Jaisalmer, India

WE MADE IT!!!! We arrived on thursday afternoon and came in at 18th out of 72. Team "dog ear sex" have been celebrating ever since.

Rajasthan, India

Less than 300km to the finish line :-) hopefully we will make it by this evening if the 4 o'clock curse doesn't kick in first.

Uttar Pradesh, India

Ethel has had a service, we've had a rest, seen the Taj this morning and are now off to Jaipur for beers and a swimming pool break!

Agra

We are almost 2/3rds of the way there! We have had 2 fantastic days of driving as we can hit 60kmph on the Grand Trunk Road. We arrived in Agra today at about 3:30pm, our earliest finish yet. Everyone says Agra is a dump and not to stay there just go in and visit the Taj. However in comparison to the shit hole that is Bihar, this place is amazing. They even have a Costa – yummy! We went straight out to get our roof rack re-welded and all the Ricks are currently being serviced by the friendliest group of Indians. India never fails to surprise and put a smile on your face (A monkey is currently trying to get in the bedroom window! ) Its a magical place that can make you feel so low when things go wrong or so happy when you see how friendly the people are. In Bihar we all found the constant staring a bit much but the people were actually just so amazed by us that they couldn’t help it....could you imagine Big Foot casually walking through London? I think I would stare!

I was just looking through the photos from the past week and realised how much we have achieved. No matter how hard it has got we have all stuck together and got each other through. When we were held captive in the Kagaria hotel Ali said that no matter how hard it is, we should appreciate it as its time we can never get back. She’s right and its good to get out of your comfort zone sometimes.

 We turn off the main highway tomorrow and head for Jaipur, who knows what adventures we still have to go as apparently the roads are about to get a whole lot worse again and we enter the desert! 

India's fantastic road network...

**Tuesday 13th September**

Well what an adventure we are having! We are currently sitting in our hotel restaurant waiting for all the shops to open at 10am. How come most of India wakes up at 5am but the shops don’t open til 10??? We need to get a bracket for our Rickshaw as the engine is wobbling around L The rest of our convoy have gone on ahead as we couldn’t ask them to wait for 4 hours with us. Hopefully we will catch them up tonight at Shiliguri.

We are three days into the Rickshaw run and the distance that we have to cover by next Saturday is only just starting to sink in. We have seen the most awful roads and bounced around in poor old Ethel, we even got some air off one bump....no wonder the engine bolt sheared.

Last night we entered the small border town of Dhubri (or Doobri). We begged the final hotel in town to give us a room, eventually a very kind bank manager helped us and we ended up with 7 in a twin room. Half an hour later 5 more rickshaws rocked up looking for a room. They were given some floor space and crammed 11 into one room. We thought that was bad enough but come 10pm, three more people arrived and ended up on the floor of our room.  The trials and tribulations of the Rickshaw Run, I wonder where we will end up tonight????

**Saturday 17th September**

After the 13th, things just got harder, much harder! According to Dad, this is the hardest thing he has ever done!

After the delay in Doobri, we left at 12 and drove like mad-men to get to Shiliguri and catch the others. It all feels a lot better and safer when we are travelling in a convoy. We left Shiliguri having found the others the next morning and headed for Punia. We made Punia by 12 having driven along the most amazing dual carriageway so then decided to push on. It was the worst road I have ever driven on and the worst we have come across so far, potholes 1ft deep all over the road for 2 hours! I was completly broken by the end of that stretch and burst into tears. By nightfall we hit a town called Khagaria. What a night!!!! When we finally found somewhere to stay, the armed police showed up and told us not to leave the hotel again. Apparently we were causing quite a stir as the locals had never seen white people before. As soon as we were out of the Ricks, us girls were ushered inside and out of the 300 strong crowd. Khagaria was a scary place so we aimed to leave super early the next day but we have recently learnt that plans in India never really happen. At 5am having loaded the “ladies†up we realised that 2 of them actually had major problems. So we unloaded and spent the next 6 hours waiting for them to be fixed. The girls were yet again confined to the hotel while Dad and the boys went off round the city with the mechanic having a wonderful time drinking chai. We hit the road at 11am and after crossing the MASSIVE Ganges the roads transformed into flat wide wonderful things that were due to lead us into Patna. However, things couldn’t just be simple could they!? At 6pm 25km from the city we hit a traffic jam. A jam like none of us had ever seen before. It took three hours for us to get through and it was 9:30 before we finally sat down in a hotel with a nice cold beer.  

Yesterday morning, there was yet another Rickshaw problem to be fixed so we arranged for a mechanic to come to our hotel and we got a lie in until 6:30 (normal wake up 4-5am) Once that had been sorted and we had our first breakfast since hitting the road, we sped off to Varanasi, taking a multitude of wrong turnings on the way adding at least 60km the day and doing the last 4 hours in a horrific monsoon storm. It felt like everything was against us and everything we tried to do went wring just before we arrived in a city. Finally at 9:30 we arrived in Varanasi and flopped into a horrible hotel for 4 hours sleep.

At 4am this morning we got up to be met by some Rickshaw drivers who were taking us to the ghats for a boat tour along the Ganges. It was amazing although it was shortened considerably as the river was so high. We didn’t get to see a funeral pyre but there were plenty of people washing and performing the morning rituals. How anyone drinks and swims in that water, I will never know. At 8:30 after a spot of brekkie, we left for Kanpur, half way between Varanasi and Agra. Despite it being out longest day at 340km we made it here in daylight (Woo Hoo – lots of celebrations) and without mishaps. Perhaps our luck is changing. We are staying in a lovely hotel – we paid the dosh just so we didn’t have to drive anymore and are off to Agra tomorrow to see the Taj, looking forward to it.

So far, we have had the most incredible challenging journey. Its either been extreme highs or extreme lows. We all live in fear, constantly worried that the rick might break down or the good road will run out. Its certainly not a walk in the park but as they say, its character building! Bring on the second half. 

Bihar, India

After a 6 hour delay yesterday and 6 hours of the girls being kept inside the hotel we got on the road and powered through to Patna, we were only hindered by the 3 hour road block that the police finally escorted us through!@