Delhi Bullet Wallas

Bike Trip 1 009, originally uploaded by Augustus Finbar.

There is a sucker born everyday goes the saying. I will be the first to admit I have been a sucker many times during the year. In many places, life becomes a negation due to the skin tax imposed on all foreigners. It can be endlessly frustrating being forced to haggle a pair of shorts from 40,000 Tanzanian shillings to a measly 2,500 shillings. I am not nearly that good of a negotiator especially when the negotiating is in Swahili. The small shop owners simply see an opportunity to hit it big with the “rich” tourists and try to capitalize. It can get frustrating to say the least.You would think I would have learned my lesson by now but that wasn’t the case when I bought my Royal Enfield in Delhi. The swallowed the dream the owner, Balu, sold me hook line and sinker. The dream was to join a newly formed multi-national biker gang, Bullet Wallas. He even promised to make me custom stickers for my bike with “West Virginia Bullet Walla” on it (I can't lie. I really liked them, especially with the orange dueling banjos in the middle). I lived above the bike shop with my four newfound friends who also believed the dream as they too bought bikes from him. We were eager to hit the roads on bikes freeing ourselves of the painful bus journeys and overcrowded trains that plague Indian backpackers. The idea of joining any semblance of a biker gang in India made the decision to buy even easier.We paid a premium (40,000Rps=$1,000US) for the bikes that were totally reassembled with a new engine, tires, custom paint job, and even West Virginia Bullet Walla stickers. We were living the dream...at least for a while. Boy, were we had! It took us about a day to figure out the bikes may not be all we had hoped. Don’t get me wrong, Enfields break, that is what happens when 1950s motorcycle technology is driven over rough Indian roads. But after only 600KM drive from Delhi to Manali, two of the four bikes bought from Bullet Wallas needed new pistons (2000Rps), new starter, two new batteries, dozens of over tightened bolts letting oil ooze out, and other loose ends. Enfields break but every single time a mechanic takes out the broken part from my bike he laughs because it always the cheapest knock-off part to be found in India. Some mechanics have laughed at me in my face upon seeing the Bullet Walla stickers knowing there will probably lots of problems with the bike that I paid too much for. Some have also said they would not purchase a Bullet Walla bike because it wouldn’t be a good bike. So basically, I paid 25% more than I should have for a bike that kids assembled with the cheapest parts available by an American guy selling me the dream of entering into a world of an elusive traveling biker gang in India. Can’t say that everyday!Note: Any weary traveler in India thinking about buying an Enfield, definitely do it. After two months and all of my cheap imitation parts have been replaced, my bike finally running like it should and it is amazing. It will definitely get you off the Humus Trail and into some remote areas to see more Indian culture. I couldn’t imagine traveling around India any other way. Just don’t buy a bike from Bullet Wallas in Delhi. You can buy a good bike for 30,000 Rps ($750 US) from other travelers and then sell it after a couple months for the same price. Several travelers sell their bikes on the road (a lot in Goa, Dharamsala, Pushkar or Manali) and most mechanics sell good bikes. Always ask for a test drive to a different mechanic to get a second opinion. The best mechanics I have found are Anu Auto Works in Manali (Vishisht) and Rai Auto Works in Gaggle (right beside the Dharamsala airport...a 30 minute drive from McLeod Ganj).I will admit. I was a sucker. Don’t make the same mistake I did, but do buy a bike!Message from an angry "ex-Bullet Walla"

Land of Color

There is a famous section of Buenos Aires named Boca where the colorful houses and tango music filling the air with tango dancers lining the streets has turned into quite the tourist destination. Boca is probably most famous for its football (soccer) team, the Boca Jrs. The Boca Jrs. have of the most illustrious histories of any football team in South America but they are best known for two things: Maradona and the most devout musically gifted fanatical fans on Earth. Maradona lead the Argentina national team to its victory over West Germany in 1986 World Cup, in which he collected the Golden Ball award as the tournament's best player. He scored both goals in the 2-1 victory over England in the quarter-final of the '86 tournament. The first goal was an unpenalized handball known as the "Hand of God", while the second goal was a spectacular 60-metre weave through six England players, commonly referred to as "The Goal of the Century" or, in Argentina, "The Cosmic Kite." He is legend around the globe but the fans of the Boca Jrs. take a back seat to no one. Fans from around the world come to Buenos Aires to learn from the musical geniuses in the stands as the have a song for each player and many more tunes to passionately sing out depending on the situation. Witnessing a Boca Jrs. game is the pinnacle for any sporting enthusiast around the globe.

I found the Boca fanatics and Maradona nostalgia to be the most interesting while in Argentina, but since in India, I often think of the other main attraction to Boca: the mixed and matched colors on each house. The reason for the lime green doors, yellows window frames, red, orange or yellow siding, and many other combinations all adorned on one house, was the scarcity of paint when the area was established. Boca has always been and still is the blue collar section of Buenos Aires always pinched for every nickel or in this case, every drop of paint. It became Boca's trademark: crazy colored houses lining the river port. If Boca couldn't paint their houses one solid color due to paint shortages, applying the same logic to India would mean paint should be the rarest product in the country, surpassing gas that is now over $5 a gallon at the pump. Buenes Aires had one section of the city with wacky colored houses making it famous but wild and wacky colored houses are the norm in India. What happened to all of the paint?

Pink door, blue windows, red siding and a multi colored Shiva shrine adorned with an array of flower necklaces draped on the colorful figure; a typical scene driving around the Indian countryside. The colors do not end with the houses though. The women love bright colored clothes in many various combinations; pink saris, baby blue pajama pants, and orange sarongs wrapped around their necks. There are golden fields of wheat which have quickly been replaced with rice paddies looking like dozens of miniature green-tinted reflection pools as the rice sprouts emerge from the shallow water, blossoming apple and cherry orchards, produce stands on every street corner selling exotic fresh fruits, bright orange turbans from the Sikh Punjabi tourists, and much more. The truck drivers, a profession that doesn't usually attract the artistic spirits, paint the most intricate flowery and religious symbols on their trucks. Some even take the time to crawl beneath their trucks to paint their favorite Hindu God on the rear wheel axle. With so many colors in the oddest places, I have labelled India the "Land of Color."

Not all of the colors are good though. TRASH! It is everywhere, even the most remote beautiful places are scared with plastic wrappers of every make and model. Most city streets lining with trash a foot high in the gutters being picked through by kids, cows and dogs for any forgotten bits of nourishment. It is heartbreaking that such a beautiful country is being destroyed by trash. When a driver finishes a water bottle, he will simply throw it out the window. The same goes for the passengers with any and all trash. The blue trash plastic bags, the red spicy masala potato chips bags, and much more are clogging the rivers and streams. I actually saw a dump truck go from Manali town with a full load of trash properly put in the trash bin, drive five kilometers to the dried out river bed, and dump the load knowing the flood waters will wash it away as the glaciers melt. Does he ever think of where that trash might go? I doubt that he considers the river water from the Himalayas brings life to roughly a billion Indians on the sub-continent. But why should he care? Right!

This is not just a problem in India. It has been a constant theme throughout my trip. Many small villages around the world have started to outlaw plastic bags because of this. This didn't bode well or my friend Jane in Tanzania when she came to Longido village to teach the women how to crochet plastic bags into hand bags for tourists. We did find some plastic bags…from the store! Not her fulfilling her original objective of cleaning up trash but it worked out well. One person tried to tell me that most developing countries' citizens have traditionally discarded any extra wrappers or bags back when such things were made naturally and were bio-degradable. Then came the modern plastic wrappings that never disappear and someone forgot to tell the average Jo this important piece of information. I don't fully believe this theory because plastic has been around for a long time and people are still littering.

A major reason the trash disposal is lacking in most countries is the lack of infrastructure to properly dispose of all the trash. Infrastructure costs money and these countries think they have bigger problems than being environmentally conscience. India has the money now becoming an economic powerhouse that some predict will one day have an economy just as big if not bigger than the US. Lets just hope they clean up their country because it is an amazing place.

Even though it's trash, it is still colorful. Yet again, earning India a fitting title in my book as the "Land of Color."

Harvest Season

Usually, the worst part of traveling is traveling itself. Being crammed into buses, braving rusty rickshaws, or herded onto trains, are all nightmares that everyone must endure to reach their destination making the actual travel the worst part of the trip. Instead of dreading my transit experience, I am filled with excitement knowing I get to ride my Enfield once again letting my imagination soar with childhood wonder on the Himalayan roads. Each trip is an adventure within itself with numerous close-calls due to utter stupidity by all parties, but the recent journey from Manali to Dharamsala was my favorite.

As we ventured southbound leaving the high altitude and encompassing snow-capped peaks of Manali, the blossoming apple orchards with their surrounding green terraces of wheat began to transform with every kilometer traveled. The wheat stalks slowly turning lighter hues of green with a growing hint of yellow, ultimately turning dark yellow morphing the terraces into a giant golden staircase meandering up the mountain steppe disappearing into the heavens with the low evening cloud cover. The changing of the color meant harvest season is in full swing. The golden plateaus become littered with colorful sari silhouettes of women hard at work bringing in the harvest. Whether the women are squatting down to cut the wheat stalks, balancing bulging bundles of wheat on their heads, or seeking shelter under a shade tree, the assortment of bright saris (light shawls) scattered throughout the golden fields look like candy sprinkles atop a birthday cake.

It is amazing to witness the whole process of the harvest. From cutting the stalks with a hand sickle, to wrapping wheat bundles with the longer wheat stalks, and balancing a dozen bundles atop each head with grace as they make the journey to the thresher for processing, the village is buzzing with activity throughout the day. With so many people going in so many different directions in the golden fields, each dressed with an array of bright colors with golden stalks under their arm or resting atop their heads, my eyes are pleasantly overwhelmed with color. This amazement soon led to curiosity, and I found myself living in a village helping with the wheat harvest.

I ended up in Chawari by accident with the rest of my biker gang when we met a local an Indian guy in an Internet cafe that promised to take us on a scenic drive surrounding Dharamsala. A flat tire, two broken chains and eight hours after we departed from home, we found ourselves only a two hour drive from home as the sun was setting. Our guide felt bad about the frustrating day after he promised us a utopia, and invited us to stay at his home for the night. Tired and hungry we accepted his invitation.

The family compound was buzzing with excitement as seven foreigners came roaring in colorful Enfields. Some people in this village had probably never seen this many foreigners in their life much less seven at one time on pink, green, and red bikes. Needless to say, they were excited and extremely hospitable. After they softened us up with their homemade wine that tasted like moonshine, they fed us a proper Indian meal of rice, dhal, and roti. We spent the rest of the night in a food coma greeting various villagers whose curiosity led them to come see the foreigners. I sparked up a conversation with our host, Bikee, and promised to help him cut wheat in the morning. I never thought he was going to wake me up at 6AM but he did...with a hand sickle. I was a little startled to wake up to a razor sharp sickle waving in front of my face but Bikee's wide smile put my serial killer fears to ease before we set off up the mountain in the dark.

Squatting down cutting wheat is cool for about fifteen minutes until your knees, back, hands, and neck are ailing from the monotonous process: grab (the wheat)…cut cut…shuffle shuffle (the feet forward)..grab…cut cut…shuffle shuffle. To make me feel even worse, the grandmother that could barely walk to the terrace is cutting circles around me while taking the time to laugh at my clumsiness. It was frustrating but after an hour the pain went away and I improved to cutting mediocrity. After the sun’s heat chased us from the fields, we returned to the village for a special treat, pancakes. The rest of the gang decided to return to Dharamsala while I decided to stay for a couple more days to help with the harvest and see a little more of Indian village life. It was a wise decision.

The cool mornings and evenings were allotted for cutting wheat but the rest of the day was no picnic. The mid-day heat just meant the chores moved inside, under a shade tree, or in the river. There was a large watering hole near the village that served as the local bath tub for the whole community. Soon after it became too hot for cutting wheat, everyone grabbed their soap and towel to head for the mint covered riverbed for a dip. The small mint leaves created a green blanket of sweet aromas covering the whole area. After a quick wash in the river, the village was busy processing their own wheat stores for the year. After separating the wheat kernels from the stalks, they turn them into chalky white flour with their own water powered flour mill in the riverbed. The village was totally self sufficient with the harvest being a busiest and most critical time of year while being the most interesting time for me to visit.

One aspect of village life that shocked me was the amount of weed (marijuana) growing everywhere. In the villages, weed is actually a weed growing in every open space and around each corner, but not every villager is not smoking a peace pipe or in this case a chillum (smoking pipe used by Indian Sadhu holy men). Instead the villagers find a practical purpose for the fields of gange, bed lining for the cows during the wet season. The villagers let the weed grow because they will place the plants in the cow’s bedding during the wet season to rid the animals of leeches and serve as insect repellent. This is very important because the cows can be infected by the huge swarms of insects or drained of their energy by leeches which would mean disaster for the villagers that depend on their by-products: milk, ghee, dung, and urine. Still yet, it is odd to see six foot weed stalks growing beside the kitchen door or outside an elementary school classroom. It's everywhere!

The thought did cross my mind to stay in the village for an extended period of time but I was tired of being used for show and tell after only three days. Bikee would need to run "errands" all day long which required the use of my bike. I was happy to assist because it allowed me to see other surrounding villages but it soon turned into more of a spectacle than anything else. Whenever we would arrive to our destination, Bikee would slip on his fake Ray Ban sunglasses, slick back his hair with whatever liquid was handy (using Coke once), and trying his best John Travolta impersonation from Grease with an added bounce in his step. He was loving the attention I created, throwing out a lot of hand gestures looking like shooting pistols whenever he recognized someone he knew or would like to impress. I felt like his new toy that he was showing off to all of his buddies. It was comical for the first day but then it became very annoying prompting my early exist. Bikee was the center of attention for a short period of time riding around with a mustached foreigner on a pink Enfield. I guess I am quite the sight to villagers!

Everyday is an Adventure

Everyday in India is an adventure. There is always something bizarre around every corner that makes me stop in amazement, wonder, or horror. It is an intriguing place to visit due to its cultural, spiritual and natural diversity. My adventures in India took on a whole new level once I bought the pink stallion, Chibuku Gopa. Every time I kick start the engine on the poorly made machine and the 350cc engine turns over with a roar, I know my day will take on a new dimension; a dimension that I have little control over. As I have repeatedly tried to depict, the traffic in this county is crazy with few laws restricting any form of driving. Putting aside the nomadic cows on the road, the monkeys on the curb darting in and out of traffic whenever they spot a forgotten morsel, and the hot summer heat turning the poorly tarred patchwork holding the roads together into slippery black goo, there is only one rule on the road, Might is Right…as long as you use your horn. Blow Horn! This warning is plastered on the back of every truck and for good reason. The art of using the horn is perfected in India with different chimes or rhythms signifying a passing car, road rage or just hello. It is a form of communication on the roads making your ears just as important as your eyes while driving. Mastering the horn is essential to surviving on the Indian roads.

Another form of communication is the head wobble. Whenever you pass someone on the street or drive past them on the bike, there is no hand gesture such as a wave that is customary in the States. Instead, a little nod of the head to the side with a smile does the trick. The head wobble is even used when asking directions, ordering food, or just saying hello. The wobble can take on many different variations meaning just as many different frustrating possibilities. Whenever I am lost on my bike and ask for directions, the response I usually get is in the form of a head wobble; right, up, down, left with a twist back up. What the hell is that supposed to mean? My first response, but I have learned to take the first direction of the wobble until I find another man to head me in another direction with his initial wobble. Somehow, I find my way through the maze of street vendors, beggars and animals using head wobble directions. Like I said, every ride on the bike is an adventure, even the short ones.

I am still traveling with the same group of travelers I met at the bike shop in Delhi. All four of the original group are English; Anton, Giles, James and Ben #2. It is a great group that has grown since then with the addition of an Israeli and a Canadian, Noam and Ty. It is more fun traveling in larger groups but more importantly it is a lot safer. There have been numerous breakdowns, close-calls and even a two bike wreck along the way but every situation is resolved much easier with a large group.

One day we decided to take a ride to a village near Manali. We set off around mid day with no real idea where we were going. About thirty minutes into the ride down the winding country roads, we came across two Buddist monks. I made eye contact with one when he gave me a kind head wobble. I took it as a sign that he wanted a ride. I stopped, put one monk on my bike and the other with Giles. The monks were filled with giddy excitement as we sped around turns and over humps getting a weightless feeling at times. They loved it until Giles’ monk lost his hat. We all stopped while Giles turned around to retrieve the monk’s fallen hat. Everything would have been fine except for the monk’s excitement to get back on the road turned disastrous. During the retrieval mission, Giles’ bike stalled out. He was in the process of kick starting it when the anxious monk jumped onboard. Giles did not have enough control to support the weight of the bike and the monk so down they went. They were like dominoes falling one after another. The monk fell first, then the bike and finally Giles. Gas was pouring out of the bike so Giles lifted it up halfway until he realized the monk had a wound on his head. Down went the bike again as he rushed to his aid. Then came the sound of a horn from around the corner signaling a speeding bus was on the way. Down went the monk as Giles then saved his bike from being run over. It was give the ordeal. In the end, the monk, the bike and Giles survived the incident and a crowd of Indian onlookers, my monk and even myself got a good laugh out of the show.

The stories are endless once perched on our poorly made machines. From hitting homeless men wandering the dimly lit night streets (on accident), fording rivers when the roads suddenly disappear, stopping at roadside weddings to be invited in as a honorary guest, drawing a crowd of onlookers with each stop, flat tires, new pistons, worn-out brake pads, broken nuts, over tightened bolts, blown seals… the list never ends. I feel like I am in a Seinfeld episode constantly trying to find a trustworthy mechanic that is not going to rip me off. Once finding a ‘Tony’ (Seinfeld’s mechanic), I shower him with Cokes, cookies, and compliments in a shallow attempt to make him take extra special care of my bike at half the price. It is almost as hard as finding a burger in this vegetarian land. It is a labor of love because my bike gives me the freedom to visit small villages well off the tourist radar and see the Indian culture with minimal tourist exposure to the Hummus Trail.

The mainstream traveler’s route from Goa north into the mountains is often referred to as the Hummus Trail due to the large number of Israelis traveling within India. There are so many Israelis traveling in India that Israeli Idol, their version of American Idol, held auditions in Dharamsala just last week. I tried to audition but my Hebrew is a little rusty at the moment. Israeli independence day is nearing which promises to be a good time as well. For me, I like most of the travelers I meet and have re-named the Hummus Trail to the Shak Shuka Trail because I am in love with the Israeli breakfast dish.

So Many Cows...What To Do?

Chopta-Rishikesh 162, originally uploaded by Benjamin Long.

Cows are everywhere; on the street corner, crossing traffic, impeding traffic, in the alley, in the trash heap, getting massages from people passing by, on the steps of 15th century monuments, on foot bridges bringing pedestrians to a halt, and even in homeless cow shelters. Streets are stained with cow manure that fills the air with its distinct aroma bringing with it thousands of flies awaiting yet another feast. Streets are not knee-deep with manure because the dung is constantly being gathered to eventually be forged into dried out disks to be used as fuel. Cows provide many essential elements for everyday life; milk, curds, ghee butter, urine and dung — are all used in puja (worship) as well as in rites of extreme penance. The milk of the family cow nourishes children as they grow up, and cow dung is a major source of energy for households throughout India. Cow dung is sometimes among the materials used for a tilak-a ritual mark on the forehead. Most Indians do not share the western revulsion at cow excrement, but instead consider it an earthy and useful natural product. (If you don't believe me check out this article on the front page of a Delhi newspaper a month ago http://www.indianexpress.com/story/286437.html Cow urine seems to do the trick) So, when I am caught in a traffic jam caused by an emaciated cow wandering through traffic or see people sharing a fresh roti (flatbread that is a staple of an Indian diet) with a playfully aggressive bull on the street corner that feels he is just as entitled to the roti as the purchaser, I get frustrated, amused and bewildered that such a different world exists. This life is not wrong, it is just different.

Why is this world so different you ask? The majority of Indians are Hindus. Hindus have many gods and worship each for a particular reason. Cows are involved with many of these gods- Lord Krishna and Lord Shiva in particular. Lord Krishna was a cowherd, and the bull is depicted as the vehicle of Lord Shiva. Today the cow has almost become a symbol of Hinduism. Holy cows are not always happy cows though. Many of the cows roaming the streets of India are malnourished, surviving on whatever they can find in the trash heaps beside local markets. Many of the cows end up eating plastic bags, cardboard boxes and other manufactured goods that get wrapped around their stomachs often turning fatal. This is disastrous for a country and a people that worship the animal. The solution: government run homeless cow shelters called goshalas. Goshalas were set of for a couple reasons. The religious reason is to treat, protect, nurture, and ultimately save the dying nomads roaming the streets. The more practical reason is the clash between a developing nation and its religious base.

India is growing at an alarming rate. It has the fastest growing middle class in the world and one of the fastest growing economies in the world with construction happening everywhere. It is a fascinating time to be in India at this point in time to witness the changes taking place. Even though I have no prior experience in the country to accurately judge the rate of change, it is not hard to see that basically everything seems to be under construction: new subways, bridges, roads, hydo-electric projects, shopping malls, movie theatres, Mcdonalds, KFC and much more. It is like stepping back in time to when America or Western Europe was developing. The construction is not being done by massive bulldozers, graters, or other advanced machinery as I am accustomed to seeing back home. Most of it is being done by people; dozens of them chiseling away at rocks with hammers to produce gravel, digging roadside ditches with nothing more than a pick axe, patching old roads with scolding hot asphalt by hand and building bridges as fast as the workers can carry the beams to the top. The most shocking aspect about the labor is the majority of it is performed by women, occasionally with a baby wrapped around their backs. If she tires from the additional weight wrapped on her back, the baby will be placed on the curb, dangerously close to the unpredictable traffic. She has no other option. Just today I watched as a group of workers cleared a rock slide from a ditch with the women being the ones actually carrying the rocks to the truck, not the men. They just helped load the buckets as the women carried the loaded buckets on their heads to the dump truck for removal.

With a country that is modernizing rapidly, nomadic cows wandering the streets can hinder development. The goshalas are being set up across the country as a place to put all of the wandering bovine because they can't be eaten. The goshalas I have visited have been financed by various religious organizations, private donors, or local governments. They range between fifty cows to over a thousand depending on the facilities. All people involved seem to be happy with the situation and are looking to expand. The most exciting part of all of this is the actual capture of the homeless cows on the streets that can often turn violent; not for the cows but for the catchers themselves. It turns violent when the unsuspecting cows are being chased through the streets by the urban cowboys with the objective of getting them into a truck door wedged against the side of a building. The cows can become angry of course and cause harm but the average bystander often helps the cows escape by fighting off the John Wayne's of the Indian streets. I have never witnessed such an event but the goshala managers have told me some comical stories of the round-ups. It should be quite a sight.