If nothing else, this exercise has taught me not to leave my computer open with a button that says ‘Publish’ hovering tantalisingly on the screen under an empty post. What self-respecting and curious six year-old is going to pass up the opportunity to click on it? The empty email you may have just received should go some way towards answering that question.
It was strange that the final leg – Gokarna to Goa – was almost an afterthought, when once (only two months ago) it was an epic journey all its own. I climbed on the bike just as the first rays of sun hit Om Beach, only getting off to put on my rain poncho just after crossing the border into Goa. Rain poncho? I was also incredulous. It’s not supposed to rain until April. But I was actually happy to do the last twenty kilometres under a gentle drizzle, if for no other reason than to rinse the last layer of grime off of me and the bike. It also gave me an excuse to drive slowly on the few spokes remaining in my rear wheel.
From a trip that was supposed to carve a new perspective, I’m a little pressed to put my finger on the earth-shattering revelations. The usual paradoxes arise whenever we compare one thing in our life with another: I have/haven’t learned a lot since we first made the trip in 1994, India is vastly different/very much the same, a thousand kilometres on Indian roads is substantial / I would happily do the whole thing over again. Tomorrow. Perhaps the search for wisdom is a journey without an obvious ending. Either that, or true wisdom only descends when your mind opens wide enough to contain both ends of the paradox. I guess I’m still a few rounds of mental yoga away from being that flexible.
I’m incredibly grateful to Tash, who suffered genuine tribulations to allow this fanciful roadtrip. I’m only too aware that the favour ledger is now massively stacked, and i’m going to have to dig pretty deep to repay her kindness. Watch this space.
Finally, for the sequentially minded, here’s a link that shows all posts from the trip in chronological order.
Thanks for reading.
A note on BikeShuffle
When I listened to music while riding, it was always randomly across twenty thousand-odd songs on my ipod. There’s a fairly wide selection of music on there, with genres like electro, dance, indie and (especially) reggae, generously represented. When listening in this mode, I have developed the bad habit of bumping play to the next song if I’m not immediately taken with what’s on. In this way you retain some means of exercising choice without having to look at anything, or free up more than a thumb.
Interesting that, through this mode of listening, many of the songs which stuck with me on this trip came from the eighties. It may be that they are just more memorable songs than a lot of the repetitive stuff that lives on my ipod. Or, being from the era of my youth, perhaps they were capable of evoking a more powerful nostalgia on a trip that was very much about connecting with the past. Whatever the case, I hope you got something out of the songs I posted (if nothing more than a new appreciation for the Payola$). Would love to hear of any other epic tunes that have transformed your journey.