BLOWN AWAY IN THIRTY DAYS

 
Tumbling back down into the heat before home.

Listening to ODE TO BILLIE JOE Bobby Gentry 1967

A cool chilling song about apathy and tragedy. A no.1 Billboard song that won a bunch of Grammy awards as well. If you're young have a first listen cos you're in for a treat, and if you're old revisit this great song and listen closely to the narrative... 

....just what did they throw off the

 Tallahatchie bridge?

Bobby Gentry was a female trailblazer that wrote 

and produced her own songs. Respect.

 

A TALE OF TWO HOTELS

I tear at  the velcro flaps and flick open the buckles on my boots. It's an effort to liberate their  stinking prisoners clad in three day socks out of their steaming Gorotex lair but the reward is oooh so good. I collapse backwards onto the bed in my filthy bike gear and stare at the usual smoke stained yellow ceiling. Ooooh we earnt this today. We've left the door open with the sun streaming in as it's a beautiful day and the view outside over the mountainside city of Shimla is stunning. There's a soft knock at the door and it's the well dressed middle aged concierge who organised the room for us... hmm, probably just more towels or something. He comes in and leads with,

 "very sorry but we have made a mistake you cannot stay and must leave".  

Oh oh !@#ck me now what.... 

As my body language envelopes him in a cloud of "WTF'  he becomes  agitated and his English worsens as he launches in multiple apologies and something about a 'form C'... whatever the !@#ck that is. Aaaargh! I glance about the room which is a explosion of luggage and filthy bike gear, all of which we have unpacked and lugged up two flights of stairs in the heat. Yeah nah not happy. Sigh... I've become the designated hotel organiser as Brian's pretty easy and I erm... have been around a bit more so I've gotta sort this. I launch into a annoyed diatribe in broken English to try and work out what the problem is while injecting constructive phrases such as "this is bullshit" but get nowhere . Seems he doesn't have a 'form C' or something. He offers to take us to another hotel to help us out and beckons I go back downstairs with him. Aaargh... I'm confused, so boots back on, and we stomp back down the marble stairs to the ground floor. At the bottom  he takes me to another counter not ten metres from his... huh? The guy behind this counter tells me that this side of the building is a totally different hotel and he has rooms for us... fifty percent more expensive. 

Whaaaat... what scamming bullshit is this... Ok here we go. 

I intimate that we ain't paying more so he offers to show us some rooms and we'll work something out. So he sends me back up the same stairs with the hotel porter/tip scammer and we turn left instead of right on the same balcony on the same floor as our first room... and look at a dead ringer for the room we're in, not twenty metres from where Brian's watching from the other room, but they want a shit load more money. Yeah nah. Back  down the stairs (I'm buggered now and really over it) and tell him we ain't paying more. He acts annoyed and gets snotty and after much huffing and puffing he sends me off with the porter again back up the same stairs, but another floor higher, to look at yet another identical room... actually a little nicer...but he'll do it for the original price... um... waaa... Ok... so back down the stairs, sign out of the first hotel, at the desk on the right, and sign into the second hotel, at the desk on the left... and then fill out the hallowed ' form C'... which is just a  photocopied form requesting the usual details, aaand which the other hotel ten metres away seems to be out of ......aaah this is India!

"Brian grab the gear, we're shifting hotels... 

...one floor up on the left!"

TIME'S A TICKING

We set off early from Naggar towards Shimla and stay right of the river off the main highway to avoid holdups from the multiple landslides. We have a great run in the cool morning air blasting along the narrow curvy road, passing through what seems a never ending village, always dodging multiple dogs cows and people going about their day. The road in India seems to be a multi purpose space to use for parking, unloading, washing cars, livestock grazing, sleeping dogs, chatting, path to school, and even for occasionally driving along! . The cool of the morning disappears as we work our way down towards Shimla and the mongrel  GPS directs us onto an obscure back way through the mountains. We zoom  off the highway and smash into a sparsely populated mountainous area and follow a tight narrow little road of which the majority is made up of broken concrete slab. The road is lined for a hundred kilometres or so with lines of huge trucks sitting idle and unattended which is kinda weird. It's hard bumpy work, mostly in second or third gear in the blazing sun and what villages we pass through appear to be doing it tough. Towards Shimla the road improves and it's a fun ride through never ending curves before finally locking into the usual traffic tetris above the city. Shimla is amazing place. It was the summer capital of India under British rule and was built in the mountainous forest to take advantage of the cooler conditions during summer. It is amazingly steep area with every building seemingly about to slide down the cliffs and a bit of a tourist magnet. We took an extra day there and hired a taxi to take us to a couple of sights. It has some quirky British architecture, views to die for, and a lengthy traffic free (so nice!) mall packed with dozens of cool touristy stores temples and cafes that runs for a kilometre or so along an upper ridge. 

On the scale of, 'would Marianne visit here' , always A tough goal to crack, it's definitely up there with Srinagar, Leh and Naggar!

So Brian's just conned me into eating one of the pastry things on the counter there... and now I'm waiting to see what happens...

Shimla is built into the sides of 

forested mountains and is stunning.

Importantly for the British, it's a lot cooler in summer!

They have a monkey reserve at the Shri 

Hanuman Jakhu statue. They're thieving 

little devils and pinch everything so I had 

to walk about with no glasses on so erm,

 I didn't see much!

Everybody gets a view, even while 

doing the washing.

The ridge top mall is spotless 

and oh so touristy.

Fook's your man for shoes.

Bloody monkeys everywhere... 

did I say I don't like monkeys?

Christ church built in 1857 stands above the ridge mall

and is the second oldest church in Northern India.

Ah, why wouldn't ya just sit and chat with 

these views and cool temperatures.

 Shri Hanuman Jakhu statue was built 

in 2010 and is 33 metres tall. It's built 

on the highest ridge in Shimla.

What is a bit silly is it's so large you can't actually 

get far enough away to photograph it properly...

kinda weird,

Ok, it's a dogs life. A bit of a snooze, the odd bum 

sniff, maybe a bit of a bark, turn a bin or two over

 aaaand back to sleep.

Love the shops.

Gandhi statue near the Christ Church was a magnet 

for photographers and selfies.

Tick tick tick...

We leave Shimla on Saturday with only five days before we fly out. We've booked Tuesday and Wednesday nights in Delhi (wow so organised Deano... unheard of!) to drop the bikes off and get to the airport. Sooo, lets fill the time right up and see if we can zoom down to Agra to see the Taj Mahal as well! Hmm tightish. Agra is a hot two day ride in India so Brian and I plot to ride to a city called Meerut half way on Saturday,  and then spend Sunday and Monday nights in Agra. It's a great ride zooming out of Shimla in the clear morning air and we make reasonable time while having fun dicing with the traffic. As we leave the mountains we're smashed once again by the heat and humidity down on the plains. It's Ok if you can keep moving, but this is India, with godzillions of people on the road,  with godzillions of reasons to hinder any traffic flow. The patience of India is amazing, no matter what the hinderance, the traffic just figures a way forward or around and keeps moving. 

No time or energy wasted on stress or abuse or carry on,  just a constant hand on the horn and an eye on the best way forward.  

We know nothing about our destination Meerut but figure we'll wing it and find a hotel when we get there. It's sooo hot and humid in the city when we arrive and we're forced to stop in the city centre at a servo and figure somewhere to stay. We are dripping with sweat in our ridiculous motorcycle gear as we smash booking.com into our 'now working' phones and try to find accommodation.  The city is, I guess, real India, a little off the tourist trail and has nearly two million population. It pulses with crawling horn blowing traffic, people, dust, animals and diesel fumes in suffocating energy draining humidity and heat. We find a Hotel on a busy road and dismount out front amongst the milling crowds and traffic. This certainly ain't no tourist area and we stand out like sore thumbs. I launch into hotel mode, check out rooms, and confirm a price with the hotel manager. Two thousand rupees, definitely Gst included, and no hot water as usual, buuut, it'll do. When it becomes time to pay, the ever easy Brian whips out his wallet and the hotel guy, seeing his chance, turns his back to me and  swiftly adds the Gst back on and asks for 2250.  Now 250 rupee is only five bucks... I know I know... buuut mate, we had a deal. I yell at him but he ignores me which winds me up a bit and when I do get in his face he denies Gst was ever mentioned, 

buuuullshit... 

aaah what the hell, I just burst out laughing, after all this is India! By now an assembled crowd of hangers on have appeared in the room watching proceedings, some of which then have the temerity to ask Brian for tips. (they won't come near me!) Huh? Brian, ever the practical sort tells them dryly, "you haven't done anything, why should I give you a tip?" when has me rolling with laughter on the bed as they all sheepishly file out. That night we walk a kilometre or so through wall to wall kamikaze tuk tuks, some with no lights, random food stalls erected anywhere, and milling crowds that line the road. We really stand out and are the subject of much staring curiosity but I get it, you don't see legs this white very often in backwoods India! The next morning we're keen to get going before the heat and pack the bikes early and are once again hit up for a tip to open the gates to get the bikes out... and so on and so on... it's India. 

Aaaarm... it looks better on the outside!

Everybody loves me nobody hates/eats me 

think I'll go and eat erm...plastic?

All this and no hot water for two grand....

... plus GST!

Meerut at night.

India just pulses after the sun goes down.

Listening to GOING UP THE COUNTRY Canned Heat 1968

OK we're getting weird here but this is such a silly happy travelling song! An old blues song from the 1920s, adapted and made all hippy by Canned Heat. I dare you not to smile and feel better after banging this one on. 

Jeez it's even got a flute going on in there!

This film clip's a ripper from the Woodstock era.

Tick tick

Its about 250 kilometres to Agra and it promises to be an easy enough ride in the heat. However the GPS chucks us another wobbly and zooms us back onto the back blocks of India which proves to be a bit of a  visual bonus. We zoom along through  backroads India passing villages and towns accompanied all along the road by fellow travellers on scooters, tractors, tricycles, motorbikes, bullock carts, bicycles and  even people on foot carrying loads on their head or back. The GPS mucks us about a bit but finally we hit the main toll road to Agra. Wow, so India have built this massive perfect multilane highway, heavily tolled even for motorbikes, to get tourists straight to Agra without having to wander off and see the real India... hmm. Because of the tolls there is very little local traffic and to be honest, although it's a boring ride, after getting smashed with so many terrible roads it's nice to relax without a truck or two trying to kill you!  When we arrive we get a little lost again looking for our flash hotel. (We've splashed out a bit this time!) With the mongrel GPS screaming 'recalculate recalculate', and me yelling helpful abuse at it, the precious piece of electronic crap gets it's revenge by directing us down a backstreet and through a couple of huge pools of what smelled pretty much like untreated sewage... aaaargh... before depositing us at the door of the magnificent Double Tree Hilton Agra... smelling pretty wiffy with muddy sewagey boots and days of sweat from the open road... ah well... 

...hi there, we're from Australia, 

yes we have a booking!

Along the back country roads

A roof and seats would be good.

Ok lads put the sticks down.

 AGRA

So we've all seen pictures of the Taj Mahal right. One of the wonders of the world depending on which or who's  list you read. Hmm, I think it's true. I'm cynical at the best of times but when something, just the sight of something, takes your breathe away well, I'm a believer... wow!

We rise early to meet our guide Nando before sunrise at 5.30am hoping to beat the heat and the crowds at what is one of the most visited tourist destinations in the world.  The taxi whisks us the seven kilometres or so through dusty grey sleeping streets to the entrance and we join an already growing throng of mostly western tourists streaming up the thoroughfare towards the entrance. As we pass, still sleepy souvenir purveyors shuffle about  lifting shutters and organising their multitudes of tacky keepsakes, while scruffy mutts of every dodgy breed stay curled and sleeping in the thick close mugginess before dawn. Tickets sorted we head through the inner courtyard to the magnificent main entrance gate which is fabulous enough to visit on it's own. The enormous symmetrical  main gate is flanked by turrets each side and decorated with extensive calligraphy from the Koran. The crowd buzzes with tangible anticipation as we pass through beneath the vaulted ceilings and finally see the Taj beautifully framed through the enormous doorway. It's nuts beautiful. You make your way out into the gardens in front and just stare and stare, banging off photo after photo, which are probably all the same but it's gotta be done. The Taj Mahal is actually a mausoleum built by a seventeenth century Mughal Emperor for his third wife and houses both their tombs. It's flanked on each side by a mosque and a matching guesthouse with magnificent gardens and water features in front surrounded by red walls. The domed tiled white marble edifice reeks of exquisite craftsmanship and the structure simply seemed to float weightlessly in the misty dawn light.  

You've got to put your camera/phone down and just take it in...

 wow... the vision before you is truly ethereal... 

just how did they manage to envision and then engineer such a thing of beauty way back then!

 Our guide is a gem and mine of information but after a couple of hours or so the sun's up and we're pretty much done. It's bloody steaming hot and by this time the place is packed with throngs of mostly Indian people, all beautifully dressed, queueing up (rare!) for photos and enjoying this part of their wonderous history.

  Good on 'em.

It's  been a wonderful treat... 

make the time and go there!

In line queueing for a wonder of the world.

Doesn't happen every day huh?

 The stunning entrance gate.

Sigh... 

Double sigh...

Click click click... must have more photos.

Yep it's real, I went up and touched it

just to make sure!

The entrance gate from another angle.

Ah ok almost finished!

Apparently Lady Di sat here.

Aaarm, not sure Deano and 

Brian will generate the same interest.

We retire to the hotel for breakfast and organise our guide Nando to take us to the Agra Red Fort later that morning. The fort is a colossal structure and very well preserved and also includes great views of... the Taj Mahal of course! If you ever go make sure you see this as well as it's allegedly

 far better than the fort in Delhi.

The Red Fort even had a moat once which was filled 

with crocodiles. Proper one!

They do good doorways here!

So you've got past the crocodiles and then

you've gotta run at this, good luck champ!

Stunning in and out.

If you're a king and gonna live in a fort you might 

as well go for a view!

The detail and craftsmanship were next level.

Smile girls.

Tick

The following morning we leave the flash hotel and it's faux western isolation zone and zoom back along the toll road to Delhi. It's our last proper ride for the trip and kinda sad. We take all the touristy highways and byways and easily arrive into the heart of Delhi. However when we head towards the Karol Bagh area and our cheapy hotel, we're back into the real India of tetris locked traffic, getting stared at, beggars going vehicle to vehicle, and working closely with the massive team India to get stupid amounts of vehicles, through stupidly impossible spaces, in stupid heat, stupidly slowly. What a hoot! The next day we return the bikes, pack our gear, and wander the packed local streets, peering into tiny shops, walking down mysterious narrow alleyways and lanes,  and just sit people watching from an upstairs Maccas window (a very very tired dodgy Indian Maccas)

... we've just gotta remember all this.

The colour... the smells... the heat... people people people... the incessant noise... the traffic... animals... children... hopelessness... optimism... mountains... begging... rudeness... no oxygen... generosity... beautiful saris... sweat... raw sewage... scammy hotel managers... garbage... tiny businesses everywhere... maybe the most beautiful building on earth... religion and all the shit that goes with it, good and bad... humidity... cheap local food... dogs... !@#$ ATMs that don't work... sick taxi drivers... buffalos... cricket... where most people must work or starve... no hot water... no toilet paper... exquisite food smells... steaming chai... bottled water...

and of course, never enough bloody room on the roads, 

but get on the horn, 

and there's just enough room for everybody!

 And finally,

just an enormous, living, never ending

 pumping pulse of humanity... 

that's India

Some photos below of  'just stuff'  

happening around our Delhi hotel.

The bikes returned safe and sound.

Listening to KASHMIR Led Zeppelin 1975

Of course, a Led Zeppelin epic aptly named for an epic trip!

Agreed by all four band members as one of their best musical achievements and played at almost every performance!

Perfect final 'Listening to' song!

Hmm 1975, yeh yeh I was there....

FINAL REALITY CHECK

So I'm home again. Sigh. I'm on my bed banging away at the keys stressing out as this is way late again, and as usual I'm worried about airing my bullshit and what people might think. Hmm... anyway. My feet are visible just above the screen on the bed clad in their cheapy grey socks I bought in the market in Leh, which erm, happened after...

 oh dear, blah blah blah blah blah... aaargh sigh, so many stories,

 so much stuff which won't get written.

 Hmm. 

OK reality/honesty time. 

We both came through completely healthy. Brian had one small case of the shits and I caught a cold and that's it!

 Brilliant!

Nobody had any accidents or fell off. Brian's bike had a couple of lie downs when stopped or when maneuvering but that's all. 

Brilliant!

It's by far the least expensive trip I've ever taken. 

Brilliant!

It was phenomenally culturally diverse. Which isn't usually me... but having another set of eyes along was great and I'm seeing stuff I wouldn't have noticed before. 

Brilliant!

It was nonstop action, the month went way too fast. Damn it!

 Brilliant!

The humble rental bikes were totally reliable and we even got our deposits back. 

Brilliant!

Brian

Brian and I got on great and parted best of friends. 

(He's extraordinarily patient... must be right?) 

Thanks mate for never wavering in face of the stupid shit I often throw out there and jumping on board and staying true to the whole adventure. Truly had a great time made all the better that the two of us were on the same path... 

except you're a Port Power supporter... sad.  

Brilliant!

TO SUM UP.

In the first blog of this series 

I wrote these words.

I know heaps of people do the route we're planning and the scenery and cultural experience can/will be (note I've added a 'will' after the 'can' as I get more confident!) neck snappingly awesome, to die for, must see, once in a lifetime, !@#'kin awesome stuff. (Really bad grammar but you get the picture)

...and it really really was. 

 MAJOR THANKS TO MY WIFE MARIANNE FOR PATIENTLY PUTTING UP WITH MY CRAZINESS AGAIN AND WATCHING OVER THE HOME FRONT FOR ANOTHER  MONTH. 

HMMM... IT CAN'T BE EASY PUTTING UP WITH A DREAMER WHO THINKS ANYTHING OR ANYWHERE MIGHT BE POSSIBLE ON THE CHEAP AND 

THEN GIVES IT A RUN 

(THERE'S PROBABLY SOME WEIRD PHSYCOLOGICAL TERM FOR THAT) 

BUT A LEAST WE WON'T DIE WONDERING HUH!

THANKS DOLL

FINALLY

MANY THANKS TO ALL WHO'VE HAD A READ AND ALSO TO THOSE WHO HAVE COMMENTED.

 IT'S HEAPS OF WORK BUT THE REWARD IS PEOPLE HAVING A SQUIZ AND HOPEFULLY ENJOYING IT AND MAYBE EVEN THINKING WEEEEELL,

 IF DEANO CAN DO IT MAYBE I CAN!

ALWAYS GIVE IT A GO! 

CHEERS TILL NEXT TIME, DEAN