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Well it’s all over. We have finished riding. The scars on my shoulder will heal fairly soon, but the friendships will last a lifetime, just like the memories.

Marissa has arrived safe and sound and, bless her, brought a whole bunch of birthday cards for me to open. She also sneaked in a small M&S iced fruit cake for my birthday today. What a birthday surprise. But the best present was Marissa walking into the pool area of the hotel. My heart leapt when I saw her and I could relax know that we are together again.

The day was spent relaxing by the pool and saying goodbyes to all the new friends we have made. In the evening we headed off to the main hotel for dinner and presentations from the organising team and the charities that are supported. It’s great to hear first hand how your money is being used to support the wildlife, environment and families here in India and back home in the UK.

We were all presented with trophies and certificates to mark the occasion of completing Enduro India.

For now the blog gets a rest, but I will upload pictures when I get home. That is when I can sort through the 1000+ images I have taken since being here.

Marissa and I are heading back inland tomorrow to see some of the sights and smells I have experienced so I will write up some of that on my main blog. But not until I get back will I post it.

Thanks for reading and your supportive messages. I love you all and now I love India too. Happy Days.

ttfn. ;o)

Runnig back along the bad road today spooked me out. We had to come back along the road where I fell off. I was a bit of a mess. This has worried me a bit as I’ve never been too spooked before on a bike. It was so bad at one point that I almost managed to be sick in my helmet. Not a pleasant experience at any time, but in this heat it would have been terrible. I managed to plod along until we came to a hill stop that was off the main road. It’s a viewing place but difficult to get up to on a bike. The road up is the worst we have tried to negotiate since being in India and some people, having been warned about the terrain, decided not the attempt it. I on the other hand needed to get my confidence back so I thought I’d have a go at it. Was a success. I got to the top, not without a lot of effort and concentration, but I made it in one piece. The view from the top was a 360 degree panorama of the surrounding countryside. Although it was a little misty and hazy, the view was well worth the effort. Coming down was also just as tricky, but once at the bottom I headed on to catch up with my riding buddies for the day.

I was riding with Phil and Stephen, who I’ve been sharing a room with for most of the trip, Kirsi (from Finland) and Bernard. Poor Bernard has not had the best trip as he fell on day two and fractured a few ribs. His bruising is still quite bad, so for him to get back on the bike yesterday and today was really an inspiration to the rest of us. Because of my fall yesterday I was happy to run at a slower pace today and Phil led us nice and easy through the route.

We past some more amazing scenery and a huge hydro electric dam that you were not allowed to stop near or take pictures of. They mean it too, they have armed guards to convince you it’s not a good idea. I agree.

Past this I had caught up with the others and we headed on the rallying point for the afternoon. This was a car showroom forecourt in Kottayam and we covered it in Royal Enfields. There was much back slapping and a very congratulatory mood as we all gathered. Everyone was relieved to have got this far and was pleased for everyone else to have made it too.
Lots of the locals wondered just what was going on and sounded their horns as the crawled by in the late afternoon traffic. We then got our own back as we headed into the town en-mass with our horns blaring. We managed to make a few roads come to a complete standstill as we weaved our way along to Kumarakom our very final destination on this amazing journey.

When we got to the final place were parked out bikes and we processed along a road on foot to the hotel car park where a local drum band played for us and there was a couple of tusker elephants waiting for us in full ceremonial headgear. It was brightly coloured down the sides and wonderful gold down the middle. It stretched from the top of the elephant’s right down his face and a way along the trunk. Really outstanding to be able to see these two magnificent elephants still with their tusks and be able to get close to them and see just how huge they are up close. Look in their eyes and you can see that they are really a gently animal, but they have immense power and they certainly know how to use it if provoked.
The festivities in the evening seemed to be an anticlimax for me. I was really very tired and just had a couple of beers and some diner. As I was watching the video they made on Enduro Africa last November I was being bitten by nearly all of India’s insect species, so I decided to call it a night and headed off to bed.

I’m very excited about tomorrow as Marissa is coming out and will be here in the morning. Dave’s wife Sheila will be with her as they are travelling together. What a fantastic birthday present it will be to see her again and get the hug I’ve been waiting two weeks for.

As for now, I’ve got mixed emotions about this all being over. I’m very pleased to have been a part of this Enduro rally and made some very god friends along the way. I’m sad that it has ended and that well will all go our separate ways home. But I will try and keep in contact with the friends I have made and I am determined to make sure that I do more fund-raising some time in the future.

To know that I have been a part of raising 220,000GBP for charity from this trip alone is also very fulfilling.

I have organised to come back and visit Rainbow Trust and the WWF in the UK to find out more about what they do. So the story is not ending here but this is a pause in proceedings while get my breath back.

If any of you are ready this and want to know if it is worth doing. Well the answer has to be a resounding YES. You can not come on something like this and not be moved by the beauty of the country and it’s people. The hospitality and warmth that emanates from everyone we have met has been very moving.
I have heard several stories on this trip about local interest in what we are doing but the one that has touched me the most is this.

‘I was talking to a local man in a village we stopped at and explained to him what all these westerners were doing riding bikes around India. He then put his hand in his pocket and gave me 10RPS. ‘This is not why we are doing it’ I tried to explain to him, but he insisted and said ‘Give this to someone who needs it more than me”
This might not seem amazing to us but 10RPS can be a weeks wages in India. Would you give a weeks wages to bloke you don’t know and trust him to do something better with it than feed your family?

That is the spirit of India. I can honestly say that before I heard about this trip I did not want to visit India. It was certainly not on my list of places to go in my lifetime. I thought is was a dirty place with lots of poor people ad I’d get sick and suffer from ‘Deli Belly’. It is all of that and so much more. I have really fallen for this place and want to explore it a lot more than I have been able to in this amazing and fantastic two week adventure of a lifetime.

Thank you to everyone involved at Enduro for making this happen.
A bigger thanks to all the riders. I love you all. You are what makes life great.

And no I have not suffered from ‘Deli Belly’ along the way.

If only you could have smelt today, it was amazing. We started today running down through some more tea plantations. It really is like a spiritual pilgrimage for me to see all the tea being grown. It’s like going to a birthplace or holy shrine. To sea where a drink comes from that has been part of my life since childhood is amazing. I will never take tea for granted again. It also turns out that we ran through the highest tea plantations in the world. Breathtakingly beautiful and so huge, All the plantations in Kerala state have been given back to the workers by TATA. He is the guy who has just bought British Steel with some odd loose change from his back pocket. He pretty much owns half of India and it’s industry. The other reason, I’m told, is that Kerala is a communist state. “Power to the people” and all that. What this all means is that the workers own a stake in their own plantations and I think that is a great way to motivate people to work for their own benefit.

Getting closer to Thekkady you can smell cardamom as you pass through some of the villages. The road here was very good, wide and winding. We all got a bit of a move on and the ride was amazing. Until I got to a town called Pulianama. We stopped for a drink and because I had got to the front of the rally. You are not supposed to go past the front marker, which is fine with me as I really am not paying too much attention to the route maps they have given us. It is supposed to be an adventure after all.

The road got bad and I was riding a bit quick, being cocky and the worst happened. I crashed. Luckily I had just overtaken two riders and they picked me up off the ground and moved my bike and me to the side of the road. I have a badly grazed left shoulder, bruised hip, left thigh and right thumb. Not too bad really. I think the bike got the rough end of the stick. It has lost it’s headlight, crash bars are scuffed, front mudguard is dented and scratched, the clutch level bracket has snapped, the tank is dented, side panel scratched and the handlebar is off line. It happened at about 25 mph and it really hurt to be on my side on the road. It’s the first time I have had a fall in about 10-12 years. All in all I’m not sure how much they are going to bill me for this, but as long as I am OK I’m not really too concerned as to how much it costs. The rally ambulance turned up and checked me over and then followed me to make sure I was allright. Everyone was concerned when they got in as to how I was and how bad the graze was on my back and shoulder. We’ve really bonded over the last week and a half and it fantastic to know that new friends are as concerned as old friends about how you are feeling. Thanks to everyone on the rally who helped and gave me the inspiration to get back on the bike and finish the trip.

The hotel we stayed in was overrun by monkeys while we were sat by the pool. They just wandered around and then through the pool area to wherever they were going. The monkeys were not to bothered about us being there and quite brazenly walk amongst us to get the the trees behind us. A true encounter with wild animals doing what they wanted to and ignoring us. They did take a drink from the pool and have a fight while they were in sight but that just added to the experience. In the room there is a sticker on the mirror warning you to keep the windows closed when you are not in the room. One chap found six monkeys in his room when he finished taking a shower. They were going through his bags. I’m not sure what happened then but I guess it all turned out for the best.

I spent some time today talking to Mark, the drummer from Feeder, and he is a really nice chap. He and his other half, Erika are doing the tour. We have both suggested getting together after the rally for a ride to Box Hill and to share pictures. I promised him a ride on my bike as he has a cruiser so we’ll see what he thinks of a race bike when he has tried it.