On the road again..

RICKSHAW RUN - DAY 1

We set off from Jakarta yesterday - on the South East Asia Rickshaw Run from Jakarta, Indonesia to Bangkok, Thailand - with great pomp and circumstances… a marching band, ribbon cutting ceremony, speeches from various dignitaries. Several teams came decked out in awesome costumes and really pimped out their rickshaws. The best was a 1- woman- 2 man team who had dressed in Chitty Chitt

y Bang Bang costumes and another team drapped their rickshaw in garlands of blessed flowers for luck. Rainey and I – on the other hand – were lame, lame, lame!!!! All of the rickshaws started and made it past the Starting Line following the police

escort out of Jakarta. Two street lights up, we lost the first one (the gear shifte

r broke off in their hand… and they were off pushing it back to the start line for some welding repairs). By mile 5, we had lost 6 ricksha

ws. By the edge of the city when the police left us, only 19 rickshaws were still running (out of 28). So we were feeling pretty cocky until an hour in, the other team that we are traveling with (an older couple from England) had a bad back-fire, black sm

oke flew out of their engine and the rickshaw died. We ended up spending 3 hours in the back yard of a village mechanic while he replaced all of the wiring (which had burned up because of over-heating). So rather than making the ferry for the crossing into Sumatra that night, we only got as far as the port town. Found a medium decent hotel (tepid hot water, grubby bathroom but what seemed to be fairly clean sheets) and ate some Nasi Goreng (fried rice) at a nearby local’s restaurant and went to bed.

Day 2

Day 2 had its own adventures. Rainey woke up in the middle of the night deathly ill. He got very dehydrated the first day and then added on to that some stomach issues and by the time we got on the ferry he was grey and sweaty and half dead. We met up with another rickshaw group on the ferry where both guys are doctors in England (one’s a psychiatrist and one’s an infectious diseases and kidney transplant physician). They did an exam and recommended that I get Rainey to a pharmacy as quick as possible to buy various things. Our Tuk Tuk is the slowest one in the group and we have a top speed of like 20 MPH so getting anywhere quickly is a joke. We managed to limp into Bandan Lampang (the nearest large town) with me driving and Rainey in a heap in the back. There is apparently no sight quite as hysterical to Indonesian villagers as a white woman driving a beat-up, half dead rickshaw. I was causing traffic jams and villagers were running out of the fields to check out the spectacle.

In Bandan Lampang I found a pharmacy - bought meds (not sure that I actually purchased what we needed as there was no English spoken and my skill at charades were being sorely tested) – checked into the fanciest hotel in town which is actually very nice and got Rainey into a clean, air conditioned bed with lots of fluids and mystery drugs. He went to sleep at 3 PM yesterday afternoon and by 5 AM today says he is feeling much better. We have to get on the road or we will miss the boat crossing in Medan in 6 days (a mandatory check-in spot) but I am giving him another hour of rest before we push on….