The day that had it all

Stage3: Dharamsala to Amaritsar

Day 1: 94.3km Pathonkot
Day 2: 145.7km Amritsar

I am talking of the second day. The first day was relatively nondescript; that's if you can call a 1300m descent away from snow covered peaks nondescript, which you probably can't, but it was a straightforward kind of day. It was the first time I've cycled with someone else, and it was actually quite a strange experience seeing someone else on a fully laden bike for the entire day after weeks of nothing.

No, all the fun happened on Day 2 of this short leg towards the Pakistan border. As with all great days, it started with a lie in, a solid breakfast of bananas, chocolate and biscuits; and then, shortly before 9am, we were once again on our saddles headed towards Amritsar.

It didn't take long to remember the monotony of the plains. A lack of sugarcane made this journey somewhat different from the first 2 days, but the flatness was unmistakable. We stopped for a cup of sweet tea after an hour and following a leisurely sip was back on the road.

I'd been thinking earlier how great the trip had been so far. There was only 1 road that I'd cycled along twice (2 if you count my initial foray in Delhi), every other route was unidirectional. A certain smugness had settled at the thought of the greatness of circular routes.

It took a further 2km for the thought to hit me. Where was my bag with my camera charger? I'd taken it out the previous night, but couldn't remember putting it back. I stopped, checked all my bags, but it was nowhere to be seen. I must have left it back in the hotel a full 17.5km behind! The thought of continuing certainly did cross my mind. 17.5km is no small distance on a bicycle, but 6 months of no photos seemed (at the time) worse. I bid farewell to Will and returned towards Pathonkot, arranging to meet up with him in Amritsar.

The room had no bag with my charger in it, and a black cloud descended at the realisation of a wasted trip back and yet another proof of my idiotic self for my refusal to fully empty out my panniers by the side of the road. But I was saved on my arrival downstairs to find out that yes, I had left it there. Although I should never have left it in the first place, at least my return was not in vain.

By this time it was 11.20, and the thought of 106km to Amritsar did bring images of buses and trains into the recesses of my mind. But there they stayed. Flat roads at 20km/hr resulted in 5hrs of continuous cycling. I could be there by 4.30 with no stops, and that gave me 1.5hrs to play around with before it got too dark to cycle. If worse came to the worst, I could always catch a bus the last section.

Head down, my only thought was on Amritsar. It would be a monotonous day of plain cycling. How wrong was I...

The first interesting event occurred when a motorbike in front of me crashed into a dog. The bike flipped, the rider went over, and the dog went howling into a field. I stopped to check the rider was ok. He was up right away, but my lack of Hindi restricted me somewhat, so as soon as other people turned up, I got back on my bike, turning away from the dog dragging it's two back legs behind itself in the middle of the field, and continued on my merry way.

After another 20km or so, I decided to try my hand at truck surfing. It goes like this: find a motorised vehicle going at (or slightly above) the speed you yourself are going; extend a hand (left or right depending on preference); grab hold of vehicle; coast and enjoy the scenery. The best thing about it is that it works. Tractors pulling trailers of bricks work quite well, autorickshaws don't. I figured it wasn't cheating so long as my coasting was less than the extra 35km I'd put onto my journey.

Autorickshaw drives past, driver points to side bar. Translation: "you want to hold on?". I nod yes, grab hold, driver accelerates to over 30km/hr. I think "sh@t this is fast, but in no time I'll be in Amritsar". Truck comes from other direction, autorickshaw moves left, I let go. Truck goes on, disaster averted. Driver slows, I grab hold of bar, driver accelerates. Cyclist on left (another one, not me) decides to move right to avoid pothole just has autorickshaw driver decides to move left. I get caught in middle, wheel turns, I go off road.

Only, it's not just a road, we're on a raised bank with about a 10 foot drop either side. I end up at the bottom of said bank. I don't know what happened. I remember being in the air, but I don't know if I came off the back of the bike, or if the bike rolled over me. Either way, my panniers are off my bike, my brakes are off to one side, and I'm thinking my journey is over. Nowhere in India will hold the spares for my brakes. Nowhere.

So a little frustrated I stand by the side of the road while the autorickshaw driver yabbers at me in Hindi. I think he was being apologetic, but that was all I got. I get pissed off, think a bit of brute force on my brakes would be a good thing, and what do you know? It is. Brakes return to proper location, and gears appear to work. Sorted; all I have is a little graze on my right forearm. It could have been worse.

Adrenaline took me 10km of the final 24km. With thoughts of truck surfing put to one side, I concentrated solely on my destination. Sun is getting low, dust is being thrown up, but as I enter the outskirts of the town I spot 2 red bags attached to a bike and see Will's blond head. We make our way to the accommodation at the Golden Temple.

Once again, the job's a good 'un. We should enter Pakistan tomorrow. "Should" being the definitive word.



Fuzzy Golden Temple

Oh, yeah. Forgot to mention that my little detour back to the hotel has meant that today I passed the 1000km mark on this trip. It stands at 1036.0km (by my calculation).