The best tips and advice about travel in India will be published here. Got some? Let me know!
Topics found here:
Motorcycling
Food
Recommended Reading
Women's Issues
Gurunet.com
Infernal Combustion Engine
Cycle (Not) of Changes
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Gurunet.com
From my dad, Feb 2000:
Just tried a very cool new, FREE program - GuruNet! It lets you point at or type in any word, in any Windows program, and, if you're online, it brings you instant info about that word. Check it out at http://www.gurunet.com. I heard about it from the "tech now" guys. You might get some use out of it. i.e if you type in Chennai you get the following definition.
Ma·dras (m?-dras', -dräs')
A city of southeast India on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. Founded in 1639 as Fort St. George by the British East India Company, Madras was held by the French from 1746 to 1748. It is today a major industrial, commercial, and cultural center with a thriving harbor (constructed 1862-1901). Population, 3,276,622.
Then click on encyclopedia and this follows Madras, officially Chennai, city (1991 pop. 5,361,468), capital of Tamil state, SE India, on the Bay of Bengal. An industrial center, it has chemical and automobile plants, tanneries, and textile mills. It was largely built around a 17th-cent. British outpost and became a trade center. The city's cultural institutions include the Univ. of Madras (est. 1857).
Then click on weather
AccuWeather®
5-Day Forecast for Madras, India
TUE HI: 90°F / 32°C LO: 69°F / 20°C
WED HI: 87°F / 30°C LO: 69°F / 20°C
THU HI: 89°F / 31°C LO: 71°F / 21°C
FRI HI: 89°F / 31°C LO: 73°F / 22°C
SAT HI: 90°F / 32°C LO: 72°F / 22°CInfernal Combustion Engines
No matter what politicians do, the infernal internal combustion engine is here to stay. At least that's the way it looks now. California (or is it Los Angeles) can require 2% nonpolluting new automobiles by the year 2000, and cities can restrict the flow of polluting vehicles into the city center, but the fact remains that what a vehicle spews out its exhaust pipe has a cumulative effect on people's lungs. The Norwegian Embassy, for example, restricts Norwegian families with small children to a duty length in New Delhi of maximum three years.
Yesterday I was obliged to ride my motorcycle to Old Delhi, the most polluted part of the city. Here, where the mogul emperors built their forts and palaces and monuments and tombs, the pall of thick brown haze lies heavy over the city. I had to present my Enfield to the Delhi version of the DMV. There are branches of the DMV all over the city - some of them no more than a hole in the wall with some lower-echelon with a rubber stamp in one hand and the other hand ready to accept bribes - but my motorcycle had to be presented for inspection at the Old Delhi branch of the DMV due to the fact that it was to receive a CD (corps diplomatique) plate, and there was but one office able to accord that privilege.
But how to arrive at my destination? The numbers on my motorcycle's engine and frame had to be compared to the numbers on the registration papers before the papers would be in order, and one of the Embassy drivers was willing to pilot me there in an Embassy car. Happy days - a way through the maze of avenues, then highways, then streets and finally lanes enroute to the offices of officialdom. I was very thankful because, in addition to showing me the way, he would act as a facilitator during the bureaucratic process of forms, rubber stamps, and possibly bribes. Greasing the palm really gets things done here, and when in Rome..........
So here I am, innocent on my Enfield, raring to get this thing over with, starting off on a relatively smog-free morning to follow the Range Rover to the DMV. It all went fine to begin with: little traffic, broad, tree-lines avenues of the residential areas of New Delhi. But it became increasingly more congested, and by the time we got to the first big intersection downtown, I was seeing vehicles of all shapes and sizes converging on my two-wheeler. At the sight of a traffic policeman waving his arms and gesticulating to the traffic, I stalled my bike as Raju in the pilot car ahead of me continued on through the intersection.
The Credence Clearwater Revival song "Lodi" ("Oh, Lord, stuck in Lodi again...") came to mind, but I substituted "downtown Delhi" for "Lodi." I got off my bike, rolled it to the curb, and parked it to await the return of Raju somewhere, I hoped, in the near future. One of the traffic policemen jogged over to me and motioned me to pull the bike up onto the pedestrian zone out of the roadway, and I did. Drivers eyed me as they crept past, a foreign babe in the woods, totally out of it and stranded in the eye of a snarling mass of smoking vehicles.
But I kept my cool, calm in the knowledge that Raju would be back. And about ten minutes later there he was - on foot. He had parked the car alongside the curb after driving through the intersection and realizing I had not followed him through. He was back - as a pedestrian this time - to point the way to the car so we could continue our journey into the bowels of stinkdom.
Further into the heart of the ancient capital of the moghuls, I felt I was being pulled centuries back, to the time before the British arrived on the scene, when the Islamic Persians and Afghans ruled the city. The highway sucked me into its vortex and I was swept behind and past the Red Fort of Shah Jahan, through Kashmere Gate; the trucks and buses and three-wheelers and cars of all types honked and braked and accelerated and spewed fumes and honked some more. The cacophony was complete.
I was never at a higher speed than about 45 mph or 70 kph, but my hands were tense on the handlebars and my heart was in my throat. If you don't know the code of the road in the culture where you are driving, the tenseness is ever-present. Remember when you went out for your driving test and it seemed there was a giant conspiracy against you and the car in which you were attempting to navigate to the inspector's satisfaction? Here I had been driving for almost 35 years, but this was the worst I had encountered: worse than an LA freeway at rush hour, worse than a potholed dirt road in Tanzania. And on a motorcycle, no less. Totally at the mercy of anything bigger than me. But it was my own fault. And there was not a thing I could do about it. I was in the vortex, and there was no pulling out now. At least I had the comforting rear end of the Toyota ahead of me to lead the way.
The fumes attacked me; my eyes stung and my lungs ached. As massive buses and trucks sped by, the black diesel exhaust shot directly into my face, as if the exhaust pipes were aimed right at me. And they were. I took shallow breaths, and at times I felt I couldn't draw a breath at all. There was a thick pall of pollution lying heavy on the city, and I just hoped we would be exiting the highway soon.
After about ten miles/fifteen kilometers we turned onto a minor road with its share of buses pulling out into the road, nimble three-wheeler taxis zigzagging in and out of the line of cars, and pedestrians ambling across between slowly-moving cars and trucks. Just as I was beginning to relax, I heard the whoop whoop of a siren behind me and thought "Oh, my God. The CD plates won't help me now!" but it was only an entourage of politicians from the Parliament with their escorting vehicles and the warning bleeps of get out of our way, we're on official business. A police jeep sped by, followed by a limousine with India flags fluttering on its front fenders, and followed by another official vehicle to bring up the rear.
After another few blocks we arrived at the DMV complex: total confusion, with people dazedly carrying documents from one window to another. I had my guide, however, and calmly parked my bike as he parked the car. "Well," I thought, "Now to get the paperwork out of the way and get back to New Delhi." But you see, that's not the way it works.
You wait. Then you wait some more. Then you start doing the crossword puzzle you've brought along for just such a situation. You finish the puzzle. You stretch. An hour has passed and the bureaucrat we're supposed to see has not yet arrived, even though the time is 11:00 a.m. So we wait some more. I wander outside the compound and into the little village, past the scribes and facilitators filling out forms for the illiterate. I buy a ball-point pen at a little stall with a Xerox machine going full blast, copying forms for people who haven't had the foresight or the knowledge of what the bureaucrats demand. The rubber stamps must be used to the maximum, lest their users feel they're not doing their job and exerting the little power they have over others.
I wander further past the Xerox machine and encounter three cows standing in their own muck, munching on hay. Chickens run around, pecking at the ground, and half-naked children play some game involving running and laughing. I take one last look at local life behind the DMV, then walk back past the copiers and the hawkers and the deep-fat-frying vendors, past the scribes and their customers with sheaves of documents in their hands, and back to the shed in the shade where we wait. And wait. And wait some more.
Finally the clock strikes noon and Raju says there's no point in waiting, since the man we need to see hasn't yet appeared, and after 1 p.m. nothing ever gets done, anyway. We've done everything we can, and the one document has been pressed against the frame of my motorcycle and a pencil has shaded the stamped number onto the paper - just like kids do with the embossed surface of coins on paper. See - there's Abraham Lincoln on the paper! And on my document was the faint trace of serial number 4B 297027. Modern technology loses again. How charming.
So once more we venture out into the traffic. The worst of the morning rush has passed, but now it has left behind and even thicker pall of carcinogens and airborne particles for my lungs and eyes. But what to do but make my way back through it? I have my pilot, at least, and this time there are no glitches at the many intersections. Everyone jockeys for the best position at red lights, and there is no observation of lane-dividing stripes at all. It's a vehicular free-for-all, and may the best man (usually a truck or bus) win. After reaching India Gate, with its British-built triumphal arch and long avenue leading to Parliament, we enter into the massive flow of vehicles circling as if in a centrifuge, ready to be spun off from one of the five lanes onto any of the numerous roads leading to and from the enormous roundabout. I follow Raju, and soon I recognize my surroundings and feel at home again. The air is much clearer, and the traffic is relatively sparse. I am once again wheeling down the road with a feeling of freedom - just like in every motorcycle ad I've ever seen. But I'm Queasy Rider, and the load of shit I've breathed is taking its toll. I feel like throwing up, and my eyes sting so badly that I'd like to take them out and plunge them into a vat of Visine.
Once again I pull into the grounds of the Norwegian Embassy, glad to be back but feeling frustrated because our mission had failed. "Does this guy at the DMV have a phone so we can call him tomorrow and check to see if he's decided to come to work?" I ask Raju. No, no phone. But Raju says "Would you like me to drive your motorcycle down there tomorrow? I did it for Paul when he was getting his Enfield registered." My mouth drops open, my stinging eyes light up through the diesel gunk on my eyelids, and I respond in an appropriate manner "Whaaaaa...can you really do that?!?" I felt like saying "Well, why didn't you tell me that BEFORE?
So now it's the next day and Raju is off on my bike on another futile bureaucratic quest, a thick scarf wrapped around his mouth and nose and with the visor down (no fool he) to do battle with both traffic and bureaucracy. And here I sit writing about it. Hack, hack.
Mark Mattison
December 1, 1999
New Delhi, IndiaCYCLE (NOT) OF CHANGES
From the marketing office of "Uncommon Motorcycles" in Pennsylvania:
"Think back to a simpler time, 1954 to be exact. India and Pakistan were keeping a watchful eye on each other and India decided to use Enfield Bullets for patrol duty on the Pakistani border. Ordering 800 units from the Enfield factory, they soon found the motorcycles quite well suited to service in India and ordered more for the following years. India had a policy of trying to manufacture any product being imported in order to save currency. The Madras Motor Company which sold the Enfield in India set about the process of learning to manufacture the 350cc Bullet. They began assembling kits sent to them from England, began making frames, developed skill in sheet metal and finally began assembling the engines. Soon they were manufacturing the engines, too, which meant they were now making the complete motorcycle. The Indian government taxed any imported products which were also made in India so the company prospered. By 1956 the factory was in operation building the motorcycle they had been trained to produce, the 1955 Enfield Bullet! They did the same thing the next year, and the next, producing the same model with a few minor changes right up to the present day. Ironically, the British company closed down and India became the only location where Enfields remain in production."
It was the week before I read this blurb that I bought my own Enfield. In addition to the above facts, I knew that Enfield, England was the location of the Enfield arms manufacturers. I had also read that the then-new Enfield rifles had been instrumental in the British conquest of the Indian (Sikh) Khalsa army in the Punjab in 1846. In fact, I had always associated the name Enfield with Enfield Rifles.
It wasn't the only time a weapons manufacturer had turned to the production of bicycles and motorcycles in order to survive in times of peace. BSA was a well-known case: BSA, the famous British motorcycle, was made by the British Small Arms company. And by the sound of the name of it, it seems they also dabbled in the production of thalidomide.
So there it was on my doorstep: basically a 1954 model, but turned out at the Indian factory in Madras(Chennai) three decades later. Big, black, ugly, and all scratched up - not unlike Mike Tyson. No flash, no low-slung, long-forked, gleaming chrome screamer this. Just basic retro.
Upon kick-starting the single-cylinder engine, you hear that blast from the past: WHUMPWHUMPWHUMPWHUMPWHUMP. And just look at how typically Indian the previous owner has outfitted this English bike: riding a tiger, the Hindu goddess Durga stares up from between the handlebars; handpainted license plates, flaring knee-protector bars curving around the front on either side of the frame, carrier box at rear right, and footrest for women passengers riding sidesaddle (all Indian women passengers on two-wheelers ride sidesaddle. Indian women always keep their legs together - strange, in a country where the population has just topped the billion mark).
In addition there are narrow tubes fanned out across the left rear wheel to prevent a woman's flowing sari from being drawn into the spokes. And, after careful consideration, I think I know what that carrier box on the right rear side is for: it's the woman's vanity case. It must be. Lots of extra bindi dots for the Hindu forehead.
The little dots come in red, of course, but also in other colors. They're affixed to the forehead using the adhesive backing, and I'm told that used bindis often decorate the borders of wall mirrors in women's public bathrooms. I guess that's to be preferred over "For a good time, call Krishna."
But a "bidi" is not to be confused with a "bindi." A bidi is a portion of a tobacco leaf which has been rolled into a tight tube, like a dollar bill rolled end to end. It's tied at one end with a thin red thread and lit at the opposite end. The smoker gets only a few drags before the bidi is finished, but those drags are pure nicotine and tar - no filters THERE, that's for sure.
But back to the Enfield: In Scandinavia there's a single-cylinder maritime engine still in use on many old wooden boats; in Norway such a boat is called a "snekke," and the engine goes TUFF-TUFF-TUFF at a leisurely speed. People feel themselves relaxing when they hear this antithesis of the two-cycle outboard screamer, and think of the more laid-back days before the sounds we put up with today turned our brains to jelly.
The same goes for an Enfield. In August I was in the village of Marlborough in England. Suddenly I heard a TUFF-TUFF-TUFF and thought "That sounds like a single-cylinder motorcycle." Around the corner came an elderly gentleman on what appeared to be an elderly motorcycle. I walked to where he was parking his bike, and as I approached, I could see it was an Enfield. In fact, it was fairly new in spite of the retro look. The Englishman had bought it in England from a firm that imported Indian Enfields from the factory in Madras.
Three keys: battery, ignition, and gas valve. No electric starter. No light to signal neutral gear. A foot brake ahead of the left footrest. A strange lever behind the right foot: toe of foot for shifting gears (one up, three down) and the lever behind the heel to kick down into neutral in one motion - from either second, third, or fourth gear.
It's a big, heavy bike. And it's heavy with tradition, too, which is what I like about it. Not the fastest, not sporty in appearance by any means. But solid and relaxed, confident in its calm, staid humility - assured of many more years of its Indian lease on life. If only the old Triumph, Matchless, and BSA bikes had it so good. As it is, the tuff-tuff-toughest one remaining is the Enfield - more or less 46 years old, even when new. So I guess there may be something to this Hindu idea of reincarnation after all.
Mark Mattison
New Delhi, India
October 27, 1999
Motorcycling
Siddharth Sawe advises:
I have been to many places in Maharashtra and near Goa. Getting a 500cc Enfield is not a problem however nowadays you need to book a 500cc well in advance. Nowadays I think it is custom made. I had a 350cc in India. A sidecar can also be fitted by it usually turns out to be a pain -- the bike gets pulled towards the sidecar and riding with a sidecar requires more strength on one handle as compared to the other. Also, if you're going ride long distances it is NOT advisable to have a sidecar on INDIAN ROADS, especially on the outskirts where you have no proper roads. You would spend more time resting and repairing the bike than enjoying the ride...
Check out my friend's site, an adventure which involved 40 enfields and 42 ppl, daring the world's second highest motorable pass. My friend's was part of it. Pity I was unable to join them. The photos are available on the Royal Enfield http://www.royalenfield.com site.
Food
Ruth McAllister recommends:
When and if you go to Bangalore, check out Mavali Tiffin Rooms. It was the cleanest restaurant in all of Asia. They pride themselves on *Sterile*!! The management give out small booklets of how to behave in the restaurant...it is killingly funny to read. They close in the afternoon so everything can be cleaned again. You can drink the water. They have testimonial letters from local hospitals on the walls... Oh, and the food is fantastic!
Recommended Reading
Take a look at the links page for more recommendations for websites and books, with a direct link to buy from amazon.com.
David Moggie recommends the book Karma Cola by Gita Mehta.
Hell's Buddhas has Lou Hawthorn's adventures by motorcycle in India. It's a very well-written account about a spiritual journey. Thought provoking, educational, and funny.
Women's Issues
From Connie Stambush, who spent 5 months riding a motorcycle through India:
... basically my philosophy is if you expect to have trouble you will have trouble. I did not expect to have any problems and generally I did not have any. Some might say that is a matter of perspective. If I tell someone now the things that happened, they are shocked. But I don't see them as having been problems. That is the magic of time, and the Indian philosophy.
I don't consider India to be dangerous, but a lot of people do. Also, in the four years that I lived there I began to see an alarming trend of violence against foreigners. I use the word "alarming" because you never heard about anything happening to tourist until a few years ago and then it really started to rise.
I spent a few years in the Middle East alone and up through Eastern Europe. I thought India could not shock me after what I saw in the Mid-East. Wrong. The first four days I was in India I barely ate, drank water, or talked to anyone. Without a doubt I was in shock. Now, I would not bat an eye at what I saw. Good or bad, indifference sets in. Having said this, I am a confessed Indophile. At least until I go back to India and am consumed with the rage and anger of things out of my control. That can be everything depending on your perspective. Two things you need to keep in India, control of yourself and perspective. You will be challenged daily if you live among the Indians. If you live with tourist and travelers, life is different.
I handle Indian men situation by situation. If you respect people they will respect you. If they have feely fingers, I hit them. Not a sissy slap or shove. I have on more than one occasion grabbed guy by the throat and put him against the wall. Be nice. Be nice. Be nice. And if that does not work, stand your ground. Keep a cool heart and head and you will be okay. I do not recommend wearing saris. Western women don't know how to walk in them. Wear a kurta and cotton pants. NO shorts, sleeveless top, or going without a bra...
Journeywoman has an entire section devoted to women traveling in India.
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