We finally reached Palolem beach just as the sun was setting after 175 km's of incident packed riding. I'd been thinking about nothing else apart from jumping in the sea for the final 30 k. We saw so much today as we made our way through the Western Ghat mountains. Elephants (which I didn't realise were real until they started heading towards me !), monkeys, women mixing concrete & applying it with there bare hands to repair some landslide damage, and 3 car pile up which caused the biggest traffic jam of trucks i've seen. The most amusing moment though (for everyone except me) was when I parked up for a cup of tea, and a cow took a liking to the flowers on the front of my bike (placed there for good luck by the Guru) and proceeded to eat the lot :( We're making like hippies tonight & sleeping in little huts on the beach. They are really basic but its an amazing place to stay & i'm looking forward to being able to hear the sea.
I finally managed to find an internet connection and upload some of my photos - click on the slide show on the right :)
Wow, what a day ... And this was just a warm up. After a quality breakfast (I passed on the curry option) I was introduced to my Bullet. As first dates go, I think it went pretty well. I was told that the Enfield can be a little temperamental at times, but she started at the first time of asking with a light kick of the starter. I've been talking to the bike quite a lot today. Not because I have heatstroke (yet), or have no-one else to talk to, but because I'm hoping if I'm nice to her and treat her well she'll look after me on my trip. It seemed to work today, others had mechanical and electrical problems, but we just kept on revving, despite me clunking through the gears ! It was a fairly short ride today, and we were in a group of 26. We'd been issued with a road book of all the directions & distances, but I kind of figured I would have enough to contend with today simply trying to remember that the brake is on the left foot, not the right as on all other bikes, and would just follow someone who looked like they knew where they were going. It was amazing to be let loose on the bikes. After all the preparation, travel & chat we were off ! The bike is lovely to ride, a bit agricultural, but I like it. Honest & simple It was quite a stop start day, waiting for people to catch up, and getting used to the bikes. It's great when your moving, but in all the gear, stopping and hanging around on the bike in this heat is pretty unbearable. A few of us would look for a shady spot to wait & jump off the bike. It must be a bizarre sight for the locals, loitering foreigners looking like a batallion of gay stormtroopers ! The sights, sounds, smells & people make up for the heat. I'm going to try and upload some more photos, but am struggling to find a decent internet connection ... so bear with me. On safely making it back, I headed straight for the showers, then headed downstairs for the blessing of the bikes by the local guru (see pic). Only a couple of kingfishers this evening as we just got our roadbooks & i need to do some homework. It's everyman for himself tomorrow, so I need to be able to navigate. Looking forward to some more time on the bike.
Copy & paste the link below into your browser to see where i am :)
Google maps:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&t=m&q=15.2648843,73.9203543
Great nights sleep, decided against using the mozzy net last night, no bites, result. You'll be pleased to know that after last nights intake, all is calm & tranquil ! Beautiful morning, checked out all the bikes in the morning mist, an amazing site. Just about to have a chat from the team about todays activities. We're splitting into 4 teams to hit the streets of Goa. Everyone is starting to realise just how hot it is, we're going to melt in full regalia !
After loading all our luggage onto a teetering truck & waving goodbye to it, we jumped onto a bus for the short trip to Colva. The traffic is mental and this is a sleepy seaside village in comparison to mumbai or mysore. The head protection of choice for the 2 wheeled locals appears to be of the knitted variety, balaclavas and bobble hats are extremely popular ! I spent the whole journey staring out of the window trying to take it all in. Made it to the nights accomodation, was reunited with my luggage, checked the board to see who i was rooming with and jumped straight in the pool. We had intros from the team, were split up into our teams for tomorrows ride then cracked into the Kingfishers and a huge indian buffet. After promising myself 2 be careful and go vege for the trip, i launched straight into the assorted meat dishes. They were all lush, but not sure if that was a good idea. Guess i'll find out tomorrow
Interesting landing, think the pilot knew he had 100 bikers on board cause he really got the back end out ! Local time 11am, a mild 28 degrees. Already had my first curry ...
... inflight entertainment, I seriously thought we were going to be packed into crates.
Actually, no, it wasn't. Although it took me an hour to realise that the person i'd just walked into whilst adjusting my helmet was not he of Sexy Beast fame, but was in fact Chris's mate Nicol who we'd spent a weekend in the company of in Amsterdam last year. Wish i'd realised earlier because the last time I saw him, he was setting off in his motor for Paris, from Amsterdam, determined to do it in a oner after a full on weekend. Congratulations on being in one piece were in order.
You can view or download a PDF version of the itinerary by clicking here :) It contains links to all the places i'll be staying overnight.
Great views of London on the approach into Heathrow as the sun was setting and the city lights were starting to come on. Managed to catch a few seconds of Chelsea vs Ipswich as we flew over Stamford Bridge. Hooked up with my Bro & Seb, and made the mandatory trip to Nandos.
OK, so perhaps I shouldn't have left trying to sort out a blog until the night before I leave for India.
However, having fortunately enlisted the help of a troop of wandering monkeys ... we're up and running. It's not quite as aesthetically pleasing as we may have liked, but the local spa ran out of bananas just after 6pm, and after that, the monkeys just lost any motivation.
The plan is that I should be able to keep a bit of a travel diary for my trip though India on a Bullet, upload photos and GPS co-ordinates where possible.
That way, anyone who is interested can keep a track of my progress, see where I am and what I'm up to and stuff :).
Posts
