Day 14 Jodpur to Jaisalmer (finish line)

Well to get back to our old style we decided it would be appropriate to start at 05.30! It was a delight when the alarms went off at 04.45...Rhys literally ran to the shower. Well maybe. In the pitch black we loaded up our little beauty for what we hoped would be the last time, we didn

Day 13 Puskar to Jodpur

Another casual day cruising along the potholed roads of the desert, the 200km from Pushkar to Jodpur.

It was a very relaxing day, we are now booked into Yogi's Guest house. We spent the afternoon explore the fantastic fort before finally having a beer on the terrace watching the sun set over the fort. One of all of our favourite sites.

What should be our final day on the road tomorrow to Jaisalmer! Fingers crossed

Day 12 Jaipur to Pushkar

A very casual day of driving only 150kms to cover, which I would have said would be uneventful half way through the day however this was soon halted by Rhys.

When approaching a toll booth we have traditionally slowed down until they raise the barrier and wave us through as we are a motorbike of sorts. However on this occasion following the 'top boys' through the barrier rhys panicked when the guard said stop. as this would make hime the first person to be stopped for payment all trip, he gunned the engine and smashed straight through the barrier knocking it clean off its hinges!

Rhys' greatest ever display of strength, we then drove off as quickly as possible pretending as though nothing had happened! 

 About 20 mins later, while crawling through marble city our convey of two decided to undertake the traffic jam, however this ended in disaster because as Matt (TB's) pulled out a motorcycle came steaming up the inside and smashed into him, knocking the motorcyclists clean off. 

 It is amazing how quickly a crowd can form! Some demanding compensation, others gesticulating violently. A very nice gentleman then approached us saying if he were us we should just mount up and drive off and no one would even notice. So for the second time today both tuktuks ran away!!

What followed was a lovely afternoon exploring the winding streets of pushkar, seeing the bathing pilgrims before relaxing on the roof terrace watching the sun set over the desert...this was much more like it!

Day 11 Agra to Jaipur

A rather casual day with only 230kms to cover we set off with stinking hangovers bright and early. A rather enjoyable day with time to stop for chai and lunch!

It was all worth it when arrived on the outskirts of Jaipur, 2 elephants being walked into town! They were amazing, James spent the next 10 mins playing with one of the trunks. Rhys was surprised how hairy they were! Our tuktuk was completely dwarfed by them. Fantastic.

 We finally got our tuktuk serviced and re-welded, what a job...we can even hear ourselves over the engine now, she feels like a completely different animal.

There is excitement about the last 600kms!

Day 10 Taj Mahal, Agra fort

With our previous experience of early starts we headed to the Taj mahal for sunrise. It was a magnificent sight however due to the poor weather it was not as glorious as it could be.

 Shockingly we bumped into other runners (guys who we met through Nepal) who we then went for breakfast with were we met Robin and Matt from the topboys. It seems there are only about 5 teams running around.

After chilling out with a beer for breakfast we drove around Agra before doing the worst thing in the world. We went to the Maccy D's drive through! such a funny experience in a tuktuk.

The afternoon was spent avoiding the touts at the fort entrance before enjoying and exploration through the mongol and fort. What a sight. 

We then enjoyed an afternoon of cards and beers, (maybe a few too many!)  Lads...

Day 9 Lucknow to Agra

Off we went hopeful of nice piece of road so our gaffer taped rickshaw would be able to complete the whole journey. What a road, smooth and fast (relatively for us). The toll booths we just drove around the outside of smiling and waving so we didn't have to pay.

 A rather uneventful day, which considering the last week was quite a relief. Well until the final 20km to Agra, when we saw another rickshaw. We couldn't believe it the Declan, Anthony and Matthew the guys we travelled to Darjeeling and Gangtok with and into Nepal with, we aren't sure there are many other doing this run!

With a hotel found we went in pursuit of food, one can rickshaw driver took us to the only restaurant as he told us. We could believe it was the actual name on arrival.

Now to find a mechanic and to prepare for the Taj Mahal

Day 8 Sunali to Lucknow

Morning all... these 5.15 starts now ingrained into our mentality it was definitely a shock to find Andrew's toothbrush on the other side of the room missing all the bristles and Rhys' toiletry bag with holes in and poo on his towel. No matter we set off for luck now only 400km to cover.

 An interesting debate over what constitutes an Indian duel carriage way, it is certainly permissible to drive the wrong way down it, park in the middle of it or even take a number 2 stop in the central reservation. We were some what surprised by the sights!

 We made it to lucknow, and we were excited to think we were catching people back up, however in trying to get directions to the station we approached a policeman who then wanted our paperwork. With James' licence in his hand he decided that now was opportunity to start passing it around before asking for money! In the end we had to give him a small proportion of his first request just to get our paperwork back. 

It was all made better when we arrived at our hotel for the evening, the owner was ecstatic and wanted a photo with our rickshaw and his hotel before offering us a free beer. Was a good end to the day.

Day 7 Hetauda to ....

Well how unlucky can you be... another sunrise start cruising down highway one at a massive 50kph at 12.30 and 250kms into our day we hit yet another land slide with no signs of clearing! A unanimous decision was reached it was time to leave Nepal.

So 30kms back the way we came (again) we hit a tiny little border crossing. Ahh as it turned out it was too small, as we were informed by the guard that they have no immigration so we could not come across even though we were sat in india at the time! 

 We were politely informed that we would have to go 90kms backwards again to the nearest border crossing! This was 1630, so with light fading rapidly we set off to the border.

 We made it to sunali at 1900hrs filled in all our paperwork at the nepal border before a man approached us asking for our road tax. Ahh no sign of the form a cheeky back hander sorted that problem out.

 Hotel was then found...palatial was not the words but it had a bed and a fan

Day 6 Kathmandu to ....

How we ended up back in Hetauda we shall never know! absolute disaster! After an early start we hit the roads of Kathmandu for sunrise at 5.30. After braving the horrific road out of Kathmandu we set off towards pokara, making great time we started looking for breakfast, steaming around a corner we hit a 10km traffic jam.

In true indian and nepalesse style we barged to the front of it to find rocks the size of houses in our way, many people chilling out and no one trying to clear it. When we finally found a police man we were excited to hear it would be 3 days before it would be cleared so we decided we were going to have to brave the mountain pass again. It was a grueling day with the last hour dropping out of the mountains in the dark. We couldnt beleive we were back in Hetauda

Day 5 Day off in Kathmandu

What was hopefully a quick trip to the indian embassy at 9.30 to get our visas corrected became a hastle when we found out they were not to be returned until 16.30! This meant we had to bid farewell to the two 'Top boys' and we had to find out what to do in Kathmandu.

 We had a great day exploring the city, spent lunch time relaxing by budda's finger, and then off to the ghats. What a surreal experience. (we watched someone tending a fire becasue one of the legs was not burning!)

Our evening was spent having a beer on a roof top terrace overlooking the majestic dhurbar square.

We  will now have to pay for our day with some serious drving!