Day 4 – the 4th of August.
I think that there should be a new rule – Saturday’s shall
now be known as “Sleep Late Days”. Copy
right pending.
If that were to be a rule we broke it today. After a late Friday night, getting up was a
little difficult today. We got on the
road, only a 110km drive… which wouldn’t be too bad on a Saturday but when it
takes you just over 3 hours I start doubting our sanity levels. The drive even though long was actually
really beautiful. The greenery this side
is really something that could attract a lot of tourism (I think). About halfway into the drive we decided to
stop at a “Halfway stop”; kind of like the one to Durban from
Johannesburg. It doesn’t look quite the
same, actually it doesn’t even resemble it in the slightest… it was a
tent. This was one of the cooler things
to see in the Culture gap. People are so
comfortable this side and again we saw that shop PR is almost as foreign as
Afrikaans around here.
We reached a tonnel which was said to be 1.4km long. Again if you know the road to Cape Town from
Johannesburg this sounds familiar. The
natural beauty is really astounding, and then just after the amazing beauty you
find a building that seems to have been part of a war somewhere in the past
(and someone is still living in there).
The place we went to visit (name to be supplied as soon as I
can find the spelling) resembled something out of a fairy-tale, a fairy-tale
with loads of trash on random spots and with no proper bathrooms, but a
fairy-tale nonetheless. Due to the fact
that it is Monsoon season this side it is very green yes, but the rain is
something that cannot be missed in the mountain area. We got so wet; it actually looked like the
four of us went for a swim with our clothes on.
We made a video of the absolute crazy wetness; I will add a link to the
video as a comment later tonight.
Okay so here is something that I found really funny. When driving in the city there are literally
thousands of cars, bikes and scooters all over, but very few accidents. So at the viewing points you usually find
only one or two cars; so it is really a lot more quiet and slow paced than the
city. The funny part only comes in here:
We had an accident while at one of the viewing points (someone drove
into us from behind); mom don’t worry, nothing major and no-one got hurt. It was actually such a small thing that our
driver got out, looked at the damage and wiped it off with a cloth, got back in
the car and drove off. No hectic
processes of calling the cops like in South Africa just carry on with your life
and smile. That is another thing that I
find really awesome around here; the guys don’t even know what road rage is,
they just carry on and smile… as someone who drives in Sandton and Randburg
this doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me, but I think we’ll get there.
On the way back home we stopped at a Jam, Jelly and
Chocolate factory/shop/call-it-what-you-want.
We had a taste of the milkshake they make and then got to see how they
make it… with jam. The chocolate got
Kaishni’s full attention (I must be honest mine also). By this stage we didn’t yet notice it, but we
forgot to have breakfast and lunch, so I think that is why the chocolate and
jam-sweets tasted a little more awesome than reality allows it to be.
The trip up the mountain was partially missed due to our
fascination with the extreme beauty of the valley. The trip down… not so much, don’t get me
wrong the beauty was still there, but driving down a mountain at 60km/h is kind
of nerve wrecking when there aren’t any traffic rules. Also the road down looked a little like
something from “Tokyo Drift”. I cannot
emphasize enough how glad I am that we didn’t take the drive back in the dark.
The drive back was a little cold, as we got in the car wet
from the rain and air conditioners around here are on full time. I know being cold in India sounds insane… but
it really happened (not complaining though, it was still awesome).
Back at the apartment, a short shower and getting into dry
clothes sounded like the best and first option.
Then came one of our more intense India experiences: THE
WALK.
We took a walk down the street… sounds easy right… To sum it
up, it took Kaishni and myself about 10min to get over one of the crossings
(there were four). Hein and Lourens seem
to have adapted to the traffic rules quite quickly. We used our walk to get some sweets and a
board game. Finally after 8 months
(really 8 months) I finally got my hands on some Bakarwadi, and it tasted
almost as good as I remember it from 8 months back.
Lourens almost walked into a temple with his shoes on…
without even noticing. “Lourens!!
Lourens!!! Kom hier, kom net hier!!” That is how we tried getting him back
without people understanding what was happening.
From there we had a few fun rounds of Cluedo, and a second
taste of the local beer (nope not as good as a can of Coke I can promise you
that).
It doesn’t feel like the blog today is doing the events a
load of justice… but I think it is about as close as it can get.
-this was thought about on many levels including novice,
beginner and awesome
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