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.