liz r's outdoor shower

Roger tries his hand at singing bowls

video of just one of the hill sections

Some local bikers who came for the ride

Photo

Someones notes on the tour

Monday 18^th February 2013-03-06
Collected from home by Gordon at 5.45am then taken by coach to Gatwick arriving at 10.30am (ish) Plane should have left at 1.35pm but delayed until 2.125pm this gave us a chance to have a nice leisurely meal in airside Garfunkel’s. Emirates were a bit more concerned about hand luggage and for the first time that I have known weighed the hand luggage to make sure that it was not over 7 Kg.
Stopped over in Dubai for less than an hour this year so it was a quick leg stretch and comfort break for the flight to Cochin. We arrived to find it was raining, yet we had been assured we didn’t need waterproofs as rain was not expected until June!
Leisurely day but I fought against going to bed as some did. The hotel which did have a swimming pool was about 5 minutes from airport and about 35 miles from Cochin City it was a nice quiet introduction to India.
Zxzxzxz Had sent a couple of books for Shafi’s children; He suggested that we visited his home in the afternoon so I could deliver them personally. Didn’t happen as we were waiting for bikes to be delivered and then the all important keys. By the time they did arrive  it was too late as it had been arranged that two Indian girls would present some traditional dance for us. The girls must had taken ages to get prepared and their dance was very expressive at one stage they performed standing a large bowl whilst balancing a bowl of water on their head.  That evening we had a fantastic buffet meal which most of us eat outside as it was still hot (32-34 degrees).
 Early night 11.pm
Wednesday 20^th  February
We were originally leaving at 10.00am but this being India it rapidly changed to 10.30am and we eventually left at 11.00am to the tradition of riding over lemons and cracking a coconut before we left. Apparently, the tradition dates back to the days of Elephants and if the amount of effort that the guard put into breaking the coconut is anything to go by still very important, it must have bounced 6 feet in the air. Riding in India is a challenge so it’s not a tradition we want to break.
The was a regional strike on for the day so no chai stops even though they are self employed they run the risk of being beaten up for breaking the strike.
Unusually we didn’t start from a city but were very quickly into a picturesque country we only covered about 50 miles on the first day so we arrived at the hotel early.  
And after dropping off much of our kit headed the short distance to Athirapally falls the highest water falls in India.
Typical for India we arrived at the entrance for the waterfalls only to be told that tickets had to be purchased from the office 200 metres back down the road, that transpired to be more like ½ mile. Everyone we asked seem to add another 100 metres to the journey.
After purchasing the tickets Gordon W who was with me decided along with me that we would forgo the visit and take a 300 metre photo from the road as we were both knackered walking up the hill to collect the bikes hot and humid. We decided to leave the rest of them to the visit and returned to the hotel.
We tend to judge the hotels that we use on the state of the showers, and despite this hotel being miles from civilisation the showers were great. In India there tends to be a bucket to add the water flow and normal practice is to draw off water as you shower into a jug and use this to clean off
However unknown to me having drawn off the first jug of tepid water and soaped my hair the second jug I threw over my head was close to boiling, and a lot of expletives followed.  This shower was going to get high points for temperature 
Sat outside and was able to get a beer within 5 minutes and then an omelette within 10 minutes (In Indian) the hotel was in fact a dry hotel but Gordon had done his research and ordered in enough beer for the evening, all we had to was get it chilled.
The location was idyllic beside the river with Kingfishers and cranes flying about and surprising very few flying insects. A couple of the group went for a swim in the clear warm water Gordon who had gone swimming started to complain of cramp and if anyone has been on any of Gordon’s trip he thinks he suffers the worse cramp in the world. Sympathy didn’t come from me
We had arranged for a walk and talk around the grounds of the hotel with the manager who pointed out the Jack fruit, banana mango and cashew trees as well as several birds. There were a large number of cashew trees in the area and the staff at the hotel collected the fruit and were drying them on large sheets in the car park.
Now I don’t know if you know about cashews but clearly some of our group didn’t the cashew has a large edible fruit surrounding a case very similar to a horse chestnut which contains the actual “nut”. The nut is protected from being eaten because the case contains bitter milk. Well according to Gordon more like a poison he went from his normal buoyant self into a spluttering idiot. So if you go to India or anywhere else they grow cashews don’t chew the cases they burn like hell!
Started my bottle of scotch with a few of the more hardy from the group and as usual was last to bed, woke Gordon to write this journal. He keeps moaning and interrupting me – consequently it's now 1 am.
Thursday 21 February
Left hotel at 10.00 am rode through nice countryside and quickly entered large game reserve.
Evidence of elephants from the dung and branches all over the road for several miles, as an expert (the author had recently been to South Africa and been on a game safari), I was able to inform the group that the dung was 4 ½ days old – some seems quite impressed with my knowledge on the subject. Came across some fresher dung which I was able to pinpoint as having been deposited at 11am yesterday.
 The comment was made that it was brilliant to have someone as knowledgeable as David Attenborough with them!
Climbed a mountain to about 3,000ft lots of hairpin bends, if fact so many that they are actually numbered 16/40 and so on so you have a reference. The bends are so tight that the normal rules of the road change and buses and lorries always take the outside wider lines whilst cars and motorcycles use the inside of the bend. 
In some places, the inside of the hairpin dropped steeper than any hill imaginable probably almost 1:1 or which made for real interesting riding, although you could always wimp out and take the wider line  if necessary.
 
Lovely ride through tea plantations but there were no workers due to the strike (yesterday and today) so consequently no Lorries or buses. Arrived at destination (Cotsvilla) 4pm to a very welcome beer and cold shower.
The reserve that we stayed was bit like Daktari meets Butlins meets boy scout camp, we each had our own little stone-built cottage which would not have looked out the way on Heartbeat, spread over a several-acre site which was surrounded by elephant trenches and electric fences, it was, or could have been idyllic bar the wedding that was a couple of miles away and went on all night. It was just loud enough to disturb your sleep, hey ho this is India and they don’t have any laws about noise pollution and interestingly the noise was only a bit louder than the indigenous animals.
We had a lovely evening sitting around the campfire ruminating on the logic of the India. For example, the showers were heated by an ancient solid fuel boiler which burned the coconut fronds a laborious way of heating water, Gordon had asked the owner why he had not considered solar heating the answer even stumped Gordon “and What would we do with all the coconut fronds”  
Gordon had decided to sleep elsewhere as I had kept him awake last night with my snoring laughing and talking in my sleep. I was forced to listen to his phone apt this morning so couldn’t deny it. Still that makes us both happy I suppose India?  11.30 turn in as early start tomorrow.
Friday 22^nd February
Awake at about 7.30am due to Mitch screaming in the room below that there was a rat in the bathroom, from my natural fear or rats obviously  I was not going to get involved, just concerned that there might be one in my bathroom. Eventually Becky took charge of the situation and came to the rescue and caught it, it had now become something like a chipmunk and much less threatening than a rat and as a result, she released it a little worse for its adventure.
I had to ride the bike over for breakfast as the dining area was more than 500 metres but set in a beautiful location with massive outcrops of rocks in the background which were changing as the sun rose . Breakfast was 8.00am as Gordon wanted an early start but as we were in India it was much nearer 9.00am before we could actually eat. 
I found I was not the only kept awake by the wedding but there was also a massive bang about every hour which we discovered was an Indian version of a rook scarcer this was bigger and louder as it was intended to scare off the elephants.
There was a mixture of curry boiled eggs or omelettes on the menu and I was quite amused to see the chef/waiter/engine room fitter. Pick the omelettes by hand place them in the tongs and then serve them on the plate.
Eventually left at 10.00 am Apparently we had 130 miles to do to our next hotel  some of which was dual carriageway but as the other lane was closed most if not all used our lanes instead.
While we had stopped at one of our many stops; Gordon has a system that he thinks works and in reality, it does to a degree, if he keeps his helmet on we are not stopping and if he takes it off, we can get off the bike, however if he takes his coat off well that means we have at least 20 minutes before we move off again although I am sure the bugger watches for me to light my pipe and then gets ready to move off, on this occasion we were stopping for a few minutes, Gordon still had his coat on!  I decided to hand out some pens to about 10 schoolboys. While i was trying to open the packet, it increased to about 20 all surrounding me, shouting PEN PEN PEN! Despite my best efforts I couldn’t get to form an orderly queue as soon as I stepped back they all came forward and engulfed me again! Steve suggested throwing the pens along the roadside and let them help themselves. What a good idea a “punch up erupted and about 6 of them legged it with handful of pens. The remaining had now grown to about 25 schoolboys all surrounding me and the bikes as they had realised I had more pens in the tank bag. Despite trying to tell them I didn’t have enough for all of them, they kept pleading individually “Please sir just give me  one. I decided the best option was just to tell them to bugger off, start the bike and move off ½ mile or so and park up and wait for the rest of the group. Amazingly they did move once I started the bike. I had visions of them running after me and hanging onto the bike.
Arrived at the hotel in the centre of Madurai  the hotel Germanus which was rather plush and different to the previous two nights, we were greeted in the posh reception with a cold face towel and soft drink, I think all of us wiped our faces in the cold white towel only to find that it completely changed colour as it scrapped the 6 hours of road dirt off our faces. We stood amongst the rest of the guests, businessmen and women as well as tourists in our dust-covered biking clothes as if it was perfectly normal.
I was really pleased that I had a large double room for the two nights, Gordon was elsewhere. There was a bar in the basement and the food was really good, a large buffet of both vegetarian and non-vegetarian.

gordons photos

We could not make up our  mind if this was a genuine Willys jeep

Niel doing the necessary for the last time

Gordon Williams

Ligal our Indian mechanic he is a lovely chap but really naive to our sense of humor

Roger always there! Roger did a great time as number two checking the bikes had moved off

Wendy and Kevin BOND First timers and really good eggs.

Geoff and Becky Geoff is our local ROYAL ENFIELD dealer and a real mechanical genius

MITCH Beauty and xxlls ! you did well Girl!!!!

Steve

The other Steve

Sam our tail end charlie taking over as the leader for a change

one of the house boats we stayed in a real experience

The twins adding the glamor

Shafi wrapped up against the cold

The tail end girls enjoying themselves

Andy and (unfortunately cropped) Kathy I am so please to be able to call them friends