Finishing line in sight - Alibag, Mumbai

Now we were practically at the end of our adventure. Only two days of driving to go and we’d be in Mumbai, the finishing line.

The first destination we headed to was Alibag, a seaside town just south of a major river estuary between it Mumbai. On route we found a beautiful set of caves that used to be inhabited by monks and had stone carved rooms and incredibly ornate façades.

Buddhist caves outside Pune


Driving through a third mountain pass we found another set of westerners, Canadians, who were also driving their way around India in a rickshaw. Lucky for them those guys they had a four month trip ahead of them, so plenty of time for the joys of breakdowns.

Navigating the freeways or motorways through the mountain was interesting as again three wheelers were not allowed on the new toll ways but were allowed to use the old road, which looked pretty similar in parts if you ask us.

Thinking that we had the old route identified we suddenly found that the road ended with a pile of rubble and we had two seemly similar roads to follow. This happened twice. The first time locals just pointed us in a certain direction but the second time there was no one around and without a compass we couldn’t work out which was the continuation of the direction we had been travelling in let along which road was the new or the old.

Which way now?


By sheer luck we found ourselves heading in the right direction and passing the town identified on our days instruction sheet. Only to later find out that we had subsequently travelled for about 100 km’s out of our way rather than taking a short cut route through a mountain pass to Pen. Never mind, we were clearly getting as much rickshaw driving in as possible on our last couple of days!!

Alibag was a quite a lovely town. We enjoyed weaving through the narrow streets looking for a synagogue (one of that days challenges). We have to thank inter-team camaraderie for finding the place as Zach and Malcolm from Chai Rollah had spent two hours and climbed to the roof of a building to try and find it. We on the other hand only had to follow their GPS coordinates.

Markets in Alibag


The last and final day took us into Mumbai our final end point. We were warned in the morning that the traffic and police in Mumbai would be far worse than the traffic we had seen anywhere else and that we were to avoid driving in convoys for fear of gaining too much attention. As it was the traffic although a Friday was like a quite Sunday’s driving, because much of the city had been closed due to swine flu fears.

Meeting at a car park near Juhu Juhu beach, we all drove the last 800 meters to the Marriot, our finishing line, together. A very sad last part of the journey as we’d had so much fun that it was a group consensus that no-one was ready to go home yet but it was fun driving in convoy together, with everyone filming everyone else on their camcorders and digital cameras.

And so it was outside the Marriot in Mumbai, where our 2000 km’s journey ended and where more red bull drinks and media crews met us. We then very sadly handed over the keys to our rickshaws so that they could journey back to Chennai ready for the next set of insane explorers.

The Beast Crew


The Mystery Machine


Thanks to the organiser's and mechanics - CEM's


As a finishing note we should probably end here by commemorating and applauding some of India’s best road safety signs that we sighted along our journey.

We’d always thought New Zealand had the best signs such as their ‘merge like a zip’ campaign which is supposed to get people on the freeway to let other people joining the freeway in, but India’s were by far much more creative;

Good driving is like breathing – don’t stop it!

Drive like hell and you’ll end there!

Control your nerve on the curve.

Safety on the roads is safe tea at home.

And our personal favourite….

Everything comes your way…. when you’re in the wrong lane.