Stranded in Srinigar

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So, I'd made it to Srinigar and the houseboat seemed fab. Not luxurious, but fab. We were the only ones on it as well. This wasn't suprising once we found out there were virtually no tourists in Kashmir because of the political problems brewing there. On the plus side, we had the boat to ourselves, which meant having not only your own bed and bathroom, but your own living room as well! It was also really cheap too. What would have been at least 1000 ruppees for 2 of us, maybe more (full board) was only 600 rups, so 300 each. Good for us, but bad for the guys on the boat. Talking of which, it was a family run place. The dad was in Dharamsala....he had a shop there and was there for most of the year, and the mum and 2 sons were looking after the business with the houseboat. I didn't see much of the mum for the whole time I was there. The two sons, Poppa and Bablo were great. Really nice guys and they couldn't do enough for us. If anyone wants to know of a good houseboat to go to on Dal Lake, Srinigar, go here. Budshah Palace.

By the time I'd had breaky and a bath, Cloud was up and about. It was really good to see him again. Another guy I couldn't wait to see again was Bob!! He was supposed to turn up on the truck at Midday that day, so we got directions to JK Motors where he was supposed to be dropped off from Poppa. It was near Neelam Cinema, on Neelam Chowk which was the other side of town. We walked there as Cloud didn't want to ride his bike in the city.

At first, things seemed ok in town, a lot of army presence, loads in fact, and all the shops were shut, just a few were half shut (open but with the shutters half down). Other than that, things seemed quite peaceful.......at first. Then about half hour into the walk we saw people up ahead turning round and heading back towards us. People were saying 'go back'. We didn't really know what to do. We couldnt' see anything happening as such, just people turning back. We ended up taking a detour round a couple of side streets and heading in the same direction. As we went round one of the corners, there was a group of youngish men lurking.......one looking a likely candidate for the mujha hadeen......long beard, muslim dress etc! They stopped us, but when they realised we were tourists the guy who looked like he should have had an AK 47 and a turban said 'run, run quickly'. I'll tell you what, it was enough to make me run......for a short way anyhow! After that we just walked pretty quickly til we got out of that road and back onto our original route towards JK Motors.

When we got there, there was no sign of the truck so we sat and waited on the side of the road.......and waited.......and waited. I tried calling the guys in the truck, but the phone was not on. Ordinarily, I would have been worried, but I didn't have a bad feeling about it. I just figured the truck took longer to get to Kashmir and was probably stuck on the pass, where there was probably no signal.

While we were waiting, we were speaking to the army guys in that road. They were telling us there was a curfew on and the shops were supposed to be shut. In the whole time I was there, I still didn't figure out exactly who decided whether there was or wasn't a curfew on any particular day. We did witness what happened to people who didn't abide by the curfew though. While we were sat there, chatting to the army guys, there was a shop half open on the other side of the road. A truck full of men in beards pulled up outside shouting and hurling rocks at the shop. Needless to say, the shop pulled down the shutters pretty damn quick! That's one way of keeping them shut I guess!! Now I realised why those that were open, had their shutters half down......so they could get them all the way down as quick as poss!

While we were waiting, we also met the guy from JK motors.......a little fat guy. JK was also shut, but I think the mechanic from Kargil had rung and told him Bob was turning up today, so he'd come to open the shop so we could leave Bob inside rather than in the road. A good thing with all the trouble going on. I wouldn't want Bob left in the road with all of that. He asked where the bike was and we explained we didn't know. The army guys told us that no trucks would be allowed into the town before 6 that evening, so maybe there would be a holdup because of that.

Having waited a couple of hours and still no answer on the truck drivers phone, we decided to walk back. Actually, this time we took a rickshaw! Nearly back at the boat, my phone rang.....it was the driver! Yeay! Even though I didn't have a bad feeling around them not arriving, I was still relieved to hear from them. They'd been held up as I thought, but should arrive later that day. They'd ring me when they were half hour away.

In the meantime we'd heard several recommendations for a different mechanic specialising in enfields. A guy called Sonowar. I was sorely tempted to take the bike there, but it would have been really awkward getting the bike from JK where it was going to be dropped off and probably even more awkward trying to get over the language barrier with the truck drivers to arrange a different drop off point. In the end I figured it would be easier to leave it with JK. The guys phoned around 4 to say they were on their way which meant another mad dash over the other side of town to meet them. I wasn't too sure how they were going to get the truck into town based on what the army guys had said. Turned out they didn't. They hired a pick up, which meant another 200 ruppee bill for me. Shame. If I'd known, I would have had it taken in the pick up to Sonowar, but I'd already phoned JK and the guy was there to open up so the bike could be left inside. For the sake of ease, I left it as was. No-one was working that day because of the strike, so I arranged to go the next day and said not to touch the bike until I got there.

After making sure my bike was ok, we went to check out the mechanic Sonowar we'd heard about. Cloud wanted to get a few bits on his bike sorted. Vaslyia was running really well, but Cloud was a real perfectionist and there was always something that needed doing. It was also making a funny noise (which I couldn't hear, but Cloud's perfectionist ears had picked up!). So off we went to find this guy, Sonowar. We got the general directions from Poppa at the boat and headed up there. All the way we were asking people if they knew Sonowar and they all seemed to. 'He must be good' we thought, everyone knows him! It wasn't til we got there and saw the bank and everything was called Sonowar that we realised the area of Srinigar he was in was called Sonowar, not the mechanic himself! He wasn't in when we got there, but his wife told us to come back the next morning.

On the way back we checked out the lamb kebabs we'd been lusting after in Kargil........very nice. The lamb man we called him. A guy who sits in a stall on the roadside with a little barbeque type thing and cooks lamb meat on skewars. You get it with bread and salad.....well kind of coleslaw type stuff. Fantastic and cheap as chips....so to speak!

The next morning we headed back to Sonowar with Vasylia. The recommendations were right, I immediately got the feeling he was a fantastic mechanic. He was an old guy called Hassan who was an enfield fanatic. He had a garden full of them. He also had a little stool and a little tray of tools. (He was a little guy too!) He obviously knew everything about everything about enfields. Having seen this, I really wanted to take Bob there too. I decided to go to JK as arranged but tell them I'd be taking it down to Hassan to have it done. After all, I'd told them not to touch Bob until I got there.

Famous last words. When I got there, Bob was in bits and the little fat man from JK was handing me broken bit after broken bit and telling me it would be 4000 ruppees to repair. This is your worst nightmare with a mechanic in India as you never know if those broken bits are yours or not. I went nuts. Even went down the road and got a policeman......not that that did any good whatsoever. The policeman did nothing other than make the JK man annoyed. Not a good thing now Bob was in his hands. It did get the price down to 2500 after a lot of negotiation though. The guy didn't get the point that I'd told him not to touch the bike and kept going on about how we were supposed to be there an hour earlier. It didn't sink in that it didn't matter what time I came, if I said don't touch the bike, it meant don't touch the bike. Unfortunately, the idea of taking Bob to Hassan was well n truly out the window now. I left Bob with them to work on. The little fat guy, who I'd now taken a real dislike to, wasn't the mechanic, just the owner of JK which sold parts. He'd organised a mechanic round the back of JK to do the work. We went round to the mechanics where the rest of Bob was and I sat for a while and watched the mechanic. He did actually seem to know what he was doing, which was a real relief and made me feel a bit better after all the arguments I'd just had with the owner of JK. Being that Bob was already in bits, there didn't seem much point in staying til the work was done, so we left him there and arranged to go back at 11 am the next day.

After that we went back to Hassan's to find check how vasylia was going. Cloud hadn't mentioned the noise to Hassan and he wanted him to see if he could sort it out. By the time we'd done that it was getting pretty late so we left Vasilya there and headed back to the boat.

The next morning we went to Hassan's before we went to JK to see how he was doing with Vasilya.
Hassan's family were lovely. Each time we'd been his wife had invited us in for tea and pastries. She made fab Couwa too. (Not sure if that's spelt right, but basically kashmiri black tea with spices in. Really good!) He also had a son called Hussain who spoke really good english which was helpful for interpretation as Hassan only spoke limited English. At first Hassan had thought the noise was the rockers, but having taken them all apart he found lots of shards of metal stuck in the oil channels. There were also loads of shards of metal in the sump. Basically, there was a problem with the crank. When they'd opened her up, it turned out the nut on the crank pin had been welded but the weld had broken so the crank wasn't running in line. Hence the shards of metal from the grinding and the noise that Cloud had been hearing. So there were now 2 bikes in bits needing work on the crank. Cloud was really depressed. His noise had turned out to be a real can of worms. Vasilya had been running fantastically too and now she was in bits needing major work. It was a bit of a nightmare really. I left Cloud there and went up to JK as I didn't want to be late again! When I got there they'd found another part needed replacing.....the oil spool. Again they showed me the 'old part' which I didn't know whether was mine or not but after the day before had lost the will to argue. Luckily things were a lot less tense that day. The little fat man wasn't there, which was probably why. His young assistant was there instead ...... and the mechanic. I watched him put the last of the bike together and do final adjustments. Cloud turned up an hour or so after. There was another guy there with his bike who Cloud was talking to about the problems with Vasilya. The guy obviously thought Cloud was talking about Bob and that Bob was his. Eventually, Cloud managed to explain that Bob wasn't his. His bike was elsewhere and Bob was my bike. The guy was completely dumbfounded. 'What she can ride a bike?' 'Really?' and what made me really laugh was he then added 'What........ for a long way?' He couldn't get over the fact that a girl could ride a bike.......'for a long way'!! He then kept on and on for me to ride his enfield with him on the back so he could witness me riding. I didn't want to, but in the end I agreed purely to shut him up. After riding his bike, he then insisted on getting on the back of mine while I took it up the road to test the work that had been done. He was obviously impressed and kept telling me I was wasting my time with Cloud and should go up to another lake in Kashmir with him instead! He eventually gave up when I'd managed to persuade him I was actually very happy with Cloud and wouldn't be going to any lake unless Cloud wanted to go too. Even after that, he still gave me his number......maybe he hoped I'd change my mind.

So now I had Bob back, I was a very happy girly. He seemed ok, but not fantastic, but he was running and there was no noise. I couldn't say the same for Vasylia. She was in bits and her story was to go on for a while yet.

That night, I managed to persuade Cloud to go round the lake on Poppa and Bablo's little canoe. He eventually agreed to go after I agreed to do the rowing. We went with Bablo and Shortcut, their cousin. It was lovely to see the lake. We'd been there a few days by that time and only actually seen the little bit our boat was in and what we had to walk past to get from the boat to the lamb man!

Unfortunately things went from bad to worse with the political situation and the trouble in Srinigar from then on. Every day was strikes (where shops were shut, or worse curfew (when no-one was allowed outside) and riots. One time when Cloud had taken Hassan on the back of his bike to see if the shops were open, they'd been stopped by a gang of 'militants'. (I'm not sure if that is the right word for it....militants.....troublemakers......rioters.....whatever) They'd thought Cloud was a Hindu and were a bit aggressive apparently. It had freaked Hassan out from what I could tell and from then on he called Cloud 'Danger boy'. He'd say to me, 'you ride with him', meaning Cloud on his own looked like a Hindu and may get trouble, but with me he'd be ok because I was quite clearly a western tourist.

All the shops were shut continuously which meant no progress could be made with fixing Vasilya (we needed a lathe man to be open to get the new crank aligned) and we weren't able to leave Kashmir until she was fixed. At first Cloud wanted to go down to Hassan's every day. He's persistant! I tried to persuade him to give Hassan a break. He was an old guy after all and didn't need to be hassled. It didn't work though. Every day, he wanted a lift up there. At first Hassan would laugh about it. He'd 'suggest' things for us to do, just to get us out of his hair. One time he told us to go to the royal gardens. We thought why not and headed off. When we stopped at the ATM, Cloud wanted to go back to suggest an alternative approach to Hassan with the bike which would mean we wouldn't need the lathe man and perhaps wouldn't have to wait til the strikes were off. When we turned back up, Hassan couldn't believe it. We thought we'd wind him up a bit by saying 'Hassan, we missed you. You come to the gardens with us.' He was so funny. He did this little dance thing on the spot going 'no, no, no!' He was really funny guy. Cloud's suggestion didn't work either.

There followed another 10 days or so of sitting around waiting. Even the lamb man wasn't open! We couldn't do anything. The strike days were bad, but the curfew days were worse. That meant you couldn't go outside. This didn't seem to apply to the footpath around the lake, so we could walk up to the internet shop which for the first few days was open as normal, despite the curfews. Some of the smaller shops around the lake which sold drinks, crisps, mosquito coils and other bits n peices were also open which was fab. At least we could quench our munchie appetite! The food provided on the boat was really nice, but after a wk or ten days we were dying for meat and just anything different. It was pretty much the same each night. For brekky, kashmiri bread with boiled eggs and tea and for dinner rice, salad and two veg curries, just rotating the type of veg curry every few days. Nice at first, but not for that long! The living room during the next two wks turned into a games room. It was the only thing to occupy us other than the daily ride on Bob to take Cloud up up to Hassan's to satisfy his need to see if any progress had been made. Cards, Risk express, chess, juggling balls, books ....we even used the dice from the risk game for yahtsi. Anything to occupy us. It was ok at first, for a week or so. Poppa, Bablo and Shortcut would come round in the evenings and we'd play games. We read lots of books. Cloud tought me some new cool juggling tricks. After a week or so though, I felt like I was going insane. Cloud didn't seem to mind too much....he enjoyed taking photos of the trouble, but it got me down. It worried me not knowing from one day to the next when we'd get Vasilya fixed so we could leave. On top of that, my visa time was ticking away. I only had 5 weeks left in India and I didn't want to spend it under house arrest in Kashmir. In the end, I think Hassan got a bit fed up with Cloud turning up every day and eventually Cloud got the message and stopped going every day. There were a few times when we thought things would be open the next day but they weren't, which only added to the dissappointment.

Eventually, the strikes were called off for a few days and Hassan managed to get Vasilya fixed. Yeay!! At first we weren't sure if we should visit Gulmarg and Palgham while we were in Kashmir, or whether just to get the hell out. After checking with a few of the locals about the situation in these places, we decided to go. We were there and it seemed a shame not to see them. I was glad we did as well. Gulmarg is a ski resort. There was no snow when we were there, but it was beautiful. It was only 50 60 ks away from Srinigar, so not long on the bikes either. We stayed at Raja's place. Raja was a big friendly giant who couldn't do enough for you. We were even invited to a family wedding! He was almost bordering on 'too friendly' but that's much better than unfriendly, so it was ok. The first day there, we just chilled out. The second day we headed up the mountain for a walk. Amazingly it didn't take too much persuasion. Cloud wasn't much of a walker normally! When we got back from the walk, Cloud decided to head back to Srinigar. He said he wasn't happy with how Vasilya was running and wanted to go back while the strikes were still off so he could get Hassan to sort it out. He didn't ask if I wanted to go. I'm not sure if he didn't want me to go or if he knew I wouldn't want to go. Gulmarg was so nice and it was so nice to be out of Srinigar. The last thing I wanted was to go back. I didn't like seeing him ride off alone though. Not that he's not capable, but there's something vunerable about anyone alone on a bike. Especially if it wasn't running right. He called later that night to let me know he was ok and Hassan had fixed whatever the problem was. He asked how long I was going to stay in Gulmarg and said he was going to head to Palgham the next day.

The next day I decided to leave Gulmarg and head to Palgham to meet Cloud. When I called him he said to come back to Srinigar and meet him there and we'd drive to Palgham together. That seemed like a good plan. The ride to Palgham was interesting. The strikes were back on with a vengeance. Most of the way was ok but we hit one village with a big protest going on. I'm not sure how much to do with the general strikes this was. The guys we spoke to said it was uni students protesting to the local army officer over the introduction of new ID cards or something like that. Anyhow, we pulled over and waited. I jokingly said to Cloud, 'why don't you go speak to them and see if they'll let us through?' He went up the road to get a closer look at what was going on. When he came back he had spoken to one of the protesters and they had agreed to let us through! Yeay! We drove the bikes up towards the crowd of protesters who were still blocking the road, shouting out various protests. It was a bit scary as I didn't think they were going to move, but Cloud's new friend eventually got them to make a metre gap which we could drive through......again a bit scary driving through them, but it was all ok and we were back on open road!

When we got to Palgham, it wasn't that nice....just a line of shabby hotels along the edge of a road, with a river the other side of it. We decided to head to Aru which was about 10ks further up the valley, which I'd heard good things about from some people in Ladakh. It was much nicer than Palgham. Beautiful countryside.

The next morning we went for a walk. On the top of a hill we saw some rustic looking houses which we walked up to to take a picture of. The woman of the house was outside and through sign language asked if we wanted tea. We said yes and I'm glad we did. It was a fab experience. A very basic house, open plan with stables for the animals all in together. We sat infront of the mud stove while she stoked the fire and then made us tea and chapattis. Fab! I don't think the little kiddy she had was too impressed with us though. It kept crying!

Despite it being beautiful, we only stayed a couple of days. There was no other tourists there, like the whole of Kashmir and I was dying to meet some other people to talk to. I think we were both dying to get out of Kashmir.

On the road out of Kashmir Bob died and I couldn't get him going again. Oil was pouring out the top of the engine. Not a good sign. There was curfew that day as well, so we were having difficulties with army stopping us all the way along the road as well. Bob broke down right in the middle of a trouble spot too. When Bob wouldn't start, the army were pretty helpful and tried to get him going. There was one general in particular that couldn't do enough for us and when they couldn't get the bike going sorted out some tow rope so Cloud could tow me on Bob out of the trouble spot we had broken down in. He told us just to keep driving. Don't stop for the army, just drive. That was the scariest thing ever. I was petrified. Being out of control on a bike, knowing if you lost it you'd be towed up the road or should I say along the road, probably pull Clouds bike over too and end up in one big mess in the middle of the road. Cloud kept turning round going 'take a picture, take a picture', which I agree would have mad a fab picture, but I was so scared I couldn't let go of the handlebars to get the camera out of my bag. Also, every time Cloud was turning round he wasn't going completely straight which made it even more scary at the back. The tow rope was tied to the side of the crash bars as opposed to the centre of the bike, so I didn't feel like I was going in a straight line anyway, and when he wasn't going in a straight line it made it even worse! So much for the General's advice of 'don't stop for the army'. The army weren't having any of it and we weren't going to risk getting shot for not stopping. After stopping again at the next lot of army asking where we were going on a curfew day, the tow rope snapped when we tried to pull away. Having re tied it, we carried on. It was a tense time for me. I was petrified. We discovered sharp turns were a no no pretty early on when I nearly came off the bike. Then about 100 yards on, Cloud nearly missed the turning we had to take and did another sharp turn. In the heat of the moment I shouted at him, which I really didn't mean to do and really regretted but stress has a funny effect on you. At that point I didn't know what we were doing or where we were going. We certainly weren't going to be driving all the way out of Kashmir like this. There didn't appear to be anything open ....no hotels, no mechanics and virtually no people about.

Eventually we spoke to a guy on the side of the road who phoned a mechanic to come and help us. There was definitely someone up there looking after us because that was the last thing I expected to happen. The mechanic came out and got Bob going. He didn't stop the oil, but he got him going. From then on, he continued to run, I just had to keep changing the spark plug and topping up the oil, which he was going through by the litre. That day we made it to the other side of the tunnel between Jammu and Kashmir and stopped at a hotel just the other side. It was a pretty grim place, the room was baking hot and the food really basic but I was so knackered at that point it, I was glad to stop.

The next day we carried on. It was another curfew day. When we got to Udhampur, we decided to take the country road route around Jammu rather than staying on the main road which would have taken us straight through the city. The road was blocked at every village along the road, but at every one, when they realised we were tourists, they let us through. Apart from one, which we got to around 3pm. They wouldn't let us through until 6.30 that evening when the curfew was lifted. I'm not sure why they were so awkward when all the others were so obliging to tourists, but they were. They did invite us in for tea though which was nice. I think they just wanted the entertainment though. Cloud was pissed off at first and wouldn't come inside for tea, but eventually he did. He ended up getting really friendly with the guys and joining in their little prayer session just before we left. It was funny. all the time we were in Kashmir, all we heard about the trouble was that it was all the Jammu people's fault. They were in the wrong. Now we were in Jammu, it was the opposite.

Eventually 6.30 came and the roadblock was lifted. They still didn't seem to see the urgency of us leaving though.....Inviting us to stay and then keeping Cloud talking. I was really keen to press on and get to the end of this country road and back on the main road before dark so we could find a hotel. There weren't any on this road so far. I started the bike, hoping that would hurry things along a bit but it didn't seem to. Eventually, I thought I'd start off up the road as that would give Cloud the excuse to get away. I was pretty sure Cloud would catch me up. I wasn't going that quickly. The road got worse and worse and it was getting darker and darker. At various points they were digging up the sides of the road and the rain had washed the piles of earth across the road to make patches of road covered in about 5 or 6 inches of mud. These were really hairy. I made it through three stretches of it, but on the 4th I lost it and dropped the bike. There was still no sign of Cloud. It took three attempts to pick Bob up. Enfields are incredibly heavy. On the second attempt the handle grip came off in my hand and sent me flying backwards ending up sitting in the mud. (Not funny at the time, but looking back it would have been a great camera moment! :O) ) The third attempt I decided to try push Bob up from the other side rather than pulling him. I'm not sure if the adrenalin gave me extra energy or whether that was easier, but I managed to get him up. I was shaking like a leaf though and when I'd got him upright, realised I was on the wrong side to put him on the stand. Hence, still shaking, I had to get on him and get off the other side so I could put him on the stand. Still no sign of Cloud. I waited for a while but by this time the sun had gone down and it was getting dark. I couldn't head back now.......It meant going through all that mud again and I knew I didn't have the energy to pick the bike up if I lost it again. I wondered if he'd left at all or whether they'd persuaded him to stay the night. I had to get off this road before it was pitch black. I didn't want to be in the middle of nowhere, alone in the dark. I decided to carry on until I came to somewhere it would be safe to stop, rather than just in the middle of nowhere. I carried on slowly, hoping he'd catch up, hoping it was him every time there was a light behind me. Eventually I came to an army checkpost where I stopped to wait. There were some really nice guys there who got me tea and biscuits and said I could stay the night there. I didn't really want to though.......you don't want to be a girl alone with an indian man overnight, no matter how nice they may seem! Eventually, a car came through the checkpost who said there was a bike who had trouble with electrics but was on his way now and would be there shortly. I was so relieved! Cloud turned up about half hour after I got there, following a truck as he had no lights. He seemed ok at that point, just said he'd had trouble and had to keep going as he didn't have enough power to restart the bike if he let it stop. So I followed him and the truck up to the main road where the 'hotel' signs were a welcome sight.

We found a nice hotel, expensive but nice and unloaded. Then Cloud was really quiet. At first I thought he was probably just really tired....it had been a hell of a day for both of us. It carried on though so over dinner I asked him what was wrong. He said he didn't see the point in us travelling together anymore, because he'd had trouble with his bike and I wasn't there to help. I tried talking to him about it, to explain what had happened, how I couldn't turn back, and tried pointing out the times when I'd had trouble with Bob in Zanskar and he wasn't riding next to me, but it was clear he didn't want to discuss it. He finished his dinner, went upstairs, stuck his head under the pillow and went to sleep. The next morning he got up, packed and left.

If I'm honest, I don't think that was the real reason for him ending it. If you like someone, getting split up on the bikes isn't a reason to bin it. You may argue about it, tell the other one how pissed off you are, but you don't bin it purely for that. If you've gone off that person though and you're thinking of ending it anyway, I guess it's as good an excuse as any. I was sad though, really sad. Not just because it was over, but because I didn't feel he'd been honest with me on the reason. Maybe it was more along the lines of 'you've been a nightmare to live with over the last few wks', (being trapped on the boat for 2 wks hadn't done the relationship any favours..... boredom had turned what were jokes into niggling and we had got on eachother's nerves) or, and I hate to suggest this, but the timing of it all makes it quite likely that he was about to meet up with his diving friends again and hence my company was no longer required. His friends were in Manali which was now only a day's drive away from here. You know, sometimes things just don't work out and it's ok to finish it if it's not working........after all, it'd only been a few months and the last one of those had been hard work for both of us! But in that situation, honesty is the best policy. When you get over the hurt you can respect someone's honesty. It's hard to respect someone when they end it like that with no real explanation and no willingness to talk.

At least I was pretty close to Dharamsala now though......a place they'd be other travellers and a mechanic that was open! After getting myself together Bob and I set off. Changing the spark plug kept Bob going all the way. When we came into lower Dharamsala, bob died. (Not just 'going' actually, he'd run really well!) I pulled over and changed the plug once more, but this time it didn't work. Somehow the timing of this makes me think there was someone up there looking after me again. We were 100metres uphill from an enfield mechanic. I literally had to turn the bike round and coast downhill to the mechanic.

I explained the problem and Bob's history with the crank etc and they started to take the head apart to see where the oil was coming from. When they opened him up, I couldn't believe he could run at all, let alone run well, like he had done that day. The whole thing was like a big oil cake. Dried oil all over the top of the chamber and the valves. I couldn't see how the valves had opened let alone closed properly with all that in there. Somehow they had, and I'd made it there. They discovered the piston was damaged on one side ....it had lots of grooves in it which let the oil up into the cylinder. He needed a new piston and the cylinder re-boring, new valves and valve seatings. The work came to another few thousand rupees, but the alternative was to call it a day with Bob, which I wasn't ready to do yet. I left Bob there .....he seemed in good hands......and the mechanic gave me a lift up to the bus stop where I could get a bus up to Mcleod Ganj....the traveller's hub of Dharamsala.

I'm not sure why the mechanic in Kashmir didn't notice the piston damage or whether there was something fishy about it. Maybe me calling a policeman that day had upset them more than I'd realised. (conspiracy theories are wonderful aren't they!) Whatever.... I'd made it there, found a mechanic that seemed really good and I was about to see other travellers again for the first time in nearly a month. Things were looking up.

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