The Gynecolgist.

I stand near the campfire. A man walks up to me “are you married?” “No not yet” I respond. He stands closer, head leans in, brandy breathed, whispering conspiratorially, moustache now tickling my ear “I am a gynecologist”.
The first word on everyone’s lips here in Kerala is marriage. The question comes out of the blue without any warm up or pleasantries like Indians habit off beeping there horns without reason it is an impulse and can not be controlled. Yesterday I attended a betrothment, an engagement ceremony. Down in the hot and sticky town of Mundekayam. I vowed to myself last time not to overdress but I forgot. Jeans, shoes and a shirt was almost the death of me. Everybody else turned up in dhotis (men skirts) and sandals. A massive meal of beef and fish curry followed. I melted as the food was piled on to my banana leaf. Are you married asks the man next to me “Yes”
In Kerala as in the rest of India everyone in their mid 20’s is married. Single status at my age is an anathema it is beyond comprehension. Puzzlement and bewilderment always follow when I say I am not married this is followed by a sense of shame and inadequacy on my behalf, for everyone’s benefit it is best to claim married status. Over the last few years I have been married more times than a serial bigamist could ever wish for. I have been divorced more times than Joan Collins (keeping it topical) and on some occasions I have even been a widower. I might, even, whilst under the influence of beer claimed to have kids as well. To be a bachelor, or here a “chronic bachelor”, has serious undertones. It assumes sadness, misery an absence of a real life. Worse still it means a virgin and that you probably haven’t kissed a girl. At 36? (all possible, truth and reality have become blurred) So better to make it all up?
Before I have tried to explain my position of loves lost but this goes down even worse, men stare at there feet, women cover their mouths, birds stop chirruping in the trees it can take minutes to recover conversation.
Devas and Lucosh and all the brandy men in the village of Kuttikanam are scheming now. Glass after glass is poured down. We will arrange it they say. No rush I say but if it does end, or start like this I would like a lass who could cycle. First children and housewife then she can cycle they assert. Sounds good. Anyhow I have a months respite; at least amongst the Christians; no one can get married in the 25 days before Christmas without the a letter from the Archbishop of the Antioch himself. To everyone else reading in Kerala I am a happily married thanks. No more questions. Good night. Are you married?

Panam Poyee (money gone)

I am back in Kerala and it’s costing me a fortune. Old friends are welcoming me back with open arms and empty pockets. Jillmon; mustachioed driver with a look and a drinking habit of an early Oliver Read; was 1st in touch. He appears shortly after 8 a.m dressed incongruously in dirty white jeans pulled up over his burgeoning stomach a white shirt is tucked into this and foreign made black trainers complete the look. He is ready for an interview that morning for a job in the Middle Eastern. After shoveling down his breakfast paid for by me he explains his “house money problem, you are my ATM” 1500Rs swap hands with an explanation that he would give it me back after the next tour. No problems.
Next up Sanjay who had borrowed a large sum last year to buy his 1st car. He can’t drive but the plan was to employ a driver as is common here and take tourists both domestic and foreign. He had given a vague promise before that the said same alleged car would take me back to the mountains the following morning. He phones, the possibly fictitious car has had a disastrous and untimely brake failure so I am back to asking Jillmon to organize transport for tomorrow. Sanjay meanwhile can still make it for tonight’s pre season staff complimentary booze up. I assume he will turn up with an explanation and a draught repayment scheme. In the steamy, dark, tomb like conditions of Cochin’s Embassy bar no mention is made of either, brandy is poured down with abandon, Jillmon is mixing his with super strong beer now. My boiling beer takes on the consistency of syrup in a syrup sponge; the bill comes, its time to pay up.
Kuttikanam. I am back. The trainees are summoned. Bikes are brought along. The Kona has survived well at first sight, while the Trek 4500 looks like a house has collapsed on it. Nothing has survived. It appears that every child and adult in the village have twiddled with the now demolished shifter pods, the grips look like they have been laid over with 6 inches of tarmac, the front mech is at a right angle to the frame and completed seized up, wheels are egg shapes and all the cables are missing. I ask Chippy if he thinks he has looked after the bike well this summer he looks sheepish and turns to Sinoj for encouragement “Yes”.
Nighttime and we are Devas’s restaurant for more brandy. Lucosh has been dispatched by me in his auto rickshaw for a bottle of brandy and a box of beers. 1 litre of Mansion House Brandy is returned, opened and poured down in an hour. I stand outside with Devas as it starts to drizzle ‘ very healthy, jump” he says as he kicks his heels of the ground giggling manically.

Pedals to Paddles

I am back in Kerala now but will blog my way back to date bit by bit. A slow start wityh thsi one but here goes.
I am back in Delhi again another tour has been and gone and I am in a transitional phase between North India Tours and South India tours, from the hectic hustle bustle of the tours to having time to think and be alone in my peregrinations. It takes some getting used to.
The Singalila Ridge tour this year was brilliant, riding tough with some cracking descents great views and good company. White water rafting was a new addition to the tour schedules redefining the word “extreme” (I will give a little background here). All our group had some good WWR experience from African torrents to NZ fast flows, in comparison Rakesh can’t swim and is (was) scared of the water, while my experience was limited to a testing time in the Teesta river on a section of rapids that “even a Bengali child can do”. We arrived late to meet our guides who all sported piratical scars, with one fellow replete with a missing eye. Rakesh quizzed them on which was to be the most challenging route and came back ashen faced “extreme”.
The 1st lot of rapids almost had us all in the Teesta and found Rakesh in a brace position hidden at the front of the boat way out of his supposed position of weighing down the front end to keep the boat from toppling. After the initial scare it was all a bit tamer with some rough and tumble sections but hardly the Zambezi. Good fun with a few Hawaii 5- O team (showing my age here) sprints to make us (me) feel professional.
Left Darjeeling at a good time really, from the 15th November its curtains for some of my favourite drinking establishments as taxable alcoholic drinks are being banned in an attempt to deprive the West Bengal Government of revenues. The ban is part of a wider agitation in support of a separate state of Gorkhaland to be carved out of West Bengal. Already there is a payment strike on electricity bills and they hope this “double measure” will further pressurise those in Calcutta. On the good side though drinkers can still tipple on locally made arrack and millet beer, I hope the super -strong is back on the shelves though when I go back next year.

Three Wheeler Driver Arrested

We are on the train to Darjeeling. New Jalpaiguri to be exact. It started 7 hours later and has managed to consume more time still while moving and we are now late by 16 hours. Newspapers have been read, put down, used as dinner plates and then re –read so with little else to do the laptop comes out of the bag and I type.

The first tour of the season is over a whistle stop, fast paced, mini monsoon sloshed 9 days of hard riding, some hard carrying, outlandish Himlayan views brilliant descents and all round tough but brilliant fun. For me and probably the group as a whole it was almost impossible to fit anything more in, every second of the day was used up to keep us and the bikes moving or ready for moving; with in the end, the tour finishing in somewhat comical fashion as over £20000 pounds worth of bikes arrived on the back of a giant rickshaw (not the expected jeeps) at Delhi airport with just two hours left before the flights departure. Not one of MTB Kerala’s proudest moments but good for the camera’s. Enquiries are still being held here at MTB Kerala’s HQ. In a final ludicrous moment the rickshaw driver was arrested just after the delivery of the bikes on Delhi airport’s bye- law that restricts entry to the airport for three wheelers. We spent an hour on the tarmac near departures pooling our rupee resources to secure the release of the driver and his driving license.

To all who came out on the tour thanks for coming and making it so memorable, night riding will never be the same without the aid of a 60 Rupee torch bought from a Kharmi sweetshop!!

Marks and Spencers

I take a day off for organization purposes and to shake of the Godfather effect. I crave news so find a T.V and settle down to Al Jazeera; its good. I want more news so trek the 5km shortcut to Joshimath for a paper, catch up with some computer work and to try to locate my missing mobile phone. It disappeared the day before in a rasto-roko (road block) a group of aggrieved women had blocked the road in protest and in the confusion and the wandering about to find out why the phone must have fallen out of my pocket. I ring my number in hope rather then expectation. A man answers the phone in a mixture of Hindi and English he had found it in a jeep he says and had tried ringing numbers to trace me and my friends. He lives in a village miles away from any road he says, he is a shepherd (of sorts) well owns animals but shepherd sounds better. He arranged to bring the phone to the districts biggest town the following day and drop it off at a hotel This is good news. I trek back up to Auli, this is tough I need a beer. The barman looks annoyed. There are no other customers. There is a big clock ticking…………

I am out above the ski resort the trails are brilliant but its high above 3000 meters and there are no villages up here. The landscape has a more rolling moorland feel to it so its gentler riding, but the big snow capped peaks are visible in all directions. The trail climbs and climbs and rounds the low level mountain then where it changes dramatically the trail hugs the mountainside in a tiny sliver with a huge vertical drop on one side. I continue gingerly to a mini landslip which without the bike would be negotiable. I am twitchy I head back with the view of the Kwari Pass and the days planned destination Tapowan 20km down the valley below me arrgh.
I return the ride back is brilliant the singletrack climb reversed. I head for the bar. I am welcomed the baman appears happy he speaks enthusiastically. A T.V is on the bar. Cricket is tuned in more guests arrive for a drink. Brilliant.

I am now on the train to Delhi I am in luxury class 3.AC. The man opposite me stares at me indifferently, chomping on a samosa , spilling pastry flakes on to the seat. The last week has been a retreat from the mountains from base camp (cycle) to base camp picking up all my supply stores on the way. I have got incredible amounts of good riding for next year and loads of more trails half explored that look promising. The Colonel has stored my cycles and spares so no more struggling with massive bags and bikes in the 43C heat of Delhi. For that I can not thank him enough. Tommorrow I fly back. I am looking forward to it. Late September I am back here again. 4 months in the U.K should be enough time to refresh, pile on the pounds on real English, get me mother off to Marks and Sparks again and think of something interesting to type in the next blog. See you then. Mike

Godfather

Awake 4.30 a.m full of enthusiasm for a days road riding, no getting lost on the agenda. Take on copious amounts of tea, which is a precursor to any good days riding in India. I discard clothes in a gung ho fashion to ease the weight in the plastic bag Sportswear t-shirts bought my mother form Marks and Spencer’s in 1998 appear to have a shelf life about 3000 hand washes and innumerable batterings from Indian Dhobi Wallahs. They will be happy never to see the filthy rag again.
The road to Joshimath is the main pilgrimage route to the ancient temples of Badrinath one of the four holiest points in all of India for the Hindu’s. Whilst for the Sikhs the 4000-meter plus high lake of Hem Khund Sahib is the pilgrims aim. Whilst many drive the pilgrimage trails many still walk for hundreds of miles and more. Most of these pilgrims are Sadhus, those who renounced materialism and roam about from temple to temple. These Sadhus all adopt a particular look; bearded, straggly, half crazed and boggle eyed and mostly travel alone so its good company to be alone in. They appear happy to see a sweating cyclist struggling up the climbs and cheer or raise their tridents in appreciation. No questions of are you alone from these men its obvious and part of the journey so to speak. I feel quite proud to be cycling past them and acknowledge their efforts with the odd pulled wheelie and a few rounds of tea for all the chaii shops.
Big climb up to Auli another 800-meter height gain. But something is driving me on. Another worldly force. A feeling so strong I can not account for it. I fly up the hill exhilarated, reborn, an epiphonous moment you ask? Errm not quite. I had read the previous night in a guidebook that the Ski resort of Auli “had a well stocked bar”. The only one for hundreds of kilometers and I am beer less for almost a month now.
The bar is portakabin. There is a big clock ticking loudly. There are no other customers. The barman looks annoyed to be doing his job if only every 20 minutes to pass me a beer. 4 Godfather super strongs and I am out of it.

Extra Sugar

It’s morning. I have slept well the buffalo’s have to started to mooch about below in the barn and I am groggy but awake. There is scrambling on the steps outside a tiny hand is visible at the door a child enters the room shortly followed by a bigger child, then a youth enters followed by another youth and a couple of adults. They arrange themselves on the bed opposite and observe curiously. What am I supposed to do? Thinking of no other options I mumble a few good mornings then rouse myself from bed much to the delight of the crowd, pull on a few clothes, grunt a bit to further the crowds enjoyment and head out the door for a slash. I am followed out, flippin eck surely I can do this unobserved.
Breakfast is consumed outdoors, black tea, chapattis and some spinach, its good. I offer Mr Singh some money for the night and food, he declines sheepishly but then reluctantly takes it, my next cup of tea has milk in it and extra helpings of sugar it is handed over with a beaming smile.
The forest trail works this time it is simply brilliant 8km of singletrack through thick forest, birds coloured more brightly than I could imagine; red, blue, yellow whistle through the trees as if putting on a show. The trail traverses trough the trees then swooshes down to a water mill with a busy old lady milling chapatti flour. I am in Sootol.
Sootol has a fly blown wild west fell to it, all the men and women appear to absent apart from a couple of shop owners. Its Lawa season so many have headed high onto the meadows to search for the mummified caterpillar that’s worth £4000 a kilo and shipped over to Chinese as an aphrodisiac. For me the town is memorable for the horde of kids following me around armed with pots, pans and empty buckets and sticks to beat the makeshift drums with. Noise follows me everywhere. I depart the town the kids give chase, spewing over the front wheel clinging to the bike his is dangerous and incredibly noisy.
The rest of the trail is cracking its all narrow track running along a ledge with a big drop on one side, its edgy stuff, landslides here and there force me off the bike as do a 40 minute carry and a freak rainstorm. I ride and ride singletrack turns to wide track then a jeep trail then its tarmac and the small town of Ghat. A bit of an eyesore after all the pristine forest. I ride on to the town of Chamoli and treat myself to an overpriced room with hot water and a T.V.