> Well I’ve now been in India for a week and this is the first time I’ve been able to get an internet connection! This means that I’ve got quite a bit to tell you about what we’ve done since we’ve been here. When I say we, I mean myself and my two room mates I met on the first day.
So let’s start there. I flew from Heathrow on Sunday 24th Jan, arriving in Mumbai on Monday 25th. We then had a short flight from Mumbai to Goa. On arriving in Goa I then had my first taste of India with a hot and dusty bus ride which took about an hour to the hotel where we stayed for the first 2 nights.
Here I met Les and Paul for the first time. Les is from Liverpool and Paul is from Hertfordshire. It felt a bit like going into the Big Brother house for the first time and meeting the new house mates.
On the Tuesday we had our first outing on the bikes. A short 35km run to Arambol Beach and back. This gave us chance to get to know the bikes and in particular the unusual gear and rear brake setup. For any of you that don’t know the Royal Enfield has the brake and gears the opposite way to other bikes, so getting used to changing gear with my right foot was a bit of challenge to begin with. The fact that my bike had a fuelling problem and the clutch was slipping didn’t help!
Wednesday was our first long ride of approximately 160km from Country Clube De Goa in Anjuna to San Francisco Beach Huts at Palolem Beach. Going through the towns of Ponda, Molem, Kolem, Netrolem and Canacona. This broke us in gently while we still accustomed ourselves to the bikes. The roads were mainly tarmac with a small off road section of loose gravel and sand. As we were room mates Les, Paul & I agreed to team up and ride together. The beach huts when we arrived were, well, I’ll let you decide for yourself from the pictures. However, the beach was beautiful and after taking a dip in the sea, we sat and watched the sunset with a beer around the campfire, while ‘Doc’, one of the medics, played the guitar and sang.
Thursday was a 250km trip Murudeshwar, visting the towns of Karwar, Ankola, Yana, Osakambi, Sirsi, Kumla. Les had a small spill and broke the brake lever and bent his foot rest but other than that we managed to stay on route saw some beautiful scenery and arrived in Murudeshwa around 5pm. The Hotel here was luxury compared to the beach huts we had stayed in the night before. Murudeshwa was a small town with a picturesque bay and also has the largest Shiva staue in the world. That was an amazing sight.
On Friday morning we took off from Murudeshwa at 7.30am heading for the town of Shimoga. The trip was a gruelling 200km with the majority of that on some very arduous rough mountain roads. I’m talking about large, loose stoney roads with sharp up and down hill inclines. It was Pauls turn to have an ‘off’ and he hurt his thigh and chest in the process. Fortunately Les was right behind him and helped him out until the medics arrived.I had gone on in front and was unaware what was happening behind me. I waited at the next stop for about an hour until they turned up. We visited the largest falls in India, Jog Falls and the towns of Sagar and Ayannur. In Sagar Paul broke down and within minutes we were surrounded by curious locals. The rest of the journey went well and we arrived in Shimoga around 5.30pm. This town doesn’t usually see tourists and so we got a lot of inquisitive stares. After dinner we went into the town on a Tuk Tuk and we also experienced a local barber as you can see by my hair. The head message that barber also offered was very relaxing after the day we had had.
Shimoga to Kalasa, a trip of 180km was Saturdays journey. The roads we better today and we went through the towns of Muthodi, Balehonnur, Magundi. No accidents but Les’s bike broke down 3 times which put us back about 2 hours. Again we saw some unbelievable scenery and arrived at our destination in the dark and on top of that I had no lights! I followed in one of the team leaders for the final 5km! We didn’t look around Kalasa as we were staying a few Km outside at a hillside resort. Here we had dinner and again sat around a campfire with the Doc playing the guitar. Dormitories was the nights sleeping arrangements and at around 1.30am I woke up to the sound of around 30 other blokes snoring!
Sunday took us from Kalasa to Mysore a journey of 250km. After the first 120km of mountain roads, twisting through the tea plantations, we stopped for lunch before heading out on to the highway. From there on it was fast main roads which enabled us to tank on. Passing through the towns of Mudigere, Belur and Hassan. At this point I would just like to say that we are getting used to the road system and rules here in India but none of us can believe it. The rules appear to be – drive on the left, sound your horn at anyone in front of you, overtake whenever you like even if something is coming the other way and pull out of junctions when there is traffic coming! It makes it very interesting and just a little scary at times. All the villages that we pass through the children come out to the side of the road to wave to us as we go by. They get really excited and are jumping up and down and smiling and waving. We arrived in Mysore city around 5pm at a very luxurious hotel. (nice to have a little comfort) We went straight out to see the illuminations at the palace and then back for dinner. After dinner Unicef gave us a presentation. Paul and Les then went to have a look around the city and I just chilled out and chatted to some of the other riders on the trip.
It is now Monday morning as I type this and we are not setting off until 12pm today. A shorter trip of 120km a head of us to The Jungle Huts,. Masinagudi. There is a safari park there and we are spending 2 nights, giving us a rest day before the last 4 days of approximately 300km per day.
That’s it for now, not sure if I will get another connection or not but if I do I will post some more. Please don’t forget the causes that I’m doing this for and any amount of donations will be fantastic. Thankyou.
Rich
No comments:
Post a Comment