DAY SEVEN - BHOPAL TO SAGAR

And on the seventh day they rested! Yeay! Finally after six days on the road with early morning rises, we were able to have a welcomed sleep in. Day seven and we were in one of India’s largest city’s Bhopal, where we decided to check out the memorial of the Bhopal Union Carbide disaster, have the roof rack ripped off by a hanging cable, tyre puncher and visit a beautiful Buddhist structure in Senchin.

Again another eventful day but thankfully due to the sleep in we were able to laugh about it all and handle the heat and stress a little better. First off today the memorial, which just makes you wonder why nothing was ever brought to justice about this incident. So many lives were lost and no one was blamed. It is still a very morbid area, the memorial itself is rather run down and obviously there is no finance to maintain the area.

Bhopal is a seriously polluted city also and I personally didn’t fancy it at all. There were just so many fumes blowing in your face in our little rickshaw. If the heat and the pollution didn’t stress us out, then the fact that our roof rack was ripped off definitely did. Ripped off by a hanging city street cable that is, an electrical cable that could have sparked and caught a light while we are carrying fuel in our rickshaw. Shelley’s head also near missed part of the rack when it cut thru the convertible roof and hung directly above the head. Lucky for us Gordon decided it was a mans job to fix it and allowed Shelley and I to go and rest in the café across the street.

On the road and it was my first decent drive so far, I was the lucky enough to cop some of the best roads in India too. Don’t know if this national hwy of theirs is really even a road? Its worse than a dirt track, it had massive rocks and pot holes all over the place. After getting away with the ditches for about 15 km we finally pulled over due to the rear tyre blowing. Bugger! Again Gordon managed to be the man about the situation and fix the little lady’s rear end.

Finally after another few hundred miles on that fantastic highway we reached the deluxe hotel in Sagar, where the room smelt softly of garlic and onion. Mmmmm!