Shimla to Mandi

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Rain cleared overnight and we had a fabulous view of Shimla opposite us (it's built on what's virtually a cliff face in a big horseshoe shape). You could see some of the grand buildings from the days of the Raj including a very English looking church at the top of the hill. Most were looking dedidedly worse for wear, though, and there was the usual rubbish dump in the middle of the town.

Our destination Mandi was at a much lower alttitude so the day was mostly downhill. The road we went on was relatively minor and we got a taste of how poor the surface could be on some Indian roads. Also in the middle of some towns there'd be a hump in the road, maybe to slow you down, but with no warning signs and no markings it would slow you down after the fact - once you'd nearly given yourself a heart attack hitting it at full speed.

I also learned that the layout of the British bike controls being the other way around from a Japanese bike, takes some getting used to. I came around a corner and suddenly found the tar seal had disappeared and I was going a bit too fast for the loose gravel and dirt that the road had turned intol. My instinct was to stamp on the foot brake but what I actually did was stamp on the gear lever which was where the foot brake should have been. That changed the bike up a gear because as well as being on the wrong side, the gear box is upside down to pressing down on the gear lever changes up a gear. That effectively made me go even quicker and I realised that if I tried to corner at that speed, I would slide off. So I let the bike go straight ahead while I braked as hard as I could and came to rest against a pile of gravel much to the amusement of the men working on the road. Once my heart settled down to a mere 100 bpm, I spent a few minutes getting the bike back into a real neutral (the gear box had a number of false neutrals) then going through the starting regimen to get myself back on the road. Went a lot slower for a while but luckily none of my companions saw the incident.

We found out another couple of facts about driving in India this day. That is, might means right and traffic jams can be horrendous. We had prior warning of the way trucks and buses would not respect us on the bikes but we experienced it this day. I was riding a nice line around a blind bend when two trucks came at me the other way blocking the entire road. I road off the side to let them past and after that, picked a line around the bend that would keep me on the outside to give myself maximum room for the next time it happened.

Due to the fact it was monsoons, there had been a number of slips and at one point, huge boulders had blocked most of the road. This resulted in a lengthy traffic jam. Luckily we didn't have to wait as we could ride along the edge of the road and get past the worst of it. We also discovered that Indian drivers often have no patience. Instead of waiting at the back of the vehicles that were stopped in front of them, they'd drive down the wrong side of the road to get past them. Of course this meant that the vehicles going the other way had nowhere to go but they of course were doing the same. That meant that you'd often end up with two lines of vehicles facing one another with neither having anywhere to go. Somehow in their disorganised manner, they'd sort that out eventually but progress was probably a lot slower than it needed to be if they'd just wait their turn.

On the way there, one of the English guys Ossie managed to blow his piston. The tour guides gave up one of their bikes and doubled up so Ossie could keep riding and the broken bike was partially dismantled and loaded into the van. When we arrived at Mandi we were treated to the sight of the mechanics stripping down the engine and rebuilding it on the side of the road.

We also discovered that Barry, an English "character", was a decent bloke despite his idiosyncracies like riding in shorts and a tee-shirt and always needing to be at the front of the group. This meant that he was usually riding just behind the tour leader and would therefore get picked to be the next corner marker. Once everyone else had gone through, he would then race past everyone to get back to the front. I thought that the shorts and this need for speed made him a bit of a prat but I was pleased to be proven wrong as the trip went on. Just liked to ride. Anyway, what he did to endear himself to me was to produce a bottle of very nice single malt Scotch and share it generously with us after dinner. Good on you, Bazza!

The Kiwi trio (me, Tim and Neil) all decided to dress up for the evening so we put on our tuxedo t-shirts.

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Photos

Imran and Hafeez
Attending to Ossie's broken bike