Motorcycle Trip in India!

Wow it is like a dream come true - we rented a motorcycle and drove it into the country. It was a little 100cc bike, a TVS Star; just a tiny thing really but it could do 40kph comfortably.

So we started off from Udaipur and made our way north to Ranakpur, where we saw a massive Jain temple. It was a huge affair, and we rode the bike into a parking lot and changed into our flip-flops (us being experienced temple visitors we know that it is customary to remove footwear before entering). The main temple is made entirely of marble, is three stories high and has 1444 intricately, uniquely carved columns inside. Not just that, but the temple is open to the air on each level, and not just windows but huge swaths of open space - the great domes themselves create spaces that span all three floors. It is just tremendous.

We stayed at a place called the Roopam Hotel in Ranakpur. It was nice and cheap, and we were very pleased to have somewhere to put our heads that wasn't a tent.

The next morning we woke up and with our boiled eggs stowed safely away (for a later snack) we headed for Kumbhalghar. But wait a minute, I'm making all of this sound too easy. Motorcycling in India isn't actually hard, but there are some rules to pay attention to that aren't the same in the west.

1. most roads are one lane, with rocky/sandy/muddy shoulders
2. the biggest vehicle always has the right of way
3. big vehicles are usually nice and give motorcycles time to get out of the way (they don't like the smears on the windshield)
4. if you are overtaking a car, you honk
5. if you are overtaking a motorcycle, you honk
6. if you are overtaking a bicycle, you honk
7. if you are overtaking a pedestrian, you honk
8. if you are overtaking a cow, goat, sheep or dog, you honk and go slowly
9. if you are approaching a blind corner or hill, you honk
10. it is apparently okay to pass people on blind corners or hills, except when honking is heard from opposing traffic (see rule 4)
11. when an oncoming car flashes its lights, it means it is not stopping so get the hell out of the way
12. little kids will sometimes yell "namaste" (Hello/Goodbye) or "Tata" (Goodbye)
13. little kids will sometimes throw things at you

Navigation is a bit of a challenge, because 95% of all traffic signs are in Hindi, and I only know the characters for these letters: B, R, F. Thankfully we were going to "R"anakpur the first day, and then back to Udaipu"R" the second day. :) People are pretty helpful on the road, sometimes I would just slow down and shout "Udaipur?" and they would laugh and point where I was supposed to go.

So we were going to Kumbalgarh the next day. It was a fantastic ride, the bike performed well (at 40kph, sometimes 50 if we went downhill) and when we go to the fort our jaws just dropped. This was the biggest, hugest, most massive fort we have ever seen. The ramparts go on for 36km around the countryside, the wall itself was constructed around 1450. The palace that tops the mountain was built around 1850 and they call it the Cloud Palace, because during monsoons it sits in the clouds. Walking around we saw some tremendous views, and there was even a marching band...as always.

India Motorcycles: Ranakpur and Kumbalgarh

We were riding through the country, and we saw some beautiful countryside as this part of India gets some rain, as opposed to Jaisalmer that hasn't seen a drop of rain in 5 years. Something neat was water wheels, driven by some form of beast (cow, bull, buffalo) and a huge set of gears that pulls water out of a well and into a trough. On a related note (to the beasts) the country people have devised some use for cow dung as they collect it, pat it onto rocks for it to dry, and then pile it up into tall towers of these brown cakes. One day I will learn the true purpose, but I suspect it is for fuel.

Lastly, pretty much everyone out here waved at us, shouted at us, said "namaste/tata". A couple boys did some weird dancing as we rode by, one waggled his ass into the road, and not just a few kids (mostly girls) threw things at us. One old man threw both arms up into the air and waved them about in some kind of a dance, I guess he was happy to see us!

When we got back to Udaipur we wanted to drop off the bike, but there was some kind of huge parade and the entire center of town was blocked off with thousands and thousands of people. We nearly got trampled but a nice woman took pity on us poor confused tourists and held Leah against the wall while the throngs of people flowed past. What a weird night, I have no idea what the parade was for but they had these huge floats that were probably 40 feet high, it reminded Leah of the marshmallow man in Ghostbusters just trundling down the streets as the floats careened from one side to the other.

We're off to Bangalore tomorrow!