How do start a day in the wettest place on earth?
Wet.
The nightlong toil of the ceiling fans had failed to dry out our clothes. They varied from acceptably damp to 'only to be worn in emergency'.
It was so comforting that the van had arrived late and at least we could have breakfast in the dry. No need to shock our fellow diners early in the morning, at least with our clothing style.
We learnt more about the trials and tribulations of the van the previous day and were very grateful that Lovely, Doc and Vidhya could work miracles for our comfort.
It would be a late start, giving us the chance to hope the ceiling fans would circulate more humid air. But that did not work with our boots.
So it was with reluctance and at the last minute we put our dry feet with dry socks into the soaking wet boots. For some insane reason I thought talcum powder would help. It merely turned to a doughy slush in the boots, but a slightly better smelling doughy slush than the fetid slough already in there.
We were in wet weather gear, as expected.
We followed the van out of town, round the complex one way system. They had Google maps in the van, so the days distance should be shorter than taking informed guesses in the random street layout of an Indian city. Well nominally Indian anyway.
For some strange reason I ended up right behind Alex and tried not to let the group fall too far behind. I'm OK in traffic and kept us in sight, but at the edge of town there was a three way ego trip going on. A car wanted to overtake a truck that wanted to overtake a slow minivan. No quarter was offered or given so I hung back waiting for them to sort it out. The truck found a gap and raced off, well as much as a rhino can race off. Before I had to tackle that Alex had parked up so we could get a view of the lake in the mist.
I'm especially happy with the friendships and camradery from this shared Adventure. It was an honour riding with this bunch of misfits!
And a great huge thank you to the team... Alex and Vidhya
the legend that is Abhishek
Doc and Ashraf
Wet.
The nightlong toil of the ceiling fans had failed to dry out our clothes. They varied from acceptably damp to 'only to be worn in emergency'.
It was so comforting that the van had arrived late and at least we could have breakfast in the dry. No need to shock our fellow diners early in the morning, at least with our clothing style.
We learnt more about the trials and tribulations of the van the previous day and were very grateful that Lovely, Doc and Vidhya could work miracles for our comfort.
It would be a late start, giving us the chance to hope the ceiling fans would circulate more humid air. But that did not work with our boots.
So it was with reluctance and at the last minute we put our dry feet with dry socks into the soaking wet boots. For some insane reason I thought talcum powder would help. It merely turned to a doughy slush in the boots, but a slightly better smelling doughy slush than the fetid slough already in there.
We were in wet weather gear, as expected.
We followed the van out of town, round the complex one way system. They had Google maps in the van, so the days distance should be shorter than taking informed guesses in the random street layout of an Indian city. Well nominally Indian anyway.
For some strange reason I ended up right behind Alex and tried not to let the group fall too far behind. I'm OK in traffic and kept us in sight, but at the edge of town there was a three way ego trip going on. A car wanted to overtake a truck that wanted to overtake a slow minivan. No quarter was offered or given so I hung back waiting for them to sort it out. The truck found a gap and raced off, well as much as a rhino can race off. Before I had to tackle that Alex had parked up so we could get a view of the lake in the mist.
and a chance to catch the Band of Brothers in all their finery... With some local knowledge, Alex had wandered down to a line of stalls and was summoning up freshly grilled spicy chicken. I was mid morning but that really was a treat. We bought the stall out of most of their days supply of chicken and pork fat! Sizzling hot, tangy and tender. Perfect for a damp day.
The stalls were the only time we saw tourist tat for sale on the whole two week adventure. It was hard to get inspired by anything but the surprise was that we had not noticed the absence of shops selling souvenirs. This really is a lost world.
Michael, Will and I were happy to take it slow and steady for the rest of the ride. I was really happy. The road was wet and I had one of those bad feelings about it all. I have no idea how or why but I often get a feeling there is something around the corner and take a little extra care. The surprise is how often when I get that feeling there is something round the corner. But on a bike you can never take the absence of some extra sense to be an absence of danger. Anyway I did not want to come off on the last day.
So I pottered at the back and pretty soon had a car brake to almost zero on a wet downhill slope. Rear brake only, tap it, not enough, change down, hit the brake, wheel locks, release the brake (thanks Will and Paul), hit the brake release it. Not enough. Edge left of the car into the foot deep pothole, luckily by this time slow enough to not cause damage.
The road was more than wet, it was slimy.
A few kilometres further on, on a dual carriageway that wound aggressively down a mountainside, the back wheel again slid. The road was ready to catch anyone unaware.
When I caught up with Michael and Will who had stopped beside the road about 20 minutes later, Michael had had a similar experience. We took the rest of the wet part of the ride at a very steady pace. Safety first, ego second.
The road dried out and could speed up a little, but there were always the potholes, crazy drivers, jams and mud on the road to keep us on our footpegs.
We reached a big junction with signs for Guwaharti another 20kms away, and we knew the Jungle Resort was almost an hour from Guwaharti. We turned onto another main road and almost immediately off again for the Resort. That was a big relief.
It less an adventure than a duty when you're returning the bikes and it was good that this was a short day. Well planned Alex.
We took the bikes up 'Turn off AC. Drive in first gear' drive to the hotel. There was no elephant this time so it was easy to park up the bikes and offer congratulations and compliments all round.
There was a sense of relief. We had all made it with no serious damage to the bikes or rider.
I'm especially happy with the friendships and camradery from this shared Adventure. It was an honour riding with this bunch of misfits!
And a great huge thank you to the team... Alex and Vidhya 
and of course the well named Lovely
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