There is no rest for the wicked. This morning's instruction is to pack an overnight bag and be on the bus by 8.30. For a change we pick Boneshaker no. 2 which has much plusher seats but even less leg room. We drive out north east then east along the corridor that links Assam with the rest of India. The traffic is unbelievable - where do all of these trucks come from and where are they going? After about two and a half hours we pull up at the side of the road in an area of scrubby woodland. After a short wait two gangs of men turn up with hand trolleys and we take it in turns for rides along a stretch of disused metre gauge track. In all we go about 2 km and see some bright and colourful birdlife along the way. A couple of our group fancy a shift powering a trolley and are indulged. They manage to break one of them - hopefully not seriously.
We move on to some sort of forest encampment where a delicious buffet lunch and free beers are laid on. What a wonderful country India is. We walk down to the river where some of the team including R get their feet wet scrubbing elephants.
This is followed by a chance to feed the jumbos (although they prefer to help themselves) and then we all have the chance to ride on the back of an elephant along a jungle trail and then a spell of cross country through the scrub. Brilliant!
We still have quite a distance to cover to the Widlife park lodge where we are spending the night. We rejoin the main highway as it gets dark and are treated to the wildest driving exhibition so far as we run the gamut of broken down vehicles, craters the size of (small) houses and stretches of road that are just not wide enough for opposing streams of juggernauts. We even passed a bus overturned in a ditch!
Eventually we get there, nerves shot and ready for several drinks. It comes as no great surprise that the bar sells only super strength beer(8%). We are shown to our rather basic chalet which will not be receiving one of R's much sought after rosettes, but which will do for a quick night's kip as we have to get up at 5.30 for the jeep safari. Supper was another buffet - OK but who cared after such an action packed day.
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