We're On Our Way

Monday 10-6-08

I am writing this Monday evening before we begin our push into Nepal tomorrow morning. This will be a quick summary of the events since Thursday night.

On Friday the third, we had a busy day getting the final bike rental details worked out, hitting an ATM at Citibank downtown as we needed to put down half of the rental agreement in cash, and buying mobile phones that will work all over India and can also be used to call home. After a nice dinner at our favorite restaurant, we all adjourned to our rooms in Delhi. We are being accompanied by a chase vehicle with a driver/mechanic and a second mechanic riding shotgun to keep things running smoothly.

On Saturday morning the bikes were delivered to the hotel and after a two block test ride on the bikes, the India Butt Busters were in launch mode.

Mechanic Mukesh led on a bike with Sanjay herding us from the back with a Toyota SUV. They did a good job keeping us together and many of our previous night’s worries went out the window as we fit into the giant, three dimensional jigsaw puzzle that is Delhi traffic. It was noon when we started out and the temps were in the 90s, so we were all soon drenched in sweat as we zigged and zagged our way out of town. At one point a tut tut (moto rickshaw) and I literally got tangled up. My right leg was trapped between the two vehicles with my crash bars wedged into his frame. Sanjay was soon there to pull the back of the bike away from the tut tut, but the bike was still stuck. After lots of pushing and pulling I was free with virtually no damage to the bike other than few scratches on the crash bar, a tiny dent in the tank, and a floppy mirror that eventually fell off. I caught the mirror and jammed it into my partially open jacket as I bounced across a stone and dirt “diversion” while dodging an on coming farm tractor.

Organized chaos is how I characterize the traffic here. If you follow the “rules” you will be ok. The Number One Rule: your size determines the pecking order; honor anything bigger than you. Number Two: announce yourself with your horn. We probably all honked our horns more on Saturday than we have in the last ten years!!

I think we all took the road shoulder more than once in the 180 miles we rode on our first day. Unfortunately, the shoulders are not that user friendly. Sometimes it is dirt and rock, other times powdery soil or sand, punctuated with whoop-de-doos. Sometimes the road is no longer paved and the tarmac begins off to your left, so you bounce over and start again. One diversion got us onto one side of a four lane, but we missed the crossover to get back on our side of the road and we were now riding the wrong way on a four lane divided highway!! But this is not an unusual thing here--you often meet other motorized vehicles bucking traffic; it is a subset of traffic that exists and you must take that into account with the mix of traffic that is moving in the same direction you are. We had a few close ones: Jean felt a pedestrian’s hand glance off her hand on the left grip and Bill brushed an oncoming truck with his shoulder and felt the lug nuts of the front wheel on the side of his leg.

Due to a communication glitch with our drivers and their boss, we ran out of daylight about 55 kilometers from our destination. We now had to factor night driving in to the equation. A lot of the vehicles you could see in daylight now became invisible, and cows, carts, bicycles, pedestrians and who knows what else do not have lights. The oncoming traffic blinds you and you hold your course and follow the taillight of the bike in front of you. Forty kilometers per hour (25 mph) is the absolute maximum and we were probably average about 30 kph. We eventually got the chase vehicle to lead as he could see the obstructions in the road with two headlights much better than we could with the bikes. After dark, the cows which were upright earlier now sleep on road to add to the mix, The most interesting road kill we saw was a monkey.

We finally arrived at our destination near the Corbett Tiger Refuge and settled into a very nice resort. The day was hot and dusty, and we all looked like we had just come in from working in a coal mine; the pollution and road grime was evident on all of our faces.

We all hope not to repeat the mistake of night riding again; we knew it was a no-no, but circumstances sometimes trump common sense. This time we were successful and we hope that the first day out will be the worst of the trip, but time will tell. The learning curve was steep and we are looking forward to entering Nepal tomorrow afternoon.

While here at the Corbett River View Retreat along the Kosi River north of Ramnagar, we have taken a “jeep” tour into the park to look for tigers (did not see any but saw lots of deer and monkeys) and an elephant “joy ride” for an hour along the road south of our hotel.