Nic outruns the rickshaw to prove a point

Date: Jan 06, 2010

Getting from A to B in a new city. Lonely Planet maps of a city aren't often useful for navigating. We've spent an hour or two driving around Indian cities finding hotels or trying to exit. We've learnt a pro-tip: hire a local rickshaw/taxi to take you there and follow him. Pow! An hour saved.
Location: Jabalpur - Madhya Pradesh, India (Received at 12:33)

Tensions mount between Nic and Rob. In the spirit of Top Gear Challenges, Nic took time in Varanasi to buy a gift for Rob and Greg: each received a silk table table runner with lovely feminine colours. Rob got an additional, personal gift. Rob's need to eat food without touching any local cooking drove him to mild hysterical thinking "we should buy eggs and cook them ourselves. We could feast on eggs in our rooms. We'll buy small cooking stoves, etc" Nic asked, "where will we store the eggs? There's no space and the rickshaw bounces around all day." Rob retorted with, "I can't see that as a problem." So, Nic's gift to Rob was a single egg. "Rob, if you can look after this egg in the rickshaw then we'll get more." Rob was very happy with his egg and promised to look after it. Fast forward to now: "Rob, how's the egg?" "It's in a chip packet in the storage tube; it's safe" Nic gently pulled out the packet and gooey egg white dripped everywhere. The broken egg became a broken friendship.@
Location: Rewa - Madhya Pradesh, India (Left at 08:17)

Who the hell is Jaypee Cement? In Australia roadside advertising is done with large billboards. In India, building walls are used and someone's entire house might have corporate advertising on it. Between Varanasi and Rewa and no doubt all over India there is one company that has accrued more signage than anyone else COMBINED: Jaypee Cement. They must expect to sell a lot of cement. We might ask a few questions about them. Other cement companies advertise too. We don't see much concrete anywhere but lots of brick buildings. Can someone google about Jaypee Cement and SMS me a summary at +61412002126 please?@
Location: Rewa - Madhya Pradesh, India (Left at 06:40)

Bypassing Rewa. Who needs Rewa? Our aim for today is 350km from Allahabad to Jabalpur. It will be our biggest day by far; yesterday we did 250km. We only achieved 135km in the first 5 hrs today, but since the samosa town the road has been great. Just before Rewa there is a new toll road bypass around it. We didn't have to pay, though that made the last toll gate people cranky that we didn't have a "tickets please!" Trucks started honking so they waved us through. 206km to Jabalpur. A big task ahead.
Location: Rewa - Madhya Pradesh, India (Left at 06:28)

Not many 'Indian Restaurants' in India. Nice hotel restaurants are perhaps the few places that offer a menu, butter chicken and naan. So it takes each person some time to realise that day-to-day food is only available from stalls and street vendors. Nic is the most adventurous yet. He wanders up to vendors and watches people buying food, watches it being prepared and tries a few different things. "Guys, you're not going to get diahhrea from this; try it, it's delicious!" 30km from Rewa we stopped at a town with a busy little vendor. Turns out he makes some awesome samosas (2 for 5 Rs including a little soup) and coffee (3 Rs in many parts of India). We're told the road into Rewa is much nicer and we should find a petrol station soon - our 2x10l jerry cans are empty.@
Location: Rewa - Madhya Pradesh, India (Left at 05:32)

Nic outruns the rickshaw to prove a point. Our rickshaw can do 50-60kmh. These roads are so bad this morning that Nic was able to jump out of the moving rick and run ahead for a few 100m until the next small section of flat road
Location: Rewa - Madhya Pradesh, India (Left at 03:40)

Road to Rewa is barely a road. One thing is uncertain in India: how bad must a road surface degrade to before it is rebuilt? The road to Varanasi was bad: multileveled with bitumen on top of bitumen. The road to Rewa is riddled with big potholes sometimes larger than remaining road surface. The good news is two fold: India does have multilane highways that are smooth and we can do 60kmh (though people do drive down the wrong side and others walk along it) which we experienced between Varanasi and Allahabad. Secondly, we discovered there is a new highway that our map doesn't show and it's on our route! As disastrous as the roads are today, perhaps we'll reach nice highways tonight.
Location: Allahabad - Uttar Pradesh, India (Left at 03:28)