Journey south

Very quick update.

We drove 190km yesterday along a fantastic road. Starting at 8.00am we immediately hit about 40km of construction. The Indians are building a new hydroelectric plant and the work is enormous. Diversionary tunnels through the mountain side, massive engineering work, blasting the sides off the mountains to get to bear rock - just the scale of it all.

Then we climbed through increasingly lush country. Monkeys, black squirrelly things, lots of birds and very few people. The road was twisty, the drops vertical and the traffic unbelievably light. Funnily enough two of the cars we met were coming at us on our side of the road but fortunately decided not to get in the way of 3tons of Buick!

The road dropped down onto fertile plains of paddy fields and orange groves. We tried to blag our way into a distillery until we noticed it was owned and operated by the Bhutan military. We moved on!

Just a fantastic days driving along challenging but stunning roads.

Our hotel last night was basic but clean. Chris Evans and I thought we might blow the froth off a beer when we arrived at 4pm and were swooping songs until supper. Chris was playing favourite show tunes, I contemporary rock and roll! It was very funny and we got an excellent local following.

Dinner was fine with Paddy and I giving away the prizes. Paddy did the announcements, playing the role of Barbara to perfection. I awarded tonight's prize, Firstly running through who wasn't getting a prize and why and then awarding the prize (an invoice for £42000 payable on demand) to Jose for having his car rebuilt on this tally by the mechanics at our expense!! Very funny.

Then things got messy. The die hards headed off to a Kareoke bar up the road. I hope that there isn't much footage but I certainly remember a topless rendition of YMCA! When the bar closed it was Zulu bar time until the police arrived in force and we wisely decided to retire for the evening. They were incredibly friendly.

Feeling surprisingly chipper this morning.

Heading north today.

RHC

Sent from my slyPhone