After a few nice days in Rajasthan, we hit the road this morning headed for Delhi.

Unfortunately I’ve come down with a serious case of man-flu, so have been struggling a bit, today’s ride was long and hard as a consequence. The idiot who tried to push us out of the way on the highway didn’t help my fragile mindset either, although it’s probably not everyday that he beeps at a bike, and both the rider and pillion simultaneously turn and give him the finger!

Rajasthan was really interesting, little desert towns with enormous 15th century forts, steeped in the history of their defence against various rivals.

Lots of crappy markets full of cows and cowshit selling 1000 versions of the same product too – which is a shame.

We also visited a Jain temple, completely done in white marble, I think it’s the most impressive temple I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately you can’t take photos of it from the inside, so you’ll need to imagine 🙂

This is from the outside though, but doesn’t do it justice at all, amazing intricate carvings on all 1444 pillars!

Tomorrow morning we head to the Tajik and Uzbek embassy’s for the central asia visa circus, we’re pretty well prepared with all the forms and photocopies and photos, but no doubt something will be wrong.

The plan is to hang out in Delhi while we wait for the visas, then visit Agra (Taj Mahal) en route to Nepal where we’re meeting up with DaveG, an old travel buddy of mine who now plays professional netball. Haven’t seen Dave since we were in the US a couple of years ago, so it will be great to see him again!

We’re also lucky enough to have been invited to stay with a fellow adventure biker, Rakesh who lives in Delhi, looking forward to sharing some tales from the road and getting some inside info on what to see and do in Delhi.

Enough now, very tired.

xoxo

After 3 long days of riding through the standard crazy choking traffic of India we made it to Udaipur, Rajasthan. It didnt take long for the feeling that Goa was just a moment in time and we were back in India!

The landscape changed from dry and dusty with gumtrees and cows to sandy and hilly with camels and cows… making us feel like we were heading into the desert. It was a nice change.

Udaipur is a touristy busy town with some amazing architecture, quite unlike anything else we have seen so far. There are lots of narrow streets making us feel like we’re in Europe which is nice but we soon get brought back to reality with the screaming car horns.

Dean and I have started to scream ‘beeeeeeeeeeeep’ when everyone else is doing it. We’ve had some strange looks but once they work out what we are doing they laugh at us and stop beeping so it kind of works!

Tomorrow we head to see a couple of forts and then on to another one at Jodphur… A short day we hope because our bums are killing us 😁

After a few days relaxing in Goa, we made a break for it today, narrowly escaping the addition of henna tattoos and tie dyed clothes.  I’ve never seen so many hippies in my life, it was like a hippie apocalypse!  I can still hear Cartman now… “God damned hippies!!”

And it was also a sad goodbye to our friend Deb who we’ve been meeting up with in various places, next time we’ll see you in the Netherlands! xx

Somehow we missed Bike Week in Goa, but we did see hundreds of big bikes on their way back to the cities, thanks to Darayus and friends for shouting us a tea at one of the roadside stops, very kind.

Tonight we made it as far as Lonavala, a hill town 100km from Mumbai.

Two more travel days now to reach Rajasthan. xoxo

Gin and tonic in a Portuguese bar in Goa. It’s about bloody time!!

And we’ve arrived in Goa! It’s a bit of a culture shock being somewhere that’s nice, where there are predominantly only westerners around and there is no litter or car horns blaring incessantly. We are staying in a hut on Patnem beach which is a chilled relaxed place… We’ll go and visit the hard core trance party beach tonight!

It doesn’t feel like India at all here but I guess it all makes up the multi dimensional country that it is. It’s a bit like the Bali of Indonesia, but more extreme.

We’ve had a couple of pleasant days travelling here, (please note that our definition of ‘pleasant’ has been altered somewhat over the past few weeks) with less car horns and less traffic in general. There have still been some pretty special driving manoeuvres though which we won’t forget for a while but for the most part it was good… we even found a nice local outdoor restaurant openly serving beer as soon as we crossed the border into Goa!
We will be here for another few days, slowly making our way up the coast to other beaches and then we will leave the bubble of Goa and head back in to the thick of it to Rajasthan.

We have spent the last week or so travelling around the south of India. The people are friendly, maybe less obsessed with the bike which is great… The food less spicy than I was hoping… And, at least on the west coast, a little more aware of the environment and keeping it clean… Clearly a big job still lays ahead for them though…

Riding through as many national parks and elevated areas as we could, we have seen some beautiful tea plantations (acres and acres, something like our vineyards at home), beautiful scenery and some wild elephants…. Completely wild… No sanctuary where tourists can ride them or clean them… Wild… It was really cool!

It’s so much nicer riding through the hills and is always a harsh jolt back to reality when we find ourselves back on main roads… I don’t think I need to go on about that anymore… My uncontrollable screaming at a bike who was unnecessarily smashing his horn this evening made me (and him!) realise that I may be loosing the plot so I’ll keep that to myself… The amount of middle finger jabs, swear words (sorry Mum) and  violent kicks out to cars threatening to kill us is also another thing I am trying to find my inner peace with … It’s a challenge 😁😊😇🙏🏻😑

Mysore is where we are now…actually the first proper city we have been in. It’s actually pretty chilled, nothing much to see except a palace which is really pretty. There are more bars here which is nice 😊. The bars still make you feel like you are a dirty scrap of society that doesn’t deserve to be seen. All the bars so far in India are underground or on a roof away from the public in a dark dirty corner with no sunlight … They are a little better here, in the state of Karantaka… Some have a bit of sunlight allowed through some of the windows, but still pretty dingy…. We are however also a little desperate so we persevered and found a place which had sunlight AND fresh air and a SHIT load of westerners with the same scared vacant look that we had, grasping their gin/vodka/beer like it may evaporate. It was all very nice but I got a bit peeved when I was told that my daiquiri would be made with ice cream…

‘Ice cream??!! Can you make it without?’

‘No’

‘Really?! Ice cream?! Don’t worry about it then’

Even after a visit to the bar to personally speak with the bartenders and ask them if they could alter the recipe, I was rejected… I may have been dry for 3 weeks by now, but ice cream in a daiquiri?! I’ll skip thanks 😉

Anyway…. Patience… This is what India is trying to teach me!  

We ended up at a bar with no windows, with cigarette smoke and rock music… Dean hated it for the first half a beer but after that he was head banging to the rock music, drinking more beer than I was margaritas and making DJ requests for ‘System of a down’ (and I was contemplating asking for Prince) …this is when I knew it was time to pull us away from the bar… He has now crashed out… Bless ☺️

  

Thankfully (as you can see) things have improved marginally in the south of India. 
The traffic is a little less suicidal, people mob us less, and the scenery in some parts is really beautiful.
We did ride 4000km to get here though so it’s taking some time to forgive 🙂
A few days ago we ended the day in shitsville being mobbed by people who were climbing all over the bike, then Betsy wouldn’t start, and eventually she ran on one cylinder all the way back to our room.
That was a low point.
Today we’re in improved spirits, the beer is cold, the shower hot, and Betsy is running great, so the journey continues 🙂

With 10 hours everyday in my helmet I have so many thoughts  that go round and round my head…

 You often get told by other travellers how ‘amazing’ India is…  Today I was thinking about the things that ‘amazed’ me about India. Here are some of the thoughts I had today kilometre number 3051 day 13 hour 8… 

I find it amazing that nobody knows the rule of ‘keep left unless overtaking’ 😤

I think it’s amazing that cows, goats and dogs are free to roam as they please across the 2/3 (4 if it’s really busy) lane highway 😳

I think it’s amazing that the women wear brightly coloured saris and look stunning against the grey dusty dirty backdrop 💃🏾

It’s amazing how much rubbish there is everywhere and the complete disregard the people have of their country and environment ☹️

It’s amazing to see the amount of men that need to urinate in full view of everyone at any given time of the day (today I counted 30) 😷😑

I think it’s amazing that tea (chai) and biscuits is such a massive part of day to day life… Chai places are everywhere! The British left 70 years ago and it’s the only other place I’ve seen people dunking biscuits into tea!🇬🇧🍪☕️

I think its amazing that we haven’t had a drink for over two weeks!🍷🍸

And the attention betsy gets is completely ridiculous!

Despite all this, I can’t say I dislike the place or the culture. Everyday there are numerous sights, smells and people that put a smile on our face despite the gruelling day we have had. Choosing to ride a bike around India may not be the smartest thing we’ve ever done but we have only just started so that could still change.
We haven’t seen more than 5 other westerners so we have been in pretty remote areas up until now, we are sure a lot will change once we get to more touristy areas. We’re hoping that now things will start to be a bit more beautiful and we will take things a bit easier. Less highway miles, less traffic, less urine…. It can only get better 😉 x

 Ps our head camera has died so we don’t have as many photos… I’m afraid emojis is where it’s at at the moment! ❤️

 

We have arrived in Kerala (the South of India), holy cow (get it?) what a long three days of riding!
We ascended 2000m in 30km of road this afternoon to arrive in a mountain town called Kodaikanal.
Tired but very happy, from here we’re moving more slowly with lots to see along the way (hopefully!).
xoxo

After 13 days straight riding from Chiang Mai to Calcutta we needed some rest! The day before yesterday we didnt quite reach our planned rest destination, a little beach side town called Puri that’s described as “a golden sandy beach” in WikiTravel… undeterred we left early next morning and rode through a craft village (where they make mostly lamp shades, yawn), and then went to see the Temple of the Sun on the way to Puri. It was 10 rupias entry fee for Indians, and 250 rupias for anyone else… we’ve seen a lot of temples by now, so we skipped it and headed straight to the golden sandy beach.

Arriving there was the usual debacle of finding somewhere to stay, made more difficult by me needing space to dismantle the carburettors to fix a flat spot that’s developed, so a shady secure parking spot was needed.  Eventually we forked out for a ncie hotel and crashed a bit before hitting the sand.

Now if there there is a hell, and if hell has a beach, I think we found it.

The sun almost blocked out by the haze of cook fires and pollution, rubbish washed up all along the sand, a long stretch of beach just up from our room where the locals go to poo, yes shit –  EVERYWHERE.  A few hundred metres south of poo point  a small river flows into the ocean, a river of untreated sewage…  (this is not an exaggeration).

There are black crows all over the place picking through the rubbish, fighting and crawing like a ghoulish scene from some hitchcock film.  Cows roam the beach too, adding to the smell, along with goats and camels that have been dressed up in lurid colours, which somehow make the whole thing look even more crazy.  Indians swim in the water, (in between the poo river and the poo point), and they ride the camels too.

To make matters worse there is no alcohol allowed on the beach, but some entrepreneurial guys are selling it anyway, they put the bottle into a plastic bag so no one knows it’s beer, but we spotted it from 100m away…

“that guy has a frikkin beer!”

“are you sure it’s beer?”

“it looks like beer, and he’s a fat old white guy, it must be beer”

To say we were expecting more would be a slight understatement.  Anyway, we made the most of it… in search of a gin and tonic we walked up the beach  5km past the poo river to the next town where hundreds of Indians were eating on the beach, we asked in every hotel on the foreshore there if they had a bar… but everyone said “NO” while waggling their heads in a very disapproving way. So eventually we gave up and walked back to poo point this time along the road, with crows and cows and car horns for company.

Nearing our area we passed a super luxurious hotel…

“this place has got to have a bar” cried Sally!

“ok lets check it out”

and sure enough, there was a bar, with overpriced Bombay Saphire Gin, and Schweppes Tonic, and a billiard table and… 2 bowling alleys… random!  But anyway it was good!

That night I passed out mid sentence and woke to the sound of horns and crows early the next morning.  The work on the bike took me half the day, not easy dismantling a pair of carburettors in the the parking lot of a hotel, where small children come to play with your tools and grown men appear at regular intervals asking…

“how much the bike?”  or

“where is it here?”

or they just stand half a meter away and stare at me without uttering a word, not even when I say hello to them…

I did meet a very nice French guy though, (hi Bastille!), and we had a beer with him and his family later that afternoon on the golden sand beach, eating peanuts and admiring the camels while trying to hide our bottles.

We reluctantly decided to push on from Puri this morning, aspecially since the Indian prime minister was visiting this afternoon, and we didn’t want to get caught in the crowd.  Today we rode almost exlusively on the highway and it was actually pretty easy going for the first time here.  Not too many oncoming buses and generally manageable traffic.

Tonight we’re in a little town called Annavaram, famous for nothing in particular, but the restaurant in the bus station serves great dosa and idli 🙂

3 more days to reach Kerala, our first real stop.