Panjim, Goa to Tarkali, Maharashtra
If there is one day that everyone present for the CEAT Mumbai Xpress 2008 will remember most, it is very likely to be Day 10. After almost all 18 teams got their chance fighting with the hotel over ruined or stolen laundry, or change not received, burglarized autorickshaws and the late flag off due to late sleeping officials, it was a frustrating way to begin a long day that promised more brutal monsoon rains. With all the good humor and determination of elite troops, teams set out knowing that there would be a beautiful and incredible road ahead.
Ha, ha, Ha. Oh, I'm funny. The truth is that the morning was a painful monsoon disaster. Everyone was hungover and it hadn't stopped raining for more than 5 minutes since around 2pm the last day. The grey stormy morning destroyed many of the rickshaws and most of the mechanics had to be practically beaten to death to hammer shit back into place. But it didn't help much, since the breakdowns became more aggravated with the impending monsoon & less than ideal circumstances.
About at the boarder between Goa and Maharashtra teams began being turned away due to a washed out bridge. At the bottom of the hill a road was barricaded and a large lot with shops was filled with villagers curious to see floods reported to be the worst seen in 20 years. Of course when 18 rainbow colored autorickshaws driven by internationals showed up, it became a wild and potentially dangerous gathering. Children and drunks began trying to enter rickshaws and provoke participants. Vehicles were lined up and the crowd kept at bay before a restaurant was identified as a safe stop point where everyone could wait before hearing what the alternate route, or embarrassed trek back to Goa, would be. In a tight convoy the autos left the village and waited at the stop point before being re-routed.
Check, please. Actually, the bridge was a low lying flat patch of road that was enormously washed out. The level of the water wasn't rising like a tide gently rolling up to the shore, but like an opaque gas that instantly filled everything at a certain ground level and without any indication of speed or origin simply became higher. The road was elevated as we drove down to the washed out road and small village.
I was in a rickshaw with 2 unusually adventurous types who had a lot of experience in 'out of the way' places, who happened to work for a security firm, also providing myself a mysterious kind of security. We are in the first 5 vehicles to get to the wash out, to see villagers streaming out of flooded huts onto the road and into a large parking lot type enclosure, slightly out of the flood plane where a few food huts are doing the best business they can remember in recent memory. I jump out and talk to the guard about the road & the possibility to pass or how long we might need to wait. As far as I have heard from the morning's briefings with local authorities there is only 1 road and this is it. The option is returning to GOA, where everyone from participants to organizer's have told the Hotel Fidalgo staff to go fuck themselves -in no uncertain terms. Some people even briefly thought back to their jobs in far off countries and the loved ones they might miss if they became stranded & the whole thing went to shit.
One of the policemen is patiently turning everyone off of the road, driving away any curious persons with the bored acknowledgement that to wade in these muddy flood waters is not good because the blue crabs are "very poisonous." Rick, though over six feet tall and looking quite battle ready, still manages to jump a little and speed up. India, particularly outside a metropolis, is not a good place to have medical problems. We look up at the closed road and see more rickshaws arriving, more villagers surrounding them & the party like sounds of kids in one language and the British party brothers blasting music and trying to figure out what's happening in another.
Quickly it occurs to myself and my unusually savvy companions that the locals are young, drinking and entirely too intermixed with the rickshaws. It's prime riot-vandal conditions and the whole thing looks rather stupid on the white tourists' part. The lead organizer is no where to be seen.
I moved the rickshaws into a semi circle on the outside of the parking lot. A modern day circling of the wagons, trying to remember any general Custer or wild west stories that might also have some survival anecdote. Nothing comes to mind. One of the teams is eating gummi candies and I notice that if the kids see it, they will swarm & attack them. The plan is to hide anything but if it gets out of hand, toss & drive away. In a rickshaw, that's kind of like throwing a fish head at a Grizzly bear & crawling away with the rest of the fish in a wheelchair. More hopeful than practical. There's some full sized school buses on the opposite side of the parking lot and some of the participants climb up it to take aerial photos and video of everything. Notably Stephen and Oscar, the two most fearless members of the challenge.
About 30 minutes later the CEMS owner calls to say that another route may have been found but to pull everyone back to a rest-stop/restaurant 3 kilometers back. We all go together in a tight formation as the monsoon begins to kick up again. Everyone loads into the well covered food shack, hitting up the remaining beer stocks, when the call comes that a new route has been found & to pull everyone 5 kilometers back to where the first overpass had been. Considering the rain & the newly opened beers, no one wants to move. But it's a long day & we're behind. I have the mixed sensation of wanting to let everyone stay where they are. Stay here for days, ruining holiday plans, getting everyone fired and starting a new Jones Town cult of alcoholics who left society in favor of avoiding driving through the rain. Instead, I do my best General Patton.
The new route looked to be a million times more glorious than the intended one; curved hilly jungle roads with ever more beautiful scenery. Even the monsoon seemed to begin cooperating a bit. The first accident hit Team 13, The Engine, resulting in the loss of their front windshield, a particularly uncomfortable problem during a monsoon with 100 kilometers left to go. Mechanics drove the autorickshaw into Tarkali through everything.
At the gas stop where several teams fueled up and the windshield disaster forced the team to hand over the driving duties, Rick & I decided to find a toilet. In rural India, finding a toilet is always an adventure, but this one was the best that either of us have yet to come across. First we had to step in between the alley separating the petrol station to an outdoor market, covered by tin sheeting. The rain was relentless and the market labyrinth daunting. Before the toilet building could be found we agreed that nothing in life had more closely resembled a scene from Indiana Jones as this. The toilets looked like a long neglected railway waiting room, smelled like death and cost 5 rupees. Bargain. On the way back I couldn't be sure if the snakes were toys or real, and felt the incredible anxiety of wanting to draw the experience out while also wanting to make it out alive.
What the official version neglects to mention about the busted front windshield is that the nice British boys didn't have to suffer driving it through what would become horrific conditions. The emaciated Indian mechanic did. Alone. Eventually after 12 hours of fighting it out through the passages that follow, he shows up at Tarkali, shaking cold wearing a t-shirt and starving. Eventually he gets some leftovers & to sleep on the floor with the other mechanics. CEMS is an Indian company and reflects the traditional hierarchy and concern for the employee.
Bah. But what I said about the beauty of it. It can't be overstated. Somehow as things became more dangerous, the roads we were on completely unknown and off the daily itinerary, everything became almost mystically beautiful. Never a straight road, the lines curved and twisted, rose and fell until the rhythm of moving and gaping at the idyllic jungle transitioned to the least possible expected landscape: Ireland.
Somehow we managed to leave the coastal jungle and wander smack into open fields, hemmed and boarded by dense black rock and country roads. Hills of intense green and piles of things that looked a bit like hay. Like everywhere else in India, no matter how remote, some amazingly skinny fellow was wandering around, as if looking for a shoe left somewhere along the road. The Monsoon became so heavy the sky and the fields were blanked out by a steel grey color, impossible to see through.
The road signs stopped bothering with English anymore. And no one had any idea where we were or how far off the original route we might be. The lead organizer was in a mini-van somewhere behind us, likely obsessing over his online profile and new treo.
The big disaster came about 30 minutes later in a curvy downhill section of the road where the jungle becomes field. Team 17, Luft der Freiheit, lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a ditch. For reasons unclear, the autorickshaw then burst into flames from the front. Hannes, the driver of the auto experienced several injuries, including trauma to his ear and hand that later required over 30 stitches. Despite this, he was able to pull his stunned partner, Niraj, out of the flaming auto before other teams could show up.
The vision of a flaming autorickshaw, bloodied and shocked friends is enough to unnerve anyone. The teams that were first on the scene, however kept calm and collected, despite also being out of cell reception and being in an unknown area where none of the signs had been in English for several kilometers. Team 18 Northland Control’s Grin N Bear IT, found an ambulance in the next town, team 6, Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelies and 7, Compact Pussycats provided first aid, team 8, The Bald Spots, the GPS coordinates and team 5, The Jokes of Haphazzard, drove back and kept everyone moving. Organizer Nona Varnado was with Team 18, and took both injured participants to the nearest hospital, where lead mechanic supervisor and translator Kausar Baig was also on hand to provide assistance and transport to Mumbai if necessary.
What linguistic concision! What 'don't alienate the sponsor & any future paying customers' class! And to think I wasn't the Wall Street Journal Reporter paid to gloss over the situation. In direct contrast and perfectly embodying the complete loss of journalistic standards; either due to the reprint rights situation since the late 1990's preventing professionals from being able to get paid for a well-honed craft or the infamous LCD that is the inheritance of being recently acquired by Rupert Murdoch, aka 'News Corp'. Instead the WSJ reporter, a young man recently out of Stanford university, purposely played up the fireball and general extremeness of the event. Of course, that would happen after it was apparent that everyone would survive -parts mostly intact.
By the time the crash happened, it had already been a long & difficult day. But the beauty of it, the dozen or so trouble free kilometers had restored some energy. The year before a team of greatly hungover and possibly drunk girls had driven off a cliff, saved only by vegetation & luck. One of the girls almost lost a foot and required Kausar driving her directly up to Mumbai for surgery. Remembering the photos still grosses me out. Like Icelanders, you give people one day off to party and they have a rough time behaving themselves or performing early the next day. Plus comfort is disarming. The little golf carts on speed seem harmless by day 10. So it was not without some level of apprehension that we came over a perfectly green hill to see a teal blue rickshaw in flames in a ditch on the side of the road, flagged down by the British party twins.
Hannes was standing around with his hand on his head when I found him. I couldn't see the wound, just that he was bleeding, it was that deep red almost black that happens only when something is deep and he began to shake. Someone approached me to say that it looked extremely bad and there was the implication that it might be life threatening. We all knew we were in the middle of nowhere, in a monsoon. In a dead zone for cell reception. I had him lie down on his back, with the others wrapping him to keep warm and raincoats overhead to keep as much rain as possible off. His team mate appeared physically fine but was clearly in shock. You can't really blame him, but it didn't help matters any.
The situation was this: no cell phone reception, we had no idea where we were or even what road we were on exactly. From what I could see the main injury was that the ear was almost completely severed and required being held in place. I had no idea how far ahead the nearest village would be or where the nearest hospital would be. The remaining participant rickshaws would also make for a particularly horrible ambulance and might not be capable of making it to where ever we needed to go if time was critical. For a second nothingness stretched in every possible direction.
But the road only goes 2 ways.
So I had Team 18, my capable security professionals, continue down the road, while the twins & I would drive back until we could contact the pace car/mini-van or the back up SUV or Kausar and the mechanics. First, we found two participants clever enough to have their own GPS. I finally got the coordinates and a few meters later, cell reception. I called Aravind who seemed irritated. He didn't have GPS, that's a toy for white people apparently. He had no idea where we were either. I tried to explain the exact route that all the front autos had taken & how to get to us. Then, another call. Team 18 has found a gigantic old land rover type ambulance in the next village that has no outward appearance of being an ambulance. Quickly, we get team 17 into the car. Luckily Raj also speaks Hindi, so we feel mostly prepared for whatever is going to happen next. In between moments of semi-calm the rain comes.
We're in a big hurry to get to the hospital that is apparently in the last village we past. The driver knows where he is going. But everyone who has stayed to see things through are all standing on the side of the road, dazed. It's getting late. They're still only 1/2 to Tarkali. I tell them to get back on the road, drive safely and finish the day. Go.
When Raj offers a cigarette, I suck it down, cracking the window open for the rain to pour in and the smoke to stay in the large back space of the old vehicle, wishing there were some shocks on the thing to prevent Hannes from being jostled anymore than he needs to be. One of the pussycats is coming with us, as she's been holding his hand and seems to be calming everyone down, even while wearing a neon pink faux Saree. We get to the clinic.
Up until that point I felt like I had things under control; that options like the road were still open. The clinic is typical of a jungle village and anyone who has traveled or lived in these places, knows what this looks like. A museum of dirt. A quietly dying elderly body tucked along a wall. Diminutive nurses handling trays of unsterilized medical stuff unfit for a basic emergency kit.
First the cleaning. One of the nurses collects some things from an open cabinet that looks like it belongs in an auto body shop. A few precious cotton gauze squares that fall to the dirt floor and placed back on the tray before being handed to the doctor who begins to use them after briskly grabbing the ear flesh, holding it back and rinsing it down with alcohol of some variety. His movements are coarse, he tells us that today is supposed to be his day off. That he shouldn't have to be working right now. Like the mysteries of empathy, self-absorbed assholes seem to be available universally. I panic, not sure if I should stop them, stop everyone from this filthy catastrophe and find a way to go somewhere else. But where?
Both Emily and myself take turns holding Hannes' large hand. He's lying down on his side as the other hand is cleaned & the gash on his palm is stitched. He's given painkillers by injection and for a second I wonder if I am also in shock. The needle and tube with the painkiller looks antique, or like something out of a Victorian horror film. Hannes is making pleasant conversation with the doctor and mentions that his father is a vascular surgeon. A small, giddy sensation happens when I assume that Aravind will be sued out of existence by the poor boy's family. They begin sewing the ear back on with what looks like shoe laces and crochet needles.
His team mate is quietly freaking out on the next chair and I mention that it's okay to squeeze my hand as the pain must be quite intense. It's Hannes that smiles at me and declines as he could easily hurt my smaller hand if he did so. My admiration for his character doubles. KK shows up and quietly talks to the hospital staff and relays the location to the other organizers before Kausar shows up drenched and looking like a prize fighter who has just entered the ring. He probably hadn't slept in 5 days or more and was expecting to perform a repeat of last years' Goa-Mumbai sprint to the hospital. It probably would have been the better idea. He's loud & I have to remind him not to freak out, but it's much better to have him around. The two team mates are talking themselves through the procedure, how things look and staying unrealistically optimistic. Raj uses his multiple smart phones to photograph the stitching. The doctor, after hearing his patients' father is a German surgeon had become far more interested in the task and ordered that they show his father his handiwork and have him send him an email. Yes, he wanted an email.
And payment. KK paid the fee, which included some pills for antibiotics, pain and something else -maybe clotting? It all looked like dirty street crack, but it also might have been a welcome placebo. We were happy, very, very happy to get into the heated, sealed SUV with KK to finish the trip. Kausar & the mechanics had to haul the wreck out of the ditch and attach it to the mechanics van, a miniature thing that can be found only in southeast asia and was also constantly breaking down, just to make things more challenging. By that time many of the teams were also breaking down and the mechanics were more than an hour before they could reach anyone. Even with the hand drawn map they had given us in the hospital-hut we had to have Raj ask for directions every 10 minutes.
How everyone else got there, I have no idea. As night fell, roads were washed out, bridges underwater and we ran into Batman & Robin camping out under a shrine, trying to keep dry and figure out how to get their rickshaw moving again. There wasn't enough support cars or mechanics to help everyone, they had to save themselves and make it to the resort. Under the circumstances it looked like the Lord of the Flies set. I decided to begin drinking.
Though Team 17 would be okay, other teams were still far from Tarkali with a major monsoon already flooding out the only roads available. Autorickshaws crossed roads just before, during and after rivers swelled into gushing floods. Only 4 teams made it to the hotel in time for the flag down, but all arrived safely before the next day’s flag off.
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