Himalayas 5 - Riding intense, resting in tents

A single room in Sarahan was a good idea of Michael's. It was a rough night.
The paracetamol was interspersed with ibuprofen, and I ended up taking more painkillers in a night than I've taken in a year (3). 
I was restless and missing a chunk of hip flesh meant I couldn’t sleep on my side, which is my preference. 
In the morning my bum didn't look smaller in the biker jeans, but bikers don’t need that and my bum’s perfect anyway. At least that’s what they say after cadging another favour, ‘perfect bum’.

We had another good breakfast, our shiny wooden dining room with a wonderful view to the mystic mountain range was a great setting for overdosing on marsala omelette.

At Alex’s morning briefing as we were kitted up, but ex-helmets, and standing near the bikes there was the occasional ting as stone hit metal. We thought it was bits falling off the building works on either side of our tiny front garden where the bikes were parked. So we looked nervously at the open cement skeletons of future buildings, with piles of builders’ rubble, washing hanging out to dry and iron bars that sprang from set concrete like the alien birth of an egg whisk.

Then I got a bang on the back of the head, so we understood it was kids chucking stones over the wall.

We were about to go so some shouting at our unseen assailant stopped it for long enough to leave with no further damage.

I guess we were lucky to not be struck in the face, but you only think about that in retrospect, there was biking to be done.

It was a long ride. In my memory it seems as if the repaired landslides were interspersed occasionally with tarmac sections. But there were some lovely sections through pine woods.

The road conditions vary so much. The challenge is that every time you change up a gear the road turns into repaired landslide with sand or stones, or a sharp bend with sand sprinkled over the tarmac, like oil on the road.

The roads are cut ever sharper into the mountains so the drops to the ever present rivers are steep and deep.

That’s fine if they are on the right, since we are driving on the left. There’s half a road to play with.

On the left they are scary, especially with a downhill right hand bend with the road made of loose rutted sand or sand on tarmac.

The Sutlej is a big and fast river and if you go in you won’t come out alive.

I was tired by the middle of the afternoon and ready for a chai break half an hour before we got one.

We stopped at a bridge where the team could not follow in their traveller van. So of course on the first sandy bit I was at the front. The deep sand was rutted with tyre tracks. Thinking I was going to be clever the left hand track looked better than the one we were in. Being inexperienced and stupid I tried to change tracks and fell over, again.

This time the sand was soft and the only damage was a bent gear changer.

Two spills in two days, this was not boding well. So the pack kindly helped me and the bike back up. Alex turned back to collect them all up and I waited for the van that came over the bridge and through the bit that block any passage for cars and vans.

Ashraf repaired the damage with a hollow steel tube by bending all my unintentional artwork back into place.

I followed the route the van had to take over on the other side of the river, which was passable to trucks and a motorbike ridden by me!

We started into the spectacular scenery. Occasionally looking up from the intense concentration of watching out for impending treachery in the ever changing road conditions the scenery was staggering. All around were great big mountains, rugged rock faces slashed by waterfalls and violent valleys, more like crevasses in the rocks, with surging water at the bottom.

Getting to Sangla in mid-afternoon we were introduced to momos. They look like a dim sum until they're fried when they turn into minipackets of yum. Around half a dozen seem to be ample so we did double or treble that. 

By the time I turned up several plates had already been ordered, cooked and served. Alex and Michael seemed to be competing for the first to hit 20. Which was very understandable, they are momo moreish.

While people watching from our privileged balcony table overlooking the main street we noticed most of the local people were wearing a particular hat. Grey or brown box hats with a green half headband. The Kennaur topi. But more about that tomorrow.

The night’s camp was down a difficult path with ruts and mud and hairpin bends. After a hard ride for me, with integrated spill, I was not looking forward to this. But I made it without falling or even needing to put my feet down for balance.

The campsite was welcoming and smiley and still full of warm afternoon sunshine. They greeted us with a traditional white scarf and very refreshing drink.

The tents were big and lined with cloth to make them look more luxurious.

Michael and I opened all the flaps on the tent to increase ventilation for obvious reasons. With our new scarves, we kicked off the boots and sat back for a smoke.

A wise move.

At the back of the tents was a separate room with the loo and an Asian wash bucket. A quick washdown and change into civilian gear got us ready for an early evening trip stroll to the river for a quiet beer.

That is a complete lie. The stroll was a schlep down a cliff, with no path and through whippy, clingy, undergrowth. Time to keep a distance from the person in front. 

The river was a raging, violent, angry, unforgiving torrent.

So we carefully opened our beers that were shaken by the descent.

And we chilled to warm beer.

Of course the yomp back up the cliff was not easy, especially after a beer. But we made it with only one major stop to catch our breath.

You could definitely feel the high altitude we were acclimatising at over 2000 metres. Over a mile high. 

Supper was accompanied by my contribution of a ‘Jura whisky with a touch of berries’. So luckily found in Delhi and so delicious it did not survive the night.

We sat around a camp fire listening to 80's music and talking, a lot. We learnt a lot about Paul and painting trucks and flying helicopters.

He is also a very good biker, as he says with the pins and plates to show the effort he put into that. He told me I’d fallen on the sand because I tried to change ruts. Once you make a choice however hard it is you have to stick with it until the road gets better. He also told me never to use the clutch except to change gear and never use the front brake.

That advice has been invaluable.

Michael and I shared a bed for the first time on the trip. Somehow we managed to get a reasonable night’s sleep with no spooning!

The major secret of that could be Michael’s prescient purchase of gel earplugs form the UK. These magic little numbers mould into your ear and block out all sound so neither of us had to worry about snoring – and that lack of worry helps get a good night’s sleep.

Himalayas 4 - From holy mess to holiness

Nomadic Knights.

It’s probably Saturday. We’ve been biking for about four days and have now reached the only example of a Tibetan village in India, where at least and at last there is some peace and a few moments to write.

The first days biking, in anger, was long and hard and made longer and harder by a landslide. I didn’t see that bit.

In the dense mist I was at the head of the group and following Alex, but had lost sight of him and had followed a car on what seemed the main road. It was all paved and going downhill. The other was signposted in Hindi and the car wasn’t going that way. Most signposts on anything more than local roads are in English.

Anyway I didn’t think twice and followed the car downhill. The car stopped and I pottered on downhill at a gentle pace, out of the mist and along a gentle wooded road with occasional bits of tarmac. It was all rather pleasant.

Ten minutes later no sight or sound of anyone else so I stopped at the next habitation, a small shack with a lorry outside.

With no Hindi I tried to ask if any bike had passed. With lots of gestures and smiles passing between us the guy seemed to say no. So I sent an SMS to Michael and Alex (useful the Indian SIM and wonderful there was a signal!) that I was somewhere near habitation and if they called the people could explain where I was.

I waited for another ten minutes for the rest but no one came so I concluded I was on the wrong road. So I sent another text saying i was going back to where I last saw Alex.

Halfway back was a junction that I had not seen on the way down, obviously where I’d followed the car. So I stopped and within a couple of minutes heard the unmistakable putter of a Royal Enfield coming out of the mist and rain.

Alex was so happy to see me, but was obviously concerned.

There had been a landslide further down which had completely removed the road. They all thought i had gone over the edge. Of course to me this idea seemed silly as I would have to pass Alex (which I never do) and been driving far too fast to stop in time (which was possible but not probable in the bad conditions).

Of course I was happy to find everyone again and they’d had a difficult time negotiating the appalling conditions only to be faced with coming through them again on the way back up the hill.

My joy did not go down well!

It was a long ride back. Up a rough road with loose stones and mud and bumps and water and turns and narrow and just rough. At the end I was tired and we were back to where we started that morning.

The front suspension felt hard with every tiny stone and bump transmitted through the bike up my rigidly stressed grip and arms. But of course I am known for whingeing about the bike so I said nothing.

Coming downhill, out of the worst of the mist, but it was still damp, a very young girl comes into the road, looking for a high five.

I veered, rather than swerved, to avoid her and suddenly the front of the bike seems to drift. I couldn’t hold it and down we go.

Quite hard. The front forks are destroyed and the headlight smashed.

My new hi-vis wet weather gear is ripped, as is my hip. I wasn’t going fast so there was no helmet bashing. But it was all very strange.

Michael, Keith and Martin saw it all, stopped and dragged me and the bike off the road. Keith thought the front forks had broken, which seemed logical enough for me to leap on as an excuse.

The van arrived with the support team. The wonderful Doc treated me for shock, which in my adrenaline fueled state was logical, but felt completely unnecessary. He also patched up the missing portion of hip flesh.

Vidhya superbly got chai for everyone, it was well past time for a chai stop, and Ashraf rapidly repaired the destroyed front section of the bike!

I think the girl’s family owned the small shack that made chai.

It was really good having a full back-up team, mechanical, medical and spiritual.

Even better they didn’t make me feel as though it was my fault (however much it may, or may not, have been!).

A spill wrecks my confidence for a while and as with most sports confidence is what improves performance. Overconfidence can be a killer, but without confidence all sorts of extra effort brings mediocre results.

So for the rest of the day I was slow and wobbly and not good company, but Michael as always knew the fine line between providing support and letting me wallow in my own self-incrimination.

We made through increasingly stunning countryside to Sarahan. We stopped in the centre as Alex and Vidhya went on to find the hotel. This was the first time they’d stayed there.

It was up a back alley and we had to squeeze the bikes over the pavement and through a small opening into a front garden.

The hotel looked like a rapidly fabricated concrete construction, similar to a 1960’s Eastern European rush job. But painted pink.

Michael organised separate rooms for us with a connecting balcony. Very sociable. I was edgy about taking a shower, which was cold, but more for the possible germs on the coffee saucer sized hole on my hip.

Stupidly I sprayed Savlon on it, which spiced the evening up. Then saw Doc for a new dressing and his antiseptic was far more gentle.

We all grabbed a warm beer from the freshly bought case (hotels don’t sell booze) and looked at the view.

Then Vidhya took us off to see the famous Bhimakali temple, which is some thousand years old.

It was interesting to see the temple, which had incredibly intricate woodwork outside, which you may be able to see past the beaming smiles! 

The temple itself was guarded by an armed soldier who watched as we left all cameras and phones in little lockers and donned hats. 

The temple was almost entirely made of wood and inside every 5 yards on the ancient wooden walls were hung unmistakably incongruous red fire extinguishers. The narrow wooden stairs led to an overhanging balcony with staggering views. The shrine was obviously very sacred, we did not go in and even tried to keep quiet in respect of those that did.

We got back our gear and took lots of photos from outside the holy area, some of which I stole for this blog.

The ancient holy monument outside had some interesting artwork. The red symbolizes blood and they used to have human sacrifices here. The image on the right seems a lot more fun!

Back at the hotel, supper was good solid north Indian food, not all of it spicy, in a big wooden dining room with no fire extinguishers. Of course leading to lots of Everard (the Burning Chair Man) based speculation.

I slept really badly with the aches from the spill and even took two paracetamol and tomorrow would be a big day.

Himalayas 3 - Breaking in the riders

So the run out day was a breeze. Well a gusty breeze anyway.

First test the gear.
Alex had greeted us with gifts and goodies. We were logo'ed up with new Nomadic Knights stickers for our helmets, a Nomadic Knights neck protector (Made in Italy!) that is stretchy and can be a hood and a hat and just about anything else for the shoulders up. Plus we had a superb guide book with the routes and destinations for each day.


Michael prompted me into getting one of the two electric start bikes which was such a good idea after the challenges of the kick start last year. In southern India my bike had been a challenge. I was inexperienced, had ended up with the lemon and was totally incapable of handling its’ idiosyncrasies. After a week of frustration and salty language, Abi had diagnosed the battery needed replacing. So an electric start was the answer, if the battery was the problem it wouldn’t start in the first place!
The Bullet Boys t-shirt is hidden under the body armour. It was on because two of us were riding.


The armour and shin pads all looked too Teutonic, especially when Alex found Abhi's tin hat completed the image!

Alex gave the morning briefing. An essential part of the day he pointed out how riding in India is completely different. Everyone uses the horn to signal that they are on the road. It’s not aggressive it’s just a signal.
Indicators are occasionally used. Driving on the left in India is not a challenge, especially for Brits. But when a car is happy for you to overtake they put on the right hand blinker. Then you can pass. Of course the car could also be preparing to turn right, which means overtaking would be injurious to your health. The right hand indicator is blinking. You decide.
Buses believe they rule the road. The drivers are paid by passenger kilometre and like to be paid a lot. Since they are bigger than most other vehicles, and especially much bigger than bikes, they overtake when they want, on corners, on blind corners, in villages and on gravel. They can also overtake a car that is overtaking a cow. This leaves you with the strip at the side of the road, if there is one.
So Alex walks us through ways to stay safe. Maximise the line of sight. Always be ready for on-coming traffic, know that anyone can do anything and since you cannot change any of this, go with it.

We mounted up and revved and checked the horns and the lights, the indicators and the brakes. The mechanics had done really well. Presumably they completely stripped and rebuilt the bikes after each tour, but after the massive adventure there must have been some serious work. Ashraf certainly seemed to strip some of the bikes each night while on tour. Luckily we got on as he is part of the Indian multi-cultural melting pot and is very happy being greeted with 'Salaam Aleykum'.

So the ride went really well till the end of the hotel drive when my bike stalled and wouldn't restart.

Ashraf took out a fuse and hot-wired it, which was fine. Of course the group had stopped on the far side of the road, turning left. But they had gone by the time the bike was repaired, so I crossed the road and carried on. This seemed normal for a continental, but in India you drive on the left. So the oncoming car driven by an elderly gentleman was confused and we both slowed to walking pace. I signalled him on, trying to indicate that I was not going to do anything any more dangerous than merely bumbling up the verge on the wrong side of the road, which he seemed to accept. Once past him I switched to the left side and off we went. Of course Abi the Guardian Angel was there sweeping me up into the mainstream, again.

With those errors out of the way it took half an hour or so to get more of a feel for the bike.
It is quirky and was kicked into neutral by every pothole, which made the acceleration interesting. But we got the hang of that fairly soon.
An hour or so later the horn started sounding strange and a few minutes later the bike stalled and wouldn’t restart.

That was another wait with the wonderful Abi until Ashraf the bike mechanic, i.e. a mechanic on a bike, rode up and inserted a new fuse so off we could go again.

Michael had waited for me, being a buddy and we steadily caught up with the rest. Since he wasn’t wearing coattails I had to get used to the bike!
Soon it was fun. I made an error of judgement overtaking a lorry that slowed really suddenly only to be faced with a hairpin, but I had space and nothing was coming the other way so no emergency panic and no harm done. Just a lesson learnt.
Lunch was a Sprite and an ice cream, well plus a cheroot, and we wended our way back up the valley road.

We had started of wondering about fleeces and wet weather gear, but in the valley bottom it was 31^oC.

 We climbed back up the mountain a different way and stopped to take photos of blobs on the hillside which looked like childish paintings of sheep in completely the wrong proportion but which turned out to be netting covering several square km of apple trees, to protect them from monsoon hailstones.
You can imagine the scene in the local shop; I need netting for my apple trees please -
Certainly how much would you like - Oh about 4 square km should do....

Near the top Alex missed a turning, probably deliberately since we were all riding well, so we came a long but interesting way back.
It was fun riding faster than I had in south India and more within my comfort zone. Michael felt the same. Despite the rough roads and tricky bits with sand and wet and rocks and things we felt OK.
Finally back at the hotel where we stayed last night a whip round ensured beer would be available for the evening.
Everyone was tired and dirty and smelly, so I volunteered to pillion with Abi to get it.
Of course it was two cases of beer. One sat on the fuel tank and other I held in front of me trying not to bump Abi with it every time we braked, accelerated or hit some rough ground.
But Abi is such a good rider, he could even cope with me as pillion bashing him on the head with a case of beer for several kilometres of bumpy road.
So we got back with both cases intact.

A shower and a cup of tea later and we were ready to find the hotel wi-fi. That was a forlorn hope. The good part was that we met up with Paul and shared a beer and some life stories.
It is so interesting seeing where people have come from, to get here, biking the Himalayas. It really is an adventure.
Andy wandered up and we all gave up on the wifi and set up a campfire zone, stealing wood and one of the hotel employee’s job for the evening. Still they weren't there and we wanted a fire.
Once the fire was going we carried on the discovery process.

A gang of bikers from Bangalore were also staying the night, so there was some crossover biker talk, cylinder cam piston speed, or something, which all went straight over my head.
Supper was again superb and as an afterthought Alex ordered spicy chicken but the rest of us were too full. So he doggie bagged it.

We found a broken chair near the pile of wood and knew how to make Chris Everard happy. In memory of his sterling furniture burning effort in south India, on it went!

Well after a lot more chat, the bottle of Jura that Michael had bought for Alex as a present, failed to survive the night.
Whether Alex will be allowed to eat his spicy chicken in the room will remain to be seen.

Himalayas 2 - Punjab to Shimla and Narkanda

There seems to be an extra boost from a hotel breakfast. Probably because you don’t make it yourself and it has different ingredients. But you are in a room with strangers. The Holiday Inn proposed a huge selection. I could merely manage exotic fruit and spicy omelette, with a few side forays dipping into pastries and jams. And tea, lots of tea.
The service was always attentive sometimes highly attentive. I wanted to seem polite and ask the waiter about the food, but after doing the same last night you knew it would involve the chef coming out and long involved conversations, which is not what breakfast is about. So for once, and briefly, I remained silent. Of course Michael was not allowed to eat in peace.

We left the air conditioned cleanliness of the Holiday Inn for the air conditioned airport, with two steps in the monsoon as we got into the courtesy car.
Two chaps rescued us from a lengthy queue at Economy check in. They’d tagged Michael for a superior type of traveller and guided us to the unsignposted and discrete Executive desk. I hung on to Michaels coattails as usual to snag an Executive class ticket. The chaps then fussed us through baggage control where I lost a lighter to the ever vigilant and ever present army.
One challenge for us in India is having enough small denomination notes for tips. A quick detour to a Boots the Chemist lookalike solved that with a couple of bottles of water plus some chewing gum to relieve the ever present onion coating on the tongue. This one from the masala omelette at breakfast.
The chaps left us happily with the equivalent of two days wages for a labourer in the poorer parts of the country. We then proceeded to give all our bank details to a machine that did not give us cash. We could only hope it was because the machine was a real one, without cash rather than an elaborate scam. Only time would tell. There were no appropriate error messages. Just a lack of cash.
The executive class boarding passes got us economy class seats near the front of the
plane. More than I deserved but a lot less than the premium Michael had paid for. The business class looking seats at the front were apparently first class., which is unusual for a commuter jet
Michael declined the plastic sandwich and carton of mango juice, but I'm hardwired to eat when it’s available and not leave food on the plate. The sandwich was only half eaten. Breakfast had been good, this wasn’t. Italy does raise your food standards.
The plane was delayed for take-off and landing. Take off because a couple of flights queue jumped, as you do in an airport, and landing because the monsoon had limited the pilots’ visibility.
But we got to Chandigarh and phoned Alex who had not replied to the text about who was picking us up. His phone was out of order.
So we waited till our ‘priority’ bags were close to last off the carousel and found Lovely waiting for us in the main hall. How he does it I have no idea.
Lovely is the COO and Mr Fix-it of Nomadic Knights. He seems to handle logistics and HR, herding bikers and kits to where they’re supposed to be, as well as organising the ‘crew’, our support team.
You can only get into an airport with a ticket and ID and lots of head shaking and stamps.
Lovely is also lovely. And he was there in the arrivals terminal. We greeted him like a friend of long standing and followed him through the fresh puddles to cross to the parking lot.
On the far side of the road were a hundred signs greeting passengers were on the far side of the road. They were obviously not Lovely, who settled us at the mini bus. There we met Paul who had been vagabonding at the airport since 7 that morning, so 4 1/2 hours of sleeping on concrete with his bags for pillows. But seemed remarkably cheery for it.
Paul had a cup of tea which we thought was coffee so we set off for the coffee shop. Michael hadn’t made the necessary stop before a long journey but wasn't allowed back into the airport at all as he didn’t have a boarding card. He can’t be Lovely then.
The coffee shop lady seemed to completely reprogramme the cash till to take the order of one black coffee and one white coffee. We got two cappucinos.
Lovely gathered the other riders from the airport, probably breezing past Michael on the way in.
Keith and Martin were shagged and quiet after a long journey. Andy was more cheery. Paul and Andy were easy to get on with. A lot of boys talk to establish they were good bikers and Paul had been on a Nomadic Knights trip to Rajasthan. Andy was an experienced biker who hadn’t been to India. There were lots of comments and getting to know each other banter on the way.
We left Chandigarh and its huge freshly painted poster adverts. Lovely negotiated the police shakedown, getting our co-driver, Pawanji, to proffer some rupees and just not stopping in the slow moving chaotic traffic.
The drive to Narkanda was long.

It was probably even longer for Paul who had to suffer my seat continually reclining of its own accord, but he didn't seem to worry about it.
We saw villages on steep hillsides, monkeys, guys riding in top of trucks and a pillion holding a plastic sheet above his head like a celebrating revolutionary or victorious football supporter. But this was to protect himself and the bike rider from the rain. We saw some English Wine and Beer Shops, which we guessed didn't do what it said on the label and a Loreto Convent which Michael and I found funny. We live very close to Loreto in Italy which is a very important holy site for Roman Catholics, though almost unknown to the rest of the world.
It is home to the Virgin Mary’s house, which may seem unusual being in Italy, but there is a long and convoluted story behind its miraculous transportation by angels to Le Marche sometime at the end of one of the crusades.

We saw the chaotic driving and rubbish beside the road, the crumbling edges and the precipitous thousand foot drops, the ever present railway snaking and winding an impossible route from Chandigarh to Shimla. Twisting around and through the steep, steep sides of the Himalayas.

And here we are at Narkanda, a mere 2700 metres up, 7 hours and 7000 gear changes later.
In the clouds after a scrumptious Indian dinner with a couple of beers and a couple of drams, the gel earplugs are in while writing these notes, so I can't even hear myself fart, let alone Michael’s moonlight sonatas.

After a stop at the Indian McDonalds (no beefburgers), but a slow introduction for us guests and a chai stop near Shimla we gratefully bumped down the rocky drive to Tethys Ski Resort in Narkanda.

More greetings of old friends, Alex the fearless leader of Nomadic Knights, with big smiles and manly hugs and his wonderful wife Vidyha, whose smile just brightens the heart. Abhi was his usual serene self. Abhi sweeps up the laggards and the wayward. The shepherd, he gives you confidence knowing that he’s there when your bike breaks down, or you don’t know the way, or you just want to rest.

We also met the other members of our support team, in addition to the amazing Lovely and our co-pilot for the drive, Pawanji, there was Doc, who loves taking time from his full time job as a highly qualified doctor to hang around with crazy guys biking the Himalayas. We also met our magic mechanic, Ashraf, who could strip, recondition and reassemble an Enfield in the dark, with his eyes closed, in a clean business suit.

They had just finished a hard two week trip with lots of challenges, but with very experienced riders. We felt a bit like the B Team as we would do a lot less miles but hopefully we'd get to enjoy more of the mountains. So we jossed and smiled and lugged our stuff to the new section of the hotel.

Our rooms were still being finished but were spacious and comfortable. We got a hot shower despite the tap being in a precarious position for guys over 6ft tall, unless you turned sideways. But the shower made everything good and there was a kettle in the room for well-earned tea.

Over supper and a campfire we heard of water crossings and wet, landslides and brake control. Of 17 hour days and being ready to sleep rough. There was a lot of talk of blood, sweat and toil, but luckily no tears.

Maybe in my sleep I’ll ponder the life philosophies imparted as the evening went on. But in the end we are here because we want to experience life in its fullest and funnest.
However the build up for the riding is that it is going to be a challenge.

So I’m looking forward to seeing if the last few months riding have improved my abilities enough to be able to enjoy this to the full.

Himalayas 1 - Here we come

Thankfully the flight was delayed by two hours. 
That meant I could happily finish off lots more jobs around the house and feel a lot more confident about having done the stuff that needed to be done before leaving.

Of course its never all done, but everything on the list got ticked and then the list got chucked. Smile and a smoke time.

Of course the only reason I knew the plane was delayed was because the noble, fearless Bullet Boy No.1, Il Presidente, 'I only turn left on planes' Michael Hobbs, had SMS and email notification. Us 'up the back' would just be expected to turn up and suffer. Maybe booking through budgetair.com meant losing direct contact with Air India, so they didn't know how to reach me. 

Either way its good to be friends with Michael, a man whose coattails have handgrips just my size.

This trip has not had the excited build up of the Adventure Ashram last November.

Perhaps because there was not fund raising. There was also no Bullet Boy branding and not a lot of new stuff to buy. 
Not even new injections, just the visa, which took two full working days travelling to Rome to present and pick it up in person, along with the meagre €155 processing fee.

Not a great encouragement for tourism.
But it took a week this time instead of the nervy month last October. 
So it was ready 6 weeks early!


There seemed to less time to get excited. I have ended up with a proper job and working fairly flat out doesn't give you a lot of time for reflection. Of course the pay is better and it does make you feel a more valued member of society, but it takes up a lot of time.

So here we are at 7:30 am Italian time, 11 am Himalaya time with a start at the blog. It has taken a mere two hours since giving up on sleep and merely snoozing, to realise the windows on this Boeing 787 are automatically tinted hence the snooze factor. 
But the morning ablution queue extends to my extra leg room seat so peace is no longer with us.

Being assigned the exit row (part of hanging on to Michael's coattails at the Business Class check-in in Rome) is a real joy. At a certain height (6ft 2in - or 1.88m in new money) when your legs don't fit into the spreadsheet designated economy class dimensions then being able to stretch out without damaging your shins and disrupting the passenger in front, is a big plus. 
This pleasure was slightly marred by a chap asking to swap so he could sit near his wife and two young children. I wanted to be kind and generous, so I let him have the joy of sitting in his own peace a few rows away. 

Returning to India should be not only fascinating but also more enjoyable. The trip last November had us all worried about hand sanitiser and Delhi belly, but none of us suffered badly.

Of course there are always those days after a fairly heavy session when the digestive tracts burble and gurgle but that is not the same as an emergency stop beside the road hoping you can get your trousers off in time. Still it's a brave man who farts in India.

So Delhi it is, with a shopping list. 
The duty free in Rome was closed when we got there at midnight, they don't sell stuff on the plane and - Item one - we need whisky as a gift for Alex, Nomadic Knight organiser, guide, storyteller and fearless leader. 

Indian SIM cards to ensure contact with the outside world. Well by contact that probably means the means of causing envy when we post photos of stunning scenery, or at least of beaming smiles. Bring it on. Item two.

Items three through six. Baby wipes would help, you just never know. Somewhere that can repair my iPad screen, Diamox the altitude sickness pills, since we will get up at 5000 metres. And goggles. The logic is that India has a lot of bikes so there should be bike goggles. That may be true, but leisure bikers may not be as common as they are in Europe.

Lets see.

And as always, near the end of the flight we start talking to our neighbours. Mine were two brothers from Rajasthan who had a marble business and had just spent two weeks on a package tour going round Europe, ending up in Ancona (from Split) and Ascoli Piceno.... 80 and 40km from us, in Le Marche, the lesser known part of the peninsular, Italy in miniature. But a bit of a secret, almost nobody knows about it. There are no t-shirts and no tourist traps. Of course that's where you'd find Rajasthanis!

Late night update - Holiday Inn, Delhi.
So the usual uninformed start to the immigration process, with no forms given out on the plane and none visible on the way through to the immigration officers desk. But obviously being sent away to find some and having to wander around before finding some at the back of the hall. Then fill them out, or was it fill them in, it was very confusing either way, so 10 minutes turns to 30 in the blink of an eye.

Still there was duty free at the airport. At least, armed with Jura and Laphroaig, we can hold our heads up when we see Alex. Of course at the airport we also got the SIM cards, baby wipes, Diamox and cash.

There was no hotel shuttle and it was hot and confusing so we took the most expensive taxi on offer, for a 5 minute, €5 ride. At least he could get through the hotel's security set-up. guys with guns, scanning equipment for us and our luggage. It was all very new millennium.

A quick late afternoon bite to eat at the hotel, à la carte, as we expect to be hotel buffet'd up to the eyeballs in the next couple of weeks. Siesta, a cup of tea then Michael and I met up for retail therapy. We found goggles at Harley Davidson (HD Quality!) and well deserved margaritas at TGIF where we had delicious burgers. So good to eat nonb-Italian for a change!

It may not seem very Indian but our taxi waited two hours for us in the hope of a €2 tip.
Little did I know the longer term effects of the vicious insects in his upholstery, so its early to bed ready for Chandigarh tomorrow.

A Great Big South Indian Adventure 13

The alarm went off at 4:15 am, but on the time scale for where we would finish the day it was quarter to midnight. I'd persuaded the Boys that 30 minutes from wake up to assembly was 15 minutes too many and we could leave at 4:30 instead of 4:15, hopefully gaining 30 minutes of kip.
We must have been ready to leave for home if the day before we'd spent 10 minutes discussing the next days alarm call. Anyway a shower, cup of tea were easy, plus there was a last minute change of trousers. The night before I'd laid out tight bikers jeans but putting them on remembered DVT. Then again I have heard so little of Deep Vein Thrombosis in the last decade, maybe it faded away or everyone takes precautions so it is another life threatener from history. Anyway changing trousers made the cases hard to reclose so a repack was needed.

I still had to wait 15 minutes for the others. They were presumably working on Indian or Italian time. Anyway standing in the lobby the usual feeling mixture welled from the depths, a combination of 'told you so' and 'where on earth are they, do I have the right time/day/place?'. 

There was another demand for us to pay wifi, this time from the night porter. We downright refused. I have no idea if it was a scam, or incompetent management. An argument at 4:30 does not start the day well and certainly does not leave you with an overwhelming sense of benevolence to the hotel.

Our drivers were early and efficient and had some fun on the semi-deserted streets going in to Cochin International Airport. Chris and I came up with the usual hand signals to greet Michael and Will as they passed our taxi and we passed theirs. 
It was interesting talking to Chris and getting his views on the trip. We managed to have a mini-moan about a few things but were still on a high. Looking back on it all now, it feels as though I was drugged by this time, everything was happening as if in a dream. Maybe that's what time does to memories, it dulls them into a dream. 

But we chatted and got to know each other a lot better in that ride than we had in the previous two weeks. Of course I felt the return of mild guilt as I understood more about where everyone else was coming from, rather than just thinking about me and my position. But so much of the trip was about that, getting away from MeMe.

The time seemed to pass quickly and we had enough to talk about so, did not end up in the particularly English conversational cul-de-sac of searching hard for innocuous topics to fill the silence. Our 2 hour taxi ride left us 3 hours early at the airport and we arrived as dawn was breaking.

Bags unloaded, taxis tipped. So far, so good.

Then we struck the part about not being let in.

To get into the main airport building you needed a ticket. On the way to India Emirates was so impressive, you could download your boarding pass onto your iPhone, which I loved and still had under a rarely visited part of the phone called Passbook. 
Checking in for these flights a few days before, in India, had not given us this option, so I was expecting to get the pass at the check-in desk. The check-in desk was the far side of a bloody minded soldier/bureaucrat.

Michael and Will were well prepared with lots of paperwork. Chris and I were not. The soldier at the front door pretended to consult passenger print outs, but actually put a bunch under his desk. He would not let us in. 
Presumably he was one of those who wanted to show the full power of his job by being bloody minded. Such a shame after the superb service we had experienced during the trip.

So Chris and I built up a fair line behind us as we try to talk our way through. I manage to curb my indignant temper as that would definitely not help here. We eventually went to Plan B and found out what the back-up procedure was, then walked off to the external ticket office.

Chris stopped at the manager's office, sensibly leaving my irascible self guarding the bags outside. He professionally steered through the procedural maze and got a manager to accompany us back to the obstruction at the door.

A massive new shiny airport of international standard, with a crusty old creaking bureaucracy to stifle the fun out of life. 

The helpful manager managed to find the list the guard had thrown away and there we were, clearly marked.

Battle hardened we walked into the large terminal. There were some 20 metres to the check in desks but Michael and Will were easy to spot, they were just about the only people in the departures area. 
The airport's business model was non traditional. The large space between the outside doors and the check-in desks would normally be filled with friends and finally saying goodbye. But the ad-hoc ticket check at the door meant only passengers were in the building, so the whole area was a waste of space. There were a couple of unvisited shops and a room with items of what appeared to be lost or stolen luggage sitting in small piles and as we walked in a coffee stall where Bullet Boys could regroup!
We had a coffee and Chris and I accepted the inevitable comments on our organisational ability, while I quietly fumed at the incompetence of it all.
We made it safely across no-mans-land to check in, which was a really simple procedure. We are seasoned travellers and Emirates is a seasoned airline. Plus we were so early there were no queues. Michael and Chris failed to get Will or I into business class, but they tried.
We then trekked as a group to a series of checkpoints with our carry-on luggage, which for me was my hydration pack, but the others had handbags and helmets. 

At the third passport check the next soldier/clerk in line was officiously waiting behind a console, in front of which sat some hand luggage. Being security conscious I told him there was an unclaimed bag to which the clerk said "somebody must have left it". Between the fourth and fifth stamps on our boarding passes, where the bags and passengers were screened for the first time, another mournful suitcase sat unattended as people filed by.
The bureaucracy to security ratio was the worst I have seen this side of the 1980's, when I used to get on planes with a sheath knife and you could sit with the pilot during the flight. But this was more managerial incompetence. A triumph of process over purpose.
I was actually a little nervous until we had cleared the area.

We found the Mildly Important Person lounge and surged in on Michael's out of date priority pass. Luckily no one wanted to stop us.

There was good coffee and omelettes and after we had scavenged food we repaired to the lounge room where we continued with our repertoire of obscene references and bad jokes.

The lounge was a wonderful holdover of the days of snobbery. People trying to look important while rustling through newspapers (remember them?) and getting ready to harrumph at the unseemly behaviour of four middle aged men who were not wearing ties or jackets. Although we did not mean to cause offense, we were just oblivious to our fellow travellers so yobbery met snobbery, without even noticing!

On the Dubai leg, poor Will ended up in a seat next to me. We spent most of the flight chatting and being boys. Luckily the air hostesses did not hear our compliments about them, especially their similarity to energetic actresses in short films that friends of ours had allegedly seen on the internet.
The banter was pretty incessant and at one stage Will was threatening to write a blog about sitting next to me. Luckily he fell into a brief nap before pen hit paper, or hand hit keyboard.

We disembarked pretty smartly in Dubai and had to wait while the 'front of the plane' duo finally struggled into the main area. 
Some group retail browsing degenerated into us trailing Michael who managed to lead off. Fairly soon Chris and Will got bored of waiting around and went for an international coffee. Michael finished gazing at more completely essential stuff we regrouped, again, at a coffee shop, again.
This time the large space around the back of the retail area provided enough room for Chris to provide the entertainment - a full scale reenactment of his dirt track incident, swerving around hassled airporteers on his imaginary Bullet.
The tale was no less excusable in full and graphic detail, so he stayed with the 'Dirt Track' moniker.

Will left the group first to catch his plane, carefully leaving his helmet at the table. We found it as we all got up a few minutes later and a few minutes too late to give it to Will. So Chris, as usual, stepped up to the plate and took it back to Blighty as his third item of hand baggage.
Michael and I split up on entering our Romeward plane and I managed a quiet 3 seats to myself again, even though the flight was pretty full. But the soldier training kicked in and I got a couple of hours kip scrunched up across the seats with slippery airline pillows sliding stealthily to the floor and the aisle and the seats behind.
We were tired when we met up after landing. Michael had sensibly arranged for valet parking and we called for the car as we saw our bags come off the reclaim belt. So we only had a few minutes wait in the cool Rome night air before cramming dirty bedraggled luggage into a clean Beetle. Michael drove, though he was obviously tired. The best way to spur him on was to occasionally offer to drive myself. His knuckles seemed to whiten on the wheel and another surge of adrenaline kept him going for the 3 hour trip across the mountains.
At least I stayed awake and we talked most of the way. Almost none of it was about future plans or obligations. There was no need to let reality intrude on our happy mood. 
It was 23 hours of travelling and sometime round about half-past-late when we got to my place. My daughter Steedley got up to greet Daddy. That was really good, but she had school the next day to I did not want to keep her up for too long. Michael accepted a glass of water and set off to complete his last 5 miles without major incident.

So the travelling side was done, but the memories were fresh, the blog had to be written and life had to be settled back into. 
It took a few days to worry about the little things. It has taken a few weeks to finish writing about the trip. Meanwhile the thoughts and memories have been left to season.
But those are for the epilogue. 

A Great Big South Indian Adventure 12

Our thunderous final rev up subsided and we posed for some final photos in an easy flowing trance like state.
I was definitely in a dreamworld, beaming away and endomorphined up to the eyeballs.
The photos were so worthwhile, to seal the occasion, to show what an achievement it was, to leave us with something more concrete to trigger our memories. We all look so overwhelmingly happy.
Luckily this was all planned and executed by Alex and Fritha. They understand these things and without creating a fixed point our memories would wander like wisps of smoke driven by our own narrow view, failing to capture the totality of the occasion.
But beyond the armchair philosophy it is good looking back and the photos capture the elation really well. And to misquote Robbie Burns just look at the broad bricht sunlicht Knights.

One reason it was easy to enjoy the whole Adventure was that Alex had a well organised support team. They were always there when needed, up before us mending bikes, transporting the luggage and being our safety net. They must have sorted out multitudes of problems that we never knew existed. Support like that gives you the chance to go on to bigger and better things.

In India there were always legions of people there to help and that makes it so much easier to appreciate the country. You do not see everything they do so it is important to remember their contribution to that enjoyment.

We had a whip round and the support team certainly deserved our generosity, not least from me after all the work they put in with the mess I caused!

After the photos Alex had presentations for them. Lovely got a huge cheer, for being Lovely, as did Dharmender, for ensuring we could ride every day. It is good to see them beaming away.

After the photos I wandered dazed into the hotel's highly polished hardwood open lobby which looked onto Lake Vembanadu about 100 metres away. The well kept lawns of the hotel grounds were sliced by small drainage channels, barely wide enough for a punt. One of these channels reached into the reception area, as modern architects would have it, integrating inside and out.

We were greeted by beaming smiles and very welcome welcome drinks served in fresh coconuts. They were delicious. Halfway through my second one there was a commotion.
The channel reaching into the reception area ended in a mini dock connected to the highly polished wooden floors by some highly polished wooden steps. Someone had irresponsibly left a canoe tied serenely at the dock.
It was inevitable, a bunch of bikers still on adrenaline, a welcome drink and a canoe.
Chris and Tony bravely set off with Alex lobbing his (empty) coconut at them to raucous cheers.
The entertainment continued as they tried to turn the canoe in the very narrow channel. then Tony lobbed his valuables onto the lawn and we knew.
They did, they tipped the boat. With a lot of cheering and jeering and loud feedback they arrived back in reception where the staff quickly arrived with towels to minimise the damage to their modesty, as they stripped off, and to the polished reception floors they were going to drip muddy water all over.

The check-in procedure was almost immediate after that, but the stroll to the rooms seemed long, even though the hotel staff were bringing our bags. We were tired.
The rooms looked luxurious, certainly well above my standard, but Steve and I had a double bed which wasn't going to work. He trudged back to reception to see what they could do. The only twin room was in the bowels of the hotel next to a drainage channel. It was damp and the corridor carried the heavy scents of tropical degradation and damp towels, but we took it.
After a welcome shower and change of clothes I went to get a wi-fi code. At reception there was a long and hard argument about paying for internet. We do not pay separately for water or electricity. Today internet is the same. I had to get snotty and said that I had over 16,000 readers of my TripAdvisor reviews and I was not happy. I got the code but it was not a happy victory, I hope hotels stop this racket.
The internet would work in reception, but not in our room. It was all tedious, especially as I had started publishing the blog and people were asking for more and I didn't want to be sitting alone in reception with a beer. It doesn't look good, Boozy Blogger No Mates.
I gave up and went for a swim where Fritha and Sarah were on top of the beer ordering system which was very welcome. Fritha was wearing a frangipani flower she had found under a tree. A tree I had passed earlier at had not noticed the flowers. Typical. The frangipani looked very tropical and suitable and lovely.
There was not much time to wallow in the pool before we had to get back and get ready for the last night dinner, but on the way back I liberated all the fallen frangipani and left them at the doors of various rooms.

This was the celebration supper, the occasion for us all to wear traditional Indian dress. The outfit I had bought on the second night in Mysore was entirely made of oil derivatives and seemed designed to cause profuse weight loss in the heat, so that was discarded in favour of the semi-casual cotton goodies I'd picked up in Coimbatore. Good choice.
As usual my efforts at glamour involved a shower and possibly a hair wash, I may even have found a comb, but that is by no means certain.
We assembled for the dinner and it was really good to see how other people had made an effort. The ladies looked radiant and the guys looked assertively nervous. 

The flowers were for the Bullet Boys as well, which suited Michael rather better than it should have. He looked like he was wearing mascara, which suited his pale blue shawar kameez.

It seemed a lot more civilised than usual and we even opted for wine rather than beer which calmed the nerves rapidly. At least there were photos as evidence and the smiles remained radiant.

With more drinks and, presentations it steadily hit home, I have a Nomadic Knight t-shirt, a Nomadic Knight certificate, an Adventure Ashram certificate. We really accomplished something. 

Before dinner and the descent into darkness Chris showed his touring experience and quietly took the t-shirts and certificates into his care until the next morning. Whatever happened later we wanted to take our trophies home.

We sat outside behind mosquito netting but outside the air-con. Some ceiling fans would have been good and at least I was wearing cotton and not the maroon stripey rayon robes (perspiration for the purpose of).
As expected after another good Indian buffet we wandered out to the lake's edge and indulged in music of our era, trying to remember all the words to 'Come On Eileen' and other classics of the time. Reality caught up with willingness and people drifted off to bed fairly early. The stalwarts went for Karaoke in Room 201.
I couldn't find the energy to move from the table and ended up with poor Marguerite suffering my usual debating position when drunkenly talking with Brits, defending immigration and Europe. It always gets a good discussion going!

I do remember waking up to find Steve had come back and got to sleep, so much for the razor sharp edge to the man of action, alert to the slightest noise.... 

Since there was no wifi in the room around dawn and hours before anyone else would be up, I went to write in reception. The scene of the previous days rumbunctious bikers held a stillness that foretold early morning mosquitoes. Given my mildly thick head and unwillingness to move a lot, the bloodsuckers were thankfully mostly hibernating, or teetotal.

Writing was writ and people arrived and breakfast was a pleasant buffet with a really good marsala omelette. Having an upbringing where devilled kidneys were praised in theory but not practice I was completely unused to a spicy breakfast. But there in India it just seemed right. In the same way that to Anglo-Saxons it would be blasphemy, to Italians leaving wine in the bottle at a restaurant seems right.

The breakfast time of day saw everyone online, loading photos and updating friends, family and other Facebookers. Tony had messed up pre-trip and booked himself a return flight from Bangalore, so he had to leave early. Chris seemed sorry to see him go, which was actually comforting.

Alex had organised a large sumptuous boat to drift us around the lake and sneak into those backwaters that caused so much merriment in Thekaddy. This being Kerala, where booze was banned or at least discouraged, Alex had sensibly organised a large cooler filled with cool drinks, some of which were not beer.

We languidly lazed around in this large boat, keeping to the lake's edge. At least we were moving, and near the water, so it was fairly cool. In the summer back in the day, before air-con and internet, it must have been a life saver. 
As expected along a lake's edge there were many summer houses of wealthy people. The houses were widely spaced with big gardens. But the jungle green was interspersed by splashes of colour and action as washer women beat clothes at the water's edge. These were probably not the owners.

There were a few other boats on the water, with well-to-do people, like us enjoying the superiority of being well-to-do. We waved to some and some waved back, but it didn't feel a very wavy or friendly occasion. Perhaps superior people don't wave.

We drifted into a tiny dock to let Alex and Vidyha bargain for lake langoustines. These are somewhere between a prawn and a lobster. These guys were fresh, we only hoped their food had been fresh as well. Fluffy got involved and given her daring bathing suit this earned her the moniker of Prawn Star.

The crustaceans were handed to the boat's chef, who was probably also the pilot, which is how Chris got to drive. His merchant navy days may not have been severely tested but it gave him something to do while the rest of us were chatting and searching for interesting things to talk about with fellow Adventurers we would not see tomorrow.  

The lake was still and the boat seemed silent, apart from our babble. Fish eating birds perched on poles staring druggedly at the water, a snake shuffled to shore, lillies failed to snag the propeller and we chugged along.

The really cold beers helped with chilling to the 80's music.  It was a time to relax and that was well deserved for Alex and Vidyha. 

By the time lunch was served I was sailing, in several senses, and getting up from the bow of the boat brought on a mild dizziness that meant being careful not to trip or bump into anyone or spill stuff. So I must have been tiddly. Anyway the food was absolutely delicious. Languidly lunching on langoustines. It has a ring to it.

In that restful post lunch lull the trip seemed to be long, but the conversation picked up and suddenly we are back at the dock.

So a shower and a change and then off to reception to write. But I fell asleep instead. A quick siesta, honest, but it didn't help with the blogging. A wonderful cup of tea provided the spark to publish blogs 4 and 5, then the last evening supper. It all felt mellow, with some ragging and bragging and hearty goodbyes, ready for the wake up call at 4 am.