They whisper, I shout

There is a game called Chinese whispers, where you tell one person something, then he tells another person and so on. Eventually, you hear the story back again, but it has taken a different form. In India, there is something that I call Indian whispers. In this, you tell them (or someone sees) one thing, then they tell EVERYONE else in town, with the result being that random strangers come up to you and tell you "ah, you're the man on the motorcycle" or "you bought this from that shop". There is no such thing as privacy and no such thing as a secret in India. As a visitor, your business is always public knowledge.
Kerala delivered on its promises. The beaches were heavenly, the weather pretty good and a good balance of opportunities to relax and to meet people and unwind. After almost a week, it was time to press on with a fairly major part of the trip - arranging transport to Malaysia. After some searching around at the local Kerala airport, we found a shipper who gave us a quote for sending the bike to Kuala Lumpur. As one may expect, all of the questions were asked as to what was included and we were finally given a confirmation as to what the upper price might be. The best location to leave from was defined as Chennai (also known of as Madras), so we decided to make our way there. After the horrendous roads in the south and the driving standards that were becoming beyond a joke, it was decided that a train would be the quickest way to complete the 700 mile journey and move on to the next country before visas might need to be renewed. The train ride proved to be simple enough so we headed straight to the shipping company to start on the paperwork. With a 5am arrival and Indian business hours starting at 10am, some hours later we finally got to it. Paperwork started well with customs forms dealt with almost entirely on our behalf. The other areas that required our attention was a confirmation from the Police Commissioner that we had not been involved in any accidents (I kept quiet about the cow!) and declaring that the bikes were technically dangerous goods for the purposes of air transport. We even managed to package up the bikes before being told that they would definitely be on the next day's flight to KL. A couple of hours before the flight, we were to find that prices had gone up and that they had not been correctly identified as dangerous goods. Despite frantic attempts, we could not manage to get all of the necessary declarations in place in time, with the result being that we also had to delay our personal flights.
Unfortunately, we have been disappointed too many times in India by empty promises. The locals just don't like to give you the answer 'no', so you are always kept hanging around with the confirmation that there would be 'no problem'. This was probably the most frustrating part of India travel and eventually, the knowledge that even the simplest task will be made a mess of becomes exhausting. Having spent almost three months in such an environment, the desire to move on to the next stage of the journey became overwhelming. When the final departure arrived, even the trip to the airport disappointed. The rickshaw broke down, so, in order not to miss our flight, we flagged down a taxi. He turned out to be a student who was a maniac driver who wanted to impress us with his stupidity. In this he was quite successful and even had the audacity to request a tip! Upon arrival at the airport, the flight was delayed by an hour. Yet again, we had not failed to be disappointed.
The visit to India had been fascinating with the full spectrum of people and places having been presented, however there had been a sensory and stress overload that finally wore me down to a level of absolute exhaustion. I had not outstayed my visa, but I had outstayed my sanity tolerance! It was time to move on and I was shouting out to do so. Some how, I am sure that I will be beckoned back, but for now, back to the trip to Australia and it was time to begin exploration in the next country.
N.b. For those of you interested in the technical details of flying the bikes, go to the 'Planning' section of the website and then to 'Bike Transport'.

Palm trees and Jaffa Cakes.

The chocolately smooth roads leading south from Pune proved deceiving as I entered the Karnarkatha state below Goa. Whilst the scenery was among the most idyllic that I had seen in quite some time, the roads degraded to a level that I hadn't experienced since Kazakhstan. The only differences are that India is far from being a remote country and that most of the other drivers acquired their driving licenses by driving for more than a hundred metres and having been lucky enough to avoid bumping into a cow (which is better than I had managed in the north). This spicy concoction made for some of the toughest riding that I had had to do. The roads were pot-holed and covered in gravel. Around every corner (and even along every straight), a bus or coach driver could be found on the wrong side of the road, hurtling towards me. They travel at such a speed that they could not possibly stop or even pull back onto their side of the road. As you can imagine, this didn't make for an enjoyable journey.
Despite the roads and the psychotic driving, Karnarkatha is stunning. I stopped for breakfast one day by a beach simply marked from the main highway as 'Palm Grove Resort'. I ventured down a narrow lane and found myself in a village, fronting the beach. They were simple people, living simple lives. When I got to the tiny resort, unfortunately, they were unable to make breakfast for me as I wasn't a guest, so I sat on the beach and ate some Jaffa Cakes that a friend of mine had brought of Pune for me. Not a worry in the world, and this is how the locals live - just without the Jaffa Cakes!
It was around a thousand miles to get down to Kerala, where I was due to meet up with Jim. The day times had the contrast of the beauty and the miserable riding and the evenings were merely stopover points.
On one of the days, my gears became gradually harder to change. It was almost as if the clutch was not disengaging properly. Some simple diagnosis found that the clutch cable wire was starting to break. Whilst I had a replacement, I wanted somewhere comfortable to change it, so pressed on for the evening. Fortunately, it held out, although it was holding on by a single thread of wire by the time that I changed it.
The next day, the bad roads continued. Just before lunch time, I went over a big bump and then found oil all the way down my left leg. This did not seem good, so I pulled over and immediately, my audience amassed. I quickly found that my oil filler cap had fallen out and this was the source of the boiling hot brown liquid. Obviously, when I had taken the bike to bits to change the clutch cable, I had failed to properly tighten it. I called over the police, who were dealing with my crowd control and asked them to keep an eye on the bike, whilst I found a local and asked him to give me a ride back for a kilometre or so, so that I could see if I could find it. To no avail, though. I was in the middle of nowhere and the part that I would need was a very specific size. I started to think of temporary fixes that I could make. One of the policemen came back with a piece of bamboo shoot, but I wasn't terrible comfortable with that in case it seeped sap or debris into my engine. His next suggestion was to put a condom over the top! Not the wisest idea given that the oil temperature runs at 95 degrees! Finally, on of the policemen sent a crowd member off somewhere. Twenty minutes later, he reappeared with an oil cap for another bike. It wasn't a direct replacement and the thread was a little short, but it would do the trick.
Finally, I completed my ride into Cochin, arriving a little later than I had hoped and found a suitable hotel. Fort Cochin is a quiet area of the city, right on the sea front. It was quite badly impacted by the Tsunami of 2005 but had recovered well. After 4 long days, it was time to relax and take a cursory glance at the Chinese fishing nets, churches and the synagogue, which is one of the oldest in this part of the world.
On the final day on my way down to meet Jim at the beach, I decided to do an overnight cruise on a houseboat on the Kerala backwaters. Here, I chartered what seemed to be a massive boat for one person, to take me along the waterways. It was serenely peaceful and in the evening, my three crewmembers and I moored by some palm trees lining the canals. Here, I was served an Indian feast. In the morning, we continued exploring the area before heading back to where I had parked my bike before I completed the 50 or so miles down to Varkala Beach, a small, slightly touristy place that would be my recluse for the next 5 days. It was time to properly relax after the long ride down and to unwind before the next step of the journey - shipping the bike to Malaysia, which was not expected to be a simple thing to arrange in bureaucratic India.

On hold, waiting for parts.

The next few weeks were an enforced break from riding the bike. It was spent with the family of a friend in Pune, a family who have now become like family to me. I was welcomed like a son and had the opportunity to live for a couple of weeks as if I was at home. The pleasure of waking up in the same bed for more than 4 days was a forgotten experience to me and I finally had the chance to relax properly.
In Pune, the sights that I saw were no longer those for tourists but just everyday living in India. I attended an Indian baby shower party, celebrated the Ganapati (the week long festival of Ganesh, the Hindu elephant God) where the streets of Pune amass with crowds. I visited local sporting clubs, experienced being driven in cars by Indians (gulp!), as well as making presentations about my trip to students at the Firodia Hostel. I met everyone from the Mayor of Pune, who officially welcomed me by crowning me with a Maharashtra hat, the Commissioner of the Home Guards and of course (!) the Press, but more on that later.
After a week in Pune, I decided to make a week long visit to the world renowned beaches of Goa. This time, without my motorcycle, I was a regular tourist and no longer a rock star. Whilst I missed the constant attention from locals, I also enjoyed the anonymity of not being hounded with questions. It turned out that I had chosen entirely the wrong time of year to come this part of the world. Yes, it was monsoon season and it was in full flow and I only managed a day and a half of sun. As this is, first and foremost a motorcycle trip, I decided to rent a Royal Enfield Bullet bike to explore the countryside. It was hugely different from my bike, being much more agricultural to ride, aswell as the gear controls being on different sides. After a day of trying to get to grips with it, I felt as if I was being unfaithful to my bike and sent the Bullet back!
Upon returning back to the dry of Pune, my part eventually arrived. As I had by now come to expect, the Indian courier company failed to allow everything to go smoothly and were unable to locate my parcel for a day or 2, but I was comforted to finally have it in my hand. A friend introduced me to a local mechanic who had a good workshop and was familiar with foreign, larger motorcycles. It was here that I set about replacing the radiator, changing the chain and sprockets and putting in some fresh brake pads. I was able to do most of the work myself, only occasionally needing to consult the owner/mechanic, Sheri, on how to do something. By the end of the day, I was mobile again and keen to make sure that everything was working again, so I arranged to visit a friend in Mumbai for the weekend.
As in Pune, in Mumbai, I was visiting a friend, so the focus was on relaxing, enjoying myself and meeting people. Other than a coffee by a beach, fronting the Arabian Sea, I saw nothing of the city. What I did see was how young people live. They have great parties, dress fashionably (in a Western style) and love to shop. They work hard (6 days a week) but play hard too. A weekend visit was not long enough to pay Mumbai (or Bombay as the locals still call it) justice, but enough of a taste to see city life. Riding back to Pune, which is just over 100 miles away, being on a '2 wheeler', I was not supposed to take the Expressway. On the way out, I had correctly taken the slower highway, but I decided that I would attempt the impossible. I snuck onto it at the second junction and prepared my excuses (that I did not know that I wasn't allowed, that the sign must have been obscured by a truck, that the last policeman had said that it was OK and that this was a big bike, so I did not think that it applied to me. I was also to play on the fact that I had a foreign number plate and that they could never trace it!). Various highway maintenance, toll booth attendants and police tried to stop me, but I played dumb until they eventually relented and permitted me to carry on for a bit. Temporarily, I was a fugitive, trying to lay low! I did, however manage to complete my journey by the expressway, a feat that I hear is nigh on impossible by bike without being escorted off of it by the police.
Upon returning to Pune, I spent another week being filled with copious amounts of delicious food, although starting to learn acceptable ways not having my plate overly refilled by my host. In India, the mother rarely sits with the men of the family and guests, but instead serves the food. I wasn't used to this, so after much insistence, we all ate dinner together! Nothing was too spicy, although the odd green chilly was occasionally challenging.
The rest of my time in Pune flew by. Between me having to do a couple of days' work from my laptop and a series of press conferences and presentations, by the end of it, I was exhausted. The 'father' of the house in which I was staying had arranged for me to meet a couple of people to talk about my trip and to raise awareness (and hopefully money) for my charity, so I held a press conference for around 15 reporters, 10 cameramen and 3 television channels. The day was something of a blur, but most enjoyable. Previously, when I had been in the papers in India, I had found myself on page 3, so, as a joke, I asked the reporters if they could make sure that I was on the front page this time. I was later to find out that page 3 is actually the prestige page for celebrities whilst the front page is for politics!
I awaited until the next day to see the fruits of my work and found myself in 7 newspapers, with 2 'front pages' and 2 'page 3's'! I am still trying to get hold of a copy of the video coverage.
At the end of the week, it was finally my time to move on. I was to head down to Kerala to meet my riding buddy, Jim and to press on to the next country. Having stayed with my friend's family (and now my family) for almost a month, it was difficult to say goodbye, but the show had to go on and I wanted to see the white sands and crocodiles at the shores of Australia before the year was out.