Run to the hills

Going north from Chandrigarh, the land starts rising as this is the start of the Himalayas. I really enjoyed the road as it turned and twisted up to the old hill station of Shimla although the traffic was still pretty bad. After getting myself into another overpriced hotel, I took a walk up to an area called The Mall which is a pedestrianised street with restaurants and shops. Immediately I liked the place because it was cooler, there were no touts around to bother me, the scenery was great and it was vaguely European, reminding me a little of Valpariso in Chile. Shimla was used to be the summer seat of the government during the Raj and you can still see quite a few colonial buildings dotted around.

I only stayed one night in Shimla and headed for Kalpa the following morning. After a while the traffic thankfully thinned out but the road was fairly crappy in places, particulary near the Hydro Electric plants by the river. The scenery was terrific though with very steep sided valleys and equally steep drops by the side of the road and I made it to Kalpa by 6pm. The staff at the hotel were very friendly, one guy was really cool and a bit eccentric, describing the Indians further south as Cro Magnon men and laughing when I told him about the staring people whenever I stop someplace. I knew I needed something called an Inline Permit to allow me to ride close to the Tibet border but hadn't figured that the next day being sunday, I wouldn't get it till monday. Nevermind, the view from the roof of the hotel was fantastic. I was looking at the sun setting on the mountains on the other side of the valley which were around 6400m high and quite something. I realised that this was what I'd been missing in the rest of India. Peace, quiet and great scenery.

I used my day off to good effect, cleaning the chain and finally getting round to marking up my clear plastic tank which involved draining it and filling it litre by litre with water and marking the levels. The permanent marker pen I'd bought turned out to be not so permanent and came off very easily. Not having any clear nail varnish to hand, I had to improvise and found Super Glue did the trick. My hotel was located at the top end of the village so I took a walk down to find some internet but 10 minutes into an email, the power went and that was that. So instead I found myself in a small cafe where there were a few other travellers and met a guy called Joe Sheffer who'd ridden an XT600 from the UK. This was all the more surprising as I'd seen some of his postings on Horizons Unlimited so knew a bit about him already. I didn't realise the bugger was only 19- where do they get the money at that age, thats what I want to know! By the time I eventually left, it was pitch black and I had to negotiate the very steep rocky path back up the hill where I discovered my headtorch batteries were on the way out.

Going North

Leaving Agra, I started having a few cramps in my gut which is usually the sign of something unpleasant about to happen. I was having visions of finding a bush to go behind while being surrounded by a circle of staring Indians asking more dumb questions ("please sir, what were you having for breakfast") when lo and behold, something I hadn't seen for quite a long time appeared- The Golden Arches. And immediately I thought, 'hmm, clean toilet'. When I got in there, (just think of Trainspotting), when you gotta go, you gotta go. But there was no loo roll and the little hose thing by the wc didn't seem to put out any water. No matter, no time! Just as I was thinking I'd be leaving the stall with one sleave less (like my mate Iain when we went mountian biking one time...), thank the Lord, the hose thing started working. Phew!

But it didn't end there. I was planning on riding to Chandrigarh bypassing Delhi, but somehow got routed right to the centre of the city. By this time, I really wasn't feeling right and it was incredibly hot (52 C) and the traffic was solid. When I finally got to the centre, I got off the bike and just sat on the kerb. I was feeling dizzy, weak and the stomach cramps were still there. As normal, the crowd of overly interested Indians soon arrived throwing a barage of useless questions at me, none of which I had the energy to answer. I managed a weak "S...otland" to which I heard, "ah, he's from Holland" but I didn't have the strength to correct them. I must have looked a right sight as eventually the dumb questions stopped and then I got some more usefull things like there was an air conditioned mall and tourist office nearby. I mustered up the strength to find some Ibuprofen and managed to get moving again. I'd thought of just staying in Delhi till I sorted myself out but I learnt that the cheap hostels were located in an area with narrow streets and likely as not, no parking. Instead I headed north in an attempt to get out the city. I stopped for some cold water and knocked back a litre in a few minutes. I started to feel better and decided that I probably didn't have malaria but it was more likely a combination of extreme heat and eating something a bit dodgy.

I finally made it to Changrigarh 11 hours later but still not feeling great. I'd read that the city was unusual for India as it was designed in a grid system by Le Corbusier however all I could think of when I got ther was "it looks like bloody Westerhailles!". Finding an overpriced hotel with no parking to speak of in the charmingly named Sector 22, I crashed out.

Varanasi & Agra

Varanasi is a bid dirty city. Well thats my first impression anyhow. The traffic on the way in is predictably horrible with everything on wheels or legs jostling for any bit of free space on the road. I'd been told about Hotel Buddha by the spanish overlander I'd met at the border so after way too much time pissing about, I finally found it with the aid of about 10 coppers, none of whom had a clue what I was asking. When I finally found it, I found the staff to be very helpful and as it turned out, their restaurant served up a pretty good curry though as they didn't have a licence, any beer I got needed to be covered in newspaper and hidden under the table.

The main thing to see in Varanasi is the Ganges river, the most polluted stretch of dirty brown water in the whole world by the sounds of things with something like 26 sewers discharging into it on a daily basis. I headed down there the following morning, followed most of the way by a very persistant rickshaw driver who couldn't comprehend that after riding for the last few days, I actually fancied walking somewhere. The area around the river consists of a medievil-style narrow streets where everthing is carried out in the smallest of spaces. It made me think of what Edinburghs High Street area might have been like about 500 years ago. Everything can be bought or repaired here it seems. A lot of Hindu's were queueing up to bathe in the dirty river and they even seemed quite excited about the prospect. I just hope no one had any open cuts....

As per normal, a young guy (who expressly said he was not a guide) started giving me a 'free' guided tour of the burning site. You can watch the funerals but not take pictures unlike at Kathmandu. Apparently Hundu's all want to be brought here when they die, some actually taking up residency in the nearby hospice in anticipation of the 'big day'. The kid showing me around said he worked at the hospice and I ended up giving an old lady who worked there a donation for 'fire wood' as some of the families can't afford the wood. I can't remember the name of the wood but its a good slow burner. The ritual is quite similar to that at Kathmandu but this time, I saw the bodies wrapped in colourful sheets being brought down to the river and the body was given a nice final 'drink' from the river with a family member putting handfulls of the foul liquid onto the deceased's mouth (I couldn't help thinking that they were probably pretty glad they were dead at this point...) After that, the fire was built and away they go. Its very interesting to watch though and we even went over to where the fires were buring where the heat was very intense. There are about 5 special types of deaths that don't require burning, just being weighted down with rocks and then getting chucked in to the river. These included Holy men, pregnant women, babies and those who dies from Cobra bites! The reason being that they've already reached 'Nirvana' apparently. And predictably, after my 'non-tour', my new friend asked for some cash or to come and look at the shirt factory where he actually worked but I declined both offers. I'd thought about staying an extra day but having got the river business out the way in the morning, I just got on with some bike maintenance in the afternoon and changed the oil and filter and headed off towards Agra the next day.

The road to Agra actually improved becoming a proper 4 lane highway with a central reservation. Only this being India, it didn't stop people driving down what we at home would call the 'overtaking lane' towards you in trucks, busses, motorcycles, bicycles, cows, goats etc despite there being a perfectly good set of lanes on the other side of the barrier which go in the direction they want to go. In the UK, you could have got a whole season of 'Police, Camera, Action' out of this lot. Its frankly bloody dangerous and you really can't allow yourself to relax into the ride whatsoever. Especially annoying are the people who push bicycles out onto the road without actually looking for any oncoming traffic, resulting in some fairly severe braking ("nah, he's not going to wander out in front of me is he, oh yes he is"- screech...!) followed by the 'horn and middle finger' combo which I have now perfected although usually they don't even turn round. On most roads, 600kms is a long day but in India, its a really bloody long and tiring day. How I made it in one piece to Agra I don't know but somehow I did.

As I'd been riding for 11 hours, it was dark by the time I got to Agra. It also didn't help that I wasn't exactly sure where I was going but I had taken the precaution of looking at someone elses guide book and noting that the cheap hotels were located just to the south of the Taj Mahal and luckily there were actually signs for the Taj. The area I ended up in also turned out to be under a power cut so while the streets were pitch black (bicycles with no reflectors, people, animals and lovely deep potholes abound...), every vehicle felt the need to drive with full beam on so I was practicaly blinded too. Getting to about 200m from the area where I belived the hotels to be, the bike decided to cut out as it was overheating. This has happened before and I knew I'd need to wait a few minutes before I would start again, and this gave the numerous touts the time to congregate around me in a very close circle and start asking me dumb questions and offering to take me to the shite hotel of their choice. Luckily the bike started quick enough before I started punching a few of them and then got myself into a hotel with off street parking.

Despite being totally knackered from the previous days ride, I got myself over to the Taj Mahal by 6am in theory to catch the sunrise but of course, there was nothing of the sort and it was a typically overcast day resulting in flat light. Despite this, I did enjoy doing my 'Diana with Beard pose for the camera in front of the Taj'. I spent probably around 1 1/2 hours walking around the site which was pretty incredible. Seeing as the Taj is one of the worlds greatest monuments to love, it would have perhaps been nicer to have shared this with a special someone, but despite the guards confiscating my tripod at the gates, I still managed to take some reasonable photos of myself...

India and the Border from Hell

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.

Kathmandu

Making new friends in Katmandu

I stayed in Kathmandu for a week in the end, mainly because I was waiting on my visa for Pakistan. I hung out with Nick, the Frenchman for a bit and it was good to have someone to go out and eat with for a few days. He was making a video documentary in Kathmandu about the street children and some of the footage I saw looked really professional so I hope it comes out well. Every morning while I was staying in Kathmandu, I got woken up by the large group of Japanese who congregated outside in the yard and began doing speeches which ended in regular applause. Not what you want at 6am I can tell you. Nick doesn't really like the Japanese. He told me a funny joke they have in France: A Japanese guy comes back from his holidays and his friend asks him 'so how was your holiday'. He replies ' I don't know, I haven't developed the pictures yet'.

The day before I planned to leave Kathmandu and see the something else of Nepal, I found out that the petrol situation hadn't got any better. While i was working on my bike, a guy at my hotel was going for petrol and said he'd keep a space in the queue for me. When I got there, the were literally hundreds of bikes and cars all over the place but somehow I was ushered into the front near the pumps. The little garage was expecting a delivery that afternoon and word had obviously got out. While waiting for the delivery, I was just chatting to some of the local guys who were very interested in my bike, especially my plastic fuel tank which they have an unbridled desire to tap all the time and while grinning say 'plastic?'. After a couple of hours, a dirty fuel tanker pulled up on the street, its horns blaring and the place went nuts. I couldn't fathom how they were going to get near the tanks to fill them up with all the traffic. Somehow, through the chaos of people and vehicles, enough people shouted seemingly random instructions and amazingly, a bit of space was cleared for the tanker. Once the tanks were filled and the tanker moved off without running anybody over, the pushing and shoving started but somehow I got served after about 20 minutes. I even got a full tank which was impressive given the locals were restricted to 5L each. After this episode, I decided to head to India as I couldn't face doing this every time I need to fill up which is normally every day

"Just popping out for some petrol, I'll be back some time tomorrow"

I needed to get a Letter of No Objection from the UK embassy to go with my application which cost me 4,930Rs for a 4 line letter- the bastards! I eventually got my Pakistan visa, though despite telling me to come back on Thursday morning, they told me to come back again the next day. Grrrr- As I'd already packed up and left my hotel at this point, I managed to convince them to give me it later that day. So to fill in 3 hours, I went to Pashupatinath which is a holy Hindu site. I watched to cremations being carried out by the river which was pretty fascinating. The body is laid out on a wooden base on a stone plinth by the river. The priest is the guy who does all the preparing while the male members of the family gather. No female family members are allowed as being the delicate things they are, history has it that when a woman's husband died, the wife tended to throw herself on the funeral pyre given that her life was no longer worth living, hence 'no women allowed'. The eldest son also has to shave his head and face beforehand, then the fire is started using embers which continually burn as no matches or lighters are allowed. It takes a few hours for the body to pretty much disappear though certain bones may remain i.e. breast bones of males and pelvises of women. Once it has been mostly reduced to ash the whole lot is rather unceremoniously brushed off into the river. This place was actually the site of the cremations for the murdered members of the Royal Family a few years back.

And in to the river with the ashes

After getting my visa, I rode over to the east of the city to Bhaktapur , an old town but they wanted 750Rs for tourists so seeing that was half my daily budget, I rode on to the hills further east. Unfortunately its the rainy season so there is a lot of cloud cover and I figured that I probably wasn't going to see Everst off in the distance and decided to head for the Indian border to the south. The traffic around Kathmandu is basically bloody awful but at least it started to clear the further away I got. As KTM is in a valley, the road south winds up into the mountains and is pretty slow going as it twists and turns all over the place.


I met a German cyclist on the road who was fun to talk to and we agree to try and stay at the next village though when I get there, I'm told there is nothing so unfortunately we don't hook up as I have to keep on going till I find something in Palung, luckily just before dark. I take a small room with a family though there is a young guy in the room when I'm shown it. When I question the father about whether I'm getting a single room, the son is turfed out. The toilet downstairs is filthy and I try to hold my breath for as long as I can but its never possible and resort to breathing through my t-shirt which frankly doesn't smell much better but at least it doesn't smell like a rank toilet. The guys young daughters are good fun, though practicing their English on me while I eat my dinner. I was up early the following morning and left at 6.40am which is pretty good for me. I mainly didn't want to stay and use the toilet again though. The road started descending from about 2,500, though there was lots of rain and cloud so I coudn't enjoy the views for most of it. From Palung, it took around 4 hours to reach the Indian border and thats when the fun really began...

Nepal

I took the ironically named 'Royal Air Nepal' flight, ironic as they've just kicked out their king, which was actually quite good with decent food and best of all, a complimentary bar. We flew over what I took to be Burma, mainly because half of it looked flooded but I couldn't be sure as they didn't have the fancy monitors with GPS mapping that we are so used to on flights these days. I'd met a French guy at the airport who'd been volunteering in Nepal before and knew a decent hotel as we shared a cab into Kathmandu. In a scene marginally resembling 'Wayne's World', there were five of us squeezed into the smallest white Suzuki 800cc taxi- the Frenchman, a Japanese guy with a ukalale, a guy trying to divert us to his hostel, the driver and me, although unfortunately Bohemian Rhapsody was conspicuously absent.

Thankfully the Frenchman's recommendation is good and the hotel is quite nice. For 600Rs a night (just over 4 quid), I get a double room with bathroom and cable telly. I could go cheaper but as I'll be here for the best part of a week, I don't fancy living in a hovel for the sake of saving a few pounds. As Saturday is the weekly holiday here, I delay going to the Airport to retrieve my bike till Sunday.


My first impressions of Nepal are that it's a large dirty city with crazy drivers continually beeping their horns every few meters. I think this is what I thought India would be like and I was kind of hoping Kathmandu would be a nice, quaint Alpine town- but its nothing of the sort. I see a lot of street kids here, and I'm told not to give them money as they spend it on glue to sniff. Some of them are very young, and wander the streets in little gangs. There are a lot of foreign volunteers here, a bit like NW Thailand again, most of them working for various orphanages. Mothers with babies follow you around asking for milk for the baby but if you buy them any, you should open it as they take it back and get money for returning the unopened bottle.

On Sunday, I prepare myself with all the paperwork I think I'm likely to need and get a taxi to the airport. Thanks to Horizons Unlimited, I knew roughly what the procedure should be and how much I should expect to pay but some of the reports I'd read were a few years out of date. I had plenty of time to prepare though as I'd been awake since 6am listening to the racket the Japanese group of volunteers were making outside. They were lined up like some military parade with someone doing a talk to which they enthusiastically cheered. Anyway, before I could get out to the airport, I needed a few litres of fuel first as TAC had made me drain my tank before it went on the plane. As there is still a fuel crisis here in Nepal, its hard to come by and you can either wait hours at a garage or get some on the black market. On the street, I asked around and before I knew it, a young guy was leading me through the streets to a small shop on the far side of a busy junction. The shopkeeper had a potential fire bomb sitting around with loads of plastic water bottles of petrol and several larger jerry cans but at least I was able to buy 4Litres for the outrageous sum of 175Rupees per litre. At around 130Rs to the UK pound, you can do the maths.


On arrival at the airport, you go to the Thai Airways office to the left of the passenger terminal and get your Waybill forms. Then its another taxi (and more bloody bartering to agree the price) to the Customs Warehouse Complex where your 'helper' will quickly appear. I decided to use him as I knew all the forms would be in Nelapese and figured that was the easiest way to go. The building was another faceless concrete structure with no names on office doors and rubbish strewn all over the floor. As no one appeared to be working yet, I was given a small glass of local tea to drink with my helper, an older guy wearing one of those colourful Nepali hats a bit like a Fez. He turned out to be quite useful although I did end up filling in the engine and frame numbers for him. He would whisk me around the building, patiently waiting for some overweight grumpy official to take the papers, scowl at them and then angrily scribble an initial or something on the top. This went on for I don't know how many offices until I was finally allowed to get my crate. It was brought out and plopped on the floor of the warehouse, right where a bunch of guys were hanging around for their shipments. I explained I needed to do quite a bit of work to get the bike put back together and eventually got it moved to a quieter corner of the room. I shouldn't have bothered though as in minutes, I had a crowd of around 30 men, all standing 2 feet away with their hands behind their backs, patiently watching every single move I made, and generally getting in the way. It was as if they were watching some strange creature in the zoo, which I guess they sort of were. If I dropped a bolt or something, it was quickly picked up and handed back to me. At one point, I just stopped and looked back at them all and laughed, saying 'haven't any of you lot got jobs to do!'. 5 hours after arriving at the airport, i was free to leave but not before paying the customs and warehouse charges, and of course, my helpers fee. In total I paid 1223Rs, which was just under 10GBPs.

Riding back to the hotel, I used my GPS which I'd thankfully marked the location otherwise I'd have been up the creek a bit. As I got closer to the center, the streets narrowed and the numbers of pedestrians, bicycles, animals and rickshaws built up, the bike eventually stalled and wouldn't start. This has been happening a lot of late though i haven't figured out the cause yet. I started pushing the thing through the streets but thankfully the engine caught one last time and I managed to ride all the way back, getting hopelessly lost on the way obviously.

Get me the f**k out of Bangkok!

On Monday, I finally got the green light to take my bike over to Trans Air Cargo's office in Bangkok but as if written in a script, I got pulled by yet more cops literally 100m from the cargo office! Using my awful Bangkok street map (with most of the street names written in Thai script) i found the street where the office was located, which was on the other side of the busy Rama road I was traveling on. There was a central reservation so I couldn't turn into the street and as i was waiting at the lights to carry on until I could do a U-turn, I was waved over by a copper. Again, I'm not entirely clear why I was singled out for the 4th time but being so close to my final destination mightily pissed me off! I picked up something about a bus lane but there only was one lane so who know. Anyway, he wanted me to 'step into his office' which was a portacabin under the flyover to which I refused and stated I wasn't leaving my bike. I think this pissed him off as he could hardly start to demand cash in front of all the other traffic. So holding one of my lousy fake licence copies, he wrote me out a ticket and told me to pay at some police station. Yeah, sure! From there, it took at least half an hour buggering about in one way traffic until I finally arrived at the TAC office.

At the TAC office, they measured up the bike for making the crate and to my surprise, they allowed for me removing the front wheel and handlebars etc as Thai Airways were charging by volume weight so overall size is critical in keeping the cost down. I returned to the office a couple of days later and they had the crate parts made up. I removed all the parts to make the bike as small as I could (front wheel, mudguard, screen, mirrors, and handlebars) and wasn't looking forward to putting this lot back together. I was quite impressed with how small the final crate actually was (66Wx192Lx116H, total weight 250kgs including luggage and crate which was 60kgs), I really don't think they could have physically got it much smaller. Unfortunately we had to wait to get a flight booking and find out the final cost. I didn't get this until late Thursday afternoon and as TAC amazingly didn't take Visa, I had to take out the full amount in cash. My final bill was 30,500THB (around $900) which was a little cheaper than I originally thought but still pretty expensive.

Finally on Friday morning, and once I knew that the bike was actually leaving, I ran around near my hotel trying to get a flight for myself to Nepal, eventually getting one for 10,000THB which was flying that afternoon. However despite my rush, as I knew they flew at 1pm, it was delayed by 3 hours. The guy who sold me the flight ticket told me I was 'man very hurry', and I guess he was right. It's sometimes a bit stressful dealing with shipping bikes and sorting out flights in such as short space of time that thats all you can focus on. Overall, since getting back to Bangkok last Monday, it's taken 2 full working weeks to get the bike on a plane. But it's finally done though.

Anyway, on to Nepal....!

Oh, and the final scores for Thailand are:
Overlander 4 : Bent coppers 0