A Great Big South Indian Adventure 5

Our rest day started at 7 with a wake up call for the paper delivery. Obviously the paper delivery boy has a job, which makes him more fortunate than many people in India. He must feel proud and responsible. Unfortunately he cannot resist the desire to show everyone the pride he takes in his work and the beaming smile he offers with his service, for the benefit of the guests.

None of the guests appreciated this gesture. Michael and Will were vocal in their feedback, mistakenly assuming it was a jape from their mates. The tips the guy got were not what he expected, but he may have increased his Anglo-Saxon vocabulary.

After a snooze and breakfast it took a mere four hours to get internet in the rooms. During which I snoozed some more and wrote and sat on the veranda that had a slim view of the narrow beach and a slither of sea, between the hotel lawn, the ramshackle plastic covered beach shack below, and the coconut tree foliage above. But the warmth and the sweet sweaty smell of the tropics was like aromatherapy.

The Boys met up for a lunch at the fish market Frotha had recommended. We were anticipating a reasonable restaurant and fish, safe-to-eat.

Chris had failed to find anything resembling a fish market during a walk along the beach so we decided it must be a drive away, especially in the humid heat.

The danger signs were clear and consistent and ignored. We asked how much it would be to go to the fish market and the tuc-tuc driver talked to the hotel security guard, then to the people at the beach shacks, then to the driver of the other tuc-tuc we'd hailed in the meanwhile. They ended up taking us into the market that guards the road to the beach, to a stall that sold fish. Lots of sign language later they took us to a restaurant on the main road, but although it was filled with local people we were not confident and opted for the safety of the hotel. 

Back to the hotel we ended up at the shack on the beach, where we found Abi and the support crew, so we knew the food would be good. It was excellent, much better than the food at the hotel.

In the state of Kerala the beer is very strong. We had found that a challenge the first night when the variety of Kingfisher we were offered was 8%. The lowest value beer on offer was Tuborg at 6%, which we opted for, but they probably bought the beer for some Danish tourists a couple of years ago. It tasted well past a sell by date that of course was not to be found.

We talked to the mechanics and Will had the bright idea of swapping beer for food recommendations with them. Once Abi saw us ordering western style he came over and halved what we had asked for, which left us with twice as much as we needed. 

Once reason for the over-ordering was probably five people ordering on behalf of five people. Their are lots of chiefs in our band of Bullet Boys.

Abi sat with us and gave us some local history about billiards being invented up in Ooty, where we were going next, and where he is from. 

There seems to be a curious mixture of feelings about the British ruling India in the dim and distant past. Whatever darker side there is was not shown to us, we were shown a broad appreciation for the colonialists leaving behind English as the language of trans-Indian communication.

The afternoon involved snoozing and writing, with a brief interlude for a swim. I found Tony and Sarah gently drifting on the small waves. Steve joined us and 10 minutes later the thunder was interspersed with lightning. So us Eurowimps got out and Steve the experienced Aussie-based hardman stayed in and enjoyed watching the storm pass inland.

Supper was obviously a buffet designed for delicate westerners, but we have always eaten well in India. Fritha had spent the day working, seeing the local ladies involved in the project and taken delivery of lots of pillows. So we were offered a Secret Pillows pop up shop in the dining area. The organisation

http://www.secretpillow.org.uk gives women in developing nations the opportunity to make some money and start a business, making blankets that fold into pillows. They are fun. I picked up the one I had ordered in the summer via Kickstarter and went back to the table where the whisky Chris had bought in Dubai was doing the rounds.

Bulleit Rye Frontier Whiskey, tastes as you would think. Rough and manly and inspirational for bad renditions of John Wayne and American Pie. Perfect.

I slept badly but mumbled around and got some more writing done, sitting on the veranda with a dawn cup of tea. I went back to bed, but woke from a nap to see the top of a ladder going past our first floor window.

It was a coconut guy who put the ladder against one tree then shimmied up the tree next to it! It was a fun experience.

Coming out of Kallicut, the traffic seemed lighter than on the way in. It was still the hectic side of busy and resembled a beehive with seemingly random acts actually being part of the organisation called India.

Our second stop of the day was a real treat. Beside the road is a long line of stalls which crush the juice out of sugar cane. Industrial revolution style spinning iron machines with rollers and wheels and cranks and levers, producing the most wonderfully refreshing juice.

We twisted up into the hills, which had big views and tea plantations before stopping high up, beside a small stream that was trying to be a waterfall.

It was an informal truck stop with the associated litter and unwelcome smells but people were hot, so at least I could show off the trick of putting your wrists or elbows into a stream. The veins are close to the skin so your blood cools fast. This survival tip came from an SAS sergeant during my days at Sandhurst, but that is another story.

My bike wouldn't start easily, yet again, and I ended up at the back of the group, then got stuck behind a big smelly truck for 5 minutes, so I lost the pack, but not the plot.

Then I ran out of petrol, luckily in a village near a petrol station. Abi stopped and said to get petrol, he was going to catch up with the others but the cars were following. The petrol station is not on the main road so by the time I had eventually filled up I had no idea if the cars were behind or in front. After the village the road rapidly deteriorates into a thin winding path between a kaleidoscope of potholes as we entered the tiger reserve.

So there I was, alone in the tiger reserve, and the heavy rain started.

There were a few cars so it didn't feel dangerous, but there's always that nagging doubt....

Coming off is always rider error.

The potholes got worse. I slowed down for yet another oncoming car. It swerved towards me to avoid some big potholes. I was going slowly but braked, picked a puddle at the side of the road, and there we were, in the undergrowth, bike drop.
The puddle was another deep pothole. At least it was a very low speed, and good protective gear from Michael meant only hurt pride.

Soaked through I picked the bike up, felt sorry for myself and stopped at the next place with habitation to start dialing for back up. While I was waiting for an answer Michael and Michelle drove up, so I asked them to stop and we waited for the other cars before carrying on.

10 minutes later I got to the petrol station where the group was waiting.

So I parked the bike and wandered off to the side for a smoke to collect the nerves and the thoughts.

All I wanted was tea and sympathy and I knew all I was going to get was a hard time, so a smoke was in order.

Post abuse and bike inspection we saddle up and on we go. And here we are at the Jungle Hut in Masinagudi. Very wet and tired. We hung our gear on the bamboo fencing around the main drinking area, where it looked like tribal sacrifices to the biker gods

After some hot chai, we got showered and met kids from a local school who sang songs and unwrapped presents. Adventure Ashram helps them get to school, without which they would not get an education.

I taught some of them "5 high, 5 low, in the middle - too slow" but a couple were too quick for me.

A spicy supper was followed by one of Michael's cubans and the bottle of JD Honey I'd got from Dubai duty free. That went down well with the group.

Well ahead of time I opted out of the safari the next day, being seen as a spoilsport, again. Heavy rain made the wildlife unlikely and the chance of sleeping in was very welcome.

Steve got up for the safari at 5, an hour after his phone started pinging with a message and 5 minutes after his alarm went off, but I was already awake.

At least I got a few naps in before tea with Fritha and Tony, some more tea with Sarah at 7 and breakfast at 8:30, using the time in between to write a lot of this.

The safari people come back having seen very few animals. Michael arrived having slept little due to his burning desire to throttle Will, who had been snoring all night.

We sat around and paralleled, looking up from our netted phones and tablets to share an Fb video or thought about the trip. Micheal learnt video editing and got his GoPro shots into very good montages with music and brilliant branding. He has the camera on his helmet and the resultant film shows a Bullet Boys helmet sticker on the left of every shot. Somehow processing his shots into 60 Mb clips needs 32 Gb of memory in his Macbook. A mystery to solved later.

The results though are no mystery, they are excellent.

I summoned the courage to ask if anyone wanted to read what I had written so far, which at that point was only up to the beginning of the Kallicut day. Chris, a sucker for pain and probably bored senseless by then, volunteered. He too used strange words, untested between us Bullet Boys before today, like excellent. Will said it was brilliant and Michael suggested I publish it. Warmed by pride and secretly grinning from ear to ear I beat Chris at table tennis, which was hard work as he is very, very good!

I spent the rest of the morning failing to upload the blog. Between power cuts, bandwidth dystrophy and unremembered passwords it was a Sisyphian task. And that sentence proves the compliments about my writing went straight to my head!

Lunch consisted of Michael starting debates, because he really wanted an argument, presumably to lance the boils of his unrequited homicidal desires towards Will. The debates started heating up as they ground in circles until we all realised that we roughly agreed on all sorts of issues like immigration and social services and the difficulties for Steve to know what a middle aged man should wear to an IT interview.

Needing time to continue my burgeoning writing career I left them at it and consistently failed to upload anything yet again.

Around 4:30 pm one of the hotel guys announced that he had restocked the gin supply which had been exhausted the previous night by a bunch of thirsty bikers. It seemed a little early. Half an hour later after Will returned from some unspecified mission and we mentioned this as a joke. He looked at us as if we were mad and ordered 5 GandTs immediately, which became 6 as Alex rolled up armed with a laptop.This was extremely good news as it was our only sustenance ahead of a marathon dance festival put on by the local centre representing 400 children from 7 villages in the area.
It was a big occassion for us and them. So big it will need a new post.