A Great Big South Indian Adventure 4

Breakfast in hotels is normally simple enough, buffet and maybe some form of eggs. The buffets for us also included Indian breakfast dishes which ranged from carbohydrate ballast to spicy pick-me-ups. A great part is always marsala omelette. Just a tinge of tang to get the biker juices flowing.

And breakfast was a continuation of the getting to know each other ritual. The complex mix of team and friends and wanting to be able to get on, while still taking the mickey, but not too much in case you hurt someone's feelings and trying not to get upset when your own wrong buttons get pressed and we're all very different people, despite being white, middle aged and happy to be on bikes.

It is of course made much easier by a similar attitude to swear words and adolescent humour, primarily involving bodily parts and fluids, impossible crude acts and so on. There may be swear words that do not involve either, but off the top of my head I can't think of any.

As predicted, it was a long day, probably a lot of fun and very, very tiring. We were warned about the different driving conditions with the traffic and other wildlife. We were warned about letting elephants cross the road, but if they were close to get out of their way, by turning around and speeding away if necessary. Elephants don't like people. They like roaming and eating. People get in the way. People shoot them and shout at them and take their babies away.

We were warned about the likelihood of meeting an overcrowded bus on the wrong side of the road, overtaking a lorry that was swerving to miss a cow, on a blind bend.

So stick to the outside of a curve to give yourself as long a line of sight as possible. Be ready to move left, fast, at any time.

Buses do not care about other road users, they are the kings of the highway. The drivers are paid little, but by the passenger mile. So the more passengers for the more miles, the more they earn.

We were not told the roads were full of potholes. It is hard to keep your eyes on the traffic, your mirrors and the road immediately ahead. Especially when you are behind a large lorry. Especially when you want to overtake. Especially in the noise of the road.

Although pre-warned, the buses were like meeting charging rhinos head on. Sometimes they were charging somewhere behind your right shoulder, sometimes they seemed to be charging at you. Overtaking them is an insult and they are a lot bigger than a bike.

On our trip out to the Golden Temple we had seen a car facing the wrong way down the opposite side of the dual carriageway, crushed against a lamppost with a bus parked where the passenger seat had been. The bus seemed undamaged.

Some bus drivers are like elephants, they don't like other people on the road.

Apparently a crowd, including the bus passengers, can attack a bus driver for malicious driving.

At the morning briefing we were clearly warned that beyond all this the bus drivers in Kallicut were the worst in India.

We were also told that we would need a refuelling stop, possibly before the tiger reserve.

Saddled up and in a swarm we managed to struggle out of Mysore. 

At a morning stop Tony and I caught up with Alex the Leader, at a petrol station, he indicated we should turn round. Of course the bike did not start for a while and when it did, I dashed back to catch up with him. Some way later Abi, the other tour bike rider, caught up with me and I turned round again. Luckily with someone to follow I arrived where the others had stopped, a couple of kilometres before the petrol station, I'd completely failed to notice them. 

At least the snacks were good and we re-hydrated while watching an interesting procession.

The ride got interesting and slightly less busy when we entered the tiger reserve.

Riding with the Bullet Boys I ran out of petrol. Unbeknownst to me, best beloved, mine was the one bike with no reserve tank to rely on. Knowing we had a back up jeep with the mechanics I waved the group on. And the following cars. The mechanics somehow knew it would be me, broken down in the tiger reserve. Having agreed I had no petrol they sought a solution, because they were not carrying any as back up. I got out the binoculars that were astutely packed in my tank bag and kept watch. The jungle was far too close for the binoculars to be of any use, so I hoped the merry chirping of the jungle creatures would continue.

The mechanics stopped a passing biker and siphoned petrol from his tank. The birds continued chirping and after a few failed attempts the bike started and we were on our merry, and very relieved way, happily spotting monkeys and deer beside the road.

Until the police stopped me.

Of course I was ahead of the mechanics and stumbled along with smiley English delaying the policeman long enough for Dharmendar and Lovely to rescue me, again, in the tiger reserve.

The Bullet Boys were waiting patiently just outside the reserve and we carried on to find the rest of the group at a roadside hut.

Full of adrenaline I was in full storytelling mode, far too loud and effusive, gesticulating and knocking over chairs. But people laughed and we all took the risk of roadside food and sanitised our hands, then got on with a delicious fried beef curry and hot bread that may be called paratha. Happy but nervous about the possible effects on the digestive tracts.

It was a long afternoon. More open roads took us up into the hills, through numerous settlements and strange sights such as abandoned cars, which is a weird idea as everything in India seems to be recycled.

We passed a neatly groomed hillside that turned out to be a tea plantation

There was a long descent in the damp mist by waterfalls and huge trees with bases like webbed feet. And those rhino buses lumbering uphill overtaking on hairpin bends....

Briefly stopping for ice cream we were mobbed by young Indians who wanted to chat and have photos taken with us. Even asking for our Facebook names...

Then downhill through village after village overtaking and being overtaken. Sometimes we ended up in a game of leap frog. One leapfrogger was a red scooter with a burkaed and unhelmeted wife as pillion. He was quite aggressive.

A few minutes later we were an a traffic jam that was more intractable than usual. Shuffling up as far as we could we were blocked by a tuc tuc, into which a semi conscious, burkaed wife was being hustlingly carried by four men. The red scooter lay tangled with a old battered moped. We wove our way around the wreckage and did not look back.

In one of the settlements Will was stopped for a shakedown by someone who looked like a policeman or some sort of official. The shakedown was stopped by four other Bullet Boys surrounding Will. Apparently the guy was trying to sell insurance.

Continuing villages and dust and traffic and mad charging buses getting denser and heavier and more and more people.

Stalling at a t-junction was no fun as the bike had heated up and become even harder to start. The Bullet Boys surrounded me like maternal mammals protecting a vulnerable toddler as I pushed the bike across the busy junction and went through the lengthy process of starting it.

Will and Michael went on and I dropped back to pick up Chris and Steve for the long ride into Kallicut. I had to remind myself to be alert. Taking small, seemingly calculated risks because I was very tired.

The bridge into town became a single track, which meant there was a tailback which I skipped a lot of, on the inside, but ended up waiting on the far side for the others. At least I was not sitting behind a vehicle producing copious quantities of noxious fumes, however I had the uncertain pleasure of being stared and honked at while waiting for Chris and Steve to emerge from the tangled knot of traffic.

The sidetrack to the hotel was marked only by Abi, Alex's number two. Junction marker, guide and as we shall later learn, Bike Whisperer.

The turn off would have been impossible to spot with a map as it was a tiny gap between two stalls and wound through market stalls towards the Arabian Sea.

Weaving along a single track trail bordered by hedges and fences on either side, inhabited by a smaller but no less pushy species of rhino bus, and after lots of twists and toots we came to a t-junction where our doubts about the correct route evaporated as we saw the rest of the group coming from the left. They had gone the wrong way.

Lots of adrenaline fueled tales of the road followed as soon as we stopped at the hotel and while we waited for Vidyha, who had the check-in details.

I think Alex well understands the effects of the road and delayed our stampede for beer while some of the fight or flight chemicals dissipated through our broad smiles.

About half an hour later we were led to the trough and a couple of beers were followed by a very welcome shower and a buffet supper. A couple of the boys, who had coincidentally stayed for an extra beer, went for a swim in the warm Arabian Sea. Their lack of dysentery the next morning would bode well for the rest of us giving it a go after a good nights sleep. So we wearily wended our way to bed to prepare for a morning of unknown adventures.