Day 6-7: Better Be Mr. Late Than Late Mr.

Trucks all over India have these great sayings, like "Better to be Late than Mr Late" or "Do good and then forget it." The former was quite representative of our trip from Bodhgaya to Calcutta. A 470 km journey and the longest one on our trip. Between these 2 cities is absolutely no place to my stay and my aunt was eagerly awaiting my arrival in Calcutta.  Our goal was to leave Bodhgaya by 8am, and make it to Calcutta by 7pm. It seemed pretty doable considering that the highway we're on allows us to maintain 60 km/hr quite easily. But of course, this isnt meant to be that simple.

 

After morning prayer at the Japanese Buddhist temple, we got ourselves over to a repair shop for a good greasing. But, apparently, this was gonna take 2 hours, delaying our trip til 10am at the earliest. Not a bad thing since we got some extra time to enjoy Bodhgaya. Meditations under the Bodhi tree where Buddha became enlightened and communicating with him inside the Mahabodhi temple put us in high spirits and energized for the long haul. 

 

We said bye to our friends Shiva and Anut and left the town eager to beat the sunset. I popped a caffeine pill and got on the road. Things were smooth for the first couple hours but then we hit a railway crossing. Now, India has some of the worst constructed railway crossing. Good-carrying trucks piled up in a line that was at least a mile long. I had to weave through this single line of 150-200 trucks in order to get to the front. Frustration kicked in. We got through it and then with 210 km to go we took a stop at a gas station to share our adventures with the locals. The owner took some video that should be on youtube by now. Allen and Brian got food at a restaurant nearby with a truck driver, Erfan. He downed some whisky and then hopped in his goods truck.  Heres another fact of India - many truck drivers drink and drive at night, so roads are extremely dangerous. And with an hour to go before the sunset and such a long distance to cover, I became filled with paranoia. I just told myself to pray for the best.

 

And I thought we were gonna die at one point. Allen weaved in between two trucks at 60km/hr and barely avoided both of them. Scary as hell. I really dont know how else to put it except just try to put urself in a golfcart and tightly avoiding 2 18-wheelers. Then we got to Calcutta and finally hit one of the toughest parts of the trip thus far.

 

Around 11 pm, Allen was driving on a major road and then part of our engine just fell out. We didnt realize that something fell, but our engine started making an extremely loud noise. We checked our engine and knew that something big had definitely fell and that there was no point in carrying on for 45 minutes to my aunts place. Later on, we found out that this piece was the silencer/muffler. Allen and Brian went back to find it on the road, and some Indian guy with a mullet had taken it. Language barriers prevented them from getting the part back, so we needed to tow our auto to our destination somehow. Too bad that tow trucks dont tow rickshaws and everything was closed at this time. I salvaged some rope that was tying down a tree and a nice taxi driver was willing to haul our rickshaw to my aunts. But being in India, its not so simple.

 

Fact 3 of India: Bribes are extremely common. After hauling for about 3 minutes, a police man stopped us. Observing our surroundings, we were stuck in a communist state. And now Brian was dealing with a violent case of Shiva's revenge. I just wanted to get to a bed. The cop mentions how hauling a rickshaw is a "big offense," but then turns to me and says, "Give me some spot change and i'll let you go." I offer him 200 INR, and he says "No 500. 500 or I won't let you go." I handed to him, shakde my head in disapproval, and moved on. What else can you do but just give in? Surrender to the country. We moved slowly through teh city and the rope connecting the two vehicles kept getting undone. With only 5 km to go, our rope got cut right in front of a police stop. For 10 minutes, we were yelled at and pestered for hauling our vehicle. We showed them some documents and they eventually let us go.

 

I had stayed up for 23 hours before getting to bed that night and woke up at noon the next day. Thank god we were in my family's presence. Day 7 allowed us to get our rickshaw fixed. Now our rickshaw is in better condition than they way we originally have it. Wipers are working, lights are brighter, and the drive feels smooth. We even got to enjoy a couple of beers at a local lounge. As of now, we're in Calcutta and heading out tomorrow. Long 350 km haul to Puri.  What a trip. And only 1 week to Pondicherry.