Punctured

I have returned just from the last of this seasons lightweight exploratory missions and it was a tough one. I departed from Khausani about 10 days ago with a plastic bag full of clothes lashed on to my frustratingly small camelback giving me the look of a cycling bag man. I feel worse, I am grumpy I am down to two functioning tubes, the ones on the wheels the spares are held together by multitudinous patches. I can’t get the seat into the right position and my legs have gone, not a good day to have 4 punctures. I sit be the roadside time and time again patching patches on top of patches, the glue oozes out of the tube uncontrollably the sun beats down heating the tubes to a molten mess everything sticks yet won’t stick were it should do. Suncream drips off my foreheadn stinging my eyes. A monkey leap down from a tree to mock me “f@£$ O&*. The monkey bears its teeth.
I arrive in Gwaldam the half way point of the day and it looks like rain its windy and its gone cold. I cheer and abandon for the day. Taking a dormitory bed for the night I am approached by a overweight chain smoking Bengali tourist with family on tow. ‘May I know your name?’ I reply. “I would guess your age at 45.” I am 35 I respond (taking a year off). “But you look older.” He says matter of factly before thrusting forward his half frozen balacalava’d kids I shake their limp hands enthusiastically. I wander across to the nearest the mirror. I don’t look good there is only one choice, one course of action left…. The man spa, the barbers shop, shave, face massage and a complimentary nasal hair trimming. The barber looks young, real young in fact he is 12, flipping eck but he is good. And a thieving git his prices are far too high but it might fund him through secondary school if he goes back.
I return to the dorm that night to find I have been joined by three holidaying Indian couples in there late 60’s. The have readjusted the beds and put all theirs together in a corner mine has been pushed as close to the toilet as close as it can be without being in it. They stay up late. The men playing cards, the women whispering and giggling. The night is a cacophony of burps, farts and toilet visits.

Master and Servant

I lie here in the dark after another power cut; tired, stuffed full of orange creams and tea; after a long hard day in and out the saddle looking for new trails in the small village of Kasar Devi.
Anyhow all that can wait, seismic events have unfolded and I am an Uncle at last to 4 day old Tristan. I am away yet for another 4 weeks a crucial time in young Tristan’s development, Dave and Alice will ensure that he develops an early interest in Mountain Biking but whom will instill in him the virtues of Test Cricket and Liverpool Football Club in my absence? Freddie Truman’s Test Match Cricket Game featuring the kid friendly lead bat can’t wait till June.
Last phase of the Indian General elections tomorrow so expect everything to be shut as the villagers head to the electronic voting booths, a source of much pride here in India as the whole election has been paper free. Could have called the whole thing off as far as I was concerned yesterday. The whole town of Almora was closed off to traffic to accomodate the loading of thousands of these lap top sized machines each with an entourage of election officers onto hundreds of buses to be dispatched around the district. It is estimated that over a thousand villages are without roads and electric so donkeys will have to convey the machines to many of the remote polling booths. But back to me. Effect of the road closures was to force me to walk 3 km though Almora town with my bike bag and rucksacks full of tools and clothes. Agony upon agony, much to the amusement of the gathered election officials. Feel very lobsided today as a result.
The last week or so has thrown up a new experience to me that of having servants at my disposal. The Colonel has returned to Delhi leaving me to man the flat on a couple of occasions. My experience shows me that. Servants are good at making coffee. Like to torture animals when given the opportunity. Like watching T.V. Don,t like to watch their masters drink beer alone (so need to provide beer for servants). Become less interested in making coffee after they have ensured their master hasn’t drank alone. Enough master and servant stuff for now. Jeeves bring me my Chappati’s…..

The Colonel

The rain pours down outside, threatening to fill the Naina lake, I am inside the Colonel’s flat, power lines are down and a flash of lightening lights up the interior to catch the Colonel pouring himself another rum.
I am 4 days into my annual illness and at last feel like I am recovering, the shits in Delhi have morphed into the shakes in Naini Tal. Here; in a terrible and surreal night; I appear to recall umpteen visits by the Colonel with rum in hand hovering over the bed enquiring as to if I would like a peg (measure) or two whilst at the end of the bed his equally drunk employee piling blanket upon blanket on me as if in an attempt to suffocate me. Either way the shaking has stopped and I have some appetite though not for rum at the moment thank you Colonel. (He has just popped round to see if I am o.k).
The Colonel is a brilliant man though prone to drinking a bit too much, army rations provide him with 12 bottles of rum a month which he says is not enough and by the 13th of every month he has to supplement that with supplies from the local liquor shop. The Colonel takes on anybody and anything he sees that he can help like the unemployed post graduate economics genius who is reduced to kitchen hand, making my coffee at the moment or like the savage puppy he recently found/kidnapped tied to a post by the roadside. The Colonel and I watch the pup thirstily lap up a bowl of water Colonel says with mirth “ Look at him once it starts drinking doesn’t know when to stop…. Just like me.”