Adventure themed dreams
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words by - Swells
India |
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I was surprised waking from a dream to find that I had managed at least some sleep awkwardly laying across the top of my bike. I was groggy and felt like an old sock, but a fresh wind whipped into our moist dungeon, sailing us back out into the fray.
We travelled down a duel carriage way, through flat fields of dull green and wandering humans. Yesterday upon discovery of the duel carriage way we had rejoiced, accelerating our bikes to maximum throttles. But today we knew better. The roads construction, combined with Indian driving techniques, made it some of the most dangerous sections we had rode so far. Along the middle of the road a concrete divider separated the traffic flow but separate the traffic flow it did not. Vehicles small and big travelling the wrong way down the road came at us Forgger style. Wrecked trucks with smashed cabs sat abandon along the road sides, serving as a high res reminder to the fact that no extra lives were being tallied up for every stage we passed.
A brief rain storm came and went providing a good chance to test the Sherpa's new CDI, she pulled strong and I began feeling confident that the cheap CDI had weather proofed my steed. Also tested was an idea that imminently became obviously a bad idea. I had acquired a plastic rain poncho from a French man in a Thai jungle, now in India, I decided to put it on. The poncho lasted about 1-minute travelling at 100 Km's/hr before being ripped of my wet bod. I was left wondering why I ever thought that it was going to work. "Adventure dementia" lunched an internal brain storm into a possible line of products I could release, that is, if I survived any more self-inflicted Adventure dementia ideas.
We crossed rivers at regular intervals and often, only one of the two bridges required for a fully functioning duel carriage way were constructed. At this point, all traffic would slowdown, leave the concrete and rumble through a sandy trail, heading over the centre divider to the fully constructed bridge. It was an exciting way to mix highway cruising and trail riding adventure.
We slipped down a small country road following Dan and his GPS to find safety among the beauty of a fertile Indian plain. Arriving at a small town we pulled into a road side restaurant to full our hungry guts with future poop. Lunch was good, I was becoming used to finding chicken feet bobbing away in my soup - finding the taste the same as chicken flavoured chips, I guess that's where they get their flavour from. After lunch I wrote an email, which despite of its well average literate quality, a crowd gathered behind me reading the screen over my shoulder.
Heading out of town we crossed a massive flood plain. Industrious people went about mining the sandy banks of the river, filling small boats with sand then pushing them out into the fast current, sending them bobbing away, like chicken feet in soup, floating down the river.
An area where the industrious spirit is not present is in road maintenance. Throughout south east Asia pothole repair was a means that the disadvantaged could derive an income. After filling in holes they would stand by pointing proudly at their repair, to be financially rewarded by appreciative motorists. For a multitude of reasons, beyond my Indian education, this style of road maintenance didn't work here. With the result being sections of road becoming degraded into the worst we had ridden. This includes highways, one of which turned into a 1 km stretch of dirt mounds and sandy pits which dismounted riders and bogged down cars. It was rad fun to blast through the obstacle course with an obnoxiously vindicated sense of righteousness. Whose road was it now MOFO's?
The highways often served a multitude of functions, these included, but are not limited to - A communal meeting place, market stall areas, crop drying areas, a toilet for whatever you got to dump (this one seems male only) and my favorited, morning yoga routines conducted by small groups, right there, on the highway. I had never seen this obstacle in Frogger!
Both Luke and I collected more near-death experiences. Luke was forced from the road by an overzealous over taking bus who in a typical fashion surrendered no road to a smaller vehicle. And I was hit by a motorbike equipped with sissy bars in an avoidable head-on which bent my pannier bracket.
That night we sought shelter behind bushes along the highways edge. While milling about for the now standard "half hour test", we had baby wipe showers and ate bags of dinner chips. later, when no one had crashed our sweet bush camp site, we settled in and told war stories from the days ride, fuelling stoke into adventure themed dreams.
We travelled down a duel carriage way, through flat fields of dull green and wandering humans. Yesterday upon discovery of the duel carriage way we had rejoiced, accelerating our bikes to maximum throttles. But today we knew better. The roads construction, combined with Indian driving techniques, made it some of the most dangerous sections we had rode so far. Along the middle of the road a concrete divider separated the traffic flow but separate the traffic flow it did not. Vehicles small and big travelling the wrong way down the road came at us Forgger style. Wrecked trucks with smashed cabs sat abandon along the road sides, serving as a high res reminder to the fact that no extra lives were being tallied up for every stage we passed.
A brief rain storm came and went providing a good chance to test the Sherpa's new CDI, she pulled strong and I began feeling confident that the cheap CDI had weather proofed my steed. Also tested was an idea that imminently became obviously a bad idea. I had acquired a plastic rain poncho from a French man in a Thai jungle, now in India, I decided to put it on. The poncho lasted about 1-minute travelling at 100 Km's/hr before being ripped of my wet bod. I was left wondering why I ever thought that it was going to work. "Adventure dementia" lunched an internal brain storm into a possible line of products I could release, that is, if I survived any more self-inflicted Adventure dementia ideas.
We crossed rivers at regular intervals and often, only one of the two bridges required for a fully functioning duel carriage way were constructed. At this point, all traffic would slowdown, leave the concrete and rumble through a sandy trail, heading over the centre divider to the fully constructed bridge. It was an exciting way to mix highway cruising and trail riding adventure.
We slipped down a small country road following Dan and his GPS to find safety among the beauty of a fertile Indian plain. Arriving at a small town we pulled into a road side restaurant to full our hungry guts with future poop. Lunch was good, I was becoming used to finding chicken feet bobbing away in my soup - finding the taste the same as chicken flavoured chips, I guess that's where they get their flavour from. After lunch I wrote an email, which despite of its well average literate quality, a crowd gathered behind me reading the screen over my shoulder.
Heading out of town we crossed a massive flood plain. Industrious people went about mining the sandy banks of the river, filling small boats with sand then pushing them out into the fast current, sending them bobbing away, like chicken feet in soup, floating down the river.
An area where the industrious spirit is not present is in road maintenance. Throughout south east Asia pothole repair was a means that the disadvantaged could derive an income. After filling in holes they would stand by pointing proudly at their repair, to be financially rewarded by appreciative motorists. For a multitude of reasons, beyond my Indian education, this style of road maintenance didn't work here. With the result being sections of road becoming degraded into the worst we had ridden. This includes highways, one of which turned into a 1 km stretch of dirt mounds and sandy pits which dismounted riders and bogged down cars. It was rad fun to blast through the obstacle course with an obnoxiously vindicated sense of righteousness. Whose road was it now MOFO's?
The highways often served a multitude of functions, these included, but are not limited to - A communal meeting place, market stall areas, crop drying areas, a toilet for whatever you got to dump (this one seems male only) and my favorited, morning yoga routines conducted by small groups, right there, on the highway. I had never seen this obstacle in Frogger!
Both Luke and I collected more near-death experiences. Luke was forced from the road by an overzealous over taking bus who in a typical fashion surrendered no road to a smaller vehicle. And I was hit by a motorbike equipped with sissy bars in an avoidable head-on which bent my pannier bracket.
That night we sought shelter behind bushes along the highways edge. While milling about for the now standard "half hour test", we had baby wipe showers and ate bags of dinner chips. later, when no one had crashed our sweet bush camp site, we settled in and told war stories from the days ride, fuelling stoke into adventure themed dreams.
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