Steven Raucher's World Tour
2001-03-07 in Cochin, India
Everything went South
It started out just being the direction I was travelling, I managed to get on the road by 6:30 am just before sunrise and had made 655kms by 17:30 that evening. I had ridden from Morjim, Goa to Calicut, Kerala. I was knackered and ready for bed.
The following day seemed promising: the weather was cool; the sky slightly overcast; and very little traffic at 7 a.m. It was at 9 am, when I was travelling south on the National Highway 17, approaching a small town, when suddenly I was covered in milk and sliding down the road, after my bike, mind you. You see, before I had even registered what was happening, a milkman on a 100cc, had just decided that it was the opportune moment to shoot out of a side street and cross the national highway (which, in India becomes the main road for every village it traverses). It is at times like this quick thinking is a must:
Do I A) wring the milk out of my jacket and get the cornflakes off the bike and have breakfast
Or B) try and get the petrol to stop pouring out of my bike and try and get the hell out of dodge!
Decisions, decisions. Well I tried option B, only to find that I had a hole in my Cylinder Cover that was spurting oil. �So that�s the end of the trip� I find myself muttering in disbelief. There were also a few choice words that came out a bit louder.
After containing the petrol leak amidst a hundred smiling (thank god) faces. I was summoned to the police station and given the drill. �You foreigner wait for many hours for vehicle inspector to come. How much you pay to milkman?� I tried to explain that it was the fault of the milkman (who by the way was by this stage in hospital along with his passenger and his bike was totalled), when the inspector finally came round to the fallibility of his villagers he refused to accept that I did not wish to make a complaint. This episode came to an abrupt end when I tried to explain that there was no point in making a complaint as the milkman did not have the money the fix the bike. The inspector, quite typically, began to roar with laughter � it was at this point I walked out of the police station.
I headed for the trucks. In every Indian town there is at least one row of trucks all waiting to be hired. I managed to hire a truck and persuade the villagers to help pick up the bike, a dead weight of well over 350 kgs. The Laughing Policeman soon foiled this plan, he had managed to extricate himself from his desk and make it to the scene of the accident. He informed me that I was going nowhere until I had paid something to the family of the milkman to help with their grief. Suddenly I was 500 rupees lighter AND back on the road.
I got to Cochin finally at 3 pm that afternoon and waited for my girlfriend to arrive and tend to me. I had only one scratch on my knee, not much of a patient, I thought.
This was all about to change. By Monday afternoon I was rushed to hospital with all the symptoms of malaria, on the way we got caught up in a street festival of some sort (see picture). After being examined I was relieved to find out I only had Bacterial Dysentery. What a relief. I was plugged into many drips and told to drink Tender Coconut Water, this apparently stops one from dehydrating. The next morning I was released and am now nursing myself in my hotel room , writing very boring long travel stories to alleviate my own boredom. I guess I owe you an apology.
 A nice way to see the countryside |
 The hole in my heart |
 And the band played on.. |
 Take one coconut and call me in the morning |
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