I woke up from my cramped bed spread across the only two
seats of the car which just about managed to squeeze me in the limited space
there is to find the sun starting to paint the sky an orange glow. It was yet
sunrise and I decided to catch a little more shut eye. The procession of people
continued. Many were stopping and staring. Right through the windows. This six
foot two inch apparition bundled up inside a vehicle that probably looked like
nothing they had seen before. I consoled myself that they were staring at the
vehicle, marvelling at it physical beauty (ugliness?), and not at me. I shut my
eyes disregarding the stares and went right back to sleep. The price of fame, I
tell you, we have to disregard public attention and adulation at times!
Woke up a couple of hours later but sleep did not abandon
me. The eyelids refuse to give up each others company and despite my desperate
efforts, I realised it was becoming a losing battle. There is just no point in
driving when sleepy. A few kilometres down the road I stopped at an eatery and
decided to grab a meal. Dinner had skipped me by and this was a good time to
stock up my stomach for the long day ahead and give sleep a chance to find
another residence. It worked. Half an hour or so later, I was fit and raring to
go. Made very good time on some very good roads and gave myself sunset to hit
Delhi. Fat chance.
About a hundred kilometres later, driving on another fine
stretch of tarma, I smelt the familiar smell again. This time I did not wait
for the smoke to fill in the cockpit, promptly shut the engine down, opened the
bonnet and promptly proceeded to refill the radiator with coolant. Almost a
litre through the bottle I realised that though the coolant was going straight
in through the hole, my feet were getting wet at the same time. Looking down I
found my feet, and the road around me, green with (which I hoped was) envy. No
dice. It was the other end of the radiator that had busted a leak and what was
going in at one end was promptly flowing out the other end. What a waste of a
litre of good coolant when not only did not have enough to go around, there
wasn’t enough water either to pour into the radiator. Not that that would do
any good ... I had to plug the leak. I kicked myself at not having stocked up
on sealant. I did the next best thing and tried to make do with the resources
that I had ... a bar of chocolate.
Again, no dice. The area became all gooey and did not stop the leakage. I had
to pour some more water to find this out ... expensive habit this was becoming.
A village lass strolled by and gave me a nasty look when
I started making conversation. She probably thought I was trying to flirt with
her, city boy and all that, but all I was trying to figure out was the distance
to the next town.
For people who have seldom travelled outside our busy
city streets, this may come as a surprise, but there was scant traffic on the
road except a few trucks that roared by. Soon enough though there was a man in
a scooter who I flagged down and he encouraging told me that I could have
access to a a mechanic twelve kilometres down the road. Great, but twelve
kilometres on a dry radiator could lead to a whole lot of other problems.
I kept shoving my finger into the hole left by the busted
end of the pipe, probably hoping that it would miraculously plug itself, Of
course, that did not happen. The experiment with the chocolate was a disaster
too. But I had to go the twelve kilometres to find the mechanic. Fortunately I
was carrying zip ties and I took one out and somehow managed to reduce the
volume of leakage. This experiment kind of finished off all the water I was
carrying and with a song on my lips (what else was there to do?) I headed down
in search of a friendly neighbourhood mechanic. Sure enough, there he was,
though not as far as twelve kilometres away. I stopped to realise that was no
mechanic but a tyre puncture repair wallah. That was not what I was looking
for. But thank God for small mercies, there was a large container full of
water. I filled all my empty bottles, a couple of which were poured into the
radiator and with the promise that I would a mechanic a couple of kilometres
down, I headed on. The engine was hydrated and happy, though draining fast. But
sure enough, I came across the mechanic and after one look under the hood
proclaimed that he did not have the spares. But, he would plug the hole to make
the vehicle serviceable again ... at least till Udaipur which was less than
100km away. So far so good.
Udaipur happened and mechanic happened and workshops
happened. But they were all for trucks and none of them knew what the problem
was or how it could be rectified. And it was a Sunday, so no shops would be
open in the city which was to the right. Left I turned and headed for Jaipur
hoping I would find some mechanic en route.
Nah. Did not happen. But fortunately the first aid applied held on and the hydration remained intact. I drive on. Ajmer happened and it was time for a quick cup of tea. Which was preceded by a bottle of soda and followed up with a plate full of pakoras. Delhi was in striking distance.
Nothing eventful happened along the way except that my
hopes of knocking on the door at my house around midnight stretched on for a
couple of hours more. Folks did not know I was coming and I was giving them a
surprise. It would have been nice though not to have woken them up. Anyway, it
was after three in the morning when I parked and walked up the short flight of
stairs and almost straight into bed after scrubbing my body of the grime and
dirt of the past three days.
You think about my day today while I say good bye to you.
Day 5 was over and done with.
Follow my journey on the Travel Trendz Trilogy here http://traveltrendztv.com/traveltrendztrilogy.php and here https://www.facebook.com/traveltrendztv
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