This may be long, I feel muses descending on and inspiration flooding me and I may wax more than usually loquacious - feel free to not read it. However be warned, a pop-test will be given in a couple of weeks.
Motorcycles in India are sold not as recreational vehicles like in the West (and I include Israel in the West- okay!) but as family vehicles and indeed it is not unusual to see a family of 5 riding on a 50 - 150 cc vehicle. Motorcycles are not just a normal part of family life, they are often demanded as part of the dowry from the girls family and may even be the reason for canceling a marriage. They are without doubt the most numerous vehicle on the road, both in the towns and the cities where they all drive any whichway, even the girls, and there are very few of them, drive like Shiite suicide bombers - What about your families people? Oh that doesn't matter, apparently they have reincarnation here. Out on the country roads there are millions of them driving between the tiny and tinier villages and the various towns along the way and the huge busses and trucks miss them by millimeters as they flash past (I'm also in there somewhere). And they ride along in all their finery with all their kids and huge parcels as they head off to a wedding or birth or some other happy celebration. Enfields, which I and most other tourists ride are not popular with Indians because they have a high fuel consumption rate, between 25 (me) and 32 kms per liter (the member of the Darjiling Enfielders - the local motorcycle gang, who I met at Sunjay, the cleanest mechanic of any sort I have ever met when I took my bike in to be serviced after the 3000 odd kms I have done since leaving Pondicherry where I serviced it last). However as I have now discovered there are numerous motorcycle clubs all around India such as the Darjiling Enfielders and the Chenai Bulls I mentioned earlier and of course a club in Katamandu called, originally enough the Himalayan Enfielders. I imagine that there are many more around the country.
I left Puri early in the morning and for an hour drove on the highway towards Kolkotta (Calcutta) and then managed to get north of the city and on my way to Darjiling without going into the "black Hole" and I only saw one mention of Mother Theresa as in some sort of orphanage then the highway ended and I was back on regular country roads. Country roads in India and that includes the state and interstate "highways" are always narrow, usually potholed and often winding with sharp blind curves. In addition, the villages and towns often come right up to the highway and there is loads of non-vehacular activity up to and including the odd game of cricket! It is what I imagine the old Route 66 which crossed America must have looked like except dirtier and much, much more obviously poverty stricken. Of course there is life all along the road, it is difficult to stop somewhere where there are no people, and if you find such a place within 2 minutes they have popped out of thee ground to stare at the wierd Westerner, and all Westerners are by definition weird.
From Puri I was on the hghway, the really good one, and despite stopping for many of the magnificent photo ops (and there is one about every 10 minutes) I made good time along the road. The first photo op that day was a enormous, bigger than I have seen up till now, beautiful, painted elephant walking sedately towards me on the other side of the road, I slammed on my brakes (carefully), pulled out my camera and the mahout, riding on the pachyderm with his clothes, pots and pans tied around him, crossed the devider to make it easier for my to take pictures and even put the elephant through some excercises in which it touched me and then took my (completely freely given) donation out of my hand and passing it to his master, we then said goodbye, he in Hindi and me in Hebrew and went our respective ways.
As I said I made good time and towards 5 Pm I started looking for a hotel but there was nothing at all along the way. It started getting dark and I started getting near to Calcutta which I really didnt want tio visit. I went on driving and it did indeed become dark and still no hotel. I stopped at a truckdrivers dhaba, I have discovered, despite my earlier reservations that they are the best place to stop, for a cup of chai and a smoke. By the time I got back on the road it was completely dark but fortunately after about 10 minutes I found a little hotel by the side of the road in a town I later discovered was called Purba Medinipur - total Nowheresville - I doubt that a westerner has ever stayed there before. The day manager Sonai, who was going off duty begged me to take a photo and then send it to him. I took a couple of pictures and have since printed them out and will post them tomorrow, a little positive PR for Israel cannot do any harm. At 11:30 there was banging on the door and the drunken night manager demanded to know if there was anything he could get me - I politely declined. By the time I stopped I had driven about 450 kms and was only 50 kms south of Kolkotta which I was determined to avoid by any means.
One of the more interesting sights I saw was "Shit On A Stick". As I passed through a number of villages I noticed that a lot of the houses had sticks with some sort of material tied to them - looked like oversized "kebabs", there were also patties which looked like hamburgers. Unable to resist my curiosity I stopped and went to examine the kebabs and hamburgers, although I have a much weakened sense of smell due to too much smoking over the years, my nose immediately informed me what I was dealing with. It is used as fuel for fires, apparently the villagers collect it and prepare the patties and sticks which they then either use or sell.
The next morning I got up early, had no coffee - remember the night manager? And set off happily on my way. after about 100 kms I heard a wrong noise coming from the front wheel, I stopped and found that the screws on the front mudguard had come loose and one of them had so unscrewed itself that it was pressing against the tyre and gauging a furrow in it. I opened my toolkit and tried to rescrew it but could not get a grip. Despite some misgivings I drove back to a truckstop I had passed (going the wrong way on the highway just like all the other maniacs with neccessity) and there a guy loosened the wheel and fixed the problem - when I offered him 30 rhupees he would accept only 20. I then set off again and discovered that the speedometer was not working and despite everything I tried and the one motorcycle repair shop I stopped at we could not get it working again - it would have to wait till Darjeeling.
That day was the start of Holi, a holiday where they Hindus paint themselves and throw paint at others, this festival continues for 2 days. Everywhere along the road I saw happy men (and 6
women) all painted in different colours on every exposed part of the body, groups throwing powdered paint or shooting water pistols full of coloured water at each other and at "innocent" passersby (or should that be "passerbys" - come on English teachers and native-speakers) and of course I got splattered too. In addition there were "road blocks" along the way where vehicles were stopped and painted. Due to my westernliness I was spared by the road blocks for quite a while until a group of young men decided I needed a dousing and then I was green and blue and red and yellow and is how I arrived at the hotel Sunjoy Hotel, Restaurant and Bar in Berhapur. The restaurant served me a very respectable fish dinner but besides that and the lake with promenade, which has been taken over by the poverty stricken and turned into a slum, the town was unremarkable. Everything, (well this is India and you have to make a buck all the time and at all costs, so not quite everything but definately anything) which might interest me, was closed.
What I did notice was the fantastic number of cycle-rickshas, hundreds of them and from then all along the way that is what I saw, no auto-rickshas here, in addition there are horse drawn carts, flat top bicycle rickshas (as opposed to those with seats), bullock-carts and even mopeds converted to carts (use your imaginations).
The scenery along the way has been magnificent, green rice paddies, wheat fields (the problem here is that they spread the wheat on the road for passing vehicles to thresh, unfortunately it has the same effect as oil so you have to be very careful to not spin out of control - I generally drive onto the shoulder and around the wheat), rivers,.JPG)
palm trees, tiny villages and their fascinating inhabitants - many of them still deep in the 12th centuary. Spread all around were palm trees and otheres I dont know, low hills and cloudless skies, truckstops, dhabbas, kiosks, little shops, cattle markets and even a body being burnt at a river running beside the road (I did not stop there to take pictures - I'll get the burning body thing in Varanase). Animals gallore, I've already mentioned the elephant, in addition I met horses, cows, goats, buffalo (Indian), dogs, horses, chickens, ducks, a camel, a herd of wild pigs that seemed to have been domesticated, regular pigs, a wild jackal and many, many monkeys most of which were quite unbothered when I stopped beside them. And of course all the thousands of vehicles of every description and all the larger ones were try to, if not kill, at least drive me off the road).
After driving all day and covering about 280 kms I found lodging in the Highway hotel in Kishanganj (it appears on good maps). But lodging was all, no food anywhere - Holi! But they could give me bread so I ended up eating a couple of "luf" (like spam, only kosher -J.B.) sandwiches and "luf" with chips and finally just plain "luf. The hotel was on the main road and between two railway lines and despite the holiday it was noisy!, very noisy and while I tried to watch TV the noise bothered me but I had had a hard days riding and once I fell asleep nothing bothered me till the next morning. And despite having nothing they could give me hot water so I had coffee before I left. Coffee is so important for starting the day right, I can start without it but it makes a difference if I have it and its not always easy to explain to an Indian that all I want is a glass of boiling water and sugar! (okay, so I'm weird, but I wouldn't be here if I weren't).
I was now only about 180 kms from Darjeeling and reckoned that I would have an easy drive. The first 100 were indeed easy, nothing really difficult about it, just an ordinary badly maintained Indian road with everybody driving every which way - a doddle! And then I reached Siliguri, the last city before the hills. After getting through Siliguri I drove for about 10 minutes and then stopped at a truckstop dhabba for some chai and a joint. Within minutes I was joined by a young man who started talking to me and the first thing he said that he was only there visiting his family, he does in fact have a carrere outside of the village. He then went on to tell me that he was an expert at cooking and preparing Israeli food, malawach, shakshouka, hummus, etc. and that he travels around from Manali to Varanase to Rishikesh to wherever the Israelis go. He will make his fortune as an
Israeli cook, at this stage I told him that I was Israeli and he said "sababa", the first word foriegners are taught when they stick around Israelis. He then disappeared for 5 minutes and returned with a little baggie for which he refused to accept payment. I find myself taking some pride in the fact that an Indian boy (from the sticks, its true) is so taken with my countryman that he sees us as the way to a secure future. Not only that but it reinforces what I have said before about the young Israelis being decent, pleasant and welcome. Thanks again guys.
After I left Siliguri the road became both interesting and scary - I met a number of army convoys - were near the border here and the Indians are as paranoid as the Israelis, especially when it comes to moslems around them and among them, The road became steeper, more winding, narrower and more potholed. On the other hand the view became more beautiful as I climbed and suddenly I crossed the track of the "Toy Train" which travels between Darjeeling and Siliguri (ad description of Darjeeling and the surroundings will follow). And it is like riding through "Toyland" with little houses, and I mean little, I cant stand up in the doorways, I
measured a couple. The houses are all neat and clean and cosy looking and many of them have neat, pretty pretty gardens or at least rows of potplants and they come right up to the track and some of the stoeps look like little railway stations and you can see into some of the houses and there are Noddy and Bigears! As you go up the cliff, which is on your left (I"ll be much happier on the way down with the mountain on my right) the drop becomes higher and sheerer and scarier with (mainly) jeeps coming at you from in front and behind at maniac speed (while here in Darjeeling I have looked at some of the jeeps from close-up and many of them have no tread at all on their tyres) and you pull over as far as you can but carefully as the road doesnt always have a barrier at cliff edge! Suddenly, as I watched, a mist came climbing out of the valleys and visibility dropped to below 10 meters (remember crossing the Bighorn Mountain Shani? This was worse) and what had been scary before became almost terrifying. But I persevered and then I was above the clouds and Darjeeling was revealed, perched up and down the mountainside in front and all around and beyond the houses tea fields and it was gorgeous.
Pictures will follow.
Motorcycles in India are sold not as recreational vehicles like in the West (and I include Israel in the West- okay!) but as family vehicles and indeed it is not unusual to see a family of 5 riding on a 50 - 150 cc vehicle. Motorcycles are not just a normal part of family life, they are often demanded as part of the dowry from the girls family and may even be the reason for canceling a marriage. They are without doubt the most numerous vehicle on the road, both in the towns and the cities where they all drive any whichway, even the girls, and there are very few of them, drive like Shiite suicide bombers - What about your families people? Oh that doesn't matter, apparently they have reincarnation here. Out on the country roads there are millions of them driving between the tiny and tinier villages and the various towns along the way and the huge busses and trucks miss them by millimeters as they flash past (I'm also in there somewhere). And they ride along in all their finery with all their kids and huge parcels as they head off to a wedding or birth or some other happy celebration. Enfields, which I and most other tourists ride are not popular with Indians because they have a high fuel consumption rate, between 25 (me) and 32 kms per liter (the member of the Darjiling Enfielders - the local motorcycle gang, who I met at Sunjay, the cleanest mechanic of any sort I have ever met when I took my bike in to be serviced after the 3000 odd kms I have done since leaving Pondicherry where I serviced it last). However as I have now discovered there are numerous motorcycle clubs all around India such as the Darjiling Enfielders and the Chenai Bulls I mentioned earlier and of course a club in Katamandu called, originally enough the Himalayan Enfielders. I imagine that there are many more around the country.
I left Puri early in the morning and for an hour drove on the highway towards Kolkotta (Calcutta) and then managed to get north of the city and on my way to Darjiling without going into the "black Hole" and I only saw one mention of Mother Theresa as in some sort of orphanage then the highway ended and I was back on regular country roads. Country roads in India and that includes the state and interstate "highways" are always narrow, usually potholed and often winding with sharp blind curves. In addition, the villages and towns often come right up to the highway and there is loads of non-vehacular activity up to and including the odd game of cricket! It is what I imagine the old Route 66 which crossed America must have looked like except dirtier and much, much more obviously poverty stricken. Of course there is life all along the road, it is difficult to stop somewhere where there are no people, and if you find such a place within 2 minutes they have popped out of thee ground to stare at the wierd Westerner, and all Westerners are by definition weird.
From Puri I was on the hghway, the really good one, and despite stopping for many of the magnificent photo ops (and there is one about every 10 minutes) I made good time along the road. The first photo op that day was a enormous, bigger than I have seen up till now, beautiful, painted elephant walking sedately towards me on the other side of the road, I slammed on my brakes (carefully), pulled out my camera and the mahout, riding on the pachyderm with his clothes, pots and pans tied around him, crossed the devider to make it easier for my to take pictures and even put the elephant through some excercises in which it touched me and then took my (completely freely given) donation out of my hand and passing it to his master, we then said goodbye, he in Hindi and me in Hebrew and went our respective ways.
As I said I made good time and towards 5 Pm I started looking for a hotel but there was nothing at all along the way. It started getting dark and I started getting near to Calcutta which I really didnt want tio visit. I went on driving and it did indeed become dark and still no hotel. I stopped at a truckdrivers dhaba, I have discovered, despite my earlier reservations that they are the best place to stop, for a cup of chai and a smoke. By the time I got back on the road it was completely dark but fortunately after about 10 minutes I found a little hotel by the side of the road in a town I later discovered was called Purba Medinipur - total Nowheresville - I doubt that a westerner has ever stayed there before. The day manager Sonai, who was going off duty begged me to take a photo and then send it to him. I took a couple of pictures and have since printed them out and will post them tomorrow, a little positive PR for Israel cannot do any harm. At 11:30 there was banging on the door and the drunken night manager demanded to know if there was anything he could get me - I politely declined. By the time I stopped I had driven about 450 kms and was only 50 kms south of Kolkotta which I was determined to avoid by any means.
One of the more interesting sights I saw was "Shit On A Stick". As I passed through a number of villages I noticed that a lot of the houses had sticks with some sort of material tied to them - looked like oversized "kebabs", there were also patties which looked like hamburgers. Unable to resist my curiosity I stopped and went to examine the kebabs and hamburgers, although I have a much weakened sense of smell due to too much smoking over the years, my nose immediately informed me what I was dealing with. It is used as fuel for fires, apparently the villagers collect it and prepare the patties and sticks which they then either use or sell.The next morning I got up early, had no coffee - remember the night manager? And set off happily on my way. after about 100 kms I heard a wrong noise coming from the front wheel, I stopped and found that the screws on the front mudguard had come loose and one of them had so unscrewed itself that it was pressing against the tyre and gauging a furrow in it. I opened my toolkit and tried to rescrew it but could not get a grip. Despite some misgivings I drove back to a truckstop I had passed (going the wrong way on the highway just like all the other maniacs with neccessity) and there a guy loosened the wheel and fixed the problem - when I offered him 30 rhupees he would accept only 20. I then set off again and discovered that the speedometer was not working and despite everything I tried and the one motorcycle repair shop I stopped at we could not get it working again - it would have to wait till Darjeeling.
That day was the start of Holi, a holiday where they Hindus paint themselves and throw paint at others, this festival continues for 2 days. Everywhere along the road I saw happy men (and 6
women) all painted in different colours on every exposed part of the body, groups throwing powdered paint or shooting water pistols full of coloured water at each other and at "innocent" passersby (or should that be "passerbys" - come on English teachers and native-speakers) and of course I got splattered too. In addition there were "road blocks" along the way where vehicles were stopped and painted. Due to my westernliness I was spared by the road blocks for quite a while until a group of young men decided I needed a dousing and then I was green and blue and red and yellow and is how I arrived at the hotel Sunjoy Hotel, Restaurant and Bar in Berhapur. The restaurant served me a very respectable fish dinner but besides that and the lake with promenade, which has been taken over by the poverty stricken and turned into a slum, the town was unremarkable. Everything, (well this is India and you have to make a buck all the time and at all costs, so not quite everything but definately anything) which might interest me, was closed.
What I did notice was the fantastic number of cycle-rickshas, hundreds of them and from then all along the way that is what I saw, no auto-rickshas here, in addition there are horse drawn carts, flat top bicycle rickshas (as opposed to those with seats), bullock-carts and even mopeds converted to carts (use your imaginations).The scenery along the way has been magnificent, green rice paddies, wheat fields (the problem here is that they spread the wheat on the road for passing vehicles to thresh, unfortunately it has the same effect as oil so you have to be very careful to not spin out of control - I generally drive onto the shoulder and around the wheat), rivers,
.JPG)
palm trees, tiny villages and their fascinating inhabitants - many of them still deep in the 12th centuary. Spread all around were palm trees and otheres I dont know, low hills and cloudless skies, truckstops, dhabbas, kiosks, little shops, cattle markets and even a body being burnt at a river running beside the road (I did not stop there to take pictures - I'll get the burning body thing in Varanase). Animals gallore, I've already mentioned the elephant, in addition I met horses, cows, goats, buffalo (Indian), dogs, horses, chickens, ducks, a camel, a herd of wild pigs that seemed to have been domesticated, regular pigs, a wild jackal and many, many monkeys most of which were quite unbothered when I stopped beside them. And of course all the thousands of vehicles of every description and all the larger ones were try to, if not kill, at least drive me off the road).After driving all day and covering about 280 kms I found lodging in the Highway hotel in Kishanganj (it appears on good maps). But lodging was all, no food anywhere - Holi! But they could give me bread so I ended up eating a couple of "luf" (like spam, only kosher -J.B.) sandwiches and "luf" with chips and finally just plain "luf. The hotel was on the main road and between two railway lines and despite the holiday it was noisy!, very noisy and while I tried to watch TV the noise bothered me but I had had a hard days riding and once I fell asleep nothing bothered me till the next morning. And despite having nothing they could give me hot water so I had coffee before I left. Coffee is so important for starting the day right, I can start without it but it makes a difference if I have it and its not always easy to explain to an Indian that all I want is a glass of boiling water and sugar! (okay, so I'm weird, but I wouldn't be here if I weren't).
I was now only about 180 kms from Darjeeling and reckoned that I would have an easy drive. The first 100 were indeed easy, nothing really difficult about it, just an ordinary badly maintained Indian road with everybody driving every which way - a doddle! And then I reached Siliguri, the last city before the hills. After getting through Siliguri I drove for about 10 minutes and then stopped at a truckstop dhabba for some chai and a joint. Within minutes I was joined by a young man who started talking to me and the first thing he said that he was only there visiting his family, he does in fact have a carrere outside of the village. He then went on to tell me that he was an expert at cooking and preparing Israeli food, malawach, shakshouka, hummus, etc. and that he travels around from Manali to Varanase to Rishikesh to wherever the Israelis go. He will make his fortune as an
Israeli cook, at this stage I told him that I was Israeli and he said "sababa", the first word foriegners are taught when they stick around Israelis. He then disappeared for 5 minutes and returned with a little baggie for which he refused to accept payment. I find myself taking some pride in the fact that an Indian boy (from the sticks, its true) is so taken with my countryman that he sees us as the way to a secure future. Not only that but it reinforces what I have said before about the young Israelis being decent, pleasant and welcome. Thanks again guys.
After I left Siliguri the road became both interesting and scary - I met a number of army convoys - were near the border here and the Indians are as paranoid as the Israelis, especially when it comes to moslems around them and among them, The road became steeper, more winding, narrower and more potholed. On the other hand the view became more beautiful as I climbed and suddenly I crossed the track of the "Toy Train" which travels between Darjeeling and Siliguri (ad description of Darjeeling and the surroundings will follow). And it is like riding through "Toyland" with little houses, and I mean little, I cant stand up in the doorways, I
measured a couple. The houses are all neat and clean and cosy looking and many of them have neat, pretty pretty gardens or at least rows of potplants and they come right up to the track and some of the stoeps look like little railway stations and you can see into some of the houses and there are Noddy and Bigears! As you go up the cliff, which is on your left (I"ll be much happier on the way down with the mountain on my right) the drop becomes higher and sheerer and scarier with (mainly) jeeps coming at you from in front and behind at maniac speed (while here in Darjeeling I have looked at some of the jeeps from close-up and many of them have no tread at all on their tyres) and you pull over as far as you can but carefully as the road doesnt always have a barrier at cliff edge! Suddenly, as I watched, a mist came climbing out of the valleys and visibility dropped to below 10 meters (remember crossing the Bighorn Mountain Shani? This was worse) and what had been scary before became almost terrifying. But I persevered and then I was above the clouds and Darjeeling was revealed, perched up and down the mountainside in front and all around and beyond the houses tea fields and it was gorgeous.Pictures will follow.
1 comment:
Amazing journey. Ive done a few others also in india and can totaly relate james australia ima comeing back to india soon. I love that world and i love the enfields
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