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| Modern building project in Reshikesh, among the chaos. |
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| The River Ganges, outside or Hotel in Reshikesh. |
First, yesterday I forgot to give you the name of our hotel in Rishikesh. Would you believe, Aloha on the Ganges? A bit strange.
Today, was a rather short day, but we did a lot of climbing reaching one summit at 10,500 ft. The views were terrific with Ganges below us and green mountains rising to the sky.
The roads are still awful. Brant thinks our little Porsche is taking more punishment on this trip than on Peking to Paris. For me, I could use a kidney belt. Every other instruction in our road-book warns of a ditch, a speed bump, falling rocks or no guard rails on the narrow mountain roads. Roads aside, the thing that amazes me the most is the utter chaos that surrounds every activity. People, cars, motorbikes and animals going in every direction....and all at the same time. How anything gets done is a miracle.
Notwithstanding this chaos, most Indians have a pleasant and friendly demeanor. People are helpful in petrol stations, even when the wait time to fill up can be 20-30 minutes. All the men are seriously interested in the cars, and especially the car from California.
Tonight, following dinner, there will be a variety show put on by some of the multi-talented competitors.....I did not volunteer for this activity.
Rally report: There was one Regularity Stage today and we were off the perfect time. We had the bad fortune of being caught behind two trucks and we lost valuable seconds. From my brief conversations with other competitors, I think many of them had similar problems.