We had every intention to sleep this morning, however, we have been waking up so early every day that we woke up naturally at 8 am. At this point, Antoine found one of the wall plugs and we began charging his phone right away. He put the solar panel charger outside so maybe we could get the portable chargers charged as well, but it was raining, so it charged a bit slower than it could.
After breakfast we took the rickshaw out to find a new camera, charging ports, and cash exchange places. On the first trip, we only got the cash. We went back to the hotel to get a portable charger as all our phones weren’t fully charged and dying. On the second trip, we found the camera and two chargers, drove in the opposite direction on a one-way street, brushed the side of an unknown car, and got yelled at by local Indians. On the way back to the hotel, the police stopped us and threatened to impound Richard Parker the rickshaw, unless we gave him money. Antoine gave him 1000 rupees. We took a few wrong turns after that and ended up in the middle of a field, in a very thin bridge over a small pond, with a gap between the bridge and the other side. We tried to make it, got our rickshaw front wheel stuck in that gap, and almost got into the water. There was not a soul in sight but the fish and the dragonflies. We then attempted to push it backward, but all the weight was at the front so we still needed to lift it a little bit. We got it up, but it was still too close to the edges. We pushed again, and one of the back wheels fell a little bit. I had to hang off one side of the rickshaw to off-balance it so Antoine can drive up without it tipping over. We did that twice. Slowly but surely, we made it off that bridge and took another way back to the hotel.
Once we were back, Antoine takes out the camera body and attempts to put his lens on it. Nothing fits or works correctly. We have to go back to buy another lens. There’s nothing we could do about it immediately so we go swim in the pool for a bit, then we take the rickshaw to the mechanics to get everything tuned up. They fix the gears and nothing else. Hopefully, it could last another 600km at least. We go back to the hotel for discounted massages and steam rooms, along with a mini trip to the beach. There were crabs everywhere. There were also a bunch of little clams going through the sand. We caught some and watched them swim around in a water bottle. We are bringing some empty shells back with us. Walking back to the hotel, we pass the chessboard again, we play, this time Antoine wins with sheer luck.
Honestly, it feels like it’s been a month since we got to India, but we still have about two weeks left. May the Indian gods be with us the whole way.
-Jamie