8 player wallet squing pong in the games room it was off to bed with the end of the night being signaled, as per usual, by a military grade fire cracker exploding in the corridor.