Feb 24th Returning to Peace
N15.59268, E73.74697 Peaceland Holiday Home
Leaving my parents in the long line queuing for the security check-in at the airport, I check out of the luxury of the Panjim Inn Hotel and book a room back at the Peaceland Holiday Home in the northern Goa beach of Anjuna. Thus I began to work my way back to Mumbai to return to the UAE and the end of my Indian experience.
With the Silver Bullet being reviewed by more and more people as I try to sell it I return to one of the mechanics who had checked it over and ask him to give it a tune up, for it had developed an annoying habit of coughing and dying after a period of closed throttle which always took 7 or 8 kicks before the carb would clear and the motor would run again. This had happened the previous night when a rich Arab had been interested in it but I think the fact I had to kick it so many times in the middle of the streaming traffic put him off. For the tune up I wanted the ignition timing, as well as the tappet clearance and mixture setting but it seemed no mechanic in India has the tools to set the ignition timing as I was told it was perfect alternatively they have well tuned ears capable of detecting an early or late firing. However the bike did run better after the tune up probably because the air-filter was in a worse state than I imagined for just two or three thousand kilometres. Likewise, I guess my lungs are also in a far worse state than I first thought.
Over at Peaceland I fix the broken wiring to the brake light before riding to Mapusa to watch the King Momo's Goa Carnival. King Momo having decreed some time back that everyone should have fun at least once per year. The parade started about an hour later as the streets got more and more packed. It was a good time to view the locals with a fair percentage of the local ladies dressed in skirts and dresses as well as saris. Many of the floats had separate trucks following them just to carry a huge generator to power the banks of speakers each float seemed to have. With the parade going quite slow it went on for more than a couple of hours. The local lads around the Panjim Inn had being building a float that my parents and I would go and view each night as it transformed from a bare car chassis into a warrior surrounded by two wonderful golden dragons made from paper mache over a welded wired frame but it seems they had decided not to parade for the fifth consecutive day. The winning float was a huge and impressive elephant with flapping ears and a moving trunk that sprayed water onto the crowd. Many of the floats had a message ether about terrorism, only then did I really understand how the Mumbai bombings had effected all of India, or alternatively a message about the environment which was encouraging to see.
Parking my bike with its for sale sign at the German Bakery restaurant for an evening meal of pasta, knowing that I will be on India food for the next few days, I get talking to the restaurant owner. He takes the Silver Bullet for a ride, spotting the still slipping clutch and the oil leak from the head but more concerning he looks at my registration documents and says there should be a official stamp on them. There is one stamp but another is missing it seems. So it looks like I will only be able to sell the bike to an unsuspecting tourist, like I was, or for scrap and these thoughts fill my dreams over night.
Feb 25th Mumbling to Mumbai
N17.53005, E73.50880 Chiplun
The local Royal Enfield mechanic in Anjuna was reputed to be buying Delhi registered bikes. He was a young friendly Sikh showing me his plentiful stock of scrapped bikes all brought without papers. Saying he was taking a risk every time he brought a badly documented bike, he makes me an offer of 8000 rupees for the Silver Bullet to use it for parts. A long way from my starting price of 25000 rupees so I get on the Silver Bullet and just before I strike it up he says 10000 is his top price. I say no, start the bike and ride off crunching the gears trying to find first. A quick visit to the local travel agents says I can get to Mumbai via coach, so I return to the mechanic with the intention of taking up the offer, figuring £150 was better than the potential nothing I might get for it in Mumbai. However he is not in the shop, one of the junior calls his mobile. 'Darn that gearbox' is about all I can think as the junior relays the message back to me that the boss is no longer interested in the Silver Bullet.
With nearly 600km to Mumbai I crack the throttle open passing quickly, for the Silver Bullet, along the winding road of the National Highway 17 as it snaked over the wooded hills of the south of Maharashtra state. Relatively quiet, I enjoy the road but nearing the top of one of the hills the power begins to trail off. I quickly pull the clutch in and feel the motor slow to a halt as it has a partial seizure. Luckily I am able to free wheel over the crest and down the other side for two or three kilometre while mumbling to myself about my possible options. Do I just dump it there and hail a passing tuktuk to take me to the next town to catch a coach to Mumbai or do I try to find a mechanic to give him the bike before joining a coach. Eventually downhill becomes uphill and the bike rolls to a stop. I get off and look at the engine. There is no obvious oil leaks or cracks. I go to listen to the engine as I slowly kick it over and am surprised to find it both sounding normal and it has compression. Even more amazing with a second kick it fires up. Back on the road I decide to go the remaining 400km at 60kph to be sure but within a few minutes I am cruising at 80+ kph again with the motor running even sweeter than it did before. Three or four hours later I have covered a further 150km with no issue and retire confident for the night at Chiplun.
Feb 26th Bye bye Bullet
N18.9199,E72.832 Prossier Hotel
A further 5 hours on the road and I arrive on the out skirts of Mumbai. The traffic is moving just, with the air so hot it feels like I am riding into a huge industrial, filth belching hair dryer but this is better than sitting in the full afternoon sun at the stop lights which induces me to sweat the proverbable buckets. The only reason to ride into the centre of the city is to try and sell the Silver Bullet though I wondered if the few thousand rupees I might achieve will be fair compensation for the days knocked off my life span breathing in the Mumbai fumes.
A cupboard, for it is only 2 metre by 1 metre containing a bed is shown to me at one hotel, which at 300 rupee I reject. Three more hotels can not take me so eventually I settle for a room with walls that fail to reach the ceiling, cramped into what would have been once a spacious corridor in a hotel close to the terrorist destroyed Taj Mahal Hotel.
In the end the choice of hotel works out well for one of the waiters takes me to see Hamid from Happy Cycle Shop when he hears I wish to sell the Silver Bullet. Hamid runs a cycle repair shop as well as dealing and renovating British bikes to sell or rent to tourists. He is also a confirmed bike nut and proudly shows me his everyday Bullet which shines like a new coin, his 1952 English built Royal Enfield that shines like a new trophy on the mantelpiece of the association of trophy polishers and finally he also shows me a Bullet motor fitted into a frame with twin from discs and plastic race bodywork, looking for everything like a out and out Jap sports bike.
To promote my sale I was wearing a light shirt on which I had written "Bullet for sale". We get talking and eventually Hamid and I strike a deal. With only three days to go before I leave the country and mindful of what happened in Goa when talking to a dealer I did not feel in a strong bartering position. So for 12500 rupee (£180) Hamid got the Silver Bullet, the tools, the spares, the soft luggage and the shirt of my back. The shirt he gives to one of the cycle mechanics who genuinely seems pleased with it, indicating I suspect the real minimal wage he must be on. With the issues over the documents and the leaking cylinder head I feel far happier giving it away for a song to a dealer rather than ripping of a fellow traveller, something my conscience would have not easily settled with.
Even though the final deal for the Bullet only just about covered the money I had spent on maintaining it through the last few months and all my purchase costs were lost, I was still content with my decision to buy rather than rent. A rough summation suggested, ignoring fuel, I had covered over 6700km in around 75 days working out at 330 rupees per day or 3.75 rupee per km. The waiter who helped me locate Hamid said I should have brought new as I would have been easily able to sell it for half the new price after 6 months. I did not like to point out to him that would have been a 40,000 rupee lost instead of my 25000 lost. The rest of the hotel servants were soon informed of the Englishman's sale and for the rest of the night I was concerned about having the cash about my person.
To celebrate I took a table at the locally recommended restaurant, Bademlya. This was little more than a kebab van behind the Taj. But it had chefs wearing latex gloves, tables on the pavements served by waiters dressed in matching uniforms and queues of locals waiting for a free seat. With confidence I could trust the place I order a beef kebab, my first beef in India. Back at the hotel the night was long because of the lack of sound proofing with the open walls but at least there was no noise from my stomach confirming Bademlya was a safe place to eat.
Feb 27th Last Indian touristic act
N19.080092, E72.84497 The Santa Cruz office
Without my own transport now, a guide is able to seduce me into paying the 1050 rupees for a 3 hour tour of Mumbai by air-conditioned car. The car is a beaten up but the air-con works and the India Christain driver has some fun tales to tell as we tour around some of the main spots of Mumbai.
The taxi takes me to: the ghats where 3000 men wash the laundry of the city (some women do the ironing but mainly it is the men); the posh beach in the Queens Necklace (where the water is so polluted no-one can swim); the Jain temple (where I and other tourists wander among the deities as the worshippers daub them in sandal wood and water mix); the Tower of Silence (where the dead bodies are stripped by the vultures before the bones are vaporized by the power of the sun - a perfect way to get rid of my body I think just a shame it would mean a high environmental cost flying it to Mumbai, assuming I escape India a few days later), the Hanging Gardens (where the newly wed wives with dowry issues would go to commit suicide); past a mosque in the middle of a 4 lane carriageway (where the tarmac extends right to the door) and finally to Church Gate station to watch the wallahs sorting the daily lunch boxes of 6000 office workers.
We also past various places relevant to the Mumbai terror attacks 4 months earlier. My driver tells me for the Pakistani's "no fight, no fuck, no sleep". I also learn that the Jain worshippers are the richest in India, keeping control of all the gold and silver trading and that they are very strict vegetarians. I knew they did not eat eggs but apparently they do not eat any root vegetables ether. The thought crosses my mind how crave a clean, safe to eat, English garden grown carrot and decide being a Jain is not for me after all.
I return to Santa Cruz to catch up with Yasar and Hadi before locking myself away in the disused office to clear 10 days of emails and website updates. A mammoth task that I dedicate two days to while waiting to board my plane to Sharjah but having a fan in the office makes it more appealing than going outside into the soaring temperature with the crazy traffic, never ending horns and the pollution and litter, which as well as its cheapness, its vibratant clutures and some amazing landscapes is the India I have come to know. Now I am looking forward to part 3: Malaysia and Thailand.