Day 12 - Ullal Beach to (somewhere 315km from Ullal Beach)

The glass was pretty empty today. It seems increasingly like the only requirement for driving a bus or truck in India is to be brain-dead or as near to as possible. If someone wouldn't mind commenting on this post below and providing any stats for deaths/disabilities on Indian roads, it would be great. Amazingly enough we haven't actually seen a serious accident, but have seen a couple of trucks/buses on their sides/burnt out/smashed presumably due to some brain-dead decision like overtaking four other vehicles going uphill around a blind corner in the dark.

We also had more drama with the tuk - roof racks snapped when we hit a bump so we had to find a welder to remedy the situation...Easier said than done – in a land of 1 billion people, probably 500 million tuk-tuks, and 250 million mechanics, finding someone who could simply weld our old girl back together proved a real task in itself. Health and Safety are certainly not high on the priority list of the majority of mechanics/auto rickshaw repairmen.. Armed with little more than entry level 80's recreational swimming goggles, yet another incredibly generous and friendly local set to patching our old girl up..

8 hours, a whole lot of swearing and fistfuls of rage later, and we arrived at Naravinds Tourist Home. Empty promises of warm water and air-conditioning revealed we got half our room rate back and set out to find Al a sari. Our only success of the day came in the form of a rather fetching green and gold silk creation that cost 4 times the rate of our room..

We apologise to any bus/truck drivers and their loved ones for any offence or upset this post may have caused.