Chaos. All around me is total chaos. It's pissing with rain, the traffic has built up to an incredible level and seems to go on for miles. There are trucks, cars, buses, motorbikes, cycles, animals, people -everything! All of which are intent on making as much noise as possible. On top of all this, the road has turned into a muddy bog, full of potholes, all of which are brimming with dirty brown water.
Welcome to the Nepal/Indian border! At the Nepal side, I meet a Spanish guy in a 4x4 also doing a RTW trip but in this rain, I'm jealous of his car right now. We chat for a bit and I find out he came through Afghanistan which is an interesting route. He said there wasn't much tourism there and frankly I'm not surprised! We get our Carnets and passports stamped out of Nepal and bid each other farewell as I was off to squeeze into the soggy traffic while he sat in his nice, dry car. As nothing appeared to be moving, I edged over to the left side of the line to see it I could get any further and I immediately encountered a deep muddy drainage ditch which I attempted to ride over- Big mistake! My front wheel lodged itself at the bottom. Fortunately a guy walking past agreed to get his hands dirty and we managed to get the bike over it. Shortly after, I had to ride though a very long brown puddle about 10m across and sure as shit, the bike stalled and I went over. I remembered my bike lifting training in Boulder, Colorado and got it upright straight away (thanks again Chris!).
After about 1/2 hour of pissing around like this, I finally found my way to the Indian Customs office. The office was quite dark and the ceiling fans were running at full pelt and I was greeted by a couple of officers with epaulets on their shirts and big mustaches and immediately asked to join them in a cup of chai so I figured I must really be in India. They were very methodical and all my details were written down slowly in longhand in an old fashioned ledger book. The tea arrived, delivered by someone I can only describe as the Customs office 'gimp', the nearest equivalent I can think of is poor old Baldrick in the Blackadder TV series. He was a wretched looking man in ragged clothing who after putting down the cups, sat back down in the corner of the room barefoot and stared at the wall. Later one of the officers wanted something else, so he shouted at Baldrick who meekly shambled over and set down the item. Straight away, the officer picked it up and moved it 6" to the left, putting it down with a irritated thump and his head gave a little wobble of disaproval.
Once I'd got the formalities out the way, I set off on the road south which frankly didn't impress me much. Again, the traffic was present and the condition of the road itself was just bloody awful. Every time I'd get up a bit of speed, a new, deeper pothole would rear up and I'd have to slam on the brakes. I took the smaller road thinking it might be quieter and although this was the case, it was a far worse road. The potholes count got far greater, the wandering animals increased and the driving standards plummeted. Yes, this really was India. By the end of the day, I reached Gopalganj, a small town of little interest but I'd been riding for 12 hours and had averaged 30kph all the way. Not a great result really.
Riding on roads like this. All day long.
I think someone was still stuck in this cab...
By now, this was becoming a familiar sight....
Exhausted, I rode into town and got the now familiar crowd of men standing around to stare at me when I stopped to ask for directions to a hotel. It was a basic place, not very clean and there were bugs walking all over the floor but beggars can't be choosy. The staff were really weird here too. Once I got into the room, all I wanted to do was shower and lay down, something I thought would have been perfectly obvious but my door was knocked on no less than 4 different times, each for utterly bizare reasons. The first was to check if I had any soap, then none arrived. The second, there were 4 men, 2 of which I'd seen before, the others I hadn't. One of the ones I didn't know said he's been staying in the room before and needed to 'check something' before trying o barge his way in. A brief 'get the fuck out my room' seemed to suffice but 20 minutes later I got yet another knock, this time asking if I wanted chai. When I said no, the then tried to offer me drugs. Finally, 2 more guys knocked again shortly after asking something equally bizzare, but all the time peering into my room. Although there was a restaurant in the hotel, given the cleanliness of the place and the thorough weirdness of the staff, I decided to forget dinner and stayed put, not leaving the room.
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