India Day 15/16 - Amritsar

Day 15/16

Well I am sat writing this in the Garden of Mrs Bandaris Guesthouse in Amritsar. I am sat in a plush green garden under a canopy next to the pool. Birds are chirping and the distance noise of the horns and traffic from the morning rush are a background noise. The guesthouse chipmunks playing on the lawn, a couple of black lab puppies running around. I think I have found my own bit of Indian heaven. The guest house is furnished and decorated 1950’s style, well when I say decorated I mean still in a 1950’s style. Dinner last night was faultless and they have as much Kingfisher as we can drink. Today there is a distinct monsoon feel to the air, its hot and sticky but overcast. (As I type thunder is rolling in this could get interesting. – update 10 mins later its raining – I am now being served coffee in a monsoon, this so feels like being part of the Raj, bloody hell its heavy any and the temperature has dropped considerably)

Back to the blog. Woke up early in Banote nr Jammu packed the bikes, My bike stalled whilst packing and for some reason couldn’t get it restarted. Put the tap on reserve and it started, overnight somebody had drained my fuel, my fuel cap doesn’t lock. Great start to the day. My Achilles Tendon is in agony and it’s all I can do but hobble to the bike. Dirt bike boots are not comfortable. So we get going 120K to Jammu and another 200K+ to Amritsar. We have to climb a mountain and descend down to sea level and Jammu. I fuel up at petrol station and meet a very kind and chatty attendant. We come across a horrendous queue of traffic but because we are bikes we skirt around it. At the front we find a large crowd of people aroujnd a military truck embedded in the side of a TATA truck which is also up against another TATA truck. Basically the overtaker didn’t make it. Hate to think what will happen to him especially taking out a military vehicle. We ride through the crowd parting like the red sea.

We make tracks into Jammu and onto a highway which allows us to put down about 50K before we cross into Punjab. The road conditions change to bad and the driving standards drop to OMG. We fight for every kilometre with truck, coaches, cars and bikes…...hearding ox, cows, the local market set up on the road. There is diversion after diversion, they are obviously building a new highway from the border to Amritsar. We take a closed section of new highway and ride it, it goes to sand and we off road it following the tracks of the locals. We ride past the road workers and nobody bats an eyelid as we past them. The roads are lined with weed, not weeds but WEED. Enough to keep the UK supplied for years. The smell is quite distinctive. We stop at one particular large section and take each other pictures. Wonder what the locals thought!

It’s a hot day and I am sweating, water is running off me and I have drunk a couple of litres of water from my hydration pack. Foot hurts so spend a lot of the time riding with it on the engine crash bar. At 5pm we stop for a drink at a roadside tea stall, we are 30Km from Amritsar. So go into the town and after asking a few locals getting lost on the GPS and generally having a wacky races time we arrive at Mrs Bandaris Guesthouse.

Do you have rooms? Yes came the reply you will be our only guests. How much for a room? 2800R=£28 per night (£10 each). Bargain. We chuck off all the bike kit get supplied with beer, shower and jump in the pool just as it is getting dark. We share the pool with bats who swoop down and drink the water. Eventually we get out and are served with an excellent meal, I have a vegetarian dall and the other two have fish. More Kingfisher beer. (oh and by the way the beer is by the pool with an honesty pad to record what you have drunk.) I go off to bed with coffee and make a call home to let them know I am safe and not with the Taliban. We have been off the grid since we left Leh as the Indian authorities will not allow international calls on our phones and nowhere has WI-FI. Internet cafes don’t exist in Kashmir either. The Indians are taking Kashmir seriously as we have seen a massive troop deployments and army security all along the Line of Control between the two countries.

So back to today its stopped raining now and the pathways are drying off already the temperature is creeping up again. The traffic noise went semi-silent but is now rising again. Simon and Andy got up early and have gone into town to see two other British riders on Enfields who doing the trip the other way round. They have also hired bikes from Lalli Singh. They have an enormous task of doing it in 14 days where as we took 21. They have gone to have breakfast and let them know what to expect (Don’t go to Kargil).

(Oh just ordered Toast, butter and honey for breakfast – with more coffee)

Today is going to be a visit to the Golden Temple of Amritsar and later out to Waggh for the border closing ceremony between the Indian and Pakistani border guards. Going to struggle walking around today.

(Just eaten my toast and the thunder and rain are back. It’s heavy. Might get in the pool? As I am currently the only guest on site I have my own waiter who is just sort of wandering around the covered pool area where I am sat. Ahhhhh the British are back)(got in the pool and swam during the monsoon)

 

So spent the rest of the day lounging around doing nothing including swimming. At 4pm we were collect and taken to the Pakistani/India border crossing of Wagga. There we witnessed the border closing ceremony between the two nations. The pomp and ceremony of the Indian side mixed with a bit of Bollywood style. The Pakistani side seemed take it all to seriously. Excellent spectacle and well worth the trip.

 

So after the evenings entertainment we returned to the hotel for fish curry and our new German friends from Srinagar have arrived at the Guesthouse. We spend the evening chatting about all sorts of things.

Skyped Alison and Kirsty then off to bed.