We rolled our of Gwalior quite early, keen to cover the 500km to Indore in a day. We had been averaging 50kph on the Grand Trunk Road so we figured we would be able to manage about the same on the national highway number three that would take us to Indore. So about ten hours at the wheel. A long day but achievable with an early start. By the time darkness fell we had covered just over 200km with an average speed of just 20kph. It had been a gruelling drive, the worst yet. The reason for the slow speeds is mostly the quality of the road surface. You have to slow right down to negotiate a path through the craters and the holes and the trucks in front of you must to the same. Even the 'Boleros', the Hi-Luxes of India can't go much faster as there heavy and crude leaf spring suspension makes the ride unbearable. Most of the traffic on the NH3, at least 90% of it is trucks. Massive and crude Tata trucks. The rest is a mixture of scooters, tractors, buses, bicycles and occasionally the odd personal vehicle. The scooters are the fastest vehicles of all because they can slalom through the craters. When the rain came things got even worse as it is difficult to assess the depth of the pot holes once they are full of water so everyone slowed even further. When the only way through a collection of holes is to drive on the other side then you must wait until the on-coming traffic clears.

The food in India is very good. The best we have encountered so far. These are the sort of places that we are having lunch in on the side of the road. They don't look like much and there hygiene has certainly proved to be a bit hit and miss but the flavour has always been good.

In spite of our attempts to drive gently and care for our Alfa it's inevitable that your going to hit some of those holes and one of our tyres didn't make it. Thankfully it was a slow leak which prevented us having to change the tyre in the mud. We finally stopped at a place that was so small it wasn't even on our map. Driving at night is a very unappealing option. The trucks have their lights set for their convenience and without consideration for the on coming traffic and the pot holes are hard to see. It's really difficult to drive at night. We found a place to stay which was about what you would expect from a village of this size.

Whilst we were wandering around looking for a place to eat we met a local kid who was keen to take us to the nicest restaurant in town so the three of us hoped on his scooter and off we went. The food was good as it always is in India, as long as you order local food. Half way through dinner his brother turned up and invited us over to his house for sweets and tea. So after dinner off we went on the scooter again and met his family. They placed us on some chairs on in their living room. We felt like a minor celebrities – everyone came to say hello. There where about ten people in his family and then the neighbours came and then Grandad and some friends and so on and so forth. It was a nice experience. I gave my phone to the kids to take some shots and they fired away, I don't thing they had ever seen a touch phone before. Sadly by this stage I my stomach was telling me that it was time to go.

Indian food always comes with a risk – Indian hygiene. Back the hotel I was soon holding a bucket in two hands whilst using the squat toilet in our cheap and dingy hotel. It's never a nice experience and it went on for most of the night. Thankfully I was too distracted to notice the bed bugs that where eating us alive. It was a strange day full of contrasts.

The next days driving was worse. We averaged about 17kph. The road got worse and we lost about four hours too a traffic jam that was caused by a bridge, on the national highway, that is two small to allow two trucks to overtake one another. What follows is very Indian. For an hour or so one direction of traffic just builds up whilst another flows over the bridge, except that the trucks that are supposed to be waiting get impatient and start driving down the wrong side of the road and this creates a traffic jam and for long periods of time the one lane bridge is idle.

Everyday we come across multiple crashes. Mostly trucks having head on collisions. The reason isn't the road quality but their over-taking zealousness. They must see the remains of the obviously fatal crashes every day, just as we have done but it doesn't seem to deter them from taking ridiculous risks to overtake another truck. India is the first place we have felt concerned for our safety on the roads. These are some of the ones we saw over the last two days.

After a town called Dewes the road improved dramatically and we made it into Indore after twelve and a half hours at the wheel. We had covered just two hundred kilometres, a third of that in the last hour and made it into Indore just after dark. We checked into a swanky hotel as I was still not feeling one hundred percent and Julian had come down with a strange and sudden illness, something like an advanced cold in just a few hours. It's not cheap (AUS$55) but we needed to rest after the last week, and enjoyed hot water and some WiFi. Today we gave the car a little birthday. We asked the receptionist where we could get our tyre fixed and the hotel staff took our tyre away and did it for us. As always a crowd gathered. We topped up some fluids and tightened a suspension component that had suffered from two days of pot holes and gave it a crude wash to try and restore some of it's dignity.

Random photos from the drive to Indore