The Bhutanchal Buccaneers

Day 1: April 10^th

Guwahati to Madarihat:

John was the “dependable” guy who woke all of us up at 5 in the morning and got us ready. We had packed the evening before and we had to just take our baths and hop on to the car and get going. We started off at around 0730 hours after collecting cash from the ATMs. You see, although Indian currency is legal tender in Bhutan, notes above INR 500 are not. So we were trying to coax 100 rupee notes from the ATMs. After that we took off on the road leading us to the Airport and took the amazingly green and smooth roads towards the border of Assam. I wasted no opportunity in stretching my fiesta’s legs and was doing good pace till I noticed a white polo/vento in my rearview mirror. It was closing up on me and I didn’t know whether it was the polo or the vento. Judging by the way it was able to keep up with the 120 kmph I was doing on my fiesta, I deduced it had to be the 1.6 Vento. Only when did it furiously overtake me that we found out it was a 1.6 polo – the hot hatch of the country as of now. Cracking car it is!!

Now, I had breakfast arranged at my cousin’s friend’s place somewhere 110 odd kilometers from Guwahati. We were there at around 0830 hours and were greeted warmly by my cousin and her friend. They had an array of delicacies ready for breakfast, not to mention some heavy stuff like pooris and pork and rice beer even!! The guys were all game for the rice beer. I wasn’t too keen because I had to drive and I shook my head in a “no” motion when asked for second helpings, only to find everyone around me was nodding their heads in a “yes” motion!!

The guys probably felt comfy at that place because they even lapped up the idea of having some pork and rice beer packed for the rest of the trip. This might have to do with the fact that they thought they were my relatives. Only after the trip did they realize that I didn’t know them at all and it was my first visit to their place as well!! But nevertheless they did load a full tiffin box of pork and a full 3 litres of rice beer in a milk container in my car – much to my disdain. I knew the beer would be finished well before we had covered 100 kms, and I would be left out cause I was the one doing the driving.

After a heavy breakfast, or rather brunch, we set forth again at around 0945 hours, fully laden with Bihu gifts, pork and rice beer and headed towards Alipurduar.

I was right about the rice beer. We had hardly done 30 kms when the guys decided to crack open the milk container. Kenny was the designated bar tender and I heard the order from behind “ Drive steady, we are making pegs”. I did get a few sips from Gyan’s cup though, so not much of complaints from the driver.

We were making good time and were coming across amazingly good roads, mildly hilly terrain and subtle twisties. At one particular stretch I suddenly felt the power drop in my car. I turned to see the console if there was anything wrong, and I could see a yellow light on the cluster that usually is off during drives. Still driving I asked Gyan on the passenger seat to go through the manual and try to find out what the light meant. We found out it indicated a problem with the “powertrain”, and all of us went on trying to find out what could it mean. Engine fault, oil pressure, coolant temperature etc all had their own warning lights and so we were totally miffed at what “powertrain” problem could actually mean. I wasn’t able to do more than 90 kmph and pick up was coming dead slow. So to cool it off I stopped the car on the roadside to let the engine rest for a while. This was also utilized by the guys for the suttas and the milk container was taken out and Kenny went about serving the beer to others – right by the road!

In the meantime I had called up Ford and explained of the problem to which I was answered that the car had to be analyzed to pinpoint the problem. They suggested I disconnect the battery terminals for 15 minutes and try again. We limped to the next town and bought a spanner of suitable size. By that time I had turned off the A/C to lower the load on the engine and to do a few more kilometers to the hour. Fortunately when we gave the engine some rest, the light went off and we got back full power for a while, but I didn’t try to push it and kept making a modest 80 kmph.

Soon we were approaching Bauxirhat, the Assam- West Bengal border and we were caught in a vicious jam of endless trucks and trailers trying to make their way into and out of Assam. I took the car off road, trying to pass as many trucks as possible till time and again we had to stop because we ran out of even off-road space. We lost a good couple of hours in that log jam. We were literally inching our way forward, till some good truck driver showed a tiny village road that bypassed the entire border. As luck would have it, my car was bang next to that road and we were thinking that had we had passed that road, it wasn’t even possible to back up and take the exit. Truly thanking our stars, we took that off road yet again till we came upon some paved village road and then we joined the highway after the border after a 40 minute drive. I forgot to mention that in the traffic jam, the powertrain warning light went off as mysteriously as it had come on and we were soon galloping on 102 horses towards Alipurduar. Since we were back to full power, we decided not to fiddle with the battery and leave it alone.

We did come across some enthusiastic direction givers who kept on showing us directions even after we had thanked them and moved on! We reached a non-descript town called Toofan ganj and took a road less taken , and boy – did we come across some smooth piece of tarmac! I was doing 90 kmph through that narrow road, it was that good. Finally after some more directions we were at Alipurduar, where we stopped again at an ATM and took off promptly after that.

The drive from Alipurduar to Madarihat was also on some good stretches of highway and some particularly nasty potholes. After what seemed to be an unexpectedly long long drive, we finally came across the turn that took us to our guest house. We bought some snacks for the evening and made way to the guest house some 6 kilometers away.

We were shown into our rooms at the guest house and as soon as we got fresh, the evening “mehfil” started with Blender’s Pride and the pork we had from my cousin’s friend’s home. Dinner was also served after a while and in between that time I made arrangements for a taxi to come and pick us up in the morning and take us to Phuentsholing the next morning. Not wasting much time, we hit our beds not too long after dinner.