What Next?

We’ll have to see what economics allow but a projected jeep drive through Cambodia has lots of appeal.
There are also a number of other charitable events to be considered organised by Global Enduro and others.
Back to the day jobs for now - in my case not for too long now.

I’d like to fulfil a commitment to assist in some way with getting Adventure Ashram off the ground properly. Adventure Ashram is very young and small charity with masses of passion and enthusiasm but now recognising that timely delivery of its objectives represent significant challenges. Things in India can be complex and slow to make happen and it is clear that there is huge benefit to be had from harnessing the tremendous pool of talent and experience available from the participants and beyond.
We plan to speak with the trustees to investigate how we might help further.




Rainbow Trust has achieved great brand recognition for such small charity. Amy did a grand job at her pitch on event - there was hardly a dry eye in the house!
It deserves further and continuing support. It touches no more than 10% of those families that meet it's criteria. Please take a look at the website if you havn't already.
http://www.rainbowtrust.org.uk/

George & Steve

Thank you!

We need to thank a lot of people for making this trip possible:

• Gill for spotting the ad. and suggesting I do it in the first place.
• Gill and Theresa for supporting us throughout.
• Our generous sponsors without whom we would not have been able to make this substantial contribution to Rainbow Trust and Adventure Ashram.
We’ll be writing to you individually and sending you pictures very shortly.













• The Karma Team at Global Enduro for organising such a great event. High risk (potentially), high reward and very worthwhile.
• Fellow travellers. Almost without exception a great bunch of people! Not often can a random group of such a scale gel so quickly around a common objective.
• Steve, for being an enthusiast from the off. A fixer and prompter in the run-up and a solid as a rock, a great buddy and a skilful navigator and driver during the event. It’s not everybody that I’d sit next to or would tolerate having to sit next to me under such conditions for two weeks. Well done!


George

Homeward bound

A wakeup call at 4..00 am, a quick shower at baggage in reception by 4.30am for a game of comedy buses started our day. Comedy buses is a variant of musical chairs where you load your luggage on a designated bus, get sat down ready to roll and then find that your bus is going domestic rather than international. Meanwhile, another busload have been told the selfsame thing. Off load all the baggage then swap buses. Only to find that the terminals are 100m apart and it doesn’t matter anyway!
A good sense of humour check.

There are plenty more at Cochin Airport where queuing has been refined to an art form.
Zigzags to have your checked bags x-rayed and sealed (perhaps). No barriers though so a test of discipline. Then queue again and again for passport control, hand luggage search ( I had to unpack mine!!) and so on . There must have been about 7or 8 stages. It does help to pass the time as the 2 hours checking evaporated before we boarded for our half hour flight to Colombo.
Transfer was easy and we boarded easily for a 1.30minute leg to Male.

Then we had ‘The bag incident’!.

During the flight there was a small number of passengers who seemed restless and noticeably seemed to walk around.. When it came to offloading at Male one passed us, opened a locker and put a bag in before exiting the plane!.
We drew this to the attention of the crew before a somewhat cursory hand-luggage check was done, the offending bag being removed from the aircraft.
We could relax for we had already decided that if it stayed onboard we were exiting!!

The rest of the flight was uneventful, even the ‘little darlings’ stopped using the seats as trampolines as other passengers readily swapped seats to put their inept parents within control range, even if that word seemed outside their vocabulary.

Some shuteye was preferable as the film selection was poor and we were looking at a 24 hour day from start to stop with the time-shift.
We were briefly stacked at LHR but landed almost on time. Bags came through quickly so after some rushed goodbyes we exited
Gill and Theresa were at Arrivals to meet us before straightforward drives home in quiet, quick, powerful cars on smooth, ordered roads!
India was great but has an awfully long way to make up.
Transport green credentials alone is a major issue for them and it is too easy to see the economic burden that the UK/EU takes on with requiring and delivering on much higher levels of environmental compliance.

We will carry with us many images of our Indian adventure. Here are a few.

George

The final push to Kottayam

Well, the final day has arrived and we are preparing for the final drive to our destination of Kottayam. After the morning ritual of route notes, 'skid mark' awards and also 'muppet of the day' which was today awarded to The Top Gunga Team for offering another team their fuel gauge should they run out of fuel, as 'in flight refuelling' was unavailable.

Once underway we encountered the normal hairpin bends again, up and down the hills and mountains, which led us into the tea plantations and spice growing ares of Cardomom county near Thekkady. The route covered 190 kms running through towns some of which were noticable affluent in comparison to all of the previous days.
As short stop for lunch in a nice drive in resturant and were we had a few dishes including ginger prawns, and some spicy noodles.

We knew today was all about the safe afternoon arrival and finish of the event which was to see us all line up and prepare for the final drive into our overnight and final location. Sadly when we arrived we noticed that one of the other crews had had an accident. Luckily they were stationary at the time but the oncoming overtaking bus removed most of their front offside wing and front bumper. After a quick pit stop at the local blacksmith they were underway again. So far, albiet with many close shaves, the whole team had come out unscathed.

Once we parked up at the holding area we had some photo's taken, we also presented some cheques to Nick at the Karma team, with Amy from the Rainbow Trust and Briony, who is a volunteer helper with that organisation and her husband Peter present.
That is after all what this event has been all about.

We then headed into the overnight hotel where we were greated by two fabulous Indian Elephants dressed in traditional headress, whilst listening to the beating drums played very loudly, and being offered fresh coconut to drink. What a fantastic end to a great day!.

We then proceeded to get ready for the evenings function which mean dressing up in traditional Indian dress. We had been forewarned that this was going to happen so most had made the effort to purchase items along the way to enjoy the evening.
The evening's event was held outside on a balmy evening during which was greatly enhanced with an Indian band playing traditional music.
there were a few announcements and some presentations. We were all given T shirts, certificates and a model af the Ambassador, 'made to the same build quality as the real car'!!!

We tried to take as many photo's as possible. They will all be posted. We hope you enjoy them.

Steve & George