This post is part of a series following my friends and I crossing Sri Lanka in a Tuktuk. You can find the intro post here and the previous one here.
For the last day of our Tuktuk trip, I'll give you an assignment. Think about the best/most ridiculous way to end the race, then let us know in the comments how we compared to that ^^
Ok, ready?
Well, that was supposed an easy day with only 50+ kms from Yala National park to the finish line in Tangalle. A nice flat road along the coast, what could go wrong? Our Tuktuk perhaps? And yup it did, about halfway the beast started coughing and we stopped in a 3 wheels motorshop only 20km from the arrival.
Once again, we had to get the carburator cleaned up, and the repairman told us that the spark plugs would probably not last us more than 4 days.
The whole thing took us a bit more than one hour and we arrived at our hotel, 3km from the finish line and dropped our bags before looking for lunch around 2pm.
The lady was nice enough to reopen her kitchen and cook for us. As usual the food was amazing but it took her a while to cook the many little dishes all by herself.
By the time we were ready to go it was already 4pm and the finish line was only opened til 5pm.
And there it happened.
We started the tuktuk backwards to turn it around, no problem there.
Then try to start it again forward : nothing happened.
We tried repeatedly to kickstart it : nothing happened (except a lot of sweating)
We tried to push it downhill to get it started : nothing happened.
It was becoming obvious that we wouldn't make it on time. Out hotel staff helped us contacting a mechanic but it would take more than one hour to get him to come and fix it, time we didn't have.
Another team passed by and the girls proposed to towe us.
By the time we found a rope, someone passed by and somehow managed to start the machine from hell. The girls left. The tuktuk died again. Oops!
20 minutes to the finish line, can we make it by pushing it there? In this winding, narrow and uphill road, no way!
Luckily, another team passed by and the fun started. We attached a rope way too small for any hope of safety in case of emergency braking and our saviors started to drive up, with only about a meter between the two tuktuks.
These were 3 very long kilometers to the finish line but somehow @jordan-tainan managed to drive behind the other tuktuk without incident.
In the end we arrived just in time for the celebratory picture and everybody thought it was hilarious.
Big thanks to our British friends who towed us on this difficult road!
It was then time for a huge party and we realized that one of our Canadian friend was originally from Taiwan! Time for a pic with her and her husband (they got married during the race!)
That was a super fun adventure and I'm glad I could share it with you guys.
All the rewards of this post will go to CoolEarth NGO.