Lassi Come Home

5.30pm
Our last full day in Gangtok and we decided to have a relaxing morning the day before we leave. We leave at around 9.30am tomorrow morning from the main Mall in the heart of the city, where the locals will no doubt laugh and be astonished at the task us crazy Rickshaw Runners are about to undertake.

We had a magnificent Tibetan lunch at the aptly names Tibetan Hotel, and then made our way to the Gangtok Football stadium to watch the Rickshaw Runners (RR) take on the Sikkim Bar Association (SBA). This was an official event with local dignitaries in attendance such as the Chief Justice and the Tourism Minister. The final score RR 5 to SBA 0. The RR team were dominant but the SBA team put up a great fight.

Now we are about to head to the launch party and have some fun with our fellow Runners before we set off tomorrow morning.

Our updates from here on may not be daily, at least until we pass through Nepal and are back into India. The next few days see us travel across the the plains of Nepal at the base of the Himalayas. However we will be posting SMS updates on the Rickshaw Run website daily – please go to the Rickshaw Run website where you can view all teams location and progress.

Post Script
10.45pm

Well the launch party was excellent and we met many other teams, including the team from Kenya, teams from England, Australia, NZ and America. We left the party, which was in full swing, around 30 minutes ago. There is an anticipation for tomorrow morning and we feel much more confident knowing every other team faces the same challenge ahead. Banter amongst teams was based around where are you from, what’s your team name, why are you doing this, what route are you taking, and how prepared are you for this endeavour? Needless to say we could not answer any of these questions without including the word ‘adventure’.

Cheerio, Tally Ho, & Toodle Pip,

Team Lassi Come Home

After meeting many of the other Runners at the test driving session today reality of this endeavour has dawned on us all. That said we are all in similar states of mind, relishing the adventure ahead. We have met teams from the UK, USA, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, New Zealand and many other Australian teams. The ages of team members vary from people in their 20’s to their 50’s – and perhaps older. There are 70 teams competing – an increase of 10 teams from previous Runs. This Run has blitzed the total raised for the charities of all Runs previously held – to those who have donated you are part of this record and success (currently over 100K GBP) – Thank you again!

Tomorrow football, pre-start party, and last minute preparation.

Top Tip/Factoid: If you ever visit Gangtok bring your own Tonic Water (purely for the Quinine and Malaria prevention purposes).

Today we met our Rickshaw – a 3 wheeled beast that probably should not be driven 2500 kilometres across roads that have been damaged by landslides, floods and the unrelenting impact caused by trucks, cars and buses – think pot hole central. Still – we have more confidence than ever that we can reach Jaisalmer within the 2 weeks, and see a lot of beautiful countryside on the way.

We are feeling prepared – and by a few conversations we have had with other teams we feel we may be more prepared than others. We secured jerry cans today for spare fuel, a tarpaulin to cover our baggage in case of rain, various tools, and other mechanical essentials (e.g. WD40 – which is not called WD40 in India).

Tomorrow we get to give our Rickshaw a good test drive and complete our “pimping” – we have purchased several items that will make our Rickshaw stand-out – lights, music system, flags, and of course some fluffy dice. Come Saturday the League of Adventurists have organised a game of football (soccer) – a team comprising various “Rickshaw Runners” up against a team from the Sikkim Bar Association (a group of lawyers – not alcoholics). Should be quite a game as it is at the Gangtok Stadium and has been well promoted by the local Tourism Authorities here. Afterwards we have the launch party to attend, where food, drink and music will be in supply as teams wish each other luck. This will be at a local hotel/resort. Then Sunday – we have to pick up the Rickshaw from it’s current garage and drive it to the starting line for a 10.30am start where the State Minister will bring down the flag to signal the start of the event.

So – lot’s happening and before we know it we will be on out way.

Also today we also managed to visit the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, visit a Buddhist Monastry, a Hindu Temple, and some local cottage industry emporiums.

Look at the Photo Page for more photos and one of our Rickshaw – hope to have some there within next 24 hours.

Lastly – the fact/tid-bit for the day – In India cars, trucks and buses drive on the same side of the road as they do in Australia, England, Singapore…and the US, Europe and China…

We have arrived in Gangtok – and we are impressed. It is a beautiful town nestled in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains in the state of Sikkim. Sikkim is a restricted zone – so we had to get a special permit to enter into the state. Because the state shares a border with China (Tibet) the restrictions exist – and apparently China has never officially recognised Sikkim as a part of India. The drive from Darjeeling took about 4 hours and we saw some spectacular countryside. And the road was relatively good and not very busy – which was reassuring as we will be driving on it come Sunday.

Tomorrow we will be heading to ‘Rickshaw Run HQ’ – at a hotel nearby – and will be able to complete the registration process and pick up whatever information they need to give us – we understand we will be getting an official Rickshaw Run t-shirt!! We will also get some time to complete the ‘pimping’ of our Rickshaw and test-drive it. Then hopefully some time to explore Sikkim.

To everyone who has been leaving comments – we really enjoy reading them – its great to know people are following our progress.

To those in Sydney we believe Radio 702 will be doing another live cross to us – between 8 and 9pm on the Robbie Buck show.

Another interesting factoid/tid-bit – In India we have noticed that just about all cars, trucks, buses and auto-Rickshaws have religious deities stuck to the dashboard – usually a Hindu God such as Ganesh, or quite common up here in Sikkim – a small Buddha. Given the way some people drive we think you probably need all the help you can get while on the road here. So you can rest assured we will be doing similar!

Lastly – we have posted some new photos to the photos page – formatting is not great but we are working on that. Also see below – a photo taken today on road from Darjeeling to Gangtok.

Very quick update as we are about to depart for Gangtok and meet our Rickshaw. Great day yesterday – visited a tea plantation, the Darjeeling Zoo (very impressive zoo – mostly open and not caged enclosures and a great conservation program), and the highlight was the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute Museum. T Norgay – who was the first to climb Everest with E Hillary – lived in Darjeeling and is a local hero here.

More later from Gangtok…

To all that have that have requested we post some photos we have posted a couple on the “Photos” page and will endeavour to post more soon. We have been having some problems posting photos due to the size of some photos. So once we resize some more we will post them.

Also and interesting fact/tid-bit for the day – and we will try and include more of these along the way. Did you know that cans of soft drink here in India – like a can of Schweppes Indian Tonic Water – is not measured in millilitres (375 mls – as you would see back in Australia) – but in cubic centimetres! SO a 375 ml can is instead labelled 375 cubic centimetres!

Well we woke up this morning, to our surprise, to views of the Himalayan Mountains poking through the clouds. Huzzar! A quick walk before breakfast was in order to take full advantage of the views, and also visit the local temple, and a cup of Darjeeling green tea – before sitting down to a hearty breakfast back at the hotel.

We are now just about to set off to the Darjeeling Zoo which is a world renowned conswervation park for the study and preservation of Red Pandas and Himalayan Black Bears. Then off to a Tea Plantation – one of the most renowned Tea Estates – to give you an idea of the quality we have been told to think of red wine, and that this will be the equivalent of Penfolds Grange!

Yesterday we actually managed a Tea Tasting – tried a variety of different Darjeeling Teas and purchased some of the finest first picked leaves of the season! We also walked from one end of the town to the other, including Observatory Hill, a visit to the Darjeeling Railway station (Toy Train), the old Bazaar markets, and saw some of the grand old buildings of the colonial era. We stopped at the Mayfair Hotel for lunch, where we had a magnificent Chicken Masala Curry. We stopped for some rest late afternoon and also took a live cross from ABC Radio 702, where Robbie Buck gave Sydney a live update of our progress to date.

Later for dinner we had some excellent Tibetan food including a firey chilli Tibetan chicken and ice cold Kingfishers to soothe the heat.

Last day in Darjeeling – tomorrow we head to Gangtok to meet our Rickshaw!

Yesterday went well – but quite tiring. The flight to Bagdogra was on time and apart from a little turbulence, uneventful. The drive then to Darjeeling gave us our first encounter of what to expect. The drive from Bagdogra took close to 4 hours, up a very steep, windy, and pot hole filled road. But the scenery was amazing as you would expect. The only disappointment is the amount of low cloud, fog and drizzle that is around – blocking views of the Himalayas and some of world’s tallest mountains that you can apparently see on a clear day.

Plenty of tea plantations around – funny that! So we might go explore one of those today.

Food has been very good so far – Darjeeling seems to have a good mix of Indian, Chinese & Tibetan restaurants. Last night we had an excellent dinner at Glenary’s – 3 dishes, and a couple of Kingfisher’s each put us back around 600rp – ($15) – excellent value.

The Hotel we are staying at – Shangrila Regency (no relative of the more widely known 5 star Shangrila chain in Asia) is great – old world charm, bed tea served to your room each morning (a hot cup of tea brought to your room after you wake up – at whatever time you request it the night before), a nice rooftop restaurant to enjoy breakfast, and a very small bar to have a drink in the evening. The only complaint is the dogs that seem to roam about town will often get into a barking frenzy right outside the hotel at random times through the night.

Internet access is only available from the internet cafe across the road from our hotel – and not a fast connection – so we will do our best to keep the updates coming and to provide some photos soon.

So now to explore a little of Darjeeling…and to contemplate more on the fact that the road we drove up on yesterday is a road we will eventually have to drive a Rickshaw on come next Sunday…

We made it safely to Kolkata – the flight from Sydney to Singapore was full, but the leg from Singapore to Kolkata was only a quarter full so plenty of room to spread out. We arrived into Kolkata at 10.30pm local time – 20 hours of travel to get here.

The hotel is great and we had our first Lassi of the trip with breakfast this morning. Shortly we check out of the hotel and head back to the airport for our flight to Bagdogra. From Bagdogra we make our way to Darjeeling by car. Next update from Darjeeling!

We are on our way. We are sitting in the Singapore Airlines First Class Lounge, despite the fact we are travelling economy, thanks to Andrew’s SQ frequent flyer status. Unfortunately we have not heard that magic word yet, ‘Upgrade’ – be we live in hope.

Sipping on a glass of champagne – ruminating on what lies ahead. Wish us luck!