All rested miles to go and right now I would love to be at home as I am going down with the flu and feel terrible, I am also missing my wife and family a lot. The car is ready to rock and roll which it probably will do for the duration of this journey in India. The only problem I have right now is, I don't have a great deal of room inside the car now that I don't have the trailer to carry all the bigger items and, as you can a mini is no exactly the biggest of cars especially as one will have to sleep in it for a lot of the way.
   
    I set off fairly early in the morning to avoid the rush hour traffic although saying that there seems to be a constant rush of traffic here, it doesn't matter what time of day or night you go out there is always a lot of traffic whether it is motor cars, lorry's or motor bikes and theirs a lot of them too out here.


   
   
I had to drive through the centre of Nagpur to get on the right road which would then take me to Agra which is where I was heading for next and I was told the roads were pretty good from here on up, that encouraged me a lot and I was put into a good mood.
   
    Thank heavens for the GEO mapping from GDC London for without it I would be very lost indeed almost every day, first thing in the morning I turn on the Magellan GPS and re set the odometer to zero and then set the mapping program on the computer. Once I can see where I am I can then get on the road and easily navigate my way into and out of almost any place. I just wished at times there was a little more detail on the mapping to see my way around city's but it's no too much of a problem as I try to avoid the city's as much as possible.
   
    I had around another three hundred miles or so to cover today and thought it would be a breeze as what I had heard about the roads was very good. It took me a long time to get out of the city as there were a lot of people about, and it wasn't until later on I learned this day was a national holiday and everyone was heading in the same direction as me, well until I got to the city limits that is and then I was on my way. I filled the car with fuel and had plenty of water and food on board to last the day so I could just sit in the car and drive until I had got to where I wanted. Not twenty miles out of Nagpur and the roads suddenly disappeared and in front of me was a road that resembled a farm track, in fact I know of better farm tracks than this national highway. There were more holes than I can describe with rocks sticking up all over the place like a saw thumb, dust and grim was every where and I went from a steady 36 miles per hour to a grinding halt. At this point my heart dropped and I felt like turning around and going back but, hay it couldn't be like this for long so I decided to push on and make the most of it.


   
    After five hours of torment at an average speed of 4 miles per hour I had managed to cover some 60 miles, the car had taken such a beating I decided it would not be able to take very much more and as for myself I had, had just about enough of this.
   
    The exhaust system had to be welded on after it had been ripped off several times and as for the fuel line, I was at my whit's end with it as the rocks kept on cutting it, fortunately I was able to get a few metres of hose in Nagpur and so I could repair it. The floor pan of the car now resembles a wok turned upside down as the rocks and holes have managed to re shape it plus the tyres were punctured and the oil cooler has now been torn away which meant the engine lost a lot of oil so as you might imagine we could not go for much further without loosing the lot. Eventually I got onto a road which seemed to be quite good and this was just outside a town called Sagar just 60 miles north of Nagpur and there was a hotel at the side of the road where I decided to pull in for a rest. It was fortunate for me that I did as I met up with the hotel owner who was from Tibet, we talked for a long time and I explained to him that the car could not take very much more of these Indian roads which are national highways I might add and should be good, I have learned that the rain season in India had been very heavy this year and a lot of damage as a result but from what I have seen so far there really is no infrastructure throughout the country which is a shame really as it really is a beautiful country to visit but a bugger to drive through.

   
    The owner of the hotel Deepac told me to follow him into town where he has another hotel and told me I could rest up and get the car sorted out for the next stage which would be to Agra, where I had hoped to have been today. I asked almost everyone what the road conditions were like from here to Agra and they all told me it was much the same until about 200 kilometres south of Agra. I was not happy with this and after a lot of thought I decided to consult a lorry company to see if the car could be taken to Agra. The road from Agra to Delhi was apparently extremely good, though that was yet to be seen and in any case the drive to Delhi from Agra was only 110 miles so at least it could be done in a day and I would be in the capital and there it would be possible to sort out any repairs that would have to be done. After a few hours there was a company that could take the car but it would not be until the evening of the next day which suited me as I could work on the car in the meantime. Next evening at around 4.00pm I took the car to where the lorry was and to my surprise I had to drive the car up a bank to where the lorry had parked on the other side and drove it onto the flat bed of the lorry, this was all a bit heath Robinson but it worked and the car was roped down and we were off.
   
    To my amazement I was told the 500 kilometre drive would take 26 hours and I could not quite understand why, well not until we got onto the road that is, even a great big lorry could not go very fast but at least the roads did not do any damage to it like the mini.
   
    It was a very rough ride as I stayed in the car for the entire journey just sleeping reading and telephoning my family and after two nights and one full day we were just outside Agra where we had to find another bank for the car to drive off, this was all very prehistoric to me and I was quite fed up with this situation but happy to be in Agra. I had to spend yet another day in Agra sorting out the car and it's contents as I have decided to threw away yet more things to cut down the weight and make more room inside the car to make it more comfortable plus by this time my cold had got worse and I was quite dehydrated so I needed the time to get a bit better.

   
    Next day I took some pictures in Agra before I set off for Delhi which to my amazement only took me three hours to do as the roads were as good as I was told. I Could rest at ease at last and gather my thoughts for the last part of this country which would be to it's boarder in the north. By the next morning my cold had really come to the surface and I decided it would be a good idea to stay in bed for the day and get as much rest as possible which is exactly what I did and next morning I left Delhi at around 7.30am and drove out into the countryside and towards the boarder of Pakistan. After a whole day's drive I managed to cover 336 miles and was very pleased with that result and I was at the boarder town of Wager where I had to spend one night in the car as the boarder closes at 5.00pm. I had a good nights sleep and at 10.00am next day I was on my way through the boarder after the Indian customs had inspected the car and contents. I was so happy to be leaving India and very much happier to be in Pakistan and, that's where I met a couple of English people crossing over to India. I explained to them what the roads were like and they told me all about Pakistan and Iran where I am heading for next. One was on a motor bike driving around the world and the other was in a London Taxi, what a sight to behold, I never ever thought I would see a London taxi on the road so ar away from home. We talked for about an hour and went our separate ways. Me, I was heading for Lahore and well happy too.
   
    Duncan