Not sure where to start, it has been a harrowing and a little frightening few days.
We are settled into a hotel now safe and sound with perhaps a few days down now to recover and see if the roads open, we aren’t in-the race hotel but one we found in desperation to park and to spend the night. The others from the Rally are all around us.
The drive into Mcleod ganj was bad but still manageable. It is, as mentioned before, the home of the exiled Dali Llama.
Our car and the two of us were soaked by the end of that day. Race times only counted minimally as some cars had to be towed in. They couldn’t climb the final hill into Dal Lake.
Worrying about the car and the rain we heard was to come,Tony put our little tarp over it.
It wasn’t doing much. We tried wringing out some things as we now have more water in the car than some of the puddles outside. Two to three inches in back Wells and our clothes are soaked through.
Our suitcases are also soaked through.
The Priory waterproofed the roof but the torrential rain was too much for it and the rain came through it by today and every tiny orifice. In the morning it had built up behind the dash and turning right or left early on Tony and I were treated to a buckets full of water from the dash and down our pants. Where this was coming from we don’t know.
We have decided we need to drill holes in the floor to let it out. We are frightened of our electrics.
Morning start required us to back up a very step hill to depart out of the hotel.
Last night we were advised to take our ‘altitude’ medication for the going up mountain, as we begin to really climb.
For those that know a little about our car it requires a great deal of strength to turn the wheel, brake and change gear. By most evenings Tony is physically exhausted. Add the endless huge potholes to manoeuvre around and through and you can well imagine how hard it is on the car and on Tony when driving. We climb roads that aren’t finished and roads now which have been swept away by avalanche rocks and mudslides. We were told that this storm is the worst since 1995 to hit the region. It appears that the remains of a typhoon that savaged East Pakistan has been force up against the Himalayan slopes and become stuck here, dumping the remains of the storm on these slopes.
So we climb and climb and stop first at the Green Himalayan Cafe for morning break.
Very civilized very old world, for some lovely tea biscuits and sandwiches. Since we had been up since 5:30 am it was much appreciated. Routed on after 20 minutes, and a start more or less in order. We are advised that we get extra time due to current road conditions.
We head for Manjeeve Ridge for our second staged run. The surface is mud and cow shit and more mud. Cows are everywhere as are mules and lots of wild dogs…my favourite! But that’s another story.
We aren’t told where we will be timed or where the actual finish will be so you just need to put your head down and concentrate on following their instructions in the Tulip book.
We must start our stopwatch to know how much time we have and pass along each kilo. It’s a unusual process and hard on the brain.
My watch switched to laps after 5 minutes I either touched some wrong button as I was being bounced or whatever. Anyway, we arrive by guessing our per minute time at the projected speed and low and behold we were out by less than 1 sec. Karma was on our side.
For the race anyway.
The weather had cleared for a brief reprieve so we were doubly lucky. I suggest maybe it’s the eye of the storm.
The rest is downhill all the way in more ways than one.
The fog rolled in and then the rains started. We did really wonder if we had passed the eye of the storm.
Now all hell breaks loose the skies opened and what was steady hard rain before becomes torrential and does not let up. As we slowly drove down the mountain to Manali the sky darkened to almost black. We began noticing large boulders on the road, then some roads washed out so we had to backtrack off route. We formed small groups to stay together. Torrential rivers flowed over the hillside and we had to drive through on bridges that creaked and groaned as we crossed. Some rivers were now flowing over the bridges. I took a couple of fuzzy pictures of a car directly behind uses we now forging streams with water up to the door sills.
On we drove but not at great speed. Buses came and we couldn’t pass. On the way down the mountain BRITISH driving you are on the outside we came perilously close to loosing grip and often passed beside buses and trucks where we had to bring in our mirrors
Tony couldn’t see a thing out the back window and the front window needed to be continuously cleared and squeegees by yours truly. Steam built up inside the car so thick that we cleaned it every 30 seconds. Other cars fared worse than us. The older Bentley’s had even less protection. We were soaked through and through. Shoes were sponges, pants were sopping and our knees were repeated treated to a quart of rain water from behind the dash at every hard turn. I had a rainproof jacket on but the water coming in from the roof soaked it through and my shirt below was rain soaked.
No use stopping there was nothing to do but carry on.
We crossed another check point at Kandi Pass.
We headed too Kullu and then Biasar. At Kullu we were to change routes towards Manali
but that wasn’t to be as a major rockslide closed the road, so we tried to cross the river.
Many of the bridges were now closing as the water levels had risen so high.
Roads became quagmires. You couldn’t stop or you would be stuck. As we turned and rerouted ourselves again we watched a bus and then a truck get swept into the river. What amazed us was the people standing at the edge of the riverbanks watching. Follow the link below for a scary camera view from a car just behind us.:
https://www.facebook.com/EnduranceRallyAssociationEra/videos/1976183465779138/
I watched a shantytown start to collapse and then up river a lovely hotel with a huge swimming pool get swallowed by the river. The pool water changing from a lovely blue to sludge before my eyes. We couldn’t stop. Our little group kept going.
On we climbed fording small rivers and carefully traversing mudslides. Thank goodness no mudslides coming as we all passed! The buses trying to get through blocked traffic but we all seemed to manage somehow, sometimes with some very choice words. Tempers were high but it did no good.
Tony was getting concerned due to the visual restrains, he couldn’t see often times and as darkness approached we noticed we had only one working headlight, and that one was flickering on and off. The glare on the windshield from oncoming cars made it almost impossible to see.
I couldn’t squeegee fast enough to stop the steam so we drove with all windows open.
What did it matter we were soaked.
Frequently I jumped out of the car to try to direct Tony through a particular perilous curve or turn where the car couldn’t do it in one sweep. I had to muscle the car door open as it had swollen, not an easy feat. I knew his arms were tiring but we had no choice.
On we went into the night finally reaching Manali. We knew the road behind us was closed we were down to about 2 km from the Hotel when the front car stops along the bank of another swollen river. We all stop. The military are out. The road is closed. There has been a major landslide. We can’t get through the last kilometre or so to the hotel . So we decide to cross the bridge thinking we can go up the other side and come from another route. Oh my! There has been another slide isolating the hotel completely. So we head back over the bridge to the other side to decide what to do.
We know sooner stop our cars when the police and military come forward shooing us off the road. The river is about to swallow the bank any minute and we need to get to higher ground.
Tony is sitting closest to the bank. I am out of the car talking with others. The cop comes and says get him out of there. I run to car, thankfully it’s running and say just drive backwards. He says he can’t see. I said drive backwards as fast as you can I will guide you. The policeman helps. He drives into fallen bushes just to move car and turns car around We head out of the area. The first bridge on the way back is now closed the banks holding it have given way. We head for the second and just climb as far up the hill as we can. Everyone scattered looking for parking for the night and alternative accommodation . Some decide to walk to the hotel along the route and search out secure parking.
We are advised against walking as power wires are down and the bank is unstable.
We checked the first hotel, he said they were full. Strange it’s off season.
We found a second where the manager was very helpful. Provided great protected parking for us and two other cars. There is no cover to protect the car but at this point anything to get out of the rain.
We contacted ERA. They said sit tight. Our hotel was basic but we were happy to have a roof over our heads. We got no sheets and had to ask for a blanket which they brought.
We decided to put on dry clothes and sleep fully dressed. It’s not a western style hotel but they were so kind it is hard to say anything negative. They helped us so much.
We went down to restaurant and ordered things that looked familiar.
Cheese toast some potato dish and a kind of spring roll. We were starved it tasted delicious and after that we fell onto our round bed and fell fast asleep. Internet failed, power failed intermittently, all cell coverage was a down as was the local satelite feeds. So we had only sporadic coverage by which to contact the ERA team.
Our last contact with ERA was about 1 hr ago. Nothing working. Did I mention we keep having blackouts. There is no internet, due to storm no TV and cell is intermittent. Even the satellite can’t get through.
