Twitchin' on the 16th

Its been a hectic day of driving, so we're a bit lacking on the a/v eyecandy. So far, we've been averaging around 350km/day, give or take 10-20km. Forgot to mention for the past 2 days, since Goalpara, we've been traveling with 2 teams from the UK - two college bound blokes John and George, and solo driver Thom. Thom originally was slated to be teamed with his girlfriend, but visa issues unfortunately mucked up that plan. Traveling with them has been great so far, and we've been taking turns helping Thom drive his rickshaw, as the road conditions have slowly numbed his hands and given him painful blisters. Looks like he's healing up well, as I am, after cutting my hands on a concrete pylon attempting highly retarded acrobatics yesterday.

So, highlights today - We've made our way from Jangipur to Medinipur.

Had our first breakdown! Lost throttle all of a sudden for no apparent reason. After scratching our heads, I tried replugging and cleaning the spark plug wire, and we started back up without issues. We suspect the culprit may be a shotty spark plug, or a gunked up spark plug wire. Thankfully, both other teams have extras, so we should be ok moving foward.

Our rickshaw had slowly developed an unnerving rattle. Started unobtrusively in the morn, then became progressively louder, and by this evening had turned into a disturbingly loud knocking sound. After poking around for quite sometime, we found that our muffler had somehow bent touched the bumper frame, banging it at every chance. Looks to not be as bad as we though, but we probably will get a mechanic to fix it before it completely falls off.

We lost our beloved styrofoam head! It was really bound to happen.. The rattling and banging in our rickshaw has proven to loosen more than a couple bolts already.

We've constructed our first working fuel funnel!! No more leaking on refueling, or getting petrol/oil all over our already grubby fingers.

Today was hot. Definitely over 90. Tomorrow will most definitely be hotter. We're gonna be saying that a lot.

Speaking with an Indian accent apparently gets us understood way better when asking locals for directions/food/water.

I blew a fuse on my bberry car charger. Thanks to Jeremy, we've got an extra one, and also a wall charger. Chances at finding an extra fuse is slim, considering we're going to be trying to avoid the big cities.

The pleather canopy is slowly detaching from the windshield area and we've lost maybe 2-3 bolts from seemingly nonessential areas on the frame/body.

Finally have some proper accommodations, with room service and air conditioning! Yes I know, its not very adventurous of us, but after being covered in dirt, petrol, oil and sweat all day, it is something we're gonna enjoy whole heartedly.

So tomorrow, we plan to reach the Sun temple area, near Puri. Looks like its gonna be a 400km day. Gonna be a fun one tomorrow!