Syd Stelvio, Pearl of India - Day 10 – Agra to Khajuraho – 443km

It isn’t every day that you watch the sunrise at one of the seven wonders of the world, but that was how today began for some of the competitors on the Pearl of India, as they gazed upon the white marble of the Taj Mahal just as the sun began to peek over the sandstone walls that surround the site of the Mausoleum.

Some had a tear in their eye as slowly but surely the sun illuminated the great dome, flanked by four minarets, and even though the grounds were full of people, it felt like a personal and peaceful moment.

That was where the days peace would end, as once out of the grounds, the air was filled again with the din of the hustle and bustle of an early morning in India, which is mostly a cacophony of car horns.

A long day lay ahead, 443km of mostly transit, save for an 8k reg to break things up a little. Those who had risen at 5am to watch the sunrise may now have been questioning their wisdom, and perhaps wished they had gone the previous evening as some did, and harvested a few hours of extra sleep instead.

The rally sadly said goodbye to two navigators this morning, James Blackhall and Pradeep Vaswani, whilst also welcoming their replacements, Simon Young and Christopher Whitfield. I’m told it wasn’t performance related in either case, but James did wrong slot almost instantly on day one. Joking aside, with a travelling group as intimate as ours everyone becomes very close, and the boys will be missed.

As the road headed south the landscape began to change again, with the desert well and truly behind us and greenery and agriculture now dominating the view. The intensity of this would increase throughout the day, and by the time we reached Khajuraho a peek out of the car would often reveal jungle like forest, or vast swathes of green crops disappearing into the distance.

Often from the road these vistas weren’t visible, with tree lined avenues commonplace along the way, or domineering hedgerows, not to mention that as soon as you look anywhere other than the road you can bet that a bus or a truck will all of a sudden be heading straight towards you. In contrast to this the regularity took place in undulating and sandy terrain, with scrubby forest surrounding it. A pair of our travelling marshals were warned by some locals that they needed to be aware of Leopards, although this was done via Google translate, so it may have been inaccurate. As per the other day, as far as I’m aware no marshals were consumed by hungry big cats.

There was an incident on the reg though, when car 23, the Hindustan Ambassador of Navin Chanderamani and, new navigator let’s not forget, Christopher Whitfield left the road and rolled. Thankfully, both of the boys are fine, and the car is also back on the move after a new radiator was fitted. I’m told they’re thinking of changing the model name on the vehicle documents from ‘Ambassador’ to ‘Acrobat’, they are of course absolutely fine, but it was certainly a reminder of the dangers of our sport, and we are all delighted that it ended well.

Chris may well have been seeking out a God after the incident, and a few miles down the road he could have found one, as the rally coincided with the path of one of the many walking pilgrimages that occur in India. The Kanwar Yatra is an annual pilgrimage of devotees of Shiva, to Hindu places of pilgrimage to collect holy waters of the Ganges. The line of people seemed perpetual, and the millions of people that take part are adorned in brightly coloured decorations and cause as much of a stir as the rally cars that passed them as they made their own journey. I can only imagine how much determination is needed to walk the many hundreds of kilometres – it is treacherous enough inside a car!

By the time we had finished our leg for the day the sun had almost dipped below the horizon, and many of the tired crews had witnessed both the dawn and the dusk. There was little to note in the results today, the penalties incurred were almost even throughout the field and the top three are still only split by four seconds as we head into the second half of the event.

For the next two nights we are under canvas, staying as guests in two Tiger reserves, so if you don’t hear from me, assume that I have ended up in the belly of the beast.

Syd