Day 13 – A Friday

We spent the night in a trucker’s motel at the side of the motorway, about 18km out north ofVijayawada. Small, light supper for both of us. Edmund gets called Andrew Flintoff by the waiter, and Harry…Ryan Sidebottom.

We are starting to slowly offload parts of our rickshaw that are no longer of any use to us. The speakers we managed to rip out using stones and a screwdriver, and give to a local rickshaw driver, and in exchange he very kindly presented us with his handkerchief. Our stereo is now a complete write-off, so we had much entertainment in throwing it into the path of a passing lorry, whilst pushing the poor little beast up to 60km/h.

We were pulled over by possibly the most unofficial and corrupt police checkpoint known to man, and we were forced to hand over our “RC”. After 10 minutes of pointing proudly at our pollution control certificate, we finally realized that RC did not stand for pollution control certificate, but Registration Certificate, which we handed to them. Without even looking at it, they told us to drive away. Extraordinary behaviour!

We pull into Nellore, which was about 130km north of Chennai (Madras), and it still is actually, with the National Geographic team in tow, blaring out Rule Britannia from the speakers. Unlike us, they can hear their music when their engine is running.

Edmund gets stalked by a young man who insists on having his picture taken with him. He was adamant the photo should be shot in our bedroom. We thought possibly the hotel reception might be a more suitable setting.

A few beers in a...[Read More]