Syd Stelvio, Pearl of India Day 1 – Mumbai to Nashik – 255km
Oh, to be back on the road! Steering wheel in hand and with the wind coursing through your hair, and nothing but miles and miles of the journey beckoning you onwards. That feeling was experienced this morning by the 20 pairs of competitors that were setting out for the 20-day Pearl of India rally, a 6000-kilometre loop through the subcontinent that will no doubt offer plenty of unique experiences along the way.
The departure time was a generous 9am, but no doubt plenty of the crews were still up early enough to see the sunrise over Mumbai this morning, the orange glow teasing its way through the smog that permanently cloaks this city that is home to 12 million people. Usually on these events there is a bedding in period, an opportunity to ease into the running and shake off the cobwebs, but this is Mumbai and there would be no such probationary period. The ceremonial start immediately threw the competitors into the chaos of the city streets, where the regulations of the road appear to be serving suggestions. You need eyes almost everywhere, as vehicles of all shapes and sizes arrive out of seemingly nowhere and the cacophony of horns confuses the senses further, as one attempts to make progress. Indicators are discretionary and any suggestion of lane discipline is laughed into the gutter.
How much you enjoy this sort of driving environment depends on your threshold for chaos, personally I find it enormous fun and once you get used to it, there actually becomes a certain amount of predictability to the anarchy. Timid driving is not rewarded, leave a gap and someone, or something, will fill it. Get to an intersection and traffic will cross, trucks, busses, bicycles, it’s all coming at you, and sometimes from the wrong direction, but hold your nerve, keep your foot in and do your best not to collide with the man crossing the road on a motorcycle that is piled high with freshly slaughtered poultry, why did the Chicken cross the road? Well, because it was tied to the back of a Honda C90.
By the time we had all reached the first passage control, some 60 clicks into the day, it seemed that everyone had enjoyed the madness, with big smiles on faces. There were smiles on the faces of the locals as well, as they posed for selfies with cars and crews and there was a real carnival atmosphere to the whole thing. This had been the same at the start, as well, and this bonhomie and interest from the people that call this country home would continue throughout the entire day. Indeed, the cars couldn’t stop at traffic signals without somebody stepping off of a moped to take a photo, or pedestrians risking life and limb for a handshake and a quick ‘namaste’.
You would be forgiven for thinking that this was just a jolly through the streets of Mumbai, but in actual fact our target was the city of Nashik, India’s wine capital and along the way there were even a couple of regularities to attempt, scheduled for the roads that ran through the villages and countryside of Maharashtra. The roads were quieter, but still busy with traffic and people going about their Sunday, it’s just part of the game for travelling around here. It had moments of beauty though, as we headed through some of the lower areas of the Western Ghats, and there were even some good driving roads, as long as you could successfully clear the traffic.
By the close of play I think all would agree it had been a whirlwind day, but enjoyable nonetheless, and whilst we had only covered 260km, it felt like more as we all came to terms with the assault on the senses that the first day had been. There hadn’t been too much mechanical mayhem at least, although there is always one car that suffers some sort of gremlin on the first day. Claiming that prize on this occasion was Marco Fila and Stephanie Gout, with radiator problems in the Hindustan Ambassador. Still, they shouldn’t need much help to track down spares for one of those!
It's time to process everything over a glass of something cold now, before we go again tomorrow on a 400 km day to Vadodara, this time with three regularities to tackle, and no doubt more of the same on the roads themselves.
Syd