Into the Jungle: the Monsoon Begins

Day 6: August 6, 2008

Hassan to Mangalore

One of the most beautiful and varied roads on the route, teams flagged off from the tropical setting of the Hotel Ashhok and got their first taste of outrageous road conditions bounding up and across dusty dirt roads before hitting the lush tropical farm lands filled with coffee and pepper tree farms. Almost as soon as the rickshaws began to slowly climb up into and then down the Western Ghats the monsoon clouds burst open, filling the roads with puddles filled with red earth that varied from moderate pot holes to small lakes. All on a slim 2 lane national highway with large trucks zooming up and down in both directions.

I was in the 2nd support car trying to reach the hotel first (not successfully). Infinitely better than the foghorn of having to listen to Herr Aravind's banal cell phone rantings, we actually got to stop on the side of the road to gaze up at the waterfalls. KK showed me the delicate native plant that recoils when touched. I'd never seen this plant before and the whole experience made me feel like a child discovering the world again. He told me to try the water flowing from the waterfall. I felt a not unwarranted amount of doubt (the Hosur Buffet had made me almost deathly ill) about a white girl lapping up the native waters, but I figured I'd probably have just as much fun in a hospital, and KK was so happy to be there, that I figured, "why not?"

So in the middle of a tropical Indian Jungle, just off the Northern Highway #17 I bent down and drank the crystal clear water from a massive waterfall. And it was delicious. The waters passed under the road and into what appeared to be a muddy raging canyon of water. The massive size of it looked like the impossible photos from a tsunami or hurricane. How impossible that something so massive and destructive should be a normal, beautiful part of life. But it is.

My Personal favorite were the seemingly endless petrol tankers driving up and down with hand painted decorations filled with local icons, motifs and religious saying impossible to understand in any language. From autorickshaws to tankers, "We Two Ours One" seemed to hold great meaning, of some sort. Pasha had warned me it was some kind of Christian slogan and I fooled myself into almost getting it at certain moments. Beyond all others the STANDARD warning on all petrol trucks was the one that won me over: Warning Highly INFLAMMABLE.

It’s no surprise then, that teams began experiencing crazy mechanical problems. Ironically the mechanic’s support van was also taking a beating with organizers and mechanics working overtime to get everything running smoothly. Poor Kausar. The superhero of the event, in charge of everything related to making the damn things go, he got the worst of it. From having to put all the autorickshaws together at the last minute to ensuring that repairs actually happened (without the mechanics getting so drunk they couldn't screw things back together.) Plus he shows up with a smile on his face and turns the whole thing into a crazy impromptu party that you would have wanted to go to even if there had been an invitation.

Have a major breakdown in a ditch in the middle of the jungle during the monsoon?

Kausar's your man. Anyone who hadn't figured that out yet would soon.

Despite the chaos the overwhelming beauty of the landscape and the regular breaks of sunshine dazzled everyone. Waterfalls poured from almost every rock formation and rushed into raging rivers and huge flooded plains.

Thankfully teams had learned their lessons about timing and pace and reached the BASE hotel in time for a presentation and buffet with the local Round Table group in Mangalore. That everyone got there (and in good time) seemed like a miracle or at the least -highly improbable. Yet it happened.

The Mangalore Round Table event was held at the BASE hotel, The TAJ. It started with a rather awkward series of presentations and the weirdness of participants paying for their buffets and drinks but after enough drinks everyone was just happy to be together, rocking out to Bhangra and laughing their asses off at the silly white boys eating Indian peppers. Bets went to charity but the red faces and embarrassment of lackluster performances are the real souvenirs.