DAY 93: CALCUTTA DAY 7

THE HUMMER IS FINALLY RELEASED!

Debashish looking cool with Fintan's sunnies

After days of back and forward to the shipping agents and port authorities, we were finally told this morning that we could go to the shipping agents, make payment and be brought to the port to collect the vehicle. We could never have realised the nightmare that lay ahead!

At the shipping agents, we were greeted by our old mate Debashish, an absolute character who we had already met earlier in the week when he brought us from the shipping agents to the customs office to clear papers. After the standard two hour process to organise anything at the agent's office, we were brought to the run-down and disorganised Calcutta port.

We met some other officials and queued up for a permit to enter the port, clear customs and hopefully drive the car out. Our permit to the port was denied on the basis of us being foreigners. We found this ridiculous as it was never a problem for Dave to enter any other port so far, but this being India, there's nobody to complain to. So we just had to put our trust in one of the shipping agents employees. Since the car could no longer be driven out by Dave, the employee devised a plan to take the container itself out of the port by truck where it would then be unloaded. In theory, this sounded simple, but as with everything in India, we expected a long wait.

The Carnet and passports were now in Indian hands, so all we could do was wait by the mentalist Debashish. The guy cracked us up with his robot dancing, attempts to tech us his fighting techniques and non-stop cricket chat. After three hours of waiting and being ogled by crowds of Indians, some of which had claiming to have never seen a white person before, there was still no sign of the car. The only answer we could get from Debashish when we asked the whereabouts of the car was "your car is with God now!".

Dave and the man himself, Debashish, at the port

Not only funny, Debashish was also a very philosophical, filling us in on his religious theories, our personal favourite being the close relationship between the word 'GOD' and the word 'DOG' in reverse! The man was like an Energizer Bunny and got incredibly irritating after 8 hours waiting for the Hummer in a mozzie-filled car-park.

At 11pm, we finally caught sight of the container we had left behind in Bangkok on top of a truck and followed it to an accessible unloading dock outside the port. Thinking we were home free and the ordeal was over, Dave hopped into the car through the boot as it was still in the container. But to his horror the engine wouldn't start due to a dead battery! Charging the battery in the container was impossible so Dave and around 20 port workers managed to pull the car manually out of the container. The Indian lads eventually found a spare truck battery and jump-started the car after about 50 attempts.

It was now midnight and we now had just over 24 hours to reach Delhi, on the other side of India to collect Caroline and Layla, Dave's Mum and Sister from the airport. This was a huge ask, especially on some of the most disorganised roads on Earth but we set off into the night nonetheless!