Bullet Motorcycle, Bike, Bullet Club, Bike Travel, Bike Tours, Mobike Holidays, Royal Enfield Motorcycles, Bulletwallas, India, New Delhi

Stories

a) Wrong way around | b) Dana & Ofer | c) Loading a bullet on a train | d) Zack's story

a) Wrong way around

A Bullet Wallas motorcycle diary. (3 weeks on a bike)

Day one:
Delhi - We recognise Balu from the description our friend gave us, and end up running down Paharganj Main Bazaar waving like loons, shouting at the top of our voices trying to get his attention (he's on his bike). have a quick chat and agree to meet up the following day.

Day two:
Met up with Balu and discussed bikes, India and life in general, looked at first bike he had to show me and fell in love. moved our stuff into Bulletwallas Inn and dribbled over my new toy. (boys don't grow up, our toys just get more expensive ).

i'm taught by an ever helpfull and enthusiastic Balu how to start her up (sometimes the worst part of owning an Enfield ! ). Get her going no problem, rev up and suicide wobble down the alleyway opposite the hotel at warp speed, followed by a worried looking Balu and my girlfriend!. Stall the bike at the other end and flood it trying too hard to start it! I'm sweating buckets, trying ignore the good humoured taunts coming from the sikh family that live above where i'm sitting.

"Oh man!" says Balu, "I wish I'd had my camera for that, I didn't think you were comin back alive!"

That night about 11 Balu and i go for a ride around Delhi when it's quiet so he can give me a crash course on riding in India ! It felt quite daunting for the first couple of miles but I soon relaxed, even after stalling it a few times, once on a round-about in traffic!! We filled up at the petrol station and then went for a more challenging ride around the back streets and slums, quite lumpy roads and pathways but a really good place (the only place!) to practice slow bumpy trails and tight turns in the city safely. The rules of the indian road sum up like this;

1 Always use your horn. even when in doubt, honk your head off.

2 Don't stop for man, beast or police. Ever.The reasoning behind this is that the police will only ever want to hassle you then take buckshes and if you hit some one/thing/dog/wild pig etc and stop, then a crowd will form and things could get nasty, with people asking for money (honest guv that really was my half dead, mangy blind dog and now you owe me rs200). If you feel really guilty then stop at the next police station, and God help you!

3 Do Not under any circumstances expect traffic lights and road markings etc to be taken very seriously. They are more like loose guidelines and it's ok to jump the lights IF there is nothing coming.

4 Don't bother filling your tank up with petrol unless you are just about to use it, it won't be in your bike in the morning if you leave it overnight

Day4 :
We set off fully loaded for rishikesh at 5am . Left light on,battery dies, Balu gets out of bed when he hears the commotion and gives me the battery from his own bike. We get going about 6am and an hour later find ourselves right in the middle of some nasty traffic.

still it looks like we're going in the right direction, I can see more rural scenes, bison herded across an open space.Turns out no we're not, we're in the south west of Delhi heading south. Rishikesh is north. At 9am we let the bike cool down as it's starting to complain a bit now as they do in hot city traffic. At 10am we set off northeast across Delhi again, by this time the traffic has really built up and so has the sun, burning me to a crisp. We're both experiencing a strange "black-eye-snot" phenomena too.

Flying down most streets now, i'm fed up with the stop start traffic in Delhi, we've got 160 miles to cover and I want to sleep in the mountains tonight, so I'm opening her up, feeling confident after throwing myself unwittingly into the deep end of riding in india straight away and remaining unscathed. Suddenly our precious map tore loose from it's moorings and flew away behind us, quickly getting lost under the traffic. We ride around Delhi for another couple of hours, totally lost but having a whale of a time, then about 1pm, still totally lost we decide there is no way we're going to the mountains today, lets go back have a shower and go eat at that nice restaurant. I shit you not, 20 minutes later the hotel appeared in front of me. don't ask me how, maybe the bike led us back.A note left to Balu reads something like "hi man got lost, map flew away, was fun though, see you 2 moro"

Day 5:
Wake up at midday and start preparing for another attempt in the morning, tell balu about the day before and earn the nickname "Wrongway".

Day 6:
Wake up at midday again. whoops. I'm feeling ill and its my birthday. typical. Kirsty Balu and Laura go to a traditional dance recital, i go to sleep.

Day 7:
At 5am get bike loaded, started and about 10 yards before it dies and won't start again. Try for an hour then go back to bed. Hotel porters look at us as though we're mad.

Day 8/Day 9:
still ill. One of my bestest buddies Alex turns up and we chill and get wasted. go for a midnight ride, top fun until I go through a puddle that turns out to be a lake in disguise. drown bike and we have to push it back! (still top fun!)

Day 10:
Alex, at a sweet price buys a tasty 1972 “ AS IS “ "ducati GT" looking enfeild from Bulletwallas Balu and we set about servicing it and changing the clutch. small groups of locals gather to point in amusement at the dirty sweaty swearing westerners and ask things like "you sure you mechanic?" we get it done with manly grunts of pride, baring greasy chests and basking in praise from our girlfriends.(yeah right! - Kirsty)

Day11:
Not feeling quite so rough now, check my bike over and prime it to start in the morning. go with Alex for a ride at midnight to try his bike but he's got no headlight on !! the police don't seem to mind that, but won't let me park my bike on paharganj at 1 in the morning even though it's totally deserted. weird.

Day 12:
5am - finally leaving on time and in the right direction. in no time we're out of delhi and on the very easy to follow road to the himalayas. Alex will sort out a little buisness in delhi then follow on to rishikesh later that week.

Highlights included; the iron bridge that takes you out of delhi, the peacefull sunrise at the side of the road about 30 miles outside Delhi, Pepsi Town (pepsi branded buildings at the side of the road for miles. try getting a f**ckin bottle of pepsi and you'll be disappointed) and being faster than everybody except the coaches. The lows were the god awful state of some of the roads - some very Lunar landscapes there, suicidal bus drivers and running over a stray dog, he was ok I think, we just wheelied down the road, the back wheel didn't hit him and he chased us for quite a distance!

Hit haridwar at about 2;30pm after 9 1/2 hours of riding (with 3 one hour stops ). get a room looking out over the main bazaar and fall into an exausted blistered sleep for a few hours. go for some food and walk. more sleep!

Day11:
Get going at about 10.30, blue skies and leafy rising and falling roads all the way to rishikesh, more monkeys and cows and sadhu, and then more potholes and slow moving buses. Came really close to kicking a cyclist into a pretty deep ditch when we get the short straw in a fight between an empty lorry and a coach which left me with about 2 feet of road to cling to. He was lucky, so were we. Rode through rishikesh town and down past ramjhula and laksmanjhula bridges, heading further into the hills to chill out and take in the scenery. We rode from there back down across laksman jhula bridge and got stopped by about 7 police at the other end. "papers, licence" so I get the papers Bulletwallas gave us out and show him. he pulls them out, looks at them upside down and says " licence?" I tell him I've got one but it's in my bag. "you English?" yes, I reply "is ok then, I let you go".

We turn right at the end of the bridge and ride through the shops and ashrams into semi jungle looking for a particular ashram we were told was near the waters edge. We rode down a steep path littered with rocks to the ashram only to be told it was full, so we rode back up this slope again. Bad idea, uphill all the combined weight of me, Kirsty, 4 bags and bike was on the back wheel and this caused the tyre valve to launch itself into orbit. we parked the bike at the side of the road at the top of the hill and jumped in a passing imitation willys jeep/taxi back into laksman jhula. We eventually picked an ashram with the help of a very well educated local lad of about 11 and went back to the bike. I rode it back wobbling all over the place with him laughing his head off, sitting on the back, to the tyre walla and left it there for about an hour. 70 pence well spent i'd say. So with the bike back on the road we spent some time settling into the place. And finding the best restaurant...

Day 12/13/14
Chillin and checking out the mountain roads. challenging riding but damn good fun!

Day 15
Alex turns up looking beat and suffering from black-eye-snot.

Day 17
Clutch lever screw falls out(bullets need small maitance). go for death defying passenger ride with Alex to get a new one. this cat has only got a couple of lives left...

At this point I got tonsilitus that lasted for about 1 week. that will teach me to smoke chillums with sadhu's i suppose.

We rode all over the place after this, ate ourselves sick every night and generally had a good time, we visited waterfalls and hill top spiritual centres and the infamous 'beatles' ashram, all of which would have been a pain in the arse without the bike.

Day28
Our only other brush with the police sees us fined rs200 for not having our papers or licence with us, not so impressed by our Englishness this time, Kirsty gets her first ever police ticket (!) and I wonder why I stopped. Then we run out of petrol on a mountain road and have to get a taxi back. i decide to go back in the morning and bring petrol.

Day29
I get petrol and go to the bike hanging onto the back of a jeep, standing on the tailboard, feeling like a native. The bike has been vandalised in the night, the battery is at the side of the road and the petrol filter and most of the hose has gone. I attach the hose from the carb straight to the tank and hope the junk from the tank doesn't foul it up. Holding the battery wires on with my fingers I manage to start the bike (isn't recommended), then I get back and pack up. we've got to leave because our flight back is tomorrow and it's starting to turn into a bit of a nightmare now. we've got rs1000 left and can't afford any trouble until we can get back to delhi and return the bike back to Bulletwallas.

We get about a mile out of rishikesh before the junk in the tank catches fire in the carb, melting the wiring loom and burning my leg a bit. We get it to a local mechanic (no names...but wish the Bulletwallas would open shop there) who wants about rs4000 to fix it plus more for a new back wheel, he's looks at ours points and says too dangerous to ride on. Fed up with him by this point I cut my losses and sell the bike. We get a slow cab back to Delhi that takes 4 hours longer than it should have because of a huge traffic jam( should have kept the bike) with a braindead police dude standing in the middle of the chaos pointing and blowing his whistle, eyes shut.

We get back in the evening and I reflect over our short break in India . When we come back and do this again, for longer (and we will), I'm going to spend more time preparing the bike for each long journey (not just the first one) and i'm going to bring a pair of jeans and a pair of boots to ride in, having picked up plenty of leg and foot burns from the hot carbs and exaust pipes. And i'm gonna film it this time...

We love you guys and Happy riding, Bullet Wallas

Wrongway

Dec 2005, UK .

b) Dana & Offer

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c.) Loading Bullet on Train Hey Balu, It was great to meet you at the Pahar Ganj the other day. I think it's a great thing that you're doing, getting people tuned into India's fabulous Enfield culture and you're obviously having a great lot of fun doing it. Doesn't get better than that, eh?!
		I said that I would send a report about my experience getting my Bullet on the Tamil Nadu Express at New Delhi Station, so here it is: I've put my '97 350cc Bullet on trains in South India quite a few times and generally there's no problem at all. You usually have to load the bike at the origination station of whatever train you're riding and have to go to the destination station before you can get it off. That means if you're taking the Tamil Nadu Express, for example, you can only load the bike at New Delhi and unload it at Madras, or vice-versa. There are some routes where they'll crack the luggage compartment enroute, but mostly you have to go from one end to the other. You just have to show up a hour before the train leaves with a photocopy of your registration papers, fill out a form at the luggage platform, wrap the bike and drain the tank, pay the fee, and Bob's your Uncle! I've been really impressed with the improvements to India's train service since I was last here 10 years ago, when just getting a ticket meant hanging out at the train station in a long line-up with all the queue-busters for at minimum half a day.

For this trip from Delhi to Madras, we stopped off at the Indian Railways counter at the bus
station in Chandigarh and with the computerized ticketing system, within 10 minutes we had the tickets for the date we wanted! The service of being able to put your bike on the same train you're riding on is a great feature of the system, but there's a few things to watch out for.

Once we got to Delhi, I went down to the New Delhi station to scope out where all the luggage action takes place. Turns out that motorbikes and other luggage gets loaded from the Ajmeri Gate terminal, which is on the opposite side of the tracks from the Pahar Ganj station. There's a bridge just to the north of the station which crosses the tracks. At the Ajmeri Gate station, the luggage area is at the farthest northern side of the station, and the only entrance is from the street. There's no access from the parking lots in front of the station. Once you get to the entrance, just keep riding through all the burlap-wrapped bales of luggage until you're at the last desk, under the go-down roof next to the tracks.

If you go there beforehand and get the form, even if it's not totally completed, and if you have your registration already photocopied, that will show the busy, harried guys at the luggage desk that you basically understand the process, and they won't have to waste their time explaining everything to you. They'll tell you to go pack your bike and drain the tank. There's all these luggage wallahs hanging out that will want Rs 350 to wrap your bike with straw and sew it up into a burlap sack, but once they see you start to do it yourself, the price immediately falls to Rs. 100. I like to employ these guys, but really, I can do a better job myself. I wrap my own bike with my sleeping foamy and an old beach blanket. Take the mirrors off and if you want to save Rs. 60, take of your turn indicator lights, because they will almost certainly get busted off. You'll need to write your name, address and destination on a piece of metal with a black magic marker and attach it to the packaging. Once the paperwork is complete, then a guy will come and write more stuff on your bike.

Once the bike is wrapped, proceed back to the desk, and hand in your paperwork. They'll want to see info like the plate #, model of the bike, engine and chassis serial #, a signed declaration that the tank is empty etc. They'll help you fill in any blanks, then they stamp it and send you to the payment wicket. (It cost me Rs. 2200 from New Delhi to Chennai (Madras) Now you're ready to wheel the bike onto whatever platform your train leaves from. There's an easy luggage-cart pathway which leads from the luggage godown to every platform. Someone will show you where to leave the bike, amongst all the other luggage which will get loaded on your train.

It is very important that you remain there with your bike to see that it gets loaded carefully and is properly secured. As soon as the train pulls in, the luggage wallahs all go berserk and start yelling and heaving luggage straight into the compartment as fast as possible. There is, apparently, not a bit of order, care or supervision to ensure that the luggage is not damaged. It's total chaos. These wallahs all have large steel hooks which they stab into the burlap-packed goods, and then heave straight into the compartment. If at all possible, try to offer, say Rs. 50 to one of the wallahs that's doing the most work, to see that your bike gets loaded and secured properly, and that it get's some semblance of care once the rest of the gear gets piled on top of it. Things happened so fast while I was there, that they had the whole bottom of the compartment piled 5 ft. deep in packaging before I got the bike in, so 8 guys had to hoist the old beast right in on top of all the other stuff. Luckily, it sank into whatever goods were underneath, and stabilized sufficiently for the ride to Madras. Another smaller bike go loaded in next to it, but the owner wasn't there, so the wallahs just laid it on its side and piled stuff on top of it. You can see why they want the gas out of it.

Once we got to Madras, the wallahs there couldn't open the door of the compartment because the contents were all jammed in too tight against the door, so they opened the other side and started throwing packages out onto the adjacent tracks. The Madras luggage wallahs seemed to hate the luggage even more than the Delhi ones, and they actually aimed the packages so that they fell right on the track and split open, spilling the goods into the pile of shit that was there. They finally unloaded the car sufficiently to get the other door open, which revealed my old Enfield there at the top of the pile. When 5 guys started wrestling with my bike, I offered them Rs. 100 to be more
careful, and their attitude immediately changed and they got it down very carefully indeed. Enroute, the turn signals had, as usual been busted off, and the clutch-handle yoke was also broken. Luckily, I had a spare, so it took about 10 minutes to replace. (The clutch and brake yokes are Rs. 20 each, and I go through a lot of them it seems) Before you get your bike out of the station, you'll have to walk all the way down the platform to the luggage office to exchange your payment receipt for a "Gate Pass" otherwise the cops wont let you out.

It's a great service, -being able to travel across India by train with your motorbike, but there's not a way in hell that I would ever send personal luggage on Indian Railways without being there to supervise its loading and unloading. Indian Railways could certainly make a lot of improvements in as far as the packaging, loading and unloading of goods goes.

I hope this helps other BulletWallahs!

c.) Zack's Story