The problem with Indian “continental breakfasts” is that it’s mostly traditional Indian food. Therefore almost everything is spicy. Only bread, butter, hard-boiled eggs, and the fruits tend to be not spicy. This morning there were some fried cheese and corn puffs, both of us were very excited to get those. Antoine ate his one first and died a little bit because he ate the whole thing and turned out to be really spicy. I decided to try some chicken-based foods, which were all very good, but very spicy. After a while, I just stuck with eggs and fruits.
We grabbed all our stuff and made our way to the rickshaw. Unfortunately, we were locked in by other cars. The best way to get out would have been to push the rickshaw around the cars and next to the hotel entrance. Yet, Antoine wanted to drive it. Luckily he did because we found out the rickshaw would not start. A bunch of the hotel staff came out to help and I’m pretty sure they called a nearby mechanic or something because they pushed the rickshaw out by the highway and someone fixed it. The engine was flooded with petrol.
As we are driving, traffic begins. Google maps said that there would be 40 minutes’ worth of traffic. 3 lanes of highway became 5 because of how reckless all the drivers are. We were going in between massive trucks and busses, while not getting hit by the passing motorbikes. After about half an hour of this nonsense, a highway patrol was directing smaller cars to the other side of the road, against traffic. We took the way out and drove against traffic with some other cars next to us. We just so happened to be stuck in traffic in a village so people were coming up to the cars to sell stuff. One guy in a robe came up to us and started speaking to us in Hindi. We told him that we couldn’t understand and he opened up his robe to show us his penis wrapped in chains and he aid “5 rupees only” we got out of there as fast as we could.
After driving for about an hour or so, we spot a McDonald’s and we stop to get lunch. When we pull into the parking lot we see two other rickshaw runners. We catch up with each other’s stories, one of their rickshaw’s engine had blown up, and they had a third rickshaw team with them but their rickshaw broke down and they had to stop somewhere to get help. We ate our chicken-based fast food and went our separate ways.
We drive for another few hours and we notice a lot of people are on the side of the road following a truck blasting music while dancing. Its probably part of their New Year celebration. After a few of these trucks, we see another group of colorfully dressed people so we take out our camera and check out what is going on. Turns out, there’s an elephant. I scream and we stop the rickshaw in front of it. We take pictures with the elephant and the people take pictures with us.
So far we have seen monkeys, donkeys, and an elephant. We are going to an animal sanctuary to see more animals and hopefully not get eaten by them. May the Hindu gods be with us.
-Jamie