Jaipur 12th April 2006

Don’t ask me why, but I’m really loving riding my motorbike over here, it’s just like nothing I’ve experienced before. Take the ride this morning from Pushkar to Jaipur – I left the guesthouse at 08:30 and found the main road to Amjer straight away, although I missed the turn for Highway 8 as the all the signs were in Hindi and I ended up riding through Amjer town, which I really wanted to avoid.

The road from Pushkar to Amjer is 22kms long and it’s twisty with loads of bends and has amazing views of the undulating desert. I rode most of this road one handed, as I was busy waving to loads of kids walking along the roadside. It’s hard to put into words how nice it is to ride on this (and similar) roads, the roads in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand (in parts) were pretty rutted and bumpy, the roads I’ve been riding on lately have been immaculate, although I’m sure that’s going to change when I head up to the mountains (Himalayas).

I rode through the town looking for a “major-ish” looking road that would lead me to the Highway. I looked, and I looked and tried looking a bit more. I eventually pulled over and asked two traffic police, but they were more interested in talking about my bike than telling me how to get on my way. They eventually gave me directions – “2km straight, turn under railway, left and under the bridge. Jaipur”. I followed their general directions, but the railway turn came up after about ¾’s of a kilometre. I pulled over and as I did so this local chap on a scooter, rides up to me and says, “Jaipur?”. He told me to follow him and he brought me on this real circuitous route and after about five minutes of riding together he leads me to a roundabout and says, “Jaipur straight, 160kms” and he rode off. I was really glad of his help, as it would have taken me ages to find the rode out of the town.

Highway 8 is a great road, three lanes and smooth blacktop. I can’t help grinning to myself as I ride with my helmet open (has option of closed or open face) and a warm breeze in my face riding along watching parrots and eagles flying whilst trying to avoid road kill (only two cats today) and overtaking loads of camels. It really is a nice way to travel. I arrived in Jaipur at around mid-day and managed to find the guesthouse I stayed in last week, and I’m glad to say that they have a room. I’m only staying the one night here as I’ve got to be in Delhi for 13:00 tomorrow as I’ve got four friends from London coming over for a couple of weeks. It’s 267km (or there-abouts) to Delhi and that’ll take about five or six hours depending on the amount of trucks and camels on the road.

I’ve spent the last eleven days chilling out in Pushkar, I thought I’d never get around to leaving it was so blissful. I mentioned earlier that my room was overlooking the holy lake and it really was a fantastic place to be. Although, one night when I was watching the sunset from my balcony I was motioned to by one of the locals who was playing drums at one of the ghats. He wanted me to play drums with him as the sunset went down, I politely refused as to otherwise would have been an assault on his ears!

Met a really interesting guy in the guesthouse, from Colorado, US, and he’s been to India seventeen times. He actually introduced himself to me as Canadian and it was only after about half an hour that he admitted that he was from Canada. He’s totally against the political regime in the US and spends as little time there as he physically can. He’s been living in Germany for the last six months, but has to return home to see his mother in a few months. I also got speaking to an Irish girl who has been staying in the guesthouse for the last four months. She visited Jaipur four years ago (at least I think it was four years ago, as I’m typing this on 17th April and details aren’t as clear..) and was accosted by a child street beggar. She decided to do something to help the kids and has opened up a school where she teaches the kids to make jewellery (her trade) and the make and then sell the jewellery, all the money goes to the children. She returns to Ireland for six months of the year to earn money selling her own jewellery and this enables her to do this work in India for the rest of the year.