After few days of radio silence it is a great joy to announce that team Trukke Trukke safely reached Shillong at 2:40pm on Friday 29th April, 1 day ahead of schedule! The team crossed the finish line at the Pinewood hotel where it was welcomed by the few teams that arrived earlier in the day. One of the first rules of the Rickshaw Run is that it is not a race but it was nevertheless quite a satisfaction to be the 10th team at the finish line (out of 66) and the first one among the other Italian teams!
The last few days of the journey were particularly intense. What we expected to be a relaxing drive in the country side turned out to be the most stressful part of the trip. On our way to Barpeta from Siliguri, we ended up driving on the infamous NH 31-c. People here call it highway and this will probably be the case in five years or so, not now. For the time being this is not even a road. This is a party built 2+2 lane motorway, made of (very) short sections of smooth, quality surface and long sections of potholes, rocks, and dust. Driving on this road almost drove team Trukke Trukke insane as the average speed was about 10kmh and there was not a single road sign in sight and hence no idea of how long it would go on for.
When the sun started to disappear from the horizon and Barpeta was still 60km away we where almost ready for our first night of sleep in the rickshaw. Luckily met a local guy at a petrol station who directed us to an Hotel nearby saying "at least there you will be safe". We fully understand what he meant only when we checked in at the Raj Palace (such a terrible hotel that we had to use our sleeping bags) and bumped again into the two British teams we had met few days earlier.
They told us that the day before they broken down at an Assam Police checkpoint and the official on site called the chief of the west Assam police who came and explained that they had broken down in am extremely dangerous place. The same place where some "terrorist groups" have been kidnapping both westerners and locals (In fact, only 4 months back 4 WWF scientists had been kidnapped in the exact same spot and held for ransom and the chief believed that had the Norwegian govt not paid the ransom they would have been killed). They were taken to an Hotel and kept under armed guard for the night, not allowed to leave their rooms, and not allowed to talk to anyone.
When the sun started to disappear from the horizon and Barpeta was still 60km away we where almost ready for our first night of sleep in the rickshaw. Luckily met a local guy at a petrol station who directed us to an Hotel nearby saying "at least there you will be safe". We fully understand what he meant only when we checked in at the Raj Palace (such a terrible hotel that we had to use our sleeping bags) and bumped again into the two British teams we had met few days earlier.
They told us that the day before they broken down at an Assam Police checkpoint and the official on site called the chief of the west Assam police who came and explained that they had broken down in am extremely dangerous place. The same place where some "terrorist groups" have been kidnapping both westerners and locals (In fact, only 4 months back 4 WWF scientists had been kidnapped in the exact same spot and held for ransom and the chief believed that had the Norwegian govt not paid the ransom they would have been killed). They were taken to an Hotel and kept under armed guard for the night, not allowed to leave their rooms, and not allowed to talk to anyone.
Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteGrandissimi!!!! Complimenti! I miei idioli :D
ReplyDelete