Hand full of throttle
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Words by - Johnny Bang
LUCKNOW - SRINAGAR - 845KM |
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Today’s mission was going to be a day trip to Kashmir to burn another day while we wait for visa stuff before entering Pakistan. True to form, we had vastly underestimated the task at hand. The roads up to Kashmir started well but soon disintegrated into potholed gravelly goat tracks carved into the sides of sheer cifffaces. It was a scary road, made scarier by the death army of cars, busses and trucks that seemed intent on wiping any trace of these Australians from the planet. With a hand full of throttle we blasted against unforgiving terrain.
I lost my cool today, for the first time in 8 days and over 4,000km of Indian roads. It was in a 2km long tunnel at the top of the pass coming into the Kashmir valley. Dan and I are in a one way tunnel cruising behind a truck, which is blocking the way. No worries, we are just sitting there cruising... anyway, a car speeds up behind us and starts beeping. I don’t know where he expects us to go, but after about 12 beeps I snapped and lost my shit. I pulled to the side and he sped past, nearly side swiping me in the process. Then I sped right up his ass and started beeping at him to see how he liked it. I felt better after about 50 beeps and a bit of cathargic yelling in my helmet.
Anyway, after he got out of the tunnel he raced over to a group of 6 soldiers sporting kalishmakovs. Uh-oh I thought - this can go either way. They flagged me over and old mate was the car was waving his hands and yelling at me, I took off my helmet and started yelling back at the guy from the car. The soldiers where luckily aptly amused, came and shook my hand and told me to leave. Cool.
Dan was laughing and explained swells had lost his shit in a very similar manner a few days ago, which made me feel a bit better.
We got into Srinagar late at night and had trouble finding a hotel with Wi-Fi. Unbeknownst to us a flood had devastated the town 21 days ago knocking out all the Wi-Fi, except in one hotel which was $100 a night. We left that place in search of the standard cheap shithole hotel we are used to.
Sometimes I wish we weren’t learning about some of these fascinating places retrospectively; our travel style means that we rarely know where we are going, just head west and make the k's. But that’s the way it is, that’s the nature of the trip. This isn’t the kind of trip you can write an itinerary for so we just take it as it comes...
Anyway, back in Srinagar, after trying about 4 hotels, we found one with a safe place for the bikes that looked ok for 1200 rupee (about $24) we told the hotelier we would go for a walk and come back, so we went and had a coffee across the road to check for Wi-Fi (none) and came back to check-inn. Now the price was 2000 rupee. They were taking us for a ride. After some polite argument I told them to fuck off, got back onto my bike, and rode into the night. I have found there is nothing more satisfying than a handful of throttle immediately after telling someone to fuck-off.
Luckily we stumbled across another hotel down the street. The price they wanted was 3500 rupee, I offered 1000 rupee and the manager said 'as you wish' with a bit of a head bobble thing which I am still trying to learn to interpret. It was a yes. Anyway, the manager was an absolute hellman in his 50's who had spent time running businesses in Australia and knew bob Hawke. a friend of bob Hawke is a friend of mine, and old mate looked after us a treat.
Talking to the manager he pointed to a stain halfway up the second floor of his biding and said that is how high the water came. It must have been a substantial flood. At least that explains why all the roads are stuffed around here. It got me thinking again that it would be nice to know a little more about these places before coming here but it’s a positive too. We are only here because visa problems gave us 2 days to kill; so if spontaneity is the spice of life, then errr, we are eating a fuckload of spice.
I lost my cool today, for the first time in 8 days and over 4,000km of Indian roads. It was in a 2km long tunnel at the top of the pass coming into the Kashmir valley. Dan and I are in a one way tunnel cruising behind a truck, which is blocking the way. No worries, we are just sitting there cruising... anyway, a car speeds up behind us and starts beeping. I don’t know where he expects us to go, but after about 12 beeps I snapped and lost my shit. I pulled to the side and he sped past, nearly side swiping me in the process. Then I sped right up his ass and started beeping at him to see how he liked it. I felt better after about 50 beeps and a bit of cathargic yelling in my helmet.
Anyway, after he got out of the tunnel he raced over to a group of 6 soldiers sporting kalishmakovs. Uh-oh I thought - this can go either way. They flagged me over and old mate was the car was waving his hands and yelling at me, I took off my helmet and started yelling back at the guy from the car. The soldiers where luckily aptly amused, came and shook my hand and told me to leave. Cool.
Dan was laughing and explained swells had lost his shit in a very similar manner a few days ago, which made me feel a bit better.
We got into Srinagar late at night and had trouble finding a hotel with Wi-Fi. Unbeknownst to us a flood had devastated the town 21 days ago knocking out all the Wi-Fi, except in one hotel which was $100 a night. We left that place in search of the standard cheap shithole hotel we are used to.
Sometimes I wish we weren’t learning about some of these fascinating places retrospectively; our travel style means that we rarely know where we are going, just head west and make the k's. But that’s the way it is, that’s the nature of the trip. This isn’t the kind of trip you can write an itinerary for so we just take it as it comes...
Anyway, back in Srinagar, after trying about 4 hotels, we found one with a safe place for the bikes that looked ok for 1200 rupee (about $24) we told the hotelier we would go for a walk and come back, so we went and had a coffee across the road to check for Wi-Fi (none) and came back to check-inn. Now the price was 2000 rupee. They were taking us for a ride. After some polite argument I told them to fuck off, got back onto my bike, and rode into the night. I have found there is nothing more satisfying than a handful of throttle immediately after telling someone to fuck-off.
Luckily we stumbled across another hotel down the street. The price they wanted was 3500 rupee, I offered 1000 rupee and the manager said 'as you wish' with a bit of a head bobble thing which I am still trying to learn to interpret. It was a yes. Anyway, the manager was an absolute hellman in his 50's who had spent time running businesses in Australia and knew bob Hawke. a friend of bob Hawke is a friend of mine, and old mate looked after us a treat.
Talking to the manager he pointed to a stain halfway up the second floor of his biding and said that is how high the water came. It must have been a substantial flood. At least that explains why all the roads are stuffed around here. It got me thinking again that it would be nice to know a little more about these places before coming here but it’s a positive too. We are only here because visa problems gave us 2 days to kill; so if spontaneity is the spice of life, then errr, we are eating a fuckload of spice.
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