Dodgy roadblocks and ducklings

Horrendous traffic, livestock on the road, breakdowns, elephants, accidents and curry for breakfast dinner and tea are providing our intrepid 2008 Rickshaw Run teams with one hell of an adventure. With the route between Fort Kochi and Kathmandu entirely down to the team's discretion, some are hurtling up the motorways avoiding buses, trucks and stray dogs, while others have taken a more rural approach having to avoid huge pot holes, cows and herds of duckings. As many teams find themselves roughly halfway through their journey they are taking a well earned break to visit some of India's wonders such as "older than history itself" Varanasi perched on the holy river Ganges and what has to be one of the world's finest buildings, the Taj Mahal. Several teams have been in the wars, none more so than Clacton on Sea Mystery Tours who, despite their troubles, have been doing a sterling job of keeping us at home informed via the SMS updates. A few choice extracts... "As we slid upside down and the tarmac removed the skin from my arm i thought about wife and daughter... Good news is we are all ok. Bez was concerned for a hole in his jacket until I showed him the one in my arm. Tuk tuk now in a bad mess but we rolled her back onto her wheels, started the engine and set off again in our new cabrio. We still managed 180m today " Apart from a "day off today to help wounds stop bleeding", they still fight on like the true adventurists they are. Team I'm not (rick)shaw) about this have adapted nicely to our philosophy that the adventure only really starts when things go wrong... "blew a hole in the piston head but stumbled across the most awesome town in India!" Team Planet Poggis has been coping well despite their lack of the most essential of tools, the hammer: "The HT connections self-destructed but fixed and minorly adapted by precision hitting-with-a-rock" The local police seem to have taken a liking to our Rickshaws too, with many reports of road side checks although most teams seem to have somehow wangled their way out of any situations that have arisen. Shake, Rattle 'n' Roll provide a fine example. "Had a run in at a dodgy roadblock that wanted my camera:-( Managed to get them to accept pens instead!" Wherever our adventurists find themselves, each is having a unique balls out experience more extreme than they could have possibly imagined two weeks ago while carving the Christmas turkey. While many teams are soon to arrive in Nepal, with less than 200 miles to go to the finish they could be forgiven for thinking that they are on the home straight. Little do they realise, crossing India was the easy part. Bring on the Himalayas!