Had a long lie, before great breakfast of masala dosas - they are like crepes with curried potato filling and dipping sauce, a great way to start the day. And then we (three teams, us, Mid Life Crisis and She's A Goa) were off to see a nearby FRANK Water project. We were driven in air conditioned luxury to the village, where we received the most amazing welcome from most of the villagers - greeted with HUGE floral garlands before being shown the new water plant and the old bore hole outside the village, which the treatment plant replaced a coulpe of years ago. We were made to feel so welcome, and I think we all left feeling really humbled by the gratitude we were shown. Our fundraising will make an enormous difference to several other villages like this one (each water filtration plant costs about 7,000 pounds to build) in terms of health and it really brought home to us all what this trip has REALLY been about. Yes, we are all having an utterly unique and incomparable experience, but the flip side is that between us, we are raising a lot of money for VERY worthy causes. After lunch we got back on the road and at the second attempt managed to find the southbound NH5. We managed to get a full 48km out of Vijayawada before Dolly revolted, and for the first time with me at the helm just completely cut out - which was a really hairy experience as I had just finished an overtaking move on a lorry so had to VERY quickly pull off the road to avoid being rear-ended. It was very frustrating, especially as we were fairly sure the other two teams, bound for the same destination as us, had already passed by. Still, she started up ok, and we got back on the road. For another 7 kilometres. Then she did it again. A couple of people came over to look at the engine, and we got the toolkit out and tightened a screw which we had seen other mechanics pointing at previously. Shortly before we tried starting her up again, a car drew up and a man got out, pushing his frankly terrified looking kids towards us. It turned out he wanted them to have their picture taken with us as he had read about the Rickshaw Run in the local press!! He was very excited to have seen us, though I can't say the same for his kids. We tried starting her up again, and got something of a surprise when the revs starting getting higher and higher with me nowhere near the accelerator. And continuing after I had taken out the key! We carefully carried on for another few kilometres before spotting a garage where we explained the problem and the guy carried out some work. This wasn't really the best stop - no one came to chat to us, there were no plastic garden chairs and no chai either! After about 90 minutes of work, he started Dolly up - we were rather alarmed to see HUGE plumes of smoke coming from the exhaust but he assured us it was just engine oil and sent us on our way. We thought the lack of silencer caused people to look our direction - well this was nothing compared to the stares we got as a result of the exhaust - which seemed to be FAR worse than any of the highly polluting Tata trucks... Fortunately, the problem did seem to right itself. But not until after we developed another rather different problem... We were cruising along nicely, having decided to stick to around 40kpm, as a precaution against overheating (what we decided the engine cut outs were all about). But on passing through a town, there was a need to slow down, either to avoid traffic or cows or people deciding to cross the road right in front of us... And when I went down a gear, she just cut out again. Started up no problem at all, so we carried on our way. And it happened again. And so we had something of an issue with having to keep the speed up high enough to remain in 4th gear. It was almost like the movie "Speed"! It was really funny timing deceleration to swerve round cows but be able to speed up to get out of the way of an oncoming bus. And roadside checkpoints were interesting - keeping fingers crossed that they wouldn't flag us down and then following scooters through the far side as they were only interested in vehicles with four wheels! As a result of our unscheduled trip to a mechanic, and our late start on the road, we were still about 50kms away from Ongole when the sun started setting. This was the first proper bit of night driving either of us had done, and it was a really scary experience - I have to say, probably the worst hour of driving at all. So many vehicles don't bother using their lights, and, as we have experienced during the day, don't necessarily drive on the correct carriageway. So all of the obstacles we encounter when it is light, we suddenly had thrown at us when we could barely see four feet ahead of us: cars reversing in the lane you are driving in, bicycles coming towards you, tractors wtih no headlights, cows standing in the middle of the road, cars pulling straight out in front of you. Road surfaces changing with no warning (for example, tarmac to dirt track in the blink of an eye). Oh, and there were no cats eyes for guidance.... Dolly's 'pimped up' headlights were pathetic - but the difference they made was tangible, scarily. And they did make the tinsel glow in the dark which cheered us up slightly... And did I mention the windscreen? In some cases, it wasn't actually a blessing when oncoming vehicles used their headlights - as they were reflected in a kind of kaleidescope pattern in front of my eyes. All in all, not any fun at all. So we were cheered to see a sign for a hotel. And then drive right through the other side of town with no means of getting to it other than by cutting right across the central reservation and heading back, missing the turn off and just doing a U-turn on the cariageway I was on to get to the turn off. What a relief to pull up outside. The English speaking owner of the hotel found the day's local paper and showed us a lengthy article all about the Rickshaw Run, with a photograph of two teams and he was very impressed by our endeavours when he translated for us what the paper said about our fundraising. Great relief to watch a little football in airconditioned luxury before bed.