Wild Wind

Today was not a good day. For nothing more than broken self esteem. The weather report warned of high wind and heavy rain and they were right. 55kmph strong winds, but this time it brought it's friend, heavy downpour.

I am English and many would think that an English biker should be used to riding in below par conditions. This used to be the case when I first passed my test, hooning it down the M4 to my mums house just outside Newbury, in the middle of winter wearing my jeans. Crazy or stupid, I'll let you decide.

My biking life started in Goa, India, with a friend of mine from London. After school we decided to go traveling together and picked India as our first destination.
After landing in Bombay airport we paid a rickshaw driver to act as our savior and free us from the mass crowd of taxi mafia and beggars. Clueless to the Indian taxi rates, we paid our driver well over the odds but he saved us from the crowd and there sticky fingers.

Our first first night in the hotel we decided we needed to get the F##k outa there and make it to the beach in Goa.
We did and once in Goa we cherished the sea, the beach and the fewer beggars. It was however just too hot to be walking were we wanted to go and decided that we needed to rent ourselves bikes and start living the Indian dream. Alas we couldn't find a Royal Enfield garage, so rented out a Honda CG 125 and a bright pink 100cc twist and go. As you might have guessed, I ended up with the twist and go and Ritchie took the clutch bike. But we both had so much enjoyment riding around on these bikes and knew by this point that we should dedicate our travels to riding motorbikes.

After a month we left India and flew to Thailand. We landed in the middle of the Song Kran water festival and just had no idea what was going on as we were driven from the airport to our hotel. Hoards of people were hurling water ever were and the taxi driver seemed to be having as much fun, driving up behind people and shooting them with his small water gun. We enjoyed ourselves in the Thai Song Kran for a few days but soon decided that it was time to leave the congestion of the city and venture to the remote regions of Cambodia.

We arrived in Phnom Penn by boat, having sailed down Boeng Kak lake. We found a guest house that was situated on the lake called, 'Same Same But Differant'. From here we planned our next bike trip.
We rented 250cc dirt bikes and rode too the beach town of Kampot, up the Bokor Hill to see the coastal views and the derelict old French casino. We did this in 4 days and had a great time.

After our Cambodian travels Ritchie announced that he had to return back to England to attend a family wedding. I was having too much fun and decided to stay on by myself. After Ritchie left, I soon became tired of lounging around on the beach and decided I needed to ride another bike. India and an Enfield sounded good, so I booked a flight and returned, this time with a bit more developing country street wisdom. I flew to the city of Chennai in the south east of India, this was were the Royal Enfield factory was based and could offer you the best deals on buying a bike. I made friends with Raj, the manager of Southern Motors. After talking we both agreed that the Enfield Machismo 350cc would be most suited to me and my trip I bought a low milage, second hand, chrome Machismo and instantly fell in love.

So there I was with a beautiful single cylinder Royal Enfield Machismo. The world was my oyster or at least India and Nepal were.
I rode out of Chennai, destination Goa. India for those of you that have not been is a stunning country. The food is great, the climate is not as humid as that of Thailand and your general living costs very little.
I will now inform you of the road conditions. There is no place like India for bringing a grown biker to his knees in tears. The road conditions are ludicrous. There is one general piece of highway code in India that all must abide to, the bigger the veichle the more right way, so get out of my way you tiny biker. Traffic coming the other way will just pull out right in front of you and expect you to move, for the reason being that your veichle is smaller than there's. Biking in India is a humbling experience.

First off, I biked down the east coast of India to the city of Pondicherry. I stayed in a small hippie commune nearby, in a town called Auroville. I felt a little out of place there with my gas guzzling Enfield and quickly moved on to Mysore, central India. From there I went back to Goa and stayed on the beach, partying the nights away with a group of Isralies who had just finished there 3 year conscription with the army.
I did not stay for long and soon traveled back to Chennai. I had the most fun when I was on my bike, cruising the Indian highways. So after a few days I made it to Chennai and gave my bike to Southern Motors for a service.

From Chennai I decided to ride up the east coast of India to Calcutta. When I got my bike back, I left the following day. I was 400km north of Chennai when I came to the town of Vijawada, it was here, in this city, were I was to have my first road accident. I was cruising the highway at around 50kmph when a rickshaw pulled out in front of me, totally oblivious to me, behind him on my bike. I was going too fast and the Royal Enfield's drum brakes are just not that good. I went in to the back of the rickshaw, bounced off and landed chest first on a barrier separating the opposing traffic. It hurt, a lot. I was stunned but managed to get up, were there was a large crowd being formed when I came too. I took off my helmet and ran up to the offending driver and was giving him a piece of my mind. My beautiful bike was trashed and so was my pride.

A police man took me too a hospital, were i was to recieve the fright of my life. He instructed the doctor to give me a tetnus jab for my cut up chest. All was good I thought, I don't want to contract a disease from the dirty Indian highway. He went and picked up an old syringe from the floor, sucked fluid out from an ampule and came at me with a broad smile. I quickly retorted that I was fine and did not need any treatment and begged the officers to return me to my bike as I did not want to waste the doctors precious time. The police thought me to be another crazy foriegner but took me to my bike. The rickshaw driver was told to pay for the repairs of my bike and to make a formal apology to me. He did and my Machismo was loaded in to a van and driven off.

I spent a few days waiting in Vijayawada for my bike to be fixed and at this time I was taken in by a lovely family that had a son called Christopher who also rode an Enfield. I have so much gratitude for this family. It was from genuine kindness that they took me in, I was even given Christopher's bed and he slept on the floor. This made me realize that there are people in this world that really will go out of there way to help another even when there is no financial gain offered. They very clearly had little money but did all they could to make my stay with them as enjoyable as possible. I have often wanted to return to India, for the sole purpose of re-tracing my steps back to were I had that accident and to see if I could find Christopher and his Mum and let them know just what they mean to me. If you ever read this Christopher, I thank you and your Mum from the bottom of my heart and hope you passed the exams you needed to get in to the Calcutta university.

My Enfield was patched up, albeit with a very wonky front end. I got back on board and rode down to Chennai. To go in a straight line I had to turn the handlebars to the left as the Enfield mechanic had not done a good job aligning the steering head on my machine. She worked and that was enough. It was from Chennai that I had my bike repaired properly and I then shipped her to my mums house in the UK for a meager £100.

The Royal Enfield brand of bike was sold by England to the Indian army in the 40's. The UK still sells the Enfield but they are imports from India with English tyre's and English electrics. In England of course there is a much higher price tag that goes with them than in India. They are great bikes, often overlooked because of there lack of power. The 350 Machismo offers 19bhp. An almost laughable amount compared with the modern bikes of today but they will go anywhere and ride any road, just not a quickly as a Jap multi cylinder but go they will go and in the process they ride you there in style and radiate charisma when doing so.