day 31

On the road from Chandigarh to Shimla there is one stretch, about 5 km long, where the traffic simply doesn’t move. In situations like these it’s great to be on a motorbike because you can weave in between the cars, trucks and busses and be on your way. In Delhi I learnt how to weave like a pro but I realized that I might have become a little ambitious in my weaving when, on this particular stretch of road, I lightly bumped into the backside of a bus. This bus was standing still and I was hardly moving but the bike fell over, with me on top of it. I managed to get up with my dignity/ego not too damaged and in the process stepping in some holy cow dung (the smell accompanied me all the way to Shimla). The fall also claimed my clutch handle. It just snapped off. Luckily, in India you can’t swing a cat without hitting a bike wallah and I was soon on my way with a new handle.

The road to Shimla, especially on a bike makes it feel like you are ascending into Heaven. The further North I get the cooler the air and forests, meadows and mountain ranges complete the divine-ness. After the heat in Delhi it was pure bliss to feel the ice-infused wind on my face. Soon I’ll be seeing the Himalayas covered in snow.

By late afternoon I made it to Shimla but getting booked into my hostel was a mission of another kind. No vehicles are allowed in the city itself and you need to park right at the bottom and walk up to where you want to be. Most hotels and restaurants are right at the top (as was mine) and I soon understood why I had so many porters offer their service to me when I first arrived. I’d declined all the porter-offers and was now carrying my back-pack up a steep winding hill 3km long. Suddenly there were no porters in sight. The walk up to my hostel was the most exhausting thing I had ever done and I nearly collapsed when I finally made it to the steps of the YMCA.

The next morning I woke up sore and filled with great respect for these porters, who carry extreme loads up and down, all day long, for only a few rupees.

Like I said, Shimla was Shangrila and I decided to spend a long as I wanted and everyone knows; it’s fun to stay at the YMCA.

the open hand diary

lost and found

Today I woke up in Chandigarh and had a list of things to get done before I could set off for Shimla. I had to pack up, check out of the hotel, find the right road to take and replace a spark plug. The bike had been acting weird and kept stalling whenever I stopped at a robot and I was convinced it was the spark plug that needed replacement. So I replaced it. Yes, I, replaced it. And then the bike wouldn’t start.

Turns out, there was dirt in my carburator (?) and that was making the bike act up. I mentioned about the spark plug but the mechanic said the plug was fine. The old plug was also fine. The process of cleaning out my carburator set me back an hour but I had a bigger problem, my diary was gone. There are a lot of things that I could do without on this trip but my diary was not one of them. In it was every contact I’ve made on this trip. Important phone numbers, e-mail addresses and almost every person I’ve met have written in it. It was precious to me and it was missing. Then I remembered where I saw it last, by the open hand monument. My heart sank. I left it on the lawn underneath the monument and it was probably gone by now. What were the chances that it was still there? I’d already lost a few hours of precious early morning riding time but I had to try. I raced to the monument and spent 30 minutes explaining to the guard what had happened and asked if anybody had picked up a book. He didn’t speak English and thought, when I made the sign for book (2 open hands next to each other) that I wanted written permission to see the open hand monument. Eventually I think he got the point but said that there was no book. Feeling very raw about the loss of my diary I decided to walk over to the monument, just in case. It wasn’t there but I saw something in the grass that I recognized. It was a business card from Tritalia in Cape Town and it had been in my diary. Frantically I looked around and found another piece of paper, a contact for someone I could stay with in Nepal. But where was my diary? And then, about 100 meters from where I’d left it, on the grass, was my diary. It was not in the condition I left it but it was there.

My diary had spent the night underneath the open hand of Chandigarh getting some character chewed into it by a stray dog. It was badly bruised but still in-tact and I floated back to my bike clutching my diary tight to my chest.

read my mind

This morning, before setting off for Shimla, I had breakfast at a Dahba just a short walk away from my hotel. I was still a little sleepy and didn’t notice, immediately, that I was sitting in the middle of the restaurant, with about 40 Indians, also having their breakfasts. There’s nothing strange about that, only, every single person in the restaurant was staring at me. I smiled, acknowledging the room and turned my eyes down to stare at my plate. Whenever I looked up, I looked straight into someone gaping at me, seeming to be trying to read me or figure me out and after a while I felt brave enough to attempt a joke.

Sipping my chai, I made eye contact with a young Indian guy sitting to my right. Holding his gaze, I narrowed my eyes, touched my forehead lightly with my fingertips and pretended that I could read his mind. He reacted almost violently and I didn’t have any trouble reading his thoughts, anyone could see, he was terrified and suddenly the whole restaurant wanted to know what happened. This sparked more staring and some pointing and I promptly paid my bill, saluted to the room and left.

The open road.

Ok look, I’m not a biker but ever since I was a little girl I dreamt about having a Vespa. Then I grew up and got a Vespa and I loved it but after two weeks on a BIKE-bike I’m thinking that if Vespa was my first love, then this must be my true love. I love I love I love riding this bike and today I had another 7 hours with just the open road and my thoughts. The road snakes through this beautiful country and I went up passes, through forests, past lakes, plantations and little villages where people stared at me with their mouths open. And all the time, I’m dreaming of what Chandigarh is going to be like. This was one of my top locations that I wanted to see and my next stop.

The city is famous for being designed (the layout and most important buildings) by Swiss-French architect, Le Corbusier. The city is very un-Indian (more like a cosmopolitan city) and I spent two days in architecture heaven.

The open hand is Chandigarh’s outlook on everything: an open hand to give and an open hand to receive and I took everything Chandigarh had to offer with my hands, arms and heart wide open.

I could not, however, for the life of me, find an affordable hotel but after another hard day on the road I was dead tired, in no condition to bargain, and wanted a bed badly. The good news is that my room, apart from having the most comfortable bed on the planet, also has a TV and I quickly turned to the football.

Before I left my country men were still undecided whether to be excited about the coming FIFA World Cup or annoyed by the endless frustrations caused by road works and a done-to-death ad campaign. Somewhere, as I was flying over the Indian Ocean their attitude changed and by the time I got to India my fellow South African had gone football bezerk. I sank into a deep FOMO (fear of missing out) and knew I was missing out on something extraordinary. The World Cup had never been hosted by an African Country before. India doesn’t much care for football.

I decided to make the world cup part of my schedule. While I had a TV I would watch Uruguay vs South Korea and then gun it to Shimla the next day to catch the England vs Germany game. I assumed that our own team, Bafana, didn’t make the cut, haibo.

Day 27

Yesterday I left Mussoorie and set off to Chandigarh. I left just as the sun was rising and I remembered a promise I made to myself back in SA: that I would see as many sunrises as I could. Actually it was more of a new year’s resolution. If you think about how often you are awake to see the sun rise it’s really quite sad. And they are spectacular. During our stay here I met wonderful and sincere people but my wanting to stay was outweighed by my desire to move on. The day before I left, each one of them, in turn, stopped by to say farewell and that they would miss me. I believed them, I would miss them too.

So, I made a new rule, I would not stay in one place for more than 4 days. It’s too hard to leave but I also made a new promise: Mussoorie will see me again.

Things that get lost in translation.

Today Shallu and I were having chai at our favorite spot when I saw three Korean kids eating waffles at the table next to us. ‘Oh look, waffles!’ I said. She looked over and said ‘no, they are Koreans’.

97% of India still doesn’t know or trust the Apple Mac and it took me four days to find someone who was willing to ‘try’ to connect Internet to my Mac Book. It’s so foreign to them and I actually heard a story of an Indian guy who stole a Mac Book from a store and sold it for Rs200 (R35) because he thought it was a big calculator.

But, by far, the most bizarre communication blunder has been with my cell phone Network, Aircel. I bought a phone and sim card in Delhi and realized, only after I got to Mussoorie (a two day journey from Delhi) that I could only top up on airtime in Delhi, because, get this, it was a ‘Delhi phone’. And then, to top it all, I started getting messages from Aircel but sent from my own number. At the end of the message they even tell me how much it cost me to receive it. Now, you try explaining, to Aircel, in Hindi, why this is unacceptable.