This next instalment covers the longest day of our journey and perhaps the most fraught. Please indulge yourselves below in what is quite a long extract.
We set off real early the following morning.
Yesterday’s traffic had been a strong warning.
Before the sun even rose we were well on our way,
But we lost all our convoy getting on the freeway.
Alone for first time we encountered some men,
Bandits with sticks and with flags. My adren-
-Aline surged through my body. I felt so alive!
I stopped to say hello. My friends screamed at me: “Drive!”
To the bandits’ bemusement, we sped away fast
But our joy at escaping wasn’t to last.
We ran out of road, found we were driving on sand
Keeping three wheels in order – it got out of hand.
At one point we ran out of track altogether
And started to tip again. We wondered whether
We’d tumble and roll down the shifting dune’s face
And ruin poor Rita in this far-flung place.
I leapt out and held Rita just about back
Until a bus, honking, drove up the track.
A group of young men got out of the bus
And together back off the sand dune pushed us.
Back on three wheels we got to the next town,
Called Madhepura, where water so brown
Flooded the streets, a foot deep at least.
Half an hour later, we remained unreleased
From this warren of alleys. We were concerned
For not one single hotel here had we discerned.
When we finally broke free we found our old friends!
But the city of Chappra knew horror without ends.
Picture a rubbish dump, the roads scarcely there,
Traffic, livestock and litter just everywhere.
Like blocked arteries the streets were congested
Noxious exhaust fumes were sadly ingested.
We decided to go as the sun started setting
We would drive through the night if it meant getting
Out of this town of which we could take no more.
The people were friendly, crowding round our rickshaw
To give us directions. But alas in the dark
We missed our turn off, our situation was stark.
Some locals advised us to try the police
That asking for help there might get us some peace.
But no sooner had we set off for the fuzz
Than the tyre on one of our rickshaws did buzz(st).
A man appeared out of nowhere and fixed the flat tyre
At a speed that a Formula 1 pit crew would admire.
He led us straight to the police station where
The police chief decided if we could stay there.
He couldn’t speak English but he could read and write
So on scraps of damp paper we outlined our plight.
“What are you doing here?” asked the chief in Bihar.
“We’re lost,” we replied. He scrawled: “Yes you are.”
At first he did not believe what we’d say
That we really were driving these wrecks all this way.
But eventually satisfied that we were alright
He gave us his porch to sleep on for the night.
We remarked that this story would seem quite a tall tale
As we fastened mosquito nets to the bars of the gaol.
We discovered from Welshmen Griff and Rhodri
That a hotel existed in that town of debris:
A hotel buzzing with flies and with beds hard and small,
With shit on the floor and with blood on the wall.
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