Northwestern India

The last few days have been some of the best and some of the worst days we have had so far. Some early mornings and long days in the desert have put us only 1 day behind with some achievable stages in the next 3 days.

The heat during the day is immense and as such we're still in the habit of setting out nice and early and being silent and irritable come mid-day.

From Mumbai we carried on north and to a couple of incredible small cities, Udapur and Pushka (Where life began according to Hinduism) . Normal by Indian standards, the streets of both are small and winding with hotels, monuments and salesmen a plenty. The addition of more than the average amount of wild life in Pushka keeps things interesting.We were narrowly missed by 2 large Ox locking horns in the town square knocking an old man to the round in the process. . . a minute later and all was forgotten and the locals continued their day.

With James indisposed due to belly Chris and I set out for an explore in Udapur in the evening and found the streets to be quiet and peaceful, particularly down by the river, which boasts 2 temples in the center . A welcome break from the days heat and kilometers traveled!

All of the above is tempered with further breakdowns and hours wasted in garages all over the land! The latest of which saw us breakdown only 5km after making it away from the Taj Mahal without paying the 10 quid entry fee!

The most incredible event of the last few days has to be the wall of sand that must have been waiting for us to have to fill up the petrol tank before striking! We could see that a storm was coming as there is nothing but flat desert for miles and black skys up ahead! As the black came closer the winds whipped up higher and higher until the black changed to brown and we could see sand gathering down the road. With just enough time to pull up our masks we closed the engine bay and jumped into blue for the onslaught to start. We decided to drive on very slowly, the most worrying thing was that the buses and trucks had bothered to put their lights on. We had mid afternoon darkness for an hour and could hardly open our eyes. 2 days later I am still finding sand in places I didn't know I had!

1 day behind, the adventure continues, Blue is ready for the morning after his make over this afternoon. . . A new engine mount and a bolt to replace the duck taped screwdriver holding the exhaust on!