One year on: Firestarter is born

Well folks from the title you might have guessed that it has been exactly a year to the day that I boarded flight BA120 from London Heathrow to Bombay India. It's a year since I walked down the steps from the plane to a bombardment of new sensory stimulation. The smells; flowers, spices, clay ovens, open sewers, rotting flesh. It is safe to say I did suffer from India shock though I did or realize or admit it for quite some time. My return flight from Mumbai to Heathrow took off without me yesterday afternoon, so now I am committed to returning back to euroland overland. Time has gone past pretty quickly, I guess because I moved on to the next place whenever I felt like it, that's the best thing about traveling alone. No discussions when you arrive somewhere if you eat now or later, where to sleep, where to eat. You do what you want when you want. Of course there can be lonely moments and moments which are better shared. But when you consider that when you travel in a couple or a group that you just DON'T meet people like you do when you are alone, there is just no substitute.

If you remember the trauma I suffered when I had to retire my flip-flops I got from Bondi beach, you can only imagine how I must be feeling about the retirement of my pants I got from GAP in Pikeleys-Bayswater. I had been wearing the same 2 pairs of pants for exactly a year and as you can imagine after many washes and patch up jobs they both finally started to fall apart. Each cut, stain and stitch has a story to tell. Like when the Bombay Taxi driver tired to slash open a side pocket with a razor blade under his finger nail to get at my wallet. Luckily it was bulging so much with fat dirty Sterling what it did not fit through the gap. I was of course considering hanging onto them for a bit longer. My theory was that if I get stuck in a desert somewhere without food, then at least I'll be able to take off my pants and boil them, giving a tasty and nutritious broth that could sustain me for a few days at least. Regardless, they had to go, sad to get attached to a pair of trousers. I have replaced them with my own design, tailor made, zips, quick drying very thin material, with secret pockets, the works. Not bad for 5squid. Hopefully they will last as long.


Well back to the blog. For the past few weeks I've been exclusively devoting my time to designing and over seeing the customization and the modifications to my bike. Also I have been spending a fair amount of time hanging out at Rajus Royal Enfield Bullet Surgery, as well as Busy-Bee bar for my nightly pool hustling. Well this week, my bike was finally ready. After much anticipation the mechanic kicked over the newly board out engine and 'firestarter" was born. That's right my new bike, she is called firestarter. When I first asked Rick to make me one, my instructions where "don't worry about how she looks, just make sure she can get me home". Over the past few weeks, this all all gone to pot. I've totally changed my tune. My god, now I know how the grease heads and bikers feel and those sados who rub down and polish the same spots on their bikes and cars each weekend. Guarding their "princesses" from grubby children's fingers. I had to take the horn off, just to repaint the bracket (that no-one can see) because the black was a little more faded than the rest of the frame. I spent two days finding clear plastic indicator lights, so they would be more discrete, then had to paint the inside bulbs with ladies red nail varnish to the indicator would flash red. They also had to be small and round to go with the over-all rounded line of the bike design.

I'VE BECOME CONSUMED.

Well I hope you like her, this is her clean and new and without the side boxes I have had built with the custom welded brackets. I have had to learn a few new Nepali words like "don't sit", "don't touch she is my wife". Where ever I go I get people all over the bike. It's a modified Yamaha RXG. Now these are fantastic bikes in terms of engine reliability and mileage, but totally city spinning rattle bags. I've changed the whole bike except for the engine and frame, so people are really intrigued about it. Being a foreigner I am able to bend the law a little and ride a modified bike. As a Nepali there is no chance to do this. Though it is very nice to have so much attention, if I am not careful, when I return to my bike, so many people have been sat on it and been "fiddling" with all the leavers that I have to spend 5mins each time putting things back the way they should be.

I've started running her in, very slow revs to open up the engine and set in the new piston rings. I ride 50km out of town past the river and dam and along through the villages. Each day the children wave and ask for chocolate. If I go early the women are washing fully clothed under the water pumps. If I go in the day they are either working in the fields, tending to the rice or walking miles and miles with wicker baskets loaded with straw or rocks, with a strap on their forehead so their neck takes most of the weight. Whatever time in the day the men sit either in the shade of the bus-stop smoking biddies or on a bench drinking tea. I saw a lot of this in India too, the women doing the hard graft while the men sit or stand around. They hang around doing bugger all, waiting for something to happen and when it does because nothing has happens for so long it gets blow up all out of proportion and then someone jumps on the situation for political gain. When the Maoists had full control of the country (except the 2 cities) they put these men to work. They said that each household must donate one man to a community project. Mostly it was to build roads, and it was at the end of the day "forced" labour. So of course the UN human rights office was all over this. It's a tricky one, for it's really a good idea, but it is an infringement, and once this is ok, what next? Forced reality TV shows?
Like I said a few paragraphs ago I have been spending quite a bit of time at Rajus Enfield garage. I'm happy to report that all the Royal Enfield crew that hangout there too have fully accepted firestarter into the family (well she does have a bullet petrol tank). On Saturday afternoon I headed to Rajus to see if he had some petrol. See I've been trying to run my bike in when there is a petrol shortage. The Nepali petrol company had again not paid the Indian importer for the last batches of petrol, so naturally they stopped sending it. A real pain in the ass. I came here for 2 weeks and again another delay in the grand plan to keep me here for longer. There has to be a reason, I've just yet to find out what it is.

Anyway back to my little story. As I arrived at Rajus for my 14th cup of tea of the day, a car pulls up with 5 Indian lads in it. They proclaim that they want to have "sexy-time" with some Nepali ladies (but as you can imagine those were not the exact words they used). So off goes one local to make the arrangements. The Indian lads follow and there is much discussion around the street. Generally on how rude, disrespectful etc etc. See the Nepalis are a proud people, they don't take insult very well and unlike their cousins south of the boarder, they can not be bought easily. They took exception to this insult. I later find out that someone in the group around the shop was in the YLC, the Maoists eyes and ears on the streets. A quick call and perhaps 5mins later the Indian boys were caught red-handed so to speak with 2 local girls and giving a proper good-hiding. A right kicking, so I hear. Luckily for the lads someone else had called the police, who arrived too late to prevent "Nepali justice" but just in time to be told by the YLC that "if they harm or abuse the girls in the cells, they will get the same treatment as the Indian boys". I tell you it's all happening a few streets back from where the tourist walk up and down all day. Not sure I agree with such violence, but it works, people behave themselves. If you commit a crime, you are publicly shamed. Paraded around for hrs and verbally abused. Made to squat down or stand on one leg for hours. Of course the UN does not agree with this, and I can see why. Who judges these people are guilty? I know I did give the UN a bit of a bashing last time. But since then I have seen perhaps evidence of one or 2 things they have done. They still swan around in big fancy cars and fly around the same spots in helicopters (in fear of getting a reduced helicopter allowance for next year if they don't run in the miles). Back to the prostitutes and the YLC telling the police they will get a beating if they abuse the women. See now the UN has introduced a special area in each police station that takes arrested females and is only manned (so to speak) by females. See not all bad.
I've also changed my views and child labour laws. Like most laws in the West they tend to go from one extreme to the next to stop some horrific even taking place and don't account for what's probably the majority of the cases that would not lead to this event happening. Of course I don't agree with Chinese sweatshops making the latest line of Donna Karen panties or Brazilian open-cast gold-mines where children practically get born into slavery. But what I do see is children "working" in hotels and restaurants. They are still children, they still play with their friends, they still have fun. Most importantly they are learning, about working and life and money. They learn respect. Kids back home, never having lifted a finger, their flesh flabby and soft, sat watching TV, minds idol. I say bring back the chimney sweeps. Seriously though, without work there is no respect for anything, we were not born to sit around, the body and mind must be kept active and this starts as soon as you're born and this is taught by your parents. Now if your parents happen to be called Wayne and Waynette, then perhaps it's better you're sterilized at birth to save yourself and the next generation the problems they have inherited. Take Dinit, the 20yr old lad who works in my hotel here. He left home when he was 10, not because his father used to beat him, but because his father wanted him to study. I know there is no relation to child labour, it's just I had nowhere else to tell you about it ;-)

My special Spanish friend Ana also left to Kathmanu on route to the Canaries leaving me with some good memories. So now the bike is ready I really am keen to get going and off on my journey.
Well I'm off my my 11th cup of tea now, I'll update my blog when I've finished waiting for petrol, waiting for my VISA and waiting for the monsoon to stop and the hoards of tourist to arrive.

It's also the Gurkha annual Ball tonight, which I have been invited to, the theme Hollywood/Bollywood. Should be interesting, seeing the army boys all dressed in Shari's.