Delhi – Chandigar – Shimla 16th April 2006

We both felt well enough in the morning to travel and arranged to meet the others in Chandigar by 13:00, as they had arranged for a taxi to take them to Shimla. We set off at 07:00 and managed to find Highway 1 after ¾ of an hour. My road map shows every route out of Delhi except the one I needed, and I’d asked a couple of people in the hotel if they knew the way to Chandigar and got several different replies. It was the Lonely Planet map that actually pointed me in the right direction! It didn’t help though, that there were no road signs leading to Highway 1, so we had to keep pulling over and try to check street names (when we could find a street name that is!). It was nearly 35 minutes before we saw any type of sign that helped us.

The road out of Delhi was pretty poor and I had to continually dodge pot holes after that it was pretty straight forward once we found the Highway. We made fairly good time and stopped a couple of times for water breaks. One of my mirrors worked it self loose as we were riding along, and I hand-tightened it as I rode along, but it kept on working loose and I had to make an unscheduled stop. Two young guys (14 – 16) stopped along side us and started chatting, we had a conversation about something (we couldn’t understand each other’s language) and I got back on the bike to ride off. The elder guy shook my hand, next thing I know, Gulshan has slapped him in the face! Turns out the little git went for a grope as he was saying goodbye!

Road Kill count: One donkey, couple of birds and a dog.

We got to Chandigar at 11:30 and I rang Carol and we agreed to meet at the bus station by the tourist office. I found the bus station, but couldn’t locate the tourist office, Carol rang and asked where we were as she was waiting for us and I told her that we were by platform 1, so she told us to wait there and she would come to get us. Carol rang a couple of minutes later and said that she was standing on platform 1 and I said that I was directly under the platform sign, so was she! But she wasn’t, there was no sign of her. I told her to wait where she was and that I’d try and find her. I met her shortly after at platform 1, that’s the other platform 1 in the same bus station and not the platform 1 that I had been at! How many platform 1’s does a bus station need?

We got back to their hotel just as the others were checking out and we went for something to eat, actually Carol (who wasn’t feeling 100%), Gulshan and I went for something to watch and Rajen and Mairead had something to eat. After a bottle of Sprite and Pepsi I decided that I felt well enough to carry on to Shimla and Carol came on the back of the bike. I found myself riding behind another Bullet rider (which was unbelievably the first time this has happened on my trip {apart from in towns}). We had a bit of a “dice”, me in the lead then him, then me. At one point he was leading and there was a scooter in between us. I noticed (as did Carol) a car coming towards us at speed on our side of the road, I hit the brakes and moved over to the left, the Bullet guy in front did the same. The scooted rider, displaying all the skill and anticipation of a true scooter rider, rode into the back of the Bullet!

If I hadn’t slowed down I’d probably have ridden over the scooter, the rider or his passenger. The Bullet guy stopped, as did I, and went to see how the scotter guy was. Before we know it there must have been a crowd of fifteen people around the Bullet guy, I went over to tell the people what I witnessed and told the Bullet guys girlfriend (American) that if they needed a witness I’d be happy to give details. As we were there my friends rode by in their taxi looking anxiously towards me and Carol, I gave them the “thumbs up” (© Paul McCartney) and they went on. We caught up with them shortly afterwards and gave them a quick wave. The road was a single carriageway and the driving was reckless, there’s not mine, I hasten to add. I spent most of the trip hugging the verge or skirting the hard shoulder (where it existed) as the on-coming cars were using my bike as something to aim for as they over took other vehicles on their side of the road.

The road to Shimla was up through the hills and it was a good fun ride, but I had to concentrate on the road 100%. At one stage we came across two puppies (one black, one brown) in the middle of the road and I slowed down and went around them. We later learned from our friends that their taxi driver rode over a dog, turns out that it was brown puppy!

The weather was pretty overcast (as it had been in Delhi that morning) and it got colder the higher up we got (surprise, surprise) and when I stopped the bike in Shimla it started raining really heavily, we just missed it by seconds. We me the others in a café at the top of the lift. Shimla is built on a big hillside and the houses appear to hang off the hill, there are two lifts that bring you up from street level to further up the hill.

Rajen and Gulshan volunteered to go look for a hotel. We got a text message from them about twenty minutes later to say that they found a hotel. About ten minutes later the waiter from the café came over to us and told us that there is a porter outside waiting for us. We thought, lazy bastards, they wouldn’t even walk back down to help with their luggage. Fair play to the little guy though, he carried my big rucksack, Carols case and Gulshans bag with ease. I wheeled and wheezed with Maireads case up the hill and we were all knackered by the time we got to the hotel. I hadn’t eaten much in forty-eight hours by this stage and I was shattered after riding since 07:00. I went to my room and watched Liverpool beat Blackburn 0-1 and Rajen ordered me a cheese sandwich and bottle of water from reception and I crashed out after that.

I woke up at 05:30 this morning feeling pretty good, it’s blood cold though, and I’m glad that I’ve got two duvets to snuggle under. No idea what today has in store, I’ve been catching up with my blog, but no doubt it’ll involve walking up and down lots of hills. I’ve got to find a way of getting my motorbike up the hill, I was told that I wasn’t allowed to bring it up here (although I did say to the church, which was our original meeting place), but there are cars and bikes up here and it’ll save me having to struggle up more hills – and I thought that I was pretty “walking” fit!