In Diu

12/1/12

   Road out north nice and late, if you pay that much for a room you check out with 5 min to spare, well I do anyway. The road got much more interesting a little way out of town as it travels through the Ghats again, very different scene up here in the north though.

  I remember some one saying in Chennai that the southern states decided that your first language is your state language and second language is English, Maharashtra and north decided your first language is state, second is Hindi. This means I'm finding less and less people who can say more than hello in English which is making it difficult in some of the little towns.

   Was a short day because of leaving late I only made it to Sangamner, but still arrived early enough to take the bike for an oil change and service. 

 I love some of the road signs here "speed is a momentary romance, Life is an endless romance". Not strickly speaking true as life is only a life long romance but that would be to long for the sign.

13/1/12

   Found some number 8 wire in a scape pile out the back of the hotel so decided to make some new flag stands, I am a farmers son after all and a kiwi so no. 8 wire is always the best for fixing things lol. 

  The ride down to Nashik was nice with loads of pilgrim's walking toward there, but I didn't stay as I got there at about 9am. I did however really enjoy the back roads down through Jawhar to Silvassa.

  Was hopeing to find somewhere on the coast to just south of Silvassa unfortunately i did see anywhere to stay, i did how ever get to watch some local cricket. Got to see 2 4's, and 4 outs on a very interesting wicket which had a road through the side, it can be fun getting lost some times. I also had to remove the home made india flag as the lamenate didn't hold up to 80km an hour and tore off a chunk from the bottom, boo hoo.

14/1/12

   Took the main road from Mumbi to Ahmadabad for a few hundred km so was lots of traffic, but also lovely duel carriage way so able to keep up a good pace. From Vaddara I took more back roads round and back down to Bhavanagar, bit ruffer but not so much traffic.

   It seems like Wiki travel is right about Gujarat and it is the kite state, every village/ house had someone flying a kite also even the motorway had people all around it flying them, meaning you see a lot of trucks with kites dragging off the back and cotton thread everywhere, also most power lines have a few hanging off them. It was Saturday so some of the villages had big sound systems up on the roof blasting out music so everyone could hear, almost every house had multiple people of all ages on the roof flying kites, was really cool to see.

   Today I saw the most road kill I have seen in the whole trip, probably more that I've seen total of the rest of the trip, sadly most was dog but a couple of chickens in there for a change, even a pig which wasn't dead yet and for some reason instead of killing it they where tipping water on it???

A new built temple i would have like to see but was on the wrong side of the motorway.

15/1/12

   Unfortunately I was not able to make it to the International kite festival which was on today in Bhavnagar. I did have a interesting ride down to Diu though, I saw a RC Drill rig on the side of the road at one point so I stopped to check it out, I even had my old Peak drilling shirt on so they showed me around the rig which was similar to Rig 2 that I worked on in the Australia. They are a water bore crew.

 Diu is another ex Portuguese en clove so has cheap booze, in fact if you want to drink in India I would say head to any of them, saying that Goa is the more expensive one, then Daman, then Diu.

16/1/12

Well lots of washing to do, the bike gear is a bit dirty, also have to do my blog and sort out photos extra.

 Some Koreans where i had breakfast and they all had these huge pots of prawns and crawfish, mmm wish i had some.

 The country that makes you go Huh stricks again, yes that is the top of the door in the bottom of the picture and up near the roof is the soup dish, I'm just able to reach into it. mmmm.

  Enjoy your life.