16th October. Zero km.

This is just a short and quick recollection of the day. If I get a chance I’ll add more detail later.

Main plan today was for our merry band of travellers to take two tuk-tuks out to the ‘City Centre Mall’ to catch the 12:50pm screening of ‘The Martian’ as this was showing in English. We arrived at the top-level cinema but were then instructed to go downstairs to the box office to buy our tickets, and when we got there we were told that the movie had stopped screening yesterday. What a fail.

With no movie to go see, Karen & Claire went off to do some window shopping whilst Aad, Mike, Emiel and myself went to a bar that Emiel had spotted the day earlier. Emiel and I enjoyed a refreshing beer each, whilst Aad and Mike had their cokes. Karen and Claire joined us and we all ordered a late lunch. My pepperoni pizza was very tasty. When the food and drink bill came out we were all a bit surprised as the alcoholic drinks had attracted a 27% tax on top of the usual taxes – VAT tax and a service tax, so that was a bit steep.

After leaving the bar the rest of the gang made their way back to the hotel, whilst Karen and I stayed back so she could go to a hair salon for some pampering. Two hours later we also caught a tuk-tuk back to the Hotel Rajdarbar, enjoying the crazy night ride through the dense Siliguri traffic.

I wasn’t sure if our tuk-tuk driver was a bit stoned, and he was spitting continually outside the tuk-tuk. Spitting is a big thing here in India – it’s such a common practice I don’t think any of the locals either notice it occurring or are bothered, but it’s not a pleasant sight. When we’re riding we often see passengers spitting great globs out the window of their buses or jeep taxis. So far however we’ve been fortunate enough to have dodged being spat on ….

15th October. Zero km.

This is just a short and quick recollection of the day. If I get a chance I’ll add more detail later.

Went to the ‘City Centre Mall’ with Aad & Mike – all four of us squeezed into one tuk-tuk. Arriving at the mall we ventured into KFC and grabbed some lunch, then had a wander around the shopping centre. Karen and I spent some time looking in the Canon shop as she’s not that happy with the Nikon camera she bought recently – the shutter speed is too slow at 1/1600 to get decent photos as we’re riding along.

14th October. 220km return: Siliguri – West Sikkim – Siliguri.

The plan today was to ride the 110km from Siliguri to our guest house – the Red Mud Chalets – located off the beaten track in West Sikkim, and relax there for seven nights. Aad and Mike were going to ride up with us, and Emiel and Claire would join us at the chalets tomorrow as they are travelling a day behind us, having stayed an extra night in Varanasi.

We left Siliguri about 08:00am from memory, negotiating the crazy congested traffic full of buses and trucks and rickshaws and tuk-tuks and cows, and passed through the military base on the northern edge of town before entering the forest, noting the road sign that warned of elephants and stressed that they have right of way over cars.

Shortly afterwards the road started to climb into the mountains, twisting and turning its way upwards, and this is about where the silly Indian driving started. In one spot the road had narrowed to just one vehicle width, and two cars had ride to enter the narrow section from the opposite ends and had become log-jammed in the middle. Traffic was constantly piling up behind both of these cars, blocking them in so neither of them could reverse out even if they wished, which probably never entered their minds as the common view seems to be that you should never yield on the road, as exemplified by a bumper sticker on a jeep we saw that read “Better to die than drive like a coward”.

Our nimble bikes were able to pick a track around the obstruction and we we able to continue up the mountain, leaving the mass of blocked cars and trucks behind us, and we were able to enjoy the roads without any other vehicles for a fair while.

We crossed the bridge at Melli, entering Sikkim state, and were immediately stopped by police at a check-point requiring us to check-in at their office, showing our passports and permits to enter Sikkim. Formalities concluded we rode away.

The road deteriorated as soon as we entered Sikkim and whilst the route we were taking appeared as a sealed highway on our maps, in reality it was more of an unmade track than a sealed road in many places. We bumped over the rocks and slid through the muddy sections, dodging oncoming cars and trucks we could barely see through the thick clouds of white dust thrown up into the air. Hairpin bends on the road often signalled a shallow water crossing, and in the infrequent moments we were able to steal a glance to the side we could see the edge of the track and then a long steep drop to the river far below.

Progress was slow and hot, and we stopped in Jorethang to get a drink of water. A crowd quickly formed around us and looked at us all quite inquisitively, though unlike our experiences down on the plains here at least people weren’t touching the bikes which was a pleasurable change.

Long sections of the road were unsealed, and many of these had been turned into muddy quagmires. I haven’t done much riding in the mud but the heavy GSA seemed to revel in the conditions, never deflecting from its course. We were stopped at one point by a road gang loading rock into a truck – there were many crews working on the road in different places, but despite their best efforts the road was still in an abysmal state. Aad was quite vocal about the condition of the road – he couldn’t accept how a country could either call the track a main road or let it deteriorate to the condition it was in. As he pointed out – Mike and Karen & I had the luxury of riding off-road capable bikes whilst he was on his Triumph Bonneville – less than suited to the conditions.

We pushed on towards the turn-off to the chalets – Mike had plotted the locations of both the turn-off from the main road and also the chalets themselves which were about 15km down a private road, but we stopped in Legship when we realised that we’d missed the turn-off. We back-tracked across the bridge and found a little rocky track disappearing behind some huts on the side of the road, and we followed this up into the hills for a few hundred metres before Aad stopped next to a stationary 4×4 and asked the driver if we were on the right road. The driver hadn’t head of the Red Mud Chalets, Aad wasn’t convinced we were on the right track, and none of us were keen on pushing up the track. Aad’s back was hurting already from all of the bumping and jostling on the main road, and I could visualise the condition of the track getting much worse – too hard to warrant taking our heavy bike two-up along.

Back on the main road I plugged Mike’s coordinates into my GPS and it took us to another spot on the road where a side road should have joined us, but there was nothing but jungle to the side. We stopped to chat about our situation, and as we were talking I saw some locals walking up the road and then disappearing into the jungle, climbing up a steep path that had been cut into the cliff face that the jungle had obscured. That jungle path was the side road my Garmin India maps wanted us to take, but that wasn’t ever going to happen.

It was now somewhere between 2pm – 3pm and we had been riding for about six hours, and the decision was made to abort our attempts to get to the Red Mud Chalets today and look for accommodation elsewhere. If we could get a phone signal or wifi we’d be able to get more accurate routing information from the chalets and try again tomorrow.

We returned to the first major town further down the mountain – Jorethang – and Aad and I went to check out some hotels whilst Karen and Mike guarded the bikes. There were lots of places in the local vicinity labelled ‘Hotel’ but none of them offered accommodation, and Karen had been busy chasing kids away from the bikes, so we remounted and followed a small track down to a resort that was signposted near where we had parked.

The resort was just a few km out of town overlooking the river, and it looked like an abandoned mental asylum from the outside. I went inside and tried to get some sense from the man wandering around the lobby but couldn’t make myself understood. A young woman came down a hall into the lobby – she looked quite stupefied. I went outside and reported my findings to the others and we quickly agreed to move on to another town.

My GPS showed a heap of hotels about 10km south so we headed there in the falling light as the sun was now setting, but when we’d ridden the 10km we were still in the deep jungle. When I rechecked the GPS it showed that the straight-line distance to the hotels was just a few km, but they were 140km away via road as they were on the other side of the river…. duh !!!

We pushed on to Manpur in the dark. Traffic was still quite thick on the rough roads and I was grateful to have the spotlights on the GSA as they lit up the rocky terrain and mud holes much better. In Manpur again Aad and I went scouring for some accommodation but the only hotel in town didn’t have any secure parking for the bikes. Not happy with that, and with Siliguri only about 50km further south, we decided to return back to our starting point where we knew we could at least get a room and parking.

We stopped again at the police check-post at Melli and signed out of Sikkim, and then started to battle the crazy traffic driving up and down the mountain in the darkness. The vast majority of vehicles here in India don’t have any working brake lights or tail lights, and it was a manic ride down the hill, dodging trucks and cars and potholes.

It was about 8pm when we finally arrived back at our hotel. We’d been riding for almost twelve hours and were all quite exhausted from the experience. We were absolutely filthy – we’d been riding with our visors up to try and see through the clouds of dust and our faces were black, and our riding gear was covered in dust and soaked with sweat. We unloaded the bikes and collapsed on the lounges in the hotel foyer, bags strewn around us on the floor.

Showered and changed into clean clothes we rejoined Aad and Mike in the hotel restaurant for dinner. We hadn’t eaten through the day and were famished, and our meal was especially enjoyed as we’d managed to ride out to Sikkim and return safely – even if at times through the day we’d faced some big obstacles.

Karen and I both agreed that whilst our off-road riding in Albania was the most extreme riding we’ve ever done – today’s off-road ride in Sikkim and back was a clear second choice. I can’t credit our bike enough – fully loaded and with rider and pillion it ate up the conditions. I’m sure the TKC-80 tyres also played a major part in keeping us upright throughout the day – the bike and tyres are the perfect combination for two-up travelling.

Friday 9th October.

With a lot to see here Karen and I decided last night to arrange a few tours so that we could see as much of Varanasi as possible in a single day, so our schedule for today was:

05:00am – morning boat ride

Daytime – Sarnath tour

05:30pm – evening boat ride

The features of these tours were:

Morning Boat Ride:

• Subah-e-banaras:morning ceremony
• Circle of life and death
• Hindu pilgrims from all over India
• Experience spirituality and calmness

→ boat ride starts from Assi ghat at 5 :30 am

Sarnath Tour:

• Place, where Lord Buddha gave his first sermon
• Dhamekh Stupa
• Temples from different cultures, styles, and religions
• One the biggest standing statue of Buddha in India
• Archaeological museum

Evening Boat Ride:

• Dashashwamedh Ghat (main Ghat with pilgrims from all over the world)
• Aarati (Ceremony for goddess Ganga)

→ boat will stay for the whole ceremony

→ boat ride evening tours starts from assi ghat – 5 :30 pm

Our day started at 04:15am when the alarm went off, and at 04:30am we were met out the front of our hotel by Prasann, half of the ‘Varanasi Behind’ team. Prasann led Karen and I down to Assi Ghat, about 2km south of our hotel, where he explained aspects of the daily Hindu religious ceremony we would get to see, being performed by seven Brahman priests. The ceremony commenced with four or five girls changing mantras in a sing-song voice before the priests climbed up on the raised benches upon which sat the accruements of their ceremony, and commenced the ritual – which involved a complicated set of repetitive actions performed with incense and then fire, rotating through the four main compass points.

Just before the ceremony started we were relegated from our front row seats to the second row, and this made the viewing more difficult as we peered around the shoulders of people who came in late and took up the vacant front row … grrrr.

Ceremony concluded, we climbed onto an awaiting wooden boat, and the oarsman slowly rowed us downstream whilst Prasann pointed out the numerous ghats built along the bank of the Ganges and explained their history. We got as far north as the burning ghat, at which point we turned around and dispensing with the oars the boatman cranked up his engine and we putt-putted back to our starting point.

Back on shore Prasann led us a short distance to the Ashish Cafe where we parted ways, leaving Karen and I to enjoy our breakfast of omelettes and home-made toast, and a Nutella pancake. Ricky – the owner of ‘Varanasi Behind’ – met us as we were getting ready to leave, and arranged to pick us up at our hotel at 09:00am so we could go out to Sarnath, for the second of our tours.

Our trip out to Sarnath was a chaotic ride through the morning traffic, made more interesting with Ricky explaining things about Varanasi and India in general, and made more safe by virtue of the 4×4 we were travelling in. Sarnath is a village about 13km north of Varanasi, and its main claim to fame is that it is the place where Buddha delivered his first sermon, to five disciples he had assembled. Arriving in Sarnath we first visited a selection of Buddhist temples that had been built by various countries for the benefit of their pilgrims – including the Tibet Buddhist Monestary, Japanese, Chinese and Sri Lankan Temples. Adjacent to the Sri Lankan temple is the deer park, in which is situated the tree (not the original tree as this was destroyed, but a regrown tree from stock of the original tree that had been taken to Sri Lanka) under which Buddha delivered his first sermon.

We had hoped to see also the Sarnath archeological museum, but being Friday the museum was closed which was unfortunate as I was very keen to see the Lion Capital of Ashoka, but bad timing put paid to that idea 🙁

This from Wikipedia:

“The Lion Capital of Ashoka is a sculpture of four Indian lions standing back to back, on an elaborate base that includes other animals. A graphic representation of it was adopted as the official Emblem of India in 1950.[1] It was originally placed atop the Aśoka pillar at the important Buddhist site of Sarnath by the Emperor Ashoka, in about 250 BCE.[2] The pillar, sometimes called the Aśoka Column, is still in its original location, but the Lion Capital is now in the Sarnath Museum, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Standing 2.15 metres (7 feet) high including the base, it is more elaborate than the other very similar surviving capitals of the pillars of Ashoka bearing the Edicts of Ashoka that were placed throughout India.”

Returning to our hotel around midday we parted ways with Ricky and met Aad and Mike for lunch. Our afternoon was spent napping as we’d had two early mornings, and about 5:20pm Prasann met us again to take us out to Assi Ghat for our evening boat ride up the Ganges to Dashashwamedh Ghat, where we would join other people to watch the evening Hindu ceremony, either from their boats or from the crowded river bank.

When we arrived by motor boat at the ghat the boatman manoeuvred his wooden craft into position by pushing and pulling it around the throng of other boats lashed together, and then tied up so that we wouldn’t drift away. Other boats arriving after us did the same thing, and soon the river was turned into a floating dock, with hawkers selling photos or chia or offerings hopping and skipping from boat to boat as they plied their goods.

The evening ceremony followed the same pattern as the morning ceremony we had seen earlier at the Assi Ghat, but with a touch more vibrancy and noise, and a much larger crowd of pilgrims and tourists taking in the sights and sounds. By 7:00pm the thirty minute ceremony was concluding, and the boatmen quickly untied their boats so that they could start to motor or row their way back. Getting away quickly from the ghat we had one of the few motor boats out on the river that evening and we made good time back to Assi Ghat, where Ricky joined us as we jumped back onto dry land, and led us to a nearby chai house for a cup of Indian tea. A young girl – just ten years of age – was fascinated by Karen and I as we stood and drank our tea, so I chatted with her a little, learning that she was on holidays from Bihar.

Tea concluded and payment made for our three tours, Karen and I caught a rickshaw back to our hotel where we met Aad and Mike for dinner, before starting to watch James Bond’s ‘Skyfall’ on the Mac. Halfway through I was knackered enough to fall asleep, and so concluded our Varanasi sightseeing day.

Wednesday 7th October.

After crunching out 465km in seven hours yesterday in our ride from Agra to Allahabad and with only an additional 130km between here and Varanasi, the plan was to have to have a rest & recreation day in Allahabad today.

Trip Advisor gave us a few suggestions on things to see in Allahabad – the number #1 suggestion is to visit the Triveni Sangam – the confluence of three holy rivers – the Ganges, Yamuna, and the mystical Saraswati River. Another top-ranking suggestion was to visit Anand Bhavan – the residence of the Nehru family, India’s first prime minister.

Our kind hosts at Kunjpur Guest House arranged for Deepu – a local tuk-tuk driver – to take us out on our sightseeing adventure, and so after a late breakfast we climbed aboard our electric tuk-tuk about 10:00am, bound for Sangam.

The drive to Sangam was nothing short of an adventure in its own right. Driving here in India is absolutely manic, and Allahabad is right up there in terms of craziness.

As we approached Sangam a number of guys on the side of the street kept on calling out to Deepu but he just responded with what sounded like ‘locals’ and kept on driving. We dropped down to the river flat and passed by a small tent city, perhaps temporary home to some of the pilgrims who had travelled to Allahabad to visit this holy place. Many pilgrims were sitting on the side of the track that led down to the beach, empty food bowls placed on the ground in front of them.

Deepu brought the tuk-tuk to a stop and we got out, and were instantly swamped by people selling offerings and other momentos. Deepu shooed them away, and introduced us to a boat operator who initially requested 1500INR for the row-boat out to the confluence. Our hosts had recommended we pay no more than 500INR and after a few rounds of bargaining the operator eventually agreed to the 500.

Another man – Sameed – led us to a wooden boat, and with a lightweight covering arched over the deck to provide some shade from the hot sun, and jostled and pushed the boat out between a throng of other boats tied up to each other, and out into the river. Sameed rowed us out towards the confluence, easily 500m away from the shore, and after a while I was invited to take one oar and join him in the rowing, which I did.

There were a lot of boats tied up together and forming an arc along the confluence of the rivers – the green Yamuna and clear Ganges. We bumped into one of the boats and tied up to it, and then crossed over to the larger boat. We were offered some form of coconut (perhaps) to eat, but we’d been advised to decline any offers of goods lest we get stung with an unreasonable cost. Sameed went in for a dip in the water – it’s been said that Hindu’s have a bath here to flush away all of one’s sins and free themselves from the cycle of rebirth.

It was hot in the sun out on the water and I couldn’t resist the temptation to flush away my sins so I stripped down to my jocks (thank goodness I was wearing some today) and climbed over the side of the boat and into the water. To my surprise I found myself standing on a submerged platform that had been stung between two boats, providing some safety as the Ganges flows very quickly, and the Yamuna is very deep – about forty feet at this point. Sameed gestured for me to hold onto a short rope and then immerse fully into the water which I did. Karen was watching all the time and quickly decided to join us in the water, dunking and all! It was a great experience and we felt very privileged to have had the opportunity to visit this holy place and participate in some of the rites.

On the way back to shore it was Karen’s turn to help Sameed with the rowing for a while, and she put in a sterling effort. Sameed only spoke a little English but we gathered that he was just an employee of the boat operator, so we tipped him separately for his contribution to our wonderful trip out on the river, and then once back on dry land I paid the operator the 500INR as previously agreed.

We walked up the sandy river bank back to our tuk-tuk and a young boy approached Karen holding a round tin. He opened the lid and revealed the contents – initially Karen thought it was a large bangle but she soon realised that it was a snake, coiled up inside the tin. She jumped away from it and quickly climbed onto the tuk-tuk, eager to get away from the snake. A short distance later we were passing a stationary bus full of pilgrims and another boy was walking past the bus holding up his tin which had a cobra sitting up in it with its flared hood, showing it to the bus passengers. Karen was horrified when she made the connection that the snake in the tin had also been a cobra. I can see I have some work to do before I can convince her to come and visit Chhota Poshla with me – the snake village in north-east India that has 3,000 people and 6,000 cobras living in it.

We made our way from Sangam to Anand Bhavan, stopping for an ice cream outside this historic house before going into the grounds, but once inside we realised that the house was closed for lunch between 12:45 and 1:30pm, so we went back to see Deepu, who took us to visit a local park and then ‘Eat-On’ – a very popular street side food stall that sold nothing but simple and tasty plates of biryani, either chicken or mutton. The three of us took our trays of biryani and stood in the shade of the trees along with all the other diners, enjoying our lunch.

Returning to Anand Bhavan, Karen and I enjoyed browsing through this stately home and looking at the historical artefacts on display. After a while Deepu joined us and led us to a seperate building that I hadn’t taken much notice of before, but which contained a small but fascinating collection of photographs taken of Nehru.

Upon returning to our guest house we were met at the gate by one of the staff members who announced that two of our friends had arrived – the father and son – and when we stepped inside we were pleased to see Aad and Mike, who had just arrived from Agra having left there earlier today. In conversation with the guys they had actually booked to stay at the Raka Inn on an adjacent street – but when they arrived there no one could speak English and they were turned away and directed towards our guest house. When the arrived at the Kunjpur they looked through the gates and they could see the big BMW parked outside so they figured out that they had found us 🙂

Now it’s just a bit past 5:00pm and we’ve arranged to have dinner with Aad and Mike at 7:00pm. I’ve finished my blogging for today and Karen is working hard as usual on her photos – that’s a big job that consumes a lot of her off-bike time. Tomorrow we’ll head off to Varanasi and experience more of ‘Incredible India’. I’ve heard some people say that you will either love India or hate it – it’s such a crazy, vibrant, noisy, fascinating place that you can’t help but fall in love with it – despite all of its contradictions and challenges. “Varanasi – we’re coming for you!!!”

465km. 7 hours (inc 1 x 20 minute drink stop + 1 x refuelling stop). 1 bump.

Today was intended to be a stretch goal and it pretty much worked out that way. Looking at our maps yesterday Kanpur – at a distance of 280km east of Agra – seemed to be a reasonable goal for the day, but I wanted to put in a big day on the bike and do some big miles, so Allahabad at 460km from Agra seemed like the place to aim for. I’d tracked down what looked like a decent guest house in Allahabad- the Kunjpur Guest House – 2,300INR/night for two nights and featuring our number one requirement – secure parking for the bike.

We were up at 6:45am and ready to go by 7:30am. Aad and Mike are staying in Agra another day so Mike can see the doctor about his poisonous spider bite, and Claire and Emiel were having a late start to the day, so by 7:50am we were waving goodbye to our hosts Anil and Sanjdha.

Yesterday I’d shifted one ram mount for the GoPro from the left hand side crash bars high up near the tank to a spot near the right hand cylinder head to get some low-down video and the GoPro was running when we left the guest house, and whilst I got some photos that showed the potential of that new location the camera stopped operating soon after we got on the road and so unfortunately we didn’t capture any video of our ride, which was about 90% easy-going (if you can describe riding on India’s highways as ‘easy’, and 10% freaking manic – half of which was like trying to ride through Perth’s annual Christmas Pageant. More on that later. 

Our early start helped us get through Agra’s streets without any great hassles, but I was a bit cautious when passing factory we’d seen a couple of days ago that’s now been over-run with monkeys, and sure enough a monkey shot across the street just behind us as we rode past.

We needed to refuel to get to Allahabad so I planned for a refuelling stop somewhere between 100-120km into the ride, and somewhere within that range we pulled over at a deserted petrol station to fill up. Within seconds we had a small crowd gathering around us, so we were pleased to get the 18 litres of fuel onboard and get back onto the four-lane highway. 

Most of the scenery consisted of rural settings – flat, cultivated land with a smattering of farm buildings here and there. The highway was generally separated from the towns and villages we passed through by the service roads that ran parallel to the highway and which kept the local traffic off the main road. These towns and villages were a shambolic collection of old buildings, tent-villages and humpties, all with cows and water buffaloes and goats and dogs wandering around in the dust and the rubbish on the sides of the road. 

In Auriya there was no such service road system and the highway entered the town, with the highway branching left and the GPS telling me to continue down the right-hand fork to stay on the NH2. I peeled off right and within a short distance we entered a very narrow and congested road that was overflowing with people and bicycles and trolley carts loaded with brightly-coloured bangles for sale. I clipped one trolley with a pannier whilst dodging oncoming traffic and that gave the kid sitting on the empty trolley a bit of a start, but I wasn’t going to stop and chat about it so we pushed on deeper and deeper into the mass of people and obstacles. I was hoping to get some good video footage of the shoulder-to-shoulder riding conditions we were in as it was quite insane, but once again and again when I most wanted to get some footage the GoPro has cracked the sads and stopped working. Bad GoPro 🙁

The roadside opened up a fraction and we found ourselves riding through a market place dedicated purely to the buying and selling of colourful bangles. The street was lined with trolleys packed high with bangles, in every colour imaginable. We bounced along the rough dusty track that the road had deteriorated into, squeezing between the bangle buyers and sellers, and dodging the scooters and motorbikes riding straight for us.

The little road eventually rejoined the highway and we got back up to a decent riding speed and chipped away through the miles towards Allahabad. About 40km out of our destination the GPS again told us to veer right, and again the road narrowed and became congested, this time with trucks and buses and cars and erratic tuk-tuks. Our GPS route took us towards the High Court which must have just adjourned for the day as the road outside was full of penguins carrying briefcases and riding two-up on scooters back to their offices. We turned north and quickly entered a quiet residential area, and soon afterwards pulled up at where our guest house was marked on the GPS, but we couldn’t see it. A man on the side of the road offered us his help and was able to point out the Kunjpur Guest House just 100m further down the quiet road, so we were both grateful that we’d found our accommodation after the gruelling ride through the town.

The guest house was a three storey mansion, with balconies overlooking the immaculate gardens out the front, surrounded by a high wall and gates that separated us from the street. Our room on the first floor overlooked the gardens, and from our balcony we could look down onto the bike parked below.

We showered and then went downstairs for a late lunch – a delicious thali. We met our host – Dr Nigam, and Sharmila – the lady who has just started to manage the guest house for Dr Nigam. We sat with Sharmila over lunch and chatted about our ride and our experiences, and she offered us a copy of ‘The Stoning of Sharia” – a movie she had watched recently and which she’d found quite forceful.

The late afternoon was spent trying to research accommodation options in Varanasi and look for touristic things to do in Allahabad as we are here for another night and we are both keen to explore this town and learn more about it.india is fascinating – the more you dig the more you uncover about the place and its people.

We had a late dinner and then it was bed time as I was exhausted from the day. We did try and watch the latest edition of “On Any Sunday” – kindly offered to us by Mike a few days ago – but the volume was so low we couldn’t hear the commentary, so we’ll try and sort that out another time.

355km. 12 hours (inc stops. Approx 10 hours riding time).

The plan today was to ride from Amritsar to Chandigarh, pop into the Triumph dealership there and arrange an oil change for the bike, and then continue on to Shimla and the Hotel Chadwick View, where we have booked seven nights accommodation.

Google Maps suggested that it would take 4.5 hours to cover the 240km from Amritsar to Chandigarh, and an additional 3.5 hours to cover the 115km from Chandigarh to Shimla. As it was we were on the road for about 12 hours and it was a long, long day.

Claire and Emiel are travelling up to Shimla as well, so we all had breakfast at 08:00am at Mrs Bhandari’s Guest House, and were on the road about 09:00am. After negotiating the crazy traffic in Amritsar we picked up NH1 and started to make good progress towards Chandigarh. This national highway was three lanes wide (six in total) and we cruised along behind the Landcruiser, sitting on 100kmh, getting a little damp in the morning rain.

About midday we had a short break for a drink, and then it was back on the bike for the run down to Ludhiana where our GPS told us to leave the highway for Route 95. The traffic in Ludhaina started to get a bit manic, roadworks had ripped up the road, and my GPS chose this moment to have a fit – first repeating over and over the name of the road we needed to take, and then refusing to update the visual map. I pulled over so I could reboot the GPS, and after a quick chat with Emiel we pushed on, trading the relative calmness of the NH1 for a bit of bump and grind as we worked our way through the traffic and out onto the dual carriageway Route 95.

Chandigarh is a big city and it took us some time to make our way through it – one major road had a series of roundabouts on it and it quickly became obvious that the locals here either don’t know or don’t care about how to handle them, but we managed to steer through them unscathed and located the Triumph dealership I was looking for shortly afterwards.

Krishna Automobiles in Chandigarh is an umbrella company for BMW automobiles and Triumph motorcycles, and we parked in the BMW car park – with our motorcycle and the big Landcruiser immediately attracting attention from the staff in the showroom. Karen and I have become accustomed to the professionalism and courtesy extended by the various BMW dealerships we’ve visited during our travels, and Krishna Automobiles were no exception.

All four of us were looking pretty worn and ragged when we waltzed into the showroom, but we were quickly reclining on their comfy sofas, having a coffee and some biscuits as I explained my requirements to the Vice President – After Sales. We took a walk to the lower floor to see the Triumph mechanics as they assembled new Thunderbirds and 800XC’s straight out of the box and talked oils for a while, before heading upstairs again.

The four of us wandered across the road to the ‘Big Bazaar’ – a large, multi-storey shopping mall equivalent to what you would find in Joondalup – but even better as on the ground floor we passed a clothing store with a few Royal are fields in the window, a Harley Davidson showroom, and a beer hall selling 25 different kinds of beer. The Triumph showroom was just across the courtyard – Karen and I will have a look inside when we come back here next week.

We went upstairs to the food court and had our first KFC Zinger Burgers ™ in ages. The shopping mall was very busy, KFC even more so – full of young Indians eager for a taste of western culture.

We sauntered back to our vehicles, mounted up and headed off in the drizzle, passing a shanty town of tarpaulins and raggedly-dressed children just a short distance away from the ritzy shopping mall – a stark contrast if ever we’ve seen one.

It wasn’t long before we started up the Himalayan Highway – Route 22 towards Shimla. It was late in the afternoon when we left Chandigarh, and as soon as we started to climb up the foothills the going got much slower with the road shrinking to two lanes (total), and a lot of slow trucks ahead of us. The driving became quite frenetic along here in a dog-eat-dog style – if you weren’t prepared to risk your life and overtake the vehicle in front then you’d get eaten up by all the cars and buses and trucks coming from behind as they had no qualms about overtaking around blind bends and into oncoming traffic.

The wet and mud-slicked road surface didn’t help improve my disposition, and it was a battle of nerves to keep on pushing on, and the distance markers to Shimla ticked down painfully slowly. In Solan we pulled over to try and call the Hotel Chadwick View to tell them we were on our way – as the hotel had requested this – and to briefly chat with Emiel and Claire and see how they were going. It was almost dark at this stage and we still had about 46km to go – it was evident we were going to arrive quite late into Shimla.

The traffic lightened up a bit after Solan, but it just takes one erratic truck to ruin your day and I was constantly on tenterhooks, at times unable to see the edge of the road on my left through my rain-smeared visor, and being dazzled by the lights of oncoming vehicles. For most of the time I rode with my visor up, ingesting clouds of thick diesel smoke belched out by passing trucks.

Our hotel was a few km north of Shimla, and the road into it was broken and pot-holed. Emiel drove down the steep, twisting track first and I followed cautiously behind, tired from the long day and unable to fully sight the curve of the hairpin bends in the darkness as the lights of the bike just shone straight ahead. The track became even more broken up and it became a bit of a night-time off-road adventure ride in places.

I was relieved, and the others were as well I think, to finally arrive at the Hotel Chadwick View, but it wasn’t long before elation turned to gloom when we inspected our rooms and found out that the ‘deluxe rooms’ we’d reserved online lack basic things like showers. We managed to get upgraded to rooms that featured western toilets as the first rooms just had squat toilets, but even then the rooms were very primitive.

The hotel manager arrived in his zippy little car and he whizzed me back almost all the way back to Shimla so I could get some beer and water for the four of us as we all needed a drink, whilst his wife prepared some basic food for us. The drive back up the hill verged on the terrifying – Colin McCrae and his WRC driving buddies have nothing on an Indian in a hurry.

Emiel was asleep when I returned, struck down with the gut-rot he’d been battling with all day, so Claire came upstairs where Karen and I were, and we drank beer and chatted whilst we waited for dinner to be served and which arrived at 11:30pm.

We chatted a bit more after dinner and then it was time for bed, but not for sleep as first Karen got the heebie-jeebies from a big spider in our bedroom, so we shifted to another bed in another cubicle in our odd apartment, and there she got attacked by bed bugs or something, so it was after 02:30am before we finally settled down to sleep.

It had been a very long day, but I was pleased that we’d managed to get some things organised in Chandigarh for the bike. I would have preferred to have reached Shimla in daylight to have enjoyed the scenic view on the way and to have had a safer ride – this road features in the TV series “Ice Road Truckers – World’s Deadliest Roads – India” – and having ridden it in the wet and the dark I’m happy to tick the box and not do it again.

Tomorrow we’re going to relocate to another hotel – the Chadwick View isn’t turning out to be the relaxing locale we had anticipated, and none of us would survive a week here.

Up just after daybreak, Karen and I had a leisurely swim in the pool at Mrs Bhandari’s Guesthouse, and then it was time for breakfast with Claire & Emiel, all before 09:00am when our air conditioned van booked to take us on a sightseeing tour of Amritsar arrived.

We first stopped at Maharaja Ranjit Singh Panorama…..it was very interesting although a bit confusing at times. We saw exhibitions including the Golden Temple and the acquisition of the original Koh-I-Noor (1814). Fascinating to make the connections, even with Iran.

Next we were driven to Jallianwala Bagh memorial park – dedicated to the memory of the locals massacred by British troops in 1919. The massacre of hundreds of unarmed, defenceless Indians by British Brigadier General Reginald Edward Harry Dyer on 13th April 1919 at Jallinwala Bagh was a sad day. Under the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Dyer deployed his riflemen near the entrance without warning or order to disperse, they opened fire for 20minutes. 1650 rounds of ammunition was fired and 379 officially killed with 1200 wounded in a crowd of around 20,000. The park is very popular with locals, and it was a somber experience walking through it – seeing first a plaque denoting where the troops fired from, and a couple of hundred metres away a brick wall pock-marked with bullet holes. Nearby was ‘Martyrs Well’ – in an effort to avoid the gunfire many people jumped into this deep well, and after the carnage 120 bodies were retrieved from the well – all people who had drowned.

From here we travelled a short distance to the Silver Temple, Shri Durgiana Tirath – a copy of Amritsar’s Golden Temple. Placed strategically in the middle of the city, pilgrims flock to this temple not only from India but also from abroad. Over the years, it has become an epicenter of Hindu renaissance and rejuvenation. The complex is popularly known as “the Durgiana” and derives its name from the Goddess Durga. This connection with Goddess Durga has a socio cultural references as she is normally invoked for protection and health while the soldiers go to war. The sacred city of the Amritsar which was founded by the fourth Sikh Guru Ram Dass ji has come to assume a special significance in Hindu cosmology because of various mythical and historical connections. Amritsar is particularly nearer and dearer to Hindus as it is believed that the Lov-Kush along with their mother Mata Sita spent their early childhood in the ashram of Bhagwan Maharishi Balmiki ji in the land of Amritsar.

Not finished with temples, we then visited a Hindu Temple that was so outlandish that I would struggle to describe it, (Mandriva Mata Lal Devi). Perhaps if you imagined a cross between Adventure World and a temple you may come close – but even that isn’t close enough. We climbed up stairs through the multi-level temple arcade, climbing through narrow gaps that simulated the internals of an animal (I think ….) and then through the gaping mouth of a larger-than-life lion. For those of you familiar with sideshow alley at the Perth Royal Show, it was like a trip through the Ghost Train, with something new and exciting around every corner.

Lunch was enjoyed at a nice restaurant – my rogan josh was spicy and brought up a sweat, and it’s good we checked our change as that was quite short, and in the afternoon we went looking at the “Bazzar”….which turned out to be more of a shop to shop affair by our driver who may or may not have got a kickback. In any case we did end up finding a cool and tropical “Kurta” for Karen….inspired by Claire. Back at our guest house we had a swim and a few alcoholic drinks which haven’t had for the last 3 months….a relaxing finish to the afternoon.

Tomorrow we will move on again – this time to Shimla, for what should be a rest for a week or so. We’re all looking forwards to that !!!

0km.

Up at 07:30am, just in time to wish Martin safe travels before he headed off to Shimla, and after a pleasant breakfast of porridge and toast we went back to bed til midday as we were both bushed from our day yesterday, and the accumulated effect of travelling consistently over the past six months, moving on to a new location almost every day.

We met Claire and Emiel under the cool shade of the outdoor dining area, and sat around for the afternoon chatting and working on our computers. We’ve arranged to take a tour tomorrow around Amritsar so that will be cool.

Late in the afternoon we heard a ruckus outside, and the guesthouse staff opened the side gate to see what was happening. A parade was coming up the side street – led by a military band and then followed by a ute with massive speakers blaring out music, and then a crowd of people dancing in the street, followed by a horse drawn cart carrying the statue of a deity being worshipped. We were all taken into the group and had a dance with the people, much to their delight.

A short while before sunset we all caught a tuk-tuk out to the Golden Temple (Bhai Mati Das) Amritsar’s number 1 attraction. After donning headscarfs or bandanas, leaving our shoes at the counter, and washing our hands and feet we entered the temple complex and had a great time walking around the pool that surrounds the Temple. Soothing music was playing over the loudspeakers, and the place felt very serene and mellow.

Claire and Emiel had previously visited the Golden Temple yesterday along with Martin in the middle of the afternoon and had commented that it was very hot and very bright with the white marble reflecting the sunlight quite harshly, and the music was more frenetic during their visit, so they thoroughly enjoyed seeing the temple this evening.

After a slow wander around the temple we caught a tuk-tuk to the nearby Brother’s Restaurant, after reading good reviews in Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor. Our vegetarian meals didn’t disappoint, and for 1,000 INR (approx AU$20 total for four people, including drinks) it was great value.

Our tuk-tuk ride home stopped by at a bottle shop so that Karen could treat herself to a bottle of scotch, and for now we’re all relaxing in the cool garden.

Tomorrow we’ll go sightsee in Amritsar – including the site of the 1919 massacre that led to the downfall of the Raj. The following day we’re off to Shimla for some well-earned R&R