1200km, 7 towns, 3 throttle cables, 1 bike (part 1)

I made it to Dharamsala! And I'm still alive, with all my limbs firmly attached! Yay! Though it was not without its scary moments...

So I leave Rishikesh at 9am or so, stocked up with fuel for both bike and myself, and hit the road. I take the route I've driven up a few times, so it's a nice start, and helps me get used to having all my luggage on the bike. It's a great road, awesome scenery, good condition, barely any other cars. So I'm trundling along, take a corner perhaps a tad quickly (which is unusual for me, most of the time up until then I'd been creeping along at 20km/hr twitching nervously thinking 'ohmygodohmygod I'm going to die') when I behold an old lady wandering in the middle of the road. Upon seeing me she panics and starts jumping back and forth, meaning I have to brake somewhat sharply and, due to some handily placed gravel in the road, I slide and come off my bike. Awesome! 3 hours into my journey and I've already narrowly missed a pedestrian and fallen off the bike whilst moving. Back to trundling along at 20 then I guess. (Luckily I'm fine, just a scrape on my arm).

I get lost a few times on the first day, with the signs being few and far between (and most of them in hindi) and the people giving me wrong directions. One detour took me passed an old man who spoke no english but grasped that I wanted to get to a town called Dharasu. He hopped on the back, chattering away non-stop in hindi. It was a while before I realised he didn't actually know the way at all, and just wanted me to take him to Chamba (some way back the direction I'd come) - repeating the words 'ChaaaambA! petrol PUMP... CHAMbaaa... peTROL pump' for about 20 minutes, with various different intonations and stresses. I somehow manage to find the right road, although it's more of a dirt track. The views all around are absolutely fantastic - for an hour or two I'm riding along the side of one of India's biggest hydroelectric dams; sun setting, mountainous background. They're fairly controversial actually since many villages were flooded to allow their contruction (you can see the tops of trees and telegraph poles emerging from the water), but DAM they make good scenery (see what I did there)


Sometime after this my first throttle cable breaks. At this point I'm a total novice when it come to bike repairs, and in fact hadn't even bought basic tools for the trip, vaguely planning to buy them somewhere along the line, or assuming nothing would go wrong. I had some spares though and flag down a passing biker who fixes it for me pretty quickly. I make sure to note what he's doing so I can do it myself if it happens again.

Some hours later, as it's getting dark, I stop and ask for the town I'm heading for and am told it's back in the direction I came. It gets reeeaal cold up in the mountains at night, and Indian roads are not ones you want to be driving on in the dark (pot holes/unmarked speed bumps/landslides) so decide to call it a night and ask for the nearest guest house. 5km in the other direction they say. 15kms later and I find a tiny shop, the owner of which tells me it's 40km further until Chamba (the town I'd passed through 4 hours earlier) and the nearest guest house. Ugh. Someone overhears though and offers a truckers' sleeping stop, 'very simple' they say, but that's a-okay with me.

Until I get inside, and there's the world's second biggest spider scuttling around on the wall. I don't mind being in a crowded cafe with an awesomely huge spider, but sleeping in the same room as one? hm... it's all creepy and swings around on only a few legs like it's enjoying itself. If you shine a torch at it the light reflects of its many, alien eyes. EWWWW. I end up putting up my mosquito net (I know, I'm a wuss) and manage to doze for a while, and set off first thing the next morning.


Taking the advice of the person I met the day before, I head back the way I came, trying to figure out which wrong turning I'd taken. The only vague possibility I could see was a little track heading down the side of the mountain, towards the bottom where there's a huge bridge - maybe that's where I'm supposed to go? It quickly deteriorates and huge rocks are everywhere, and I'm bumping about all over the place. I started thinking I'm probably on the wrong path about 10 minutes in, and then find a person who says 'NOT ROAD!' with surprising forcefulness, so I head back. Which is far more difficult of course because it's uphill - and, riding an enfield (a slightly grumpy one at that), you have to go fairly quickly even in first to stop it stalling. Cue even more bumping on a rocky, wet, slipperly path less than a single lane wide, with a 50ft+ drop to the left and landslide debris to the right. weeee!

I decide the guy who gave me directions was just wrong, and head the way I was going to originally - hell, it's a real road at least. Turns out I'm right and I make my way towards Barakot. The road starts heading through forests and is really beautiful, great to ride through - until my throttle stops working again. ARG. This time it's not the cable but the handle that's broken - where the cable attaches. I flag down another biker and we end up melting the handle together, cable included, and it holds until barakot, where I find a mechanic (who does nothing for the throttle handle incidentally, that's a problem solved, nothing to worry about) and a guest house. Barakot is a pretty small rural village - they obviously get a few tourists in season, but this is very much the end of the season, and I'm stared at even more than usual. Being a foot taller than most Indians and covered in oil generally doesn't help me keep a low profile.

I'm told the way I want to go (across a fairly barren stretch of 'road' through some mountains/forests) has been blocked, so I have to head back south again. It's not exactly the same way I've come, but feels like a bit of a backtrack. The scenery is astounding though:


More riding though tiny villages, giving cute school children lifts, getting stared at by everyone. I get to Poanta Sahib before dark (not without losing another throttle cable - I don't know why, I'm not revving it like a madman or anything. I managed to fix it myself, under the close scrutiny of at least a dozen locals who stop to watch the crazy white man covering himself in oil, which I'm very proud of) It's much bigger than Barakot - definitely a city - but again, this is not the season, and there's not a westerner in sight. I find a mediocre guest house, wash away a few layers of grime with cold water, find a take away curry and a beer (my first in nearly a month, Rishikesh is a completely dry town!) and have a good sleep. Next morning I take the road towards Shimla, one of my main 'destinations' for the journey. The road is wide, straight and generally in ok condition and I actually manage to go at 50-60km/hr for prolonged distances (very rare up to this point) and get there pretty quickly. I check in at the YYYY-M-C-A! and have a tepid shower (an improvement). My room is big and clean, and there are no humongous spiders lurking in every corner. Result!

Shimla is an odd place. An old British hill fort, it was turned into a town after some Brit settlers came here in summer to avoid the clinging dusty heat further south. As a result, it's has a strange feel to it - like an Indian city but with some Britishness hurled at it. There's a few mains streets filled with expensive, western brand shops (nike, addidas, domino's pizza), all extremely clean - littering, spitting and even smoking are illegal and are punishable by fines. Everyone's dressed in smart clothes, looking rich, beautiful and sophisticated. But... kind of boring. There's not a lot to do. Then 50ft down the hill and you're in an Indian market, winding streets with stalls of all varieties, back to the vibrant colours and smells of a more traditional Indian city. I'm not quite sure what to make of it all.

There's also a very disconcerting air raid siren that goes off every day. I'm woken the first morning by a full blown alarm; it's a terrifying sound, and in my sleepy daze I'm slightly worried the world is coming to an end. Next time it goes off I'm outside and no one pays it the slightest bit of attention. They don't even seem to register it; I'm the only one freaked out in the slightest. It's like being in 'The Prisoner' or something.

So anyways I stay here a while, but get a bit bored, and still have had very little human interaction. There are a few English speakers here, but most are 60+ rich Brit retirees, obviously living here because it's the least Indian city in the north of India, and they can still live like the colonial masters they feel like; ordering around locals to carry their bags and bring them food in superiour, lordly tones. Time to leave.

To the mountains! (part 2)

The next morning, after our breakfast of dhal and roti we head to the valley of flowers. I'm feeling a bit 'bowelarily tumultuous' as I put it, so the walk is punctuated by...stops... but it's a much easier walk than the day before and the views are stunning.



I head back a bit early as I'm not feeling great, realising as I get back that Tyler has the only key to our room, and have a nap in an open spare room. When I wake it's dark and I find no sign of Tyler or Gribb. Downstairs no one has seen them either, and a czech couple said they saw them a few hours before and that they were trying to find a lake, deep into the valley. They also said it's a crazy idea and hoped they'd changed their minds. The woman speaks some hindi and talks to the locals, who are starting to worry, and she tells me there is a real danger of bears, who come out at night to eat.

I have a fairly hyperactive imagination and had idly thought about one or more of us being eaten by bears many hours earlier but I do it just to pass the time, without any expectation or worry. As the locals start amassing a search party to go into the hills I begin to wonder if one of my crazy daydreams might actually be coming true. When I get up to go with them they tell me they know the area and will be quicker without me which, having seen some locals on the paths, I don't doubt. I also had fallen in the river on the way back earlier and my spare clothes are locked away in my room, so realise it's probably sensible to stay behind. A hypothermic cheesies wont help the search. The minutes tick by...

After an hour or so, we hear shouting, see lights and our hotel owner carrying a huge flaming torch with a triumphant grin on his face. Tyler and Gribb follow closely behind.
"Where have you been you crazy bastards!" I yell in mock outrage.
"You were worried, huh? Yeah, I would've been too." Smiles all round.
Turns out they simply misjudged the time - though Gribb had started a 1hr+ steep unpathed hill-climb as it was getting dark, and he was not to be persuaded otherwise. Tyler turned back, and after a little while, in a rare moment of rationalisation (or self-preservation?), Gribb changed his mind and turned back too.

After our dhal and roti, Tyler gets us invited to a 'party'. I wish I'd got a video - it was just a bunch of old, very drunk Indians singing and staggering around a campfire. The entire village is there (perhaps a dozen people) and they are delighted to see us; shaking our hands non-stop, standing us up, sitting us down, trying to teach us a local dance (uncoordinated drunken stagger is more accurate!) We leave pretty quickly.

The day after we head to Hemkund - a temple 4.5km above sea level in the mountains. Gribb made himself throw up the contents of his stomach the night before because of indigestion from the roti ("roti is very strong food - make fire in belly") and diarrhea took care of the other end, so when he says he plans to not eat anything all day, we're surprised to say the least.
"You ever hiked for 8 hours without food before?" Tyler asks.
"I fine, I just have water, and sun energy." And he faces the sun, palms up, eyes closed. While he has his breakfast, we have ours: guess what?

It's not an easy walk; only 6km each way but it's a 1.5km climb so it's fairly steep. Gribb is, not surprisingly, struggling and turns back halfway. We're very glad we carried on.


The night is so cold I can't sleep. I'm wearing 4 long-sleeved tops and a hoodie, and hiding under the duvet but still am shivering uncontrollably. I feel worse and worse throughout the night, and by the morning I've got the works - aching joints and muscles (or 'moooskles' as Gribb calls), slight fever, headache, cough, cold and the runs. It's going to be a fun 14km hike back, I think grimly.

Turns out to be ok, weather is good, and I feel a bit better once I get moving. More naked swimming/being frozen from Gribb, more flirting with beautiful women from Tyler. We meet Shankie, an friendly Indian (are there any other kind?) who we passed on the way back from Hemkund, turns out he is doing the entire Govindghat - Hemkund trek in 48 hours, camping out at Hemkund. I can only imagine how cold that must have been. We walk together for the rest of it, and he is heading Rishikesh-wards too, and gets us sorted with a bus back, leaving 4.30am the next morning. Tyler is heading to Nepal though and gets a different bus, so we say our goodbyes ("lets hug it out, bitch!"). We end up sitting out on the street all night - possibly not the best idea considering my state but oh well - and finally get our bus. Not the funnest 12-hr bus ride I've ever had, but we make it back finally and I trudge to find a guesthouse in a daze. I have my first hot shower since arriving in India, and I can't quite put into words how good it is.


So that's that! Back in Rishikesh now, heading off tomorrow on the enfield. Wish me luck! I'm gunna need it...

To the mountains! (Part 1)

Tyler, a friendly American I've been spending a fair amount of time with over the last few weeks, is planning a trip to the mountains; the valley of flowers and Hemkund, and says I should come along. On the surface we're fairly contrasting characters, (him a loud, open American, me a quiet, reserved Brit) but we have many deeper similarities and get on well. Plus he plays loads of poker - what's not to like? He also invites a Russian named Gribb... I guess I should explain about him now.

Gribb Gribb Gribb. Where to begin. I suppose a good place to start might be the fact that he named himself Gribb (Russian for mushroom I think) after a mushroom shaman, and when we asked his real name he wouldn't tell us, saying (please imagine the accent) "that is not me. I am not my name. I am not my biografia". He later won't allow us to take pictures of him because it would 'steal his energy', and tells us he's burnt all the photos of him that he can get his hands on ("I am not me. I am not human. I am nothing. How can you save nothing?"). This is a particular shame because he has a floppy Mohawk with shaved head either side, a penchant for bright or neon clothes ("is very acid!") and several funky ear-bar things. It's quite nice not being the crazy foreigner and center of attention for a while! Every local we pass either laughs, shouts something like "Good hairstyle my friend!" or just stares open mouthed for minutes on end.

His beliefs... I got most of it in one huge dollop the first night I met him. I wish I'd had a tape recorder or something, I've forgotten most of it, but suffice to say my jaw was on the ground the entire evening - some of the stuff he was coming out with was just... WOW.

He believed the world as we know it will end in 2012 because of the Mayan calendar (given to us by aliens thousands of years ago, along with the pyramids and various other things), he believed there are aliens on the moon, on mars, on earth, he believed you could survive on nothing but 'universal energy' and claimed to have gone 4 and a half days without food or water. He believed technologies in films like The Matrix and Total Recall exist and are kept secret by governments across the world. I think my favourite was his belief that when the poles melt after the apocalypse in 2012, the lost city of Atlantis will be free from its icy prison under the North pole and float to the surface, replete with 5-metre tall gods with strange skulls (pictures of which he assured us he'd seen) possessing special powers such as teleportation and telekinesis. I kid you not. It was incredible! And I honestly believe that he honestly believed it. I got to utter the words 'sorry, why are there demons in babies' minds?' which brought me great joy.

I asked him, somewhere towards the end of the evening, where he got all this information. Can you guess what he said? 'The internet'. I'd tried to keep a straight face, but couldn't help laughing (or should that be loling?). As one of the others said afterwards, 'some people shouldn't be allowed on the internet'.

So that's a not-so-brief intro to Gribb - the kind of person who comes out with sentences like "I fly.... outside of matrix!" with seemingly no context, that send me and Tyler into giggles. In short, he's bat-shit crazy, but enormously good fun. As Tyler points out, he adds a bit of life and energy into our group.


Ok... So the whole trip starts out pretty weirdly. We book a jeep for 6am, I turn up at 5:40, stick around for an hour and find no trace of Tyler, Gribb or jeep. I find Gribb and Tyler the next day, it seems they overslept, but I have no idea where the jeep was. We book it again, found my team this time, waited for an hour (which included over-friendly cows and a very spaced out lady who sat with us for ages howling at the moon) and then got told the jeep wasn't leaving because it wasn't full. Third time's the charm, and we finally take the 8hr bump-fest to Joshimath. From there we get a ride to get a ride to Govindghat, the starting point for the hike to Ghangaria.

Govindghat is eerily empty, not quite a ghost town, but certainly dying (or hibernating - the season is all but over). We are the only tourists, and the few locals we meet all seems to be emptying they're possessions into trucks (in a disconcertingly hasty, almost panicky manner) or huddled around fires of burning rubbish. We manage to get a room at the only open guesthouse, get told by several people that the valley of flowers is closed and there are no places to stay, but Gribb is insistent everyone is lying, and that we should go. "You think of problem, make problem! There is no problem" We try to explain dying of exposure or starvation would be problems whether we think about them or not, but he doesn't quite get it. We find one person who says there are things still open, and of course he's not lying - everyone else had 'bad energy'. We decide this craziness is why we brought Gribb along, and set out the next morning anyway. The walk up to Ghangaria begins wonderfully, a winding path following a tributary of the Ganga with the Himalayas in the background. I gaze hungrily at the view wishing I had photographic memory and mourn the fact the photos won't do it justice (not bad though):



Along the way we stop beside the river for Gribb to have a swim. It's glacial water, and putting my foot in for more than 5 seconds causes pain. I turn and see Gribb, absolutely butt-naked (as Tyler would say) dunking himself into the river over and over with a huge grin on his face. He emits a high-pitched roll of the lips, sounding like a Pokemon - 'brrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeee!' Then his signature choking noise, that I imagine to be similar to that of a strangled duck, and then a spit. KKKKARH-spit.

The end of the 14km walk gets tougher and we're pretty tired by the time we get to Ghangaria. It's even quieter than Govindghat , we see maybe 3 or 4 people. We find there is an open guest house though, and they serve food. It's starting to get dark and frighteningly cold; Tyler is shivering like crazy - I suspect he has a touch of hypothermia but he feels better after some dhal and roti (our diet for the next 4 days). Our room has no electricity, the toilet doesn't work, and the gaps in the doors and windows mean it's the same temperature inside as it is outside. It's certainly below zero at night as the edges of the river freeze over, and we spend the nights fully dressed and shivering.

What an eyesore....

So it seems I wasn't content with one infection, so I decided to get conjunctivitis too. It's only in one eye at the moment, but everything I've read about it assures me that it'll spread to the other eye soon, so there's that to look forward too (update: yup, both eyes). Yay! Actually my leg hasn't leaked strange-coloured fluid for a while so maybe it's a replacement infection rather than an extra one.

*sigh*

Oh well, at least it gives me an excuse to wear my sunglasses at all times and look incredibly cool.

So nothing much has happened since my last post. I've been reading a lot, drinking lots of tea, playing a lot of cards. It's been fine, but very slow and quiet, feeling like making a move. Been on a few bike rides up into the mountains which were amazing:


Amazing scenery, freewheeling the full 50km home, getting used the bike. Fun! But on one of the trips I bashed the exact square inch of burn that I really really needed not to (of course) which resulted in much blood and pain and delaying of recovery so I wont be doing any more until it's healed. Really looking forward to the next leg of my journey; worked out a route through the mountains up north to shimla, bypassing the huge cities and scary traffic. Will be great to see some tiny villages too, get away from the tourist trail for a while.

Seen some fun things, went to an arti - religious ceremony with singing, drums and fire next to a big statue of Shiva on the edge of the Ganges:


Also saw what was almost definitely the world's biggest spider:


Kind of hard to get the scale, but it was a good 10"x10". I was leaning against a wall when everyone I was with looked just above my head and went 'OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!??!?!?!1' so that was fun. It was in the middle of a heavy downpour of rain, so I think it was taking cover - apparently they hardly ever go near humans. Didn't stop me from checking under my bed when I got home though.

Biking in Relaxikesh

So we arrive in Rishikesh, and head to one of the main market/guesthouse areas. It's early in the morning, and crossing the ganges with the sun rising and the monkeys swinging about the bridge wires - it's a pretty darned cool welcome.

One of the locals:


We wander around, drink lots of chai and lemon tea, and find a great restaurant on the bank of the ganges with possibly the world's smiliest waiter. We also find an advert for a Royal Enfield Bullet - the quintessential bike for touring India. I'd been doing a bit of biking back in Britain with the hopes of doing some in India, so we try getting in contact with the owner, with no luck, but the idea is planted in our heads and we go on a bike hunt. We meet a very friendly Indian who is here on holiday and is clearly fairly wired on charras. He is wandering the same way we are and we keep bumping into each other and eventually he offers to help us find a bike, since he rides himself and is looking to rent one. I'm fairly dazed at this point, it's dark, we have no idea where we are, and we're trying to buy a motorbike with no idea how much I should be paying or what a good bike is, and one that I'm not sure I can ride, and am certainly not legally allowed to ride. Anyways, after settling on a good price for a nice bike that was about 10,000 rps less than I was expecting thanks to our Indian friend (27,000, about 350 pounds, all inclusive with insurance/luggage racks, etc) we sit and have a chai with the friendly man, I calm down, and I decide to go for it:


They tell me to ride it around for the day to get a feel, first to go the petrol station just down the road. I'm pretty nervous, not only because I've never ridden anything half this big, or because of the Indian roads, but also because I'm sitting outside a motorbike shop with tons of bikers outside clearly judging me. Obviously 100 meters down the road I fall off into the gutter and get covered in sewage. Standard. In my defense, the brakes and gears are on different sides than in Britain so instead of braking I changed into 2nd (the gears are also opposite, down for higher gears) but yah, not my finest moment. I ride around the petrol station a bit getting a feel for it, then try with my friend on the back (yeah, the first time on a much bigger bike with a passenger with different controls on insane roads in a different country is a great idea, I know I know) and we go buy helmets. We ride around a bit and find some awesome scenery on mountain paths:



There are a few scary moments, clipping a rickshaw on the busy inner city streets, a few (ok, about 3 bazillion) problems with things like turning around/maneuvers, and at one point we turn a corner where a bus is speeding towards us and there is absolutely no room so we get pushed to the side, both burning our legs on the silencer. We carried on our way, but deciding that going long distances with a passenger simply wasn't going to happen - or if it did, something bad and painful would happen. The ride back is fine though, and really nice. I drop Ali off and ride back to the shop - which is MUCH easier without him - for a few minor adjustments... (a huge iron pole and 6 men bending the engine guard thing back into place after the fall). Then I ride back to our hotel (in the dark + potholes and unmarked speed bumps + getting lost = eeeeeek) and finally get back to our room and have a small heart attack.

At this point my leg is looking pretty yellow from the burn - it doesn't hurt but then I read on the internet that it's probably because it's at least a 2nd degree burn and so the nerves have been burnt. So I head to a hospital (which is clean and westerny to my relief) and get attention almost immediately. First the doctors cleans the burn, then brings out a razor which makes me a little nervous, then he leans in to the wound and as he makes contact the lights cut out. So I'm a little freaked out, but he just starts shaving the hair around my leg, so I calm down. Until, that is, he starts cutting off the skin around and inside the burnt area. Slicing inside infected, burnt dermis with a razor without anesthetic is... not unpainful. So I chew my fingers off for a while, he sorts me out, prescribes some antibiotics and I pay a few hundred rupees. I was kind of laughing the whole way through, certainly an experience!

Which kind of takes it to now - I've been doing very little the last few days, I'm not supposed to walk much or get it wet, and have to go back every day for new bandages/to check on the infection. I sort of wish I'd taken a picture of the wound actually, but it'd just worry family members/put off other readers. Was pleasingly disgusting though, looked like the flesh of an orange covered in yellowy milk. ...yeah that was more graphic than strictly necessary.

aaaanyways, I've rambled for faaar too long - I have a lot of free time since I can't do much. Reading back it sounds kind of negative or like a bit of an ordeal but I've honestly been having an amazing time... there were a few unpleasant bits, but I'm just in a constantly good mood at the moment. It's been really nice just reading, meeting travelers and drinking lots of tasty lemon tea - it's a very relaxed place, peaceful and beautiful.



Time for some mutter pannier and roti methinks!

It begins... Delhi and onwards

Namaste! I'm in a little web cafe in a leafy suburb of Rishikesh right now, having a very slow lazy day, which was what I needed.

Anyway, yeah, blogging... um... where to begin... arriving. Right. so. Ok, yes. Brain function. Ok.

I arrive in Delhi at 10am (flight cancelled, 4 hour wait, funtimes) get 'screened' for swine flu (form saying 'do you have swine flu: yes/no') and head out, get a prepaid taxi to the train station, which is an experience in itself. Indian roads are fairly infamous - I enjoyed every minute of the ride. 2 lane roads holds 4 lanes of cars, rickshaws, bikes, motorbikes, mopeds, cycle rickshaws reversing towards the oncoming traffic, donkeys, cows all wandering/swerving about all over the place, everything honking or mooing incessantly. I actually saw a motorbike park in front of a tree on an empty pavement and beep 3 times. They just can't help themselves!

As soon as I arrive at the train station I realise finding my friend is going to be nearly impossible. There must be 500 people around the entrance, and I get approached several times immediately telling me to go buy tickets at a special foreigners booth (yah, nice try). I figure it's probably not the best place to hang around looking lost, so I head across the street to parahganj (a popular backpacker area in delhi) and end up bumping into my friend in the small winding market streets, we have some food, and book a train to haridwar for that night to end up in rishikesh. We have some time so we go to India's biggest mosque:





Me in a very fetching skirt as shorts weren't allowed (definitely the new fashion, I've always been a trend-setter)



So anyways, we experience some more delhi madness which really is hard to describe... just an all out assault on the senses. Amazing though. And then we get our AC3 train (very nice, beds and sheets, and 8 hour journey, cost less than a fiver) My friend ali tells me about the last train journey he took where a man got into the (very thin) bed with him and started stroking him, so I guess there are possible downsides... (or perks depending on your point of view I suppose)

We meet a very friendly man on the train and talk to him for a while, he tells us he is going to an ashram in Rishikesh (where we are heading) to seek medicine from a guru for his father. He shows us his father's files and it turns out he has untreatable lymphatic leukemia, and is hoping he will find a cure at the ashram. We wish him the best of luck. We meet him again just outside the station in haridwar and he buys us a chai and biscuits and we talk some more, before finally getting a rickshaw to rishikesh, a spiritual city, famous for the beatles' visit in the 60s. We don't plan on too much spirituality, but some peace from the madness of delhi will be welcome.

That's enough for now, but the next installment includes the ganges, buying a motorbike, major 2nd degree burns + infections and lots of tasty curry. Hooray!

GUKPT, and leaving on a high

I went GUKPT cardiff last week, I had a seat in the main event, and I played 2 side events. Predictably I bricked everything. Lost hooooge pots for the chiplead on the final 2 tables in both the side events, one losing a flip, the other getting it in on the turn with 75% equity, sigh. The main event was, as always, an anticlimax, as my stack dwindled and then got it in with the overpair and get 2 outered.

However... I had a pretty awesome weekend online, netting about $18k. Won a $75 for $10k, 2nd in a massive $26 for 8.6, and 9th in a $163 for 3.5, all on FT. weeee! Very nice as I had a horrible july and ended up roughly breaking even in august (somehow?!) so good to end on a positive note poker-wise.

No more poker for a while though... I fly out to Delhi on friday. eeek! Pretty damn excited. I think I'm going to turn this into more of a travel blog when I'm away if I get the chance - I got a fancy new digital camera for my birthday so hopefully there'll be pictures aplenty.

Anyways... back in 6 months I guess. Good Luck at the Tables!