It's now been five days on the road and we've become familiar enough with our bikes to give em' proper names. "Laura Jean" (a tribute to both my grandmothers) is black with tarnished chrome. She's been good to me up until today when I dumped it while taking a corner on a sandy patch of desert style road. My first wipeout. Call me crazy but it felt pretty good. I know it must've looked pretty funny because I did a couple of speed wobbles before the bike skidded out from under me and I went off the side like I was sliding into second base. Safe! But with a bruised ass. I got up and dusted myself off, bummed that Jon had missed it. He was ahead of me.
Jon's bike, "Golden Macenzie" is a burgundy wildthing that's already had a couple crosses to bear. Added to the bent foot peg and shifter are the back breaks which seized up on him today, leaving him no choice but to break with the front, which any avid motorcyclist can tell you is pretty deadly. But no one told us and so Jon dumped it hard while crossing a small creek. That's when the clutch handle broke off. We tied it back on with rope and surprisingly everything's been alright since then.
We arrived in Kaza and met a Punjabi dude that went by the name 'Jamaica'. We had heard about him through another rider we met during our second day. Jamaica was a fast talking, hyper-active business man with the air of a street hustler. He was hard to read as honest at first. He owned 2 guest houses and a restaurant in the small town, and of course everybody knew him. He gave us a nice room with a TV that we didn't even turn on for 300 rupees (under $6.00). In the evening we went for tea at his restaurant, which was simply a big room full of soft mattresses to lounge with small bench tables to eat off of. It was my idea of what a half ass opium den would look like, which prompted me to ask him if he knew where we could get some. No. We relaxed and watched a cricked match on the tele while conversing with two other Canadians (the only other people in the restaurant). They had been trekking around the Spiti Valley for nearly a week and had a lot to say. Jamaica sat down with us to show pictures and tell stories of others like us who had felt the northern touch of India. By the end of the night I knew Jamaica was a sincere cat. We returned to our guest house, smoked charas and packed smaller bags for the next day's exploration of Kibber, a village that was once the highest drivable village in the world, until the town of Comic got a road.
Read Day 28
Jon's bike, "Golden Macenzie" is a burgundy wildthing that's already had a couple crosses to bear. Added to the bent foot peg and shifter are the back breaks which seized up on him today, leaving him no choice but to break with the front, which any avid motorcyclist can tell you is pretty deadly. But no one told us and so Jon dumped it hard while crossing a small creek. That's when the clutch handle broke off. We tied it back on with rope and surprisingly everything's been alright since then.
We arrived in Kaza and met a Punjabi dude that went by the name 'Jamaica'. We had heard about him through another rider we met during our second day. Jamaica was a fast talking, hyper-active business man with the air of a street hustler. He was hard to read as honest at first. He owned 2 guest houses and a restaurant in the small town, and of course everybody knew him. He gave us a nice room with a TV that we didn't even turn on for 300 rupees (under $6.00). In the evening we went for tea at his restaurant, which was simply a big room full of soft mattresses to lounge with small bench tables to eat off of. It was my idea of what a half ass opium den would look like, which prompted me to ask him if he knew where we could get some. No. We relaxed and watched a cricked match on the tele while conversing with two other Canadians (the only other people in the restaurant). They had been trekking around the Spiti Valley for nearly a week and had a lot to say. Jamaica sat down with us to show pictures and tell stories of others like us who had felt the northern touch of India. By the end of the night I knew Jamaica was a sincere cat. We returned to our guest house, smoked charas and packed smaller bags for the next day's exploration of Kibber, a village that was once the highest drivable village in the world, until the town of Comic got a road.
Read Day 28
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