A Hard Days Ride: Agra – Orchha 25th April 2006

I didn’t sleep well at all last night despite going to bed after midnight. The pillow was rock hard and I kept on getting dive bombed by some insect – never did catch the bugger.

I made an early start and was on the road by 08:00, I was going to travel over 230 kms, which should take about five hours (Indian roads remember!). Getting out of Agra took about twenty minutes, as my map sent me down a dead end and I had to double back and re-plot the route in my head. The road was pretty rough starting out and I was averaging about 20 kms an hour. I had the thrill of seeing my first train that had people on the roof and hanging out of doors. I’ve seen it on buses, trucks, mini vans etc, but never on a train. It wasn’t going particularly fast and the track was parallel to the road I was travelling on. I managed to get about a kilometre ahead of it and this gave me time to stop and get my camera out. I was near to the track and I got a “hoot” from the train driver and people on the roof started waving at me.

I set off again and over took the train, but didn’t bother stopping, that was until I came to a bend in the track, which brought the train even closer to the road. I hopped off my bike and got ready to take some more photos. I got another deafening “hoot” from the drive (he probably thought I was going to jump in front of the train!) and more waves from the people on the roof. That was definetly it, I bagged a couple of good photos and had to press on. Or so I thought! I came to what looked a dead end with a fence at the end of it, which was a bit of a surprise as we were on a national highway. Turns out it was a level crossing which was closed because of an approaching train. Now, Indian drivers are bad enough keeping to their side of the road at the best of times, but give them a closed level crossing and they excel themselves. A guard had padlocked the gates shut and I witnessed “motorcycle limbo”™! People were riding their motorbikes up to the locked gates and putting their bikes on their side and pushing / pulling them through. Insane.

The gates were closed for over five minutes and cars and bikes were milling about jostling for position for when the gates would finally open. The train went by and I got a “hoot” from the driver and even more waves from the roof! When the gates opened it was chaos. Drivers (bus, lorry etc) and riders (bicycles / motorcycles) were spread across both lanes of the road, in both directions so nobody could move once the gates opened. I do wonder about the intelligence of people sometimes, especially Indian drivers! I managed to find a way through eventually by overtaking a stationery lorry on the inside (riding on sand), God or Buddha, only knows how the drivers of the buses and lorries got on. I overtook the train again and got a couple of more waves, but the novelty had worn off and I had to press on.

I had intended to stop in Gwalior and visit the fort there (looks amazing from the road), but I was tired, hungry and thirst by this stage and just wanted to press on. I stopped for something to drink (2 bottles of 7up and a litre of water) and got on my way again. The bike is a bugger to start at the moment due to needing a service, so I had to try and kick-start it with five locals standing beside the bike telling me what they thought is wrong with it. I kept trying to tell them that I know exactly what the “problem” is and that it will take five minutes to fix, I’d have been better off saving my breath.

It’s a pain not knowing how to adjust the tappets myself, but I’m sure that I’ll be able to pick it up by watching the mechanic. I stopped for petrol about thirty minutes after leaving Gwalior and had a look at my map, as I didn’t see any of the town names that I had expected. This may have had something to do with the fact that after Gwalior the English signs stopped and were only in Hindi! Turns out that I had missed a turn 30km’s earlier, so I had to double back and try and find the right road, it was either that or carry on on the same road and take a 150km detour. It is something I might do in Europe, especially if the weather was nice and the road was good, but this is India and an extra 150km could add five hours to my journey time. I managed to find the road, right where I had stopped for my drinks!

I was about four hours into my journey at this stage and had hopped to have been in Orchha by this time, but I still had 85kms to go. The roads were a right hotch potch of surfaces. Sometimes they were excellent and I could whiz around slowly opening bends at 80kph, other times I couldn’t get above 15kph. I thought I was in a bit of trouble at one stage. I was zipping along on a decent stretch of road at 80kph and I noticed four unmarked speed humps about 20 metres in front of me. I usually ride over these as slow as I can as they really shake the bike up, but this time I was going to hit them at full speed.

There was no way I could have stopped or slowed down, so I did what any intelligent person would do and sped up! I thought that if I was going to go out I might as well go out in style and with a smile on my face. I braced myself and gripped the handlebars waiting for the impact. It never came! I hit the first speed hump (I tried to lift the bars just as I hit it) and I sailed right over all four humps! Wow. What fun! That was it. I didn’t hit another set of four speed humps under 80kph when I was on a clear stretch of road.

One of the frustrating things about India is that there is no personal space. At all. There is no chance of walking down a street and having it to yourself, forget about a quite walk in the park. By the time I got to Jansi (18kms from Orchha) I need to answer a call of nature, they haven’t gotten around to building public toilets, so I looked for a quite place at the side of the road. I found somewhere that looked quite and hopped off my bike, I had a quick look over the bike to make sure nothing had rattled off on the ride, and before I knew it I had two young kids (about 9 and 12 years old) and they started yapping to me in Hindi. They asked me for some pens (I’ve only one left which I need) and then a guy on a bicycle pulls up, he was loaded down with aubergines and he just stood there smiling at me. Next think I know, two girls come over and stand beside my bike and smile. No chance of a minute to myself, so I hopped back on the bike and headed into town.

Jansi is a smallish looking town, but as with all Indian towns it is chaotic. It took me nearly forty minutes to find the road out of town to Orchha. There were no signs in English and several people gave me different directions and the stress levels were rising. I managed to find a traffic cop who put me on the right track, I’d never have found the town without his help. The approach to Orchha was amazing, lovely bendy roads leading up the hill. At the entrance to the town I crossed a bridge and it was a real jungle scene with animals (water buffalo and birds) in the water and lovely dark green foliage, reminded me of Jungle Book. It turns out that Kipling wrote Jungle Book around these parts and it is based on one of the nearby jungles. Didn’t see any dancing bears though.

By the time I found a room it was 16:00, eight hours after I had set out. An average of 28.75 Kph, which is about 17 Mph! The town looks amazing though as it’s built on a riverbank and surrounded by forts and temples. Didn’t have much of a look around though as I needed to have a shower and crash out for an hour. I was really hungry when I went out later, I hadn’t eaten since 17:00 yesterday, which was 25 hours without food! I decided to check out one of the restaurants in Lonely Planet and the food was dirt cheap and not bad. Although I could have had “shit on a stick” by that stage and it still would have tasted alright!

It’s really hot down in these parts and it’s starting to get pretty humid, the build up to the monsoon season has well and truly started. It’s thirst work as well, I’ve drank over eight litres of water today and a couple of 7-up’s and not a lot of it has worked its way out.