Day 2 - Narayaghat (Nepal) to Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh, India)

Distance Travelled Today: 350km
Total Distance Travelled: 506km
Drivng Time: 15 hours (including 2 hours in the dark)

A truly epic and completely exhausting day of rickshaw driving started in the foothills of the Himalayas with a 6am attempt to get more fuel - which was foiled by the line of 30 lorries, 30 cars and about 100 motorcycles which had already formed. Knowing that we had enough petrol to get to a border crossing we ploughed on in convoy with The Raiders of the Last Chapati (Mark and Tom) and in close proximity to a number of other teams. Joe started off the driving and given the gently sloping downhills he was keen to put our rickshaw through its paces and see what the top speed was. Things didn't get off to the best start as Joe attempted to overtake a local bus at the edge of town - only for the bus to engage us in a bit of a boy racer competition which Joe promptly lost, to the amusement of the bus passengers and Amelia.

Without fuel supplies (despite Joe's vain attempt to procure black market petrol from an 8-year old) we were forced to change our original plans of heading through Nepalganj and cross the border at Sonauli instead. Amelia took over the driving for the stretch to the border - and with newfound confidence weaved through the oncoming traffic and stationary trucks to get us to the immigration post (of the most open border we have ever seen). With all the paperwork done we leapt back into the rickshaw - which Amelia promptly wedged around a nearby truck - Our second incident of the trip and some damage to one of the canopy supports to add to yesterday's dented wheel arch.

Following the compass South we soon managed to miss the first of our unmarked and unsignposted turns for the day - continuing South when we had planned to move West. After receiving 5 sets of directions from locals, none of which matched exactly, we took the average of them and headed down an uncharted road on a bearing of 270 degrees. Pretty soon the reason for its absence from any of our maps became clear as it became litte more than a rubble and dust path with some broken bridges - but through some stunning scenry and with wildlife (monkeys everywhere of course).

Upon reaching a marked town on the map we felt ourselves fill with new confidence and estimated that the town where we planned to set up camp (Faizabad) was approx 80km away - just 3 hours driving on good roads. With the sun still high in the sky this appeared an easy task and we set off on our merry way to find the highway, just 10 miles way. This took us over 2 hours in itself, involved us getting hopelessly lost and then rescued by a local on his motorcycle who guided us down some real dirt tracks to the highway.

So 70km to cover and about 1.5 hours of sun left in the sky and we were starting to get worried. Not as worried as we were an hour later when we finally crusied through the first town on the route which we had guessed was about 10km away and was closer to 35km. Amelia jumped out to ask for the nearest lodgings- to which we were pointed onwards to Ayodhya - about 50km away. With the sun rapidly dropping we powered up the headlights and put the pedal to the floor. As the night got darker the horn got less noisy - running off our tiny battery that was barely able to keep the headlights on (which themselves almost went out under braking). Following the Raiders of the Last Chapati we tailgated a slow moving truck for protection and shook in fear as we braved the Indian roads - hectic by day and truly terrifying by night.

We made it to Ayodhya 2 hours after nigtfall - completely drained and ready to rest wherever we could find a bed, which proved pretty elusive. 3 guest houses, 2 local guides and 1 hour later we found a beautifully fan cooled hotel room and collapsed.