Day 10: Nagarjuna Sagar dam to Chirala

Distance travelled today: 225km
Total distance travelled: 2,769km
Total driving time: 7 hours
Repairing time: 1 hour

We set off this morning to find yet another rickshaw mechanic to make a more permanent repair to our clutch, arriving in the town of Macherla. Triumph at last when we spotted a rickshaw on a jack having some work done. The mechanic once again declared 'no problems', until we demonstrated the lack of first gear.

After half an hour of tinkering and a few test drives, we were invited in for a driving lesson with the mechanic who showed us how to change gears a little more gently. As we each took our turn to drive, he kept emphasising how slowly we needed to drive in towns, very very slowly.

He then took over the controls and hooned the wrong way down the street, heading straight for a large bus before hitting the brakes at the last possible moment and skidding into the only gap available to stop us being squashed. We then hurtled down some side streets - at this point we were beginning to think we had been shaw-jacked - careering around cattle, people and over bumps at breakneck pace. We were convinced we were going to hit something, fall out or have some other catastrophe. Anyhow, our over-excited mechanic pulled up outside a beautiful temple and urged us inside to have a look. He then drove us to a second temple (about 900 years old) for a bit more sight-seeing, before finally returning the rickshaw to our much more careful driving. Once again, the mechanic refused any sort of payment for his work, which (fingers crossed) seems to have fixed the problem.

Worried that we were approaching Pondicherry a little too quickly, we decided to shorten our drive today and head for the beach at Chirala. Arriving there, we found that the beach smelt strongly of rotting fish and lacked luxury resorts so we are back in town, having reconvened with Mark and Tom.

Two other teams have hit Pondicherry already - we plan to meander down a little more slowly.