At one with the bullet

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.