Jaipur to Mumbai

We left Jaipur around lunchtime and headed towards Ahmedabad. We had some long days ahead of us. Our mission now was to get to Mumbai in good enough time to give us a day searching for a shipping agent. It was getting late as we arrived Ahmedabad, it was dark and rush hour was in full swing. Me and Dunny were on the bikes and got separated from the van. We found ourselves on different roads out of the city. We managed to get hold of the lads in the van, they were parked on the other side of a toll gate about 100km south of where me and Dunny were. We got to the toll gate where we thought the lads were at about 11.30pm but there was no sign of them. We tried ringing again with no luck. We gave up and began to head off, then we saw the van and the lads. It was surrounded by a group of Sikh's who insisted we came into their temple for food and drink. They took us upstairs to meet the Sikh gurus who were reading from the big book. The gurus were cool looking guys, big white beards and traditional dress. The Sikhs hospitality and sense of community had impressed us all and we left with good impression of their faith.

We decided to put one more hour under us, we finally parked up for the night in a petrol station at about 1am. The 5 of us in the van bedded down for the night. The following day Dunny's bike was playing up. It had lost compression was wasn't starting. We put it in the back of the van and continued on towards Mumbai.

After another slog of a day we were approaching the outskirts of Mumbai. We had all been reading a book called Shantaram, a story of a New Zealand convict who lived in the Mumbai slums for years. He wrote about a bar called Leopolds which was popular with expats, we had decided to go there for a drink when we arrived in Mumbai.  This time it was mine and Stews turn to get separated. After a toll gate and a load of traffic there was no sign of the van. We had no way of contacting each other so headed straight to Leopolds hoping the others would think the same. We fought our way through the traffic asking for directions to the Colaba area. One guy we asked said I'm going that way so he jumped on the back of my bike and directed us to Leopolds. There was no sign of the van, we went and got fuel then back to Leopolds, on the other side of the road in the distance was big sal! We sounded our trademark tune on the bikes horn which got the lads attention. We were back together. We parked the van up on a nice street, had a few beers then went to bed in the van.

The following day we had a fair bit to do. We wanted to find a shipping agent and get the ball rolling for shipping the van home. Me, Stew and Dunny rode to the port, after being sent to the customs house then back to the main gate we found a few agents. Stew went into one, me and Dunny another. Stews looked promising, he was in their office for about an hour until they turned around and said sorry we don't deal with this sort of shipping. Me and Dunny made a bit more progress, got a quote but didn't have much confidence in the agent. It wasn't looking particularly good, we were about to give up for the day then me and Dunny spotted one more agent. We went in and were impressed. He gave us an itemised quote explaining all the costs. We exchanged contact details then headed back to the van.

It was our last night in Mumbai for a while so we decided to have a night out. We had some pre drinks in the van. Stew had met a guy from Monaco earlier in the day so he came along too. Before long there was a small gathering of locals around the van. There was a group of school kids who were becoming really annoying, they were trying to grab anything they get there hands on. We asked them nicely to leave a few times but they didn't listen. Gaz came up with the solution. A few blasts of the powder fire extinguisher in the rough direction did the trick. The whole area was in a white cloud. There was no more sign of the kids. We headed to a couple of bars and a club.

The following day we met a Belgian guy and French girl. The Belgian guy had cycled from Belgium to India. He wanted to go to Goa by bus but taking his bike on the bus was troublesome. We took it down and planned to meet them in Goa.

Later that day we left for Goa.

Rob