Night Rider
Added on Monday, July 21st, 2008 by Carole Nash Editor
A late night omelette break
DIARY NOTE
I’ve sort of drifted into riding through the night, we will see.
21.50 First Food Stop, 1200kms south of Calcutta
Bought two small onion omelettes, two cokes and a tea. I feel wide-awake, don’t want to sleep. Had a power nap on some bloke’s desk in a gas station at about three in the afternoon and that perked me up. Now don’t know where I am. Obviously going north on the way to Calcutta. Think about 1200kms to go.
The road is very quiet and it’s dry and warm. Might as well arrive in Calcutta as soon as I can and go straight to the freighters office. It’s a public holiday in Thailand over the weekend and I expect I’ll lose a day. Suddenly I am aware that my schedule is tightening. Can’t be on the road forever, got to remind my three little kidlets that they’ve got a dad. Also got a secret plan about another trip. Going through the night does this to me! God, their goes my big mouth again.
Outside there is a watery weak moon and lines of trucks on the side of the road mean the drivers are having their rest. Once they get going it’ll be like wacky races again but in the dark.
In the cafe the music blares out from the TV. Noise is part of the lack of privacy thing. The small and exceptionally good waiter comes and shakes my hand and asks my name. He is called Mr Rahul and he said ‘fine’ about six times. How many Europeans has this man met? How many travellers stop in this one cafe ever? How many serious bikers are there riding around India right now? No one I bet. In my head I imagine it must be all right being a bit famous, but it’s better being a bit rare.
Tired, unkempt, dirty, alone, vulnerable and anonymous. Sometimes I like my job.
1am
Small place not on my map in Orissa but called Chilika Dhaba
Earlier, I got myself a soda at a grimy food joint on the side of a dirty litter-strewn road. One of the restaurateurs (a loosely applied term) started giggling and wouldn’t stop, so I glared at him and that did the trick. Psychopaths apart, stupid people just need to be treated like naughty children and they calm down. Outside the highway was now an apocalyptic mess. The road surface had deteriorated from a smooth four lane highway to a track so badly eroded it was almost inconceivable to call it the main and only truck road to one of India’s largest cities. You could bomb it flatter. A young man tried to dissuade me from continuing, saying it was too dangerous to travel here at night. He was inferring there were bandits but I wondered if he were one. It’s a good ruse to offer hospitality at an unfamiliar location by someone you don’t know. Now that would be an easy robbery behind closed curtains.
For miles and miles I clattered down this efernal one lane track. If Orissa were one of India’s poorest states after Bihar, it showed. I once heard a lady sing on the radio across a paddy field and that was my last memory of Orissa. Now I see how little progress this state has made compared to most of the rest of India. It looks like a bankrupt opportunity.
With some hindsight there was some danger. A fall might facilitate an opportunist mugging but generally, a moving target is a hard one to hit and a difficult one to catch.
Further up the road I find another enclave of bright lights across the way from where the truckers have parked so I stopped for another omelette, a soda and a tea. Passengers from buses, truck drivers all congregate to eat.
The front fairing on the bike has worked loose and the back sub-frame has snapped, such is the severity of the road. I am riding at 15mph and there is not a good stretch of tarmac. It has started raining and I am in very isolated countryside. I feel chilled. In 80kms the four-lane highway will start again.
4am Try to Sleep
The fuel boys are all asleep by their pumps. I find a small space behind the main building. I am being bitten but I slumber a little. Progress in the dark is slow so it makes sense to wait a little for some daylight.
I arrive in Calcutta, a city I like. Over the new bridge the shape of the city is vast. For 10 days it has rained without a break until this night. Damp is in the air and all around but the road is dry as I drop into the city and into Sudder Street and my favourite hotel, The Fairlawn. I wash and go to bed feeling shaky. After two hours I get up and phone the freighters and arrange to meet the next day to go to the airport. The bike needs cleaning, the film needs downloading from the camera and my diary needs to be written. Emails have to be sent and a bit of business and later I can sleep again.
815 miles in 27 hours. That’s ok. I’m pleased.
Click here to see all the latest images.
