Last night's bad feelings turned into multiple trips to the bathroom. Between visits I actually slept well, but I woke up very sweaty in the morning despite the A/C. I checked my temperature with the thermometer from out first aid kit, and it was normal, so hopefully it's nothing worse than a simple case of, “Delhi Belly.” I did take one of the Azithromycin tablets that we brought with us last night, so hopefully it does its magic soon. Our goal for the day was a short ride to Kannur, so we didn't get on the road until 10:30 am. Between the sprinkle of rain and my tummy troubles, I decided to skip any bike maintenance this morning and just started riding.

Like previous days, the ride today was a mixed bag. Traffic was very, very heavy all day, which contributed to slow going. There were long stretches of road that were in good condition, but these were again broken up by patches of shit.



The first part of the ride was pretty, passing over many rivers and riding along the coast. Due to the heavy traffic, it took us over 2.5 hours to cover the first 45 miles, and we didn't make it to Kannur until 3:00 pm. Once we reached Kannur we pulled out the cellphone to call hotels and found that every recommended one was full. Only certain hotels in India accept non-native guests due to paperwork and reporting requirements, so our choice now was either to search for another hotel that would take us, or to ride the 60 miles further to Calicut. Since I felt pretty good at the moment and Kannur didn't look like much, we decided to continue on. The traffic between Kannur and Calicut was very heavy and especially aggressive, and Re and I found ourselves sandwiched between buses and trucks many times today.

The highlight of the day was being flagged over at one of the police checkpoints so the officer could let us know that our headlights were on. Since we bought our bikes in the US, there is no way to turn off the headlight, and this seems to cause a significant amount of consternation for many people we encounter on the road. On any given day that we ride, we get at least a hundred hand signals or headlight flashes to let us know that our lights are on. Young people, old people, children, men, women, all want to make sure we know our headlights are on, we have even had people come out of stores to let us know they're on. So it was no surprise when an officer stopped us today to let us know that our lights were on. I once again explained that our lights cannot be turned off, to which the officer smiled, shook my hand, and wished us a safe journey.

We arrived in Calicut around 6:00 pm only to find the same situation with the recommended hotels. All of the ones where we wanted to stay were full except for one of the higher-end hotels. Tired and not feeling well again, we decided to spend the 50 bucks on the fancy hotel and rode off in search of it. We knew the general direction, but unfortunately ran into a series of one way roads that sent us off into the unknown. Fortunately, some friendly local people took pity on us and drew us a map to the hotel. As we approached the hotel, Re spotted another hotel two doors down. While I waited with the bikes and chatted with the crowd that gathered, Re walked to the other hotel and found that they had nice, air-conditioned rooms for around 22 USD. Sold! Since the road we were on was one way, we did like all good Indian motorcyclists, and rode the wrong way up the one way street, spending equal amounts of time on the road and on the sidewalk. By now, I hadn't eaten anything all day, but my stomach could not face the extremely spicy Indian food served in this area. Lucky for me, there was a KFC across the street. Re was kind enough to head across the street and returned with a chicken sandwich, coleslaw, and a Diet Pepsi before heading out for some dinner on her own.

165 miles in 7.5 hours. The bikes are running well and seem to enjoy the Indian petrol much better that the African varieties.