Introduction to India

The madness of India started at the border. We could tell we were getting close because there were so many people (and buses, lorries, rickshaws, bikes and cows) coming and going. We carried on ahead, expecting big long queues at the border posts. But all of sudden, above us was a great big “Welcome to India” sign. Had we left Nepal? Where was customs for Nepal?? Where was passport control??


We pull up and ask some casual guards our questions, he points me towards a quiet looking, run down building and says that is passport control and customs for Nepal is over there, pointing toward about 50 lorries lined up which I cannot see past. The truth is I could have just ridden in and no-one would have known or cared and let’s be honest we’re on the rumbling KTM so it’s not like we go very unnoticed, but maybe that helps give you an idea of just how busy it was.



Cat waits with the bike while I clear the Nepalese side pretty quickly thanks to the usual friendly Nepalese staff, who at the end say a simple bye bye from Nepal and good luck in India! I jump on the bike and we ride past the welcome to India sign, we are both looking for the India customs and passport office on a street with lots of shops, and thousands of people, vehicles and all the other things I listed before on a street no wider than Brick Lane in London. Then all of a sudden an Indian man jumps out and shouts PASSPORT CONTROL!!!! I jam the breaks on (I was only doing 10kph) and come to a stop and there it was, passport control for India: 4 guys sitting at a table with some stamps, on a busy crowded street. They reminded me of the telephone card sales guys you get outside some shops.

We sorted the passports with them and then I went over to another shop with a small sign that said “India Customs”. They are on lunch I was told, I asked how long and the guard shrugged his shoulders, then the door flung open and the senior looking guy signalled me to enter. I gave him the carnet and he told me to sit. They seemed to have finished lunch but they were sitting around having a chat, and in the process sorting my paperwork.

Lots of people kept banging at the door and once my carnet was done they let everyone in and what was a quiet room with 5 guys chatting became a room of 35 people all pushing and shoving and shouting over each other and I was glad to be leaving!!

Once we cleared everything I waded back to the bike past the crowd of about 50 people to get to Cat, we jumped on the bike and headed out. Things were crazy, so many people and not even 50 km from the border the traffic and roads were horrendous! It was getting late (about 3pm) and we wanted to hit Gorakhpur before dark but it wasn’t looking like it was going to happen. We pushed on, the roads were busy but we were excited to be in a new country and were noticing some BIG differences to Nepal.

We found the town as it was getting dark. The traffic was gridlocked, and I mean gridlocked: every conceivable bit of space was used bumper to bumper and both my panniers resting against other bikes or cars. I was having to use the panniers as battering rams to keep people from cutting me up. We had been caught out, we didn’t know where the hotels were and moving through the town was very slow, after asking people and riding around we finally found the main area and settled on what looked like a half decent hotel. (but it turned out it had lots of bugs, the free wifi didn’t work, and instead of the usual paper-thin walls, it actually had a grill/hole in the wall between ours and the next room. So we were pleasantly woken at 6am by our neighbour hocking and spitting, and I think even being sick. Nice.)





Tired, we went for a small walk, grabbed some dinner and went to sleep with the plan to leave early due to wanting to get out the town before the traffic starts.

In the morning we woke early as planned and went and tried to get some breakfast (tried, because the “included breakfast” hadn’t started yet), then saddled the bike up and left. To begin with it was easy going but it got worse and worse. We had a big day planned, around 470km, so I was keen not to waste time. We soon hit the “highway” and it was actually a half decent bit of road with a central reservation, but don’t be fooled into thinking a little bit of pavement, grass and concrete barriers mean anything over here!

It was early and quieter when we started and Cat decided she wanted to ride for a bit, so she hopped on and for about 50km she was pilot and I was co–pilot but traffic got busier and we started to hit towns so we swapped back. Around 8.30am things were getting very busy and the idiots were out to play (side note on idiots – the tv ads for bike tyres actually say “the roads are full of idiots”!): people overtaking each other and leaving you no room, and all manner of rickshaws, bikes, lorries and jeeps coming towards us when there is nothing wrong with their side of the road! At one stage I had a lorry to my right coming towards me, one pulled out towards me on my left, with a car in front going the same way and a guy behind me not wanting to slow down trying to overtake whilst heading straight towards the lorry on the right! It was ****ing crazy and we didn’t feel safe.

The whole place was an assassination on the senses and my natural road sense was freaking out. After 400km we realised we wouldn’t make our destination if the roads continued like this, so decided to get to a big city and “re-plan” as we could not do this bit of the trip with our usual happy-go-lucky-no-planning-turn-up-and-find-a-hotel attitude.

So we headed for Kanpur. Again the traffic was mental, no pavement so everything mixed together, again I was having to be a bully on the bike and make it known I would push the smaller bikes around if I needed to. We got stuck at a railway crossing and everyone surrounded us, there must have been 200 people around us, I could hardly see and the Indians are not like the Nepalese. It’s not in their culture to be polite: they like to touch and poke and grab and lift so you have to be strict or soon they are trying to climb on the bike with you. After about an hour of battling through town we found a good hotel with fast wifi so we could get on google maps.

We went for a walk and found a shopping mall, it was a medium sized mall but it was modern and was like being on oxford street, except for getting followed around by an ever-growing pack of Indians, but from time to time the security would come and they would all go away. Anyway this mall had a KFC and McDonalds, and we decided we deserved a treat, so Cat got KFC and I headed to Maccy D’s thinking about my Big Mac, then to my horror realised they serve no beef – NO BEEF IN MACCY D’s!!!! so I changed tactics and went back to KFC.

We ate our chicken then headed back to the hotel. We had decided we need to plan out our route more carefully and keep the mileage down to 250km a day but still give ourselves the whole day to get there, leaving bigger cities before 7.30am to avoid traffic. We also planned to use google to screenshot areas with hotels in each stopping point so we know the area we needed to be heading. This took us the whole day and we planned the first 50% (month and a half) step by step, fingers crossed tomorrow it pays off.

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Well today was a different India! We got up early and set off and we were on the road by 7.30am, the town was starting to surface but was no busier than London would be at peak times (if London had wild cows). We got out the town pretty quickly as we knew what roads we needed. Soon the city was behind us and we were battling pot-holed roads with lorries - we still faced the same challenges with cars and lorries on the wrong side of the road but my pace slowed a lot and I was feeling a lot more laid back knowing I had, if needed, 10 hours to do the 272 km.

We stopped by the road side for breakfast and had a nice banana, some watermelon and some potato cake. Then got on the go again, and things were still very hectic but I felt I was managing a lot better. We were following our road plan, but after about 150km we found a tiny but great bit of road, signposted right to our destination Khajuraho, the home of the Karma Sutra temples. (Signposts are another of those mystical implementations of the west that India hasn’t quite adapted to yet.)

We rode around the town looking for a hotel. We could see it was a touristy place and there were quite a few touts about, but after looking at about 10 places we found a good place that was up to our standard and fitted our price range (£5 a night). We settled in but as we had planned things so well we decided to go look at the temples that afternoon as it was only 1.30pm.
The temples are absolutely jaw dropping, the workmanship and detail was amazing and I was blown away! We went into the Western group of temples, I think there are other ones but these are the main. They are all set within walking distance around a lush green garden, and as the sun started to lower it made them go a beautiful orange colour and this just added to the atmosphere even more. At the base of each temple, you just take your shoes off and you can climb up to look closely at the engravings, or make a prayer. I hope from the pictures you can get an idea of just how good this place was and it is definitely up there with my favourite historical sites that I have been to.
So three days in India has already brought us the mad roads, great roads, crazy cities and complete non-common-sense of other road users; being followed by curious Indians; Cat practising her big-bike riding in the most dangerous (road-wise) country yet; some beautiful historical temples; and a complete senses overload of sights, sounds and smells as we drive through villages, beautiful and sometimes filthy countryside Our next mission..... Tiger Hunting!

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Mr and Mrs Rixxy - London to Australia 2011 - 2012
www.jamesandcat.com