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Road warriors take break in Bali Saturday 16 June 2001 - Mike Nemesvary, a former champion freestyle skier, left Ottawa March 20 on his mission to become the first quadriplegic to drive around the world -- a 40,000-kilometre trek to raise awareness and funds for spinal-cord injury research and rehabilitation. MADRAS, India - We did it. Leg 2, from Dublin, Ireland, to Madras, India -- more than 17,000 kilometres -- is officially over. Heading into Madras, we started to relax a bit, only to have one final close call reminding us of the dangers of the Indian road. As George Swinimer recalls, it was our most heart-pounding moment to date. "A large truck with a piece of metal siding protruding from the side swerved to avoid a bicycle as we cruised over a bridge. 'BANG-ruck-a-tuck-tuck.' The damage: side mirror bent inside and up, radio antenna ripped off, plastic scraped off the roof rack and scratches to the body paint. "The true evidence of our luck came with the puncture in the front of the truck body. One inch to the right, and the hood of the truck could have flipped up, causing who knows what on a bridge. "And one inch up? Metal pole through the windscreen, shattering and likely puncturing me right through the left lung. So again, thumbs up to that luck angel." Now looking like true road warriors -- slightly scarred but intact -- we continued on to our Madras hotel. Once again, we were taken aback as we were greeted by 40 to 50 reporters, camped out on the front steps. We felt like rock stars with all the lights and cameras; they even had a closed-circuit TV to capture our arrival. Inside the conference room, we joined an additional 200 people for a viewing of a piece I did several months ago in Ottawa for Regional Contact. The highlight of the event was being named the recipient of the "Triumph of Human Spirit Award" by the Rotarians of Madras and presented with a beautiful silver plaque. I was truly touched and gave one of my best, most spontaneous, speeches of the tour. I was rewarded with a standing ovation, which in the disabled world is the next best thing to a sitting ovation! The following day we met with doctors and patients at a large government hospital and toured a ward dedicated to spinal-cord injuries. It was interesting to learn that the bulk of their spinal-cord injuries are results of falls and not automobile accidents, as it is in Canada -- particularly surprising, given the crazy driving in India. We began the enormous task of repacking the truck for its container trip to Australia. Arriving at the docking facility, we noted the final odometer reading: 219,566 kilometres. We spent most of the morning waiting -- in India "15 minutes" can mean three hours. We pleaded we had a flight to catch and could not wait any longer. The pressure worked and finally, they pushed it through anyway and closed the door on the container. We don't know exactly how long the shipping of the truck will take; apparently there are "slow boats" and "fast boats" -- we don't yet know which one we got. We hope it will make it over in 20 days but have been warned that it could take as long as 30 days. Before flying to Australia, George and I are taking a much-needed break in Bali. We are both mentally and physically exhausted from the events of the past 21/2 months, since our departure from Ottawa. For more information, visit www.roundtheworldchallenge.org Mike Nemesvary The Ottawa Citizen Copyright 2001 CanWest Interactive, a CanWest company. All rights reserved janet paterson: an akinetic rigid subtype, albeit perky, parky . pd: 54/41/37 cd: 54/44/43 tel: 613 256 8340 email: [log in to unmask] . snail mail: 375 Country Street, Apt 301, Almonte, Ontario, Canada, K0A 1A0 . a new voice: the nnnewsletter: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/janet313/ . a new voice: the wwweb site: http://www.geocities.com/janet313/ . ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn