In Puri

23/1/13
  Wake up ready to go, checked online out found out a friend had died back home. So I spent most of the day talking to people in New Zealand and Australia.

24/1/13

  Headed out early enough to go the long way so headed out for Tallapalem. From there to Narisipatnam and up to Araku. The road wasn't as nice as hoped but still a nice days ride.

25/1/13

  The hotel room was bad so did not want to stay another day. While riding down towards Vizanagaram I saw a sign for the Borra caves so decided to go and see them. Was about the 4^th vehicle to arrive at a rail cross while waiting for the train. About half an hour later, just after I decided to turn back, the train went past and we where aloud to go. I followed the tourist vehicles, all full of Indian tourists, to a town that had lots of tourist type stalls. The cars went up a back road so I followed. The back road went to the train station lol. I never actually found the caves.
  Carried on down to the NH5 although had a lot of difficulty getting directions along the route I wanted to take. I stopped in Tekkali but no rooms. Stopped in Ichchapuram.... and no rooms. Now it was almost dark so I headed out to Gopalpur on Sea and finally found a room.

1: Araku Valley
2: Hill village drink stop.

26/1/13
  Was not so happy with the room so decided to head on up to Puri. Lots of cars/Trucks/Buses flying Indian flags... but I was forced to take mine off the bike in Goa 2011 because it's illegal to fly one. Found out why when I got to Puri and almost every hotel was full. They where even offering me a spot on the roof and room they next night. This was because it was independence day lol. I spend more than 2 hours looking for a place. Ended up finding a reasonable room at INR400.

27/1/13 to 31/1/13

  Went for a walk down the beach..... lol Dean had mentioned and it has not changed. The more foreign hotel area of town is down by the fishing village. The Indian area is down near the Jagannath Temple. Now the thing with fishing people here in India is they do not bother having toilets in the house they just poo either near the boat of just in the water, I think depending on if there are lots of people or not. So walking in the fishing area is a land mind type event lol. This is India. If you head the other way it is actually not a bad beach. Down where the Pilgrims bath I saw no poo.

1: Must have run out of money, the bamboo scaffolding is so old it's falling down.
2: Jagannath temple, Puri

  Have decided to stay here for a bit as there is a change in the over all plan for the next few months. I've decided not to go home in April but to Nepal. This means I don't have to go to Darjeeling when it's so cold. Also means I do not have to travel all the way back to Delhi with the bike before flying out. So I've gained about 3 weeks maybe more lol. Idea now is to Head over to the Khumb Mela and around that area for a while before heading into the mountains. Then head to Nepal's most eastern boarder in April, as long as they do visa's there?

Enjoy YOUR life.

In Anakapalle, heading Araku.

11/1/13
  Headed out early round to Barry's to say Happy birthday to Hannah. Once across on the ferry I Headed up to Amboli, then through to Belgaum. Lots of trucks on the road. The road through to Yargatti was in a bad way, but then it got a lot worse for the last bit. Nice views up through the hills though. Got to Badami well before dark.

1: Leaving Mangunath Hotel Arumbol
2: The piece of wood in the middle is a chopping board for a road side stall. how old do you think?

12/1/13

   Headed up to the Badami Caves and a walk around the hills. The caves where great, one even had an excellent example of the colour mixing holes. Lovely views of the town. I missed the canyon walk up but found it on the way down. The room they put me in on the first night did not have a working shower so I moved into another room, cheaper and nicer, but smaller.

1: Ceiling work
2: Paint mixing grooves
3: Please stop playing with my penis...
4: Badami from above
5: I squeezed through that gap... Sideways.

13/1/13

  Headed out to Aihole and Pattakal. Went the wrong way there and back, but hey it means I saw stuff not marked in the tourist books. Aihole is a ruins that has a village in it lol. I did not think Pattakal was as good but still interesting to see.

1: Aihole
2: She really wanted me to take a photo.
3: Yes the lady is guiding the penis inside. On a temple at the side of the road between Aihole and Pattakal
4 Pattakal
5: Pattakal

14/1/13

  Rode up to Bijapur, only 150km so got there early. Went to the Mosque first and experienced Indian Whispers. You know Chinese whispers is when it slowly changes the story. Well Indian whispers is where you go to the second biggest free standing dome in the world, which has acoustics that are so good if you whisper on one side you can hear it on the other side of the dome, and then you yell and scream and whistle as loud as you can... And of course if a whitey walks in you have to be the loudest while near him... The Mausoleum at the other end of town was cool, and you can definitely see a bit of the Taj there.

 

1: Look at how high that water mark is.many meters above the present level of the lake/river.
2: I went up there. That's where the shouting chamber is.
3: Look familiar
4: Up close.

15/1/13

  Road up to Bidar reasonable long day, but very easy ride. Long straight roads, mostly empty so no real traffic issues, also was in pretty good condition. Once I found a hotel I went looking for some batteries for my mouse, I then did one of my normal shopping trips. I got some sandpaper, little oil bottle so I can do the chain. Did think about buying a shirt.

16/1/13

  Went for a ride around the Fort. Then a walk, pretty impressive fort. Loved the triple moat system on the flat side.

1: A cow market on the side of the road to Bidar
2: Brand new Cow carts
3: Bidar fort
4: Cannon ball?
5: Interest fortification method for the flat approach.

1: Classic murder holes
2: that's actually reasonably high up.

17/1/13

  Rode down to Hyderabad. Saw the lake and the Buddha. Got KFC Curry Crunch, which was nice. Had trouble finding a place below INR1,000($20US) so as it was only 14:00 ish I decided to head out of town a ways and see what appeared. Well finding the NH9 I stopped to ask directions and there was a sign for lodge. So went in and got a nice room for INR400 ($8US). Went for a walk about 19:00 for dinner....turns out rush hour was still going and the street I was on was a main one. Luckily the hotel was back a bit so not too noisy. I walk up the road for about half and hour fighting traffic all the way and found nothing appealing for dinner. So started walking back thinking I would try the other way. Found a family restaurant (so a bit more expensive) the building before my hotel. Oops walked straight past it heading out.

The Big Buddha statue in Hyderabad

18/1/13

Bigger day today so left early for Bhadrachalam 350 odd kilometers. Main road wasn't too bad once out of Hyderabad as it did not have so much traffic. The last 30km was harsh though had to get off the road 3 times for buses

When you have a hard ride, a lovely rest stop can make the day...

19/1/13

  Decided to spend the day so went for a walk along the river by the temple. Then went for a rider over the other side of the river and down to as close to the water as I could get. I decided I should take the bike onto the sand for a photo and the back dug in as soon as I left the track. I realised that the bike would stand on it's own so got off and took a photo, thinking “Look ma, no stand”. Once I had the shot I decided one more and as I was about to push the button Faith toppled over... No damage so never mind.

1: Yes that pole has 79 ft on it, for when it fills up.
2: Where the bathing takes place
3: Look ma, no stand

20/1/13

  Alarm went off a bit after 06:00 so got up, went to the loo, lay down and fell asleep lol. Wake up around 09:30 packed and realised I probably would not be able to make it to Araku before dark so decided to stay another day.

21/1/13

  Headed out early on the NH221 to Chintur. Got the turn to Lakkavaram. About 20km along the road came to a fork in the road. Very few people around lovely forested road with gentle twists and turns. I waited till a man came by on a motorbike and asked him which road went where. The signs where all to places not marked on my map, or so I thought. After a while chatting to the guy I decided I had to go down the right fork. The road was lovely, twisting up into the Eastern Ghats. It got narrow for a while but almost always had a smooth piece of tar, somewhere. After 50km odd I came into a village and decided to have a chi. I asked the man how far to Chitrakonda which was near where I had to turn. He said I was going the wrong way, I had to go back through the ghats and take the other fork. Turns out I was on a road to Rajahmundry that was not marked on the map. If you get the chance when coming over to Orissa mark I do recommend it.
   After looking at the map for a bit I decided I did not have to go back, which would mean getting into Araku after dark (most likely). So plotted a new path down to Gokavaram and out to the NH5. I was hoping to find a hotel at Tuni but the hotels where bad and over priced. Some religious thing on in town. So carried on until Narispafnam in the hopes of getting something near a back road up to Araku. Unfortunately nothing so carried on till Anakapalle where I found a nice place.

1: Maybe not that road.
2: This turned on and off as i sat there studying the map and deciding where i was going to stay for the night.
3: another pleasant place to stop

Arhh it's fun to get lost and change plan on the fly again...

22/1/13

  In the reception of the Hotel I'm in is a big picture of a Buddhist temple about 4km from here. So I decided to go take a look. At first I rode out about 4km past the second turning. Then rode back and got the right turn, there was even a sign. And rode past the third turn by about 3km (knowing that the temple was 4km from the hotel and was less than a kilometer before the second turn). Then rode back to the second turn to get told no back the other way, this time I found the turn and the temple.
  From the top of that area I could see another temple on a hill on the other side of town. Mmm. So I went for a ride to find that one, a few wrong turns and a school march/protest down the main street meant I didn't get back to the hotel till after 12:00. So decided to stay another day.

1: Bojana Konda
2: The stairs i could see, turned out there where 2 temples.

Off to Araku tomorrow and on towards Darjeerling.

Enjoy your life.

In Arambol, Leaving tomorrow for the east...

21/12/12 to 8/1/13

Well Wake walk, eat, internet, games, videos, swim, eat, sleep. Then repeat a few times lol.

Saying that have done a few different things, Dooms day brunch was lovely we watched for the big wave but it never came.

 

 

 Then there was Xmas dinner, nice feed down on the beach.

New Years was a good one too, with parting and live music at the surf club. At some point between those two I went and got a Pedicure, which included toenail painting, so I got them done too.

Unfortunately I did go for a bit of a ride and because of a scooter on one side got off to the right, so now have a Bullet Burn...

 

 

bit lacking there. But back on the road for a while so more interesting posts to come.

  

Enjoy your life.

 

It seems as if google and microsofts war is hitting blogspot.com. so as long as i want to say using a windows browser(internet explorer) i will not be able to post photo.... I may move my blog to another location which will take a while, especially as i am only looking into it now.

Back in Goa... Again lol

9/12/12

   Got up went for a walk, watched TV, picked bike up from Vicky's with rack on and front indicators. Went to Lisa's birthday do, Happy Birthday Lisa.

10/12/12

  Headed out reasonably early via the ferry to Maharashtra and up to Amboli. Then through Ajra in Karnataka and followed the NH4 up back into Maharashtra to Satara for the night. Was a nice ride most of the way. The roads through the Ghats where very enjoyable. We did get off the right road at one point but did find a lovely gorge while there.

 

 

Turned out we turn 500meters too soon. Once on the NH4 it was 2 Dual carriage way so easy, I did find out that Faith doesn't like going much over 80km lol. And other than the engine dieing when I tried 100km for a while, went 80km max after that, all went well with Faith.

 

11/10/12

   Down at the bikes at 07:00, but had trouble getting Mark's bike going, so changed the spark plug and with a push got it going. Once sorted we headed out but bike still wasn't right, so changed the spark plug back and played with the fuel key and seemed to sort it out. Then in Morgaon there was a terminal stop, if fact a worrying stop as could not even move the kick start so the thought was piston ceased up.....

   Luckily there was an Enfield place about 500meters back down the road, so pushed the bike there and he ripped it open to find the Coil and magnets had disintegrated. Very Luckily there was a Parts shop only 35km away so I ducked over to Baramati and got what was need.

   This did mean we did not make it as far as hoped but still an enjoyable day. Although when we got to Ahmadnagar almost all the hotels we went to where full, must be something on, so had to stay in a more expensive place tonight.

12/12/12

   Had a very easy exit from town and out on the road to Aurangabad, was a reasonable easy ride although I got pushed off the road once and went into the dirt a second time just in case. There where lots of sugar cane carts on the road making it narrower than normal. Mark's bike had an electrical problem on the way so we had to do a quick fix which didn't really work. Ended up having to ride Faith along pushing Mark's bike up to speed to get it to crash start.

   Was easy enough to find the Enfield place in Aurangabad, which lead us to the Electrician. While Mark's bike was being worked on I went and found a hotel for a couple of nights. Once sorted we headed out to the Daulatabad Fort which was hugh and really cool.

There where a few religions involved.

And an amazing moat system on each of the three walls

There are walls to the left

And walls to the right...

13/12/12

Bob and Faith check out a lake

   Went to Ellora caves for the day. They are impressive for the amounts of rock that have been removed to create them. Weathering has effected most/all the paint work in these temples though. There are some very interesting marks on the floors and some of the pillars that I don't understand?

alot of restoration going on

Mark and I with one of the many Buddha statues

Some lovely coloums

An impresive amount of rock was removed for this one.

I was told by one guide that some where used for mixing paint. I think these are actually done by water dripping from the roof. I sanes in Ajanta which where long and looked like they where used to mix the colour.

Now these ones we could not work out, maybe for hanging curtains around the bottom of the pillars, maybe for holding torches. If anyone knows what these are for please comment as i want to know?

14/12/12

   Headed up to Ajanta and found a place to stay for the night before checking out the caves. These ones have much better preserved paint on them and far more detail on the carvings, probably because of the rock they where carved into as these are older than the Ellora caves.

Amazing roof on this cave.

15/12/12

  Left early heading out towards Buldana, then down to Mehekar before heading south to Lonar. In Lonar everything was closed, there was not even a chi shop open. We found the Crater lake entrance and ask loudly for chi, to which a man came over from his home and said he would make us some chi. We asked why the town was closed and he said, with a big smile “oh we have had riots in the neighbouring villages for the last three days. So they closed town in case one might happen here.” He was a nice guy who just wanted us to enjoy the place even though there was the possibility of trouble.

The crater lake has temples all around it.

 

  This was the cleanest one i've ever seen.

   Of course we decided to head on further south. So going down through Sailu we stopped in Pathri for a break. When we left Faith was not running right,after a while I realised that the accelerator cable was about to break. Arriving at a petrol station in Malagaon it broke on the entry ramp to the station, well so I thought. Luckily there was a motorbike shop opposite and I had a spare cable so headed over. Once he had taken the old cable off at both ends he discovered that it was actually the plastic bracket where the cable attaches to the handle.

   So after putting a new handle on we went to the hotel near by to get a room. This took a while so when being shown to the rooms I asked the man when was the last westerner here, to which he smiled and said “we had a french man here about 3 months ago” lol

16/12/12

   Was a BIG day of riding. We headed early for Beed, then down the NH211 to Yermala. When asking for directions in one town a wedding procession went by. I started filming it but when they noticed they all started paying more attention to us than to the groom so we left. We made it down to Maraj before dark so stayed there for the night, over 400km on an Enfield, shit that is hard work lol. Yes I did 600 on the karizma and found that easier, but it was much better roads.

17/12/12

   Went the wrong way out of town, until we realised there where two towns with similar names and the way we pronounced Kolhapur was wrong.... Once back on the right direction we ended up on the NH4 which is a dual carriageway. I had my first road rage incident of the trip with a guy buzzing me when passing, be then slowed in front of me so I took a swing at his mirror but was unsuccessful in breaking it off. He then proceeded to try and run me off the road until I started kicking his passenger side door leaving some dings in it. Not liking the fact that I was fighting back he took off, so we stopped for chi and a break.

   The rest of the ride back was easy enough as we had come up that way. Faith stood up to the test ride, although I will get some small things done, like a beeper on the indicator, the front break to activate the break light, new fork seals, and the rear shocks adjusted.

   There was a bit of a party the night we got back, which was lucky as Mangu did not have a room available for me. Fortunately the girls in my room where leaving the next day so I stayed up later/early and had a nap in the hammock until they left.

18/12/12

   Not much done after cleaning room and making bed slept early lol.

19/12/12

   Bit of a lazy morning but made it round to Barry's place to get the rest of my things. Bungee broke on the way back and bag ended up on the road twice. When I went back to get the bag the second time this old guy said that will be R50 for taking it off the road for me. I laughed and said that would be 50 if you ran after me with the bag.

20/12/12

   Went for a walk this morning up the hill at the end of the beach, lovely views. Back for breakfast and now doing the blog.

 

It has only taken a little over 6 hours to load all these photos....
Make that 1 more hour just to make it save and then publish it...

 

Enjoy your life.