Day 14: Mamallapuram to Pondicherry

Distance travelled today: 103km
Total distance travelled: 3,408km
Driving time: 3 hours

We thought we should skip writing about day 13 as it involved a lot of relaxing, eating, drinking and a trip to a crocodile sanctuary, but no rickshaw-related adventures (feeling slightly superstitious about driving on Friday 13th).

So, day 14 and we set off on the final leg of our journey along a stunning coast road that didn't appear on any of our maps. In one of the guidebooks it said that accurate maps of India didn't exist, partly because it was against the law to show a complete representation of roads within 80km of the coast for "security reasons".

15km outside Mamallapuram, our rickshaw lost power and we shuddered to a halt. There seemed to be smoke coming from the engine. In the unlikely event that we had run out of petrol, we refuelled and hoped the shaw would start again. It did - but 10km further on the same thing happened. Each time, the breakdown was preceded by a strong smell of barbecue sauce. This happened twice more and we decided to stick to 40kph for the rest of the journey.

However, we made it! We rolled into Pondicherry - went past the finishing line without spotting it and felt elated with ourselves for completing. We spotted lots of other gaudily painted rickshaws down various side streets and a number of other rickshaw runners walking around with similarly triumphant expressions. That evening, we caught up with lots of teams over drinks. We've heard of at least 8 teams who rolled their rickshaws, 4 who wrote theirs off and a number of people who gave up and flew home early. People have had all night driving and hundreds of breakdowns, nasty wounds and broken windshields. Just so you get an idea of the scale of people's experiences, our travelling companions The Raiders of the Last Chapati have become known as "the team that only had one flat tyre". One team managed to do 2,000km more than us by going to Agra, down the west side, down to the tip of India and back up to Pondicherry.

In the general relief of surviving and making it here, drinks flowed freely into the night and ended with a number of teams drag-racing down the promenade, past the police station, getting their vehicles impounded and themselves arrested. We haven't heard what's happened to them yet...