A Team to the rescue...

Greetings from Rishikesh.

It is my second day (and my second visit here). The journey from Kasar Devi was a bit epic.

An Israeli guy I met there said a few days ago that he was going by Enfield and I said that maybe I would join him. I ummed about it for a while and after an intimate and somewhat awkward encounter with a girl I decided it was best to leave Kasar Devi. I think I said previously that I was getting a bit bored with the place anyway.

The night before I left I found this friend, Roi, and asked him at a table of other travellers if I could, after all, join him. He looked a bit odd. It seemed a bit like he wasn’t really that interested in having some English guy with him. Maybe he wanted be alone. I was feeling kinda bad – I had already offended this girl (it’s a long story, which I don’t have the power for now) and it seemed like Roi didn’t want me to come. I stopped him and said, “listen, are you sure you want me to come? I won’t be offended if you want to be alone.” Still he looked kinda weird. He said, “It’s ok. It’s ok.”

Hmm.

So, we took a very enjoyable ride down the mountains with stunning scenery. And at our first stop we got talking about God (as you do). Roi told me he wasn’t a religious person also but had found himself talking to God since being in India. He told me that two days previously he had asked God for company on the trip to Dharmsala. He didn’t want to go alone. And a day later, and at the last possible minute, I came and slapped him on the shoulder and casually asked if he wouldn’t mind me joining him. The strange look was not one of irritation but of a Divine relief. He was feeling the hand of God a little strongly, it seems.

Bless.

So the first day was lovely. We stopped in Ramnagar which is near to the Corbett National Park, famous because it hosts, amongst other things, TIGERS. Tigers are like the ultimate animal. To see a tiger is the equivalent of (I dunno) an Indian man touching the boob of a blonde English girl. Perhaps.

After a surreal night of trying to organise a reasonably priced jeep to this ultimate tourist trap, and encountering only greed, corruption and boozed up Indians, we thought, fuck it, let’s go to Rishikesh instead.

We drove a difficult six hours of a total seven to get there. And just 40km from Rishikesh….

SNAP!

Uh? We stopped the bike, a little perturbed by the snapping. We looked at the bike and couldn’t see the gaping hole. It was only when a boy on a bicycle came riding up to us with our fucking CHAIN, that we realised the problem.

And from this point onwards the hard journey got a lot harder.

Where to start?

We took the bike to a mechanic at a road stop nearby. He told us he could put the chain back on, and as twenty, thirty Indian men surrounded us to check out the bike, and well, have a good stare, the atmosphere changed. It suddenly got dark and cold and then, yes, it began to rain and thunder and lightning.

Sigh. What did we do? Really? What did we do?

So, we moved the bike under cover and the guy spent a very long time doing what should have been fairly straight forward. Despite feeling tired and inconvenienced, we consoled ourselves that the rain would stop, we would get to Rishikesh that evening and we could probably find some loose women and cake to comfort us. Or at least we could have a jam.

The bike was fixed but they wanted 300 rupees for the job. I won’t translate this into pounds because it’ll sound petty, but needless to say, it’s about four or five times what the job should cost. He didn’t even need any new parts.

We argued for a while, gave him half and then took the bike to the side of the road. And would it start? Would it fuck!

We suspect foul play on their part. Either way…whatever, the bike wouldn’t start. We were stuck in the middle of nowhere, 20 km from the next town and 40 km from where we were so looking forward to being. The Ganga! Friends! Coffee! Girls! Comfort!

So, we asked the café owners if they knew a trucker who could give us a lift. We waited. And then…”yes, we have solved your problem. A lift to Haridwar [20km] – thousand rupees.”

Fuckers! Everyone all day (even the roadside cafés we had stopped at), everyone had tried to rip us off. All day. And now we were in a tight spot. We needed their help, and still they wanted to screw us. Thousand rupees…

Then I had an idea. There were some army trucks there. I asked around and before we knew it the whole brigade had surrounded us. They had a mandatory fiddle with the bike (“don’t worry, he’s a mechanic…”) and once it was clear that like everyone else here they couldn’t fix it, they hesitantly and then proudly agreed to help us. “We are the Indian army. We will help you. We don’t need money.”

This was the greatest part of a difficult day. Somehow we had managed to keep vaguely positive and joking all day. But this was pure joy. They hoisted the bike onto one of their donkey trucks. I ran to get my camera but the chief army dude wouldn’t let me take a picture. It’s a real shame but I didn’t wanna piss him off, they were doing us a real favour.

We enjoyed a twenty km truck ride and made appreciative but exhausted small talk with the two friendly officers in our truck. Then they dropped us at a mechanic in Haridwar.

I was so sure that the bike would get fixed and we could make it to Rishikesh for that strong dose of opium and a sandwich.

But no! It took hours and hours and by the time it was fully dark and they’d been fiddling for so long, my hopes of a threesome in the Ganga with a Swedish girl and a bearded Baba (and a sandwich) we seriously dashed.

And when the bike was kind of ok and myself and Roi looked at each other, we realized there was no way we could do the ride in the dark with a dodgy bike, shot nerves, an empty stomach and dusty eyes. We spent the night in Haridwar unable to believe just what kind of a weird day we’d had. I am usually such good luck for people riding on bikes.

Oh, and we took a hot shower. That was nice.

But you know, it’s ok. We are both alive and well and enjoying regular gang bangs in the Beatles Ashram while smoking heroin. We’re fine.

But really, Rishikesh, despite being rather packed full of tourists, is beautiful. We found a nice place and will spend a couple of days here, regain strength, get the bike fully fixed and play some guitar. Then we continue full power to the North.

Whew!