Arrived in Old Delhi on Sunday and found an american guy who chaperoned me around to have a look at the red fort and an enormous mosque. Went up to the hotel rooftop at sunset and watched hundreds of people flying kites in the dusk air.
Flew down to Goa the next day and shared a taxi down to Palolem (1hr 30mins) staying in small hut like accommodation on a beautiful beach in a bay around the same size as Port Eynon beach in Gower. Made some German, Argentine and Israeli friends and shared advice on where to go next. Was odd to see cows on the beach and in the middle of the road but I quite like it! Half of the dogs have collars, and the other half are pretty wild. There were a group on the beach getting a bit angry and one split off and started following me, barking and growling, and indian woman shouted at it and it backed off, but I was a little scared (not normally like me with dogs) but I've learnt since then a firm 'pssssssht' reasonably early gets rid of them.
Pictures from Palolem beach:
I arrived at Longuinhos resort in Colva on Wednesday where I met up with the 'For Tuk's Sake' team, (I had met up with Jon previously in Bristol) and some other teams too.
The rickshaws arrived last night, much to everyone's excitement. I met Jack, our third team member, last night and he has brought along some tarpaulin and bungee ropes, and earlier went to buy some jerry cans for spare fuel. I'm going to fashion a funnel out of some old water bottles.
We've been working out what we need for the rickshaws, and so today we have spent cutting up some tarpaulin for our monsoon protection, and going into Margao to get some rope and net for making ourselves some compartments for stashing stuff in.
Shiv arrives in a few hours along with our gaffa tape, cable ties and bungee rope, so tomorrow morning we'll be adding our finishing touches, and from midday we have some test driving, possibly into Margao town to get some tow-rope and maybe electronics. I think our distance-pimping maybe for comfort rather than anything mechanical, although we are going to get some cushions so hopefully we can avoid whiplash from any heavy braking.
We leave at midday on Sunday (7.30am UK time) from the main street in Goa, and then we're on the road. I'm very excited about getting on with the journey, and a lot less worried than my dad made me about driving over here. We'll just be pootling along rather than zooming in an out of traffic, we'll be very visible, and everyone uses their horn for everything so people know where everyone is all the time!
Our rickshaw:
