Bandit Country!

The day started a cracker...we went the wrong way! Mark is claiming that it was the fault of the road that went from nice smooth tarmac to mud track in 30m, me well I'm just undecided on the cause.

The end result was more Colin McRae style rally off road action. Picture this.... 100m wide river... no bridge.... just a 3m wide raised mud ridge winding it's way across... a few Indians working on something, but suddenly distracted and then watching with faces of shear incredulity... and then a 45degree mud slope to negotiate.

What was our decision? Mark looked over his shoulder at Tom in the back seat, who just nodded. Mark gunned it and we were off! At this point it would be good to say we got stuck, but no the mighty off road Tuk Tuk took it all in its stride and roared up the bank and on to the next special stage!

A top the bank we were met with a field and no road...so we continued mud splashing as we went. At the first hamlet we reached a friendly local flagged us down and kindly told us where we ought to be going and drew us a map. He also invited us in to his house for a cup of Chai and a chat, and pretty much the whole village showed up. Good Chai.

Up to this point we had been travelling still with Paint It Black and once back on the open road they took it upon themselves to make life more interesting and breakdown in the middle of nowhere. The problem no gears. After staring under the proverbial bonnet pretending we knew what we were looking at we gave it up and gave the Tuk Tuk a shove. Miraculously Joe found 3rd and he shot off down the road. We picked up the bemused Amelia and took chase. All was going fine until a bus blocked the path in a village and we had to stop. At this point nothing worked but Joe and Amelia did find a mechanic who started to dismantle their gearbox.

2 hours later and with Tom almost having lost all his worldly possessions to a rather insistent chap we left Paint It Black to their fate. Not very chivalrous but this is the Rickshaw Run and we had a destination to get to.

Due to the delay we revised our overnight stop to Karim Nager, but found only flea pits or places that refused to show Mark the room before he would book in. At 5:30 with Warangal 60km away we made a dash for it. Cue another race against the sun.

And another loss, this time with the added fun of rain....great! However to up our nerves just little further along the road as the sun was setting we were overtaken by a jeep full of men with guns...big f'off guns! As if in the movies 2km down the road they had stopped and flagged us down..errrr cue squeeky bum moment! We were duly surrounded by men with no uniforms, old large guns (probably AK47s as that is what all militia seem to use in the movies) and a leader with a rather large pistol asks to see our documents. As Tom rummages around in the rucksack trying not to show we have cameras etc, Mark jumps out and using his best International sign language and a healthy dose of optimism tries to get them interested in the map on the front of the Rickshaw that shows the route we are trying to take. Repeated use of the word "charity" and Tom flashing some paper and they seem pacified. A swift round of handshakes and we were free to continue. This time as they re-passed us we waved, smile and tried desperately to look confident!

The hotel we found served tomato soup. Mark was ecstatic.

Current location: Hotel Ashoka (it was actually quite nice), Warangal, 18N 00'29.5" 79E 34'02.0" 268m