Nagaon to Itanagar
The next day we set out on the first full day of the ride!
Yesterday was more like a polite ice-breaker with the bike…as if I was wearing a ‘Hi! My name is…’ badge and making nervous small talk with her, and asking ‘What’s your sign? I am a Leo…’ and seeing how long I can keep my tummy sucked in.
Today was the first date - where I could let out my breath and let my paunch hang loose and just chit chat and get to know her better. The Himalayan turned out to be very nice ride - smooth and peppy inspite of having almost 100 cc less than my Thunderbird, and being a comfortable ride inspite of being an adventure tourer rather than …er…um…a tourer?…relaxed tourer?…high handlebar tourer?…
Yesterday was more like a polite ice-breaker with the bike…as if I was wearing a ‘Hi! My name is…’ badge and making nervous small talk with her, and asking ‘What’s your sign? I am a Leo…’ and seeing how long I can keep my tummy sucked in.
Today was the first date - where I could let out my breath and let my paunch hang loose and just chit chat and get to know her better. The Himalayan turned out to be very nice ride - smooth and peppy inspite of having almost 100 cc less than my Thunderbird, and being a comfortable ride inspite of being an adventure tourer rather than …er…um…a tourer?…relaxed tourer?…high handlebar tourer?…
Soon after Nagaon, we got our first crossing of the might Brahmaputra river! This river dominates the culture of the upper North east - and defines Assam and Arunachal. This is one the great rivers of the world, and runs through some of the wildest and most inaccessible regions of the world … so wild that it was not even mapped till the late 19th century.
The British noticed that while foreigners - especially pesky white ones - were strictly not allowed into Tibet, local people went freely to and fro across the borders for trade and meeting family and herding cattle or for pilgrimage.
Thus it would be easy to send local people to do the map-making for them. The Brits trained a bunch of hill people in simple surveying techniques, paid them peanuts and sent them into Tibet to map out the mountains and rivers. These guys were known as ‘pundits’ - ‘Learned people’ and they went to amazing lengths to carry out their mission.
The British created the community of ‘Pundits’ to explore the borders of their conquered territories. The guys I mentioned earlier - Nain Singh and Kishen Singh - operated on the Kashmir and Ladakh side - and a guy called Kinthup worked the Assam and North-Eastern side, and tried to map out the route of the Brahmaputra - which was called the ‘tsangpo’ in Tibet.
The British noticed that while foreigners - especially pesky white ones - were strictly not allowed into Tibet, local people went freely to and fro across the borders for trade and meeting family and herding cattle or for pilgrimage.
Thus it would be easy to send local people to do the map-making for them. The Brits trained a bunch of hill people in simple surveying techniques, paid them peanuts and sent them into Tibet to map out the mountains and rivers. These guys were known as ‘pundits’ - ‘Learned people’ and they went to amazing lengths to carry out their mission.
The British created the community of ‘Pundits’ to explore the borders of their conquered territories. The guys I mentioned earlier - Nain Singh and Kishen Singh - operated on the Kashmir and Ladakh side - and a guy called Kinthup worked the Assam and North-Eastern side, and tried to map out the route of the Brahmaputra - which was called the ‘tsangpo’ in Tibet.
Indian stamp honouring Nain Singh
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Kinthup
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Kinthups accomplishment was not acknowledged until 1913 - some 30 years later when the Bailey–Morshead exploration of Tsangpo Gorge conclusively confirmed his discovery.
This Bailey-Morshead expedition was also a very cool story btw! This was towards the end of the golden age of British exploration, and probably the last of the great British explorers with big-big balls.
Frederick Bailey was a proper spy-explorer - like something out of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Kim’. He was an Army officer who served as a British ‘political officer’ and was one of the last protagonists of ‘The Great Game’. He climbed and explored and did photography, butterfly collecting and trophy hunting in the high Tibetan region. During a mission in Sikhim, he began to study Tibetan and became so proficient that he accompanied Francis Younghusband in his 1904 invasion of Tibet! He was so well regarded scientifically that he was awarded the Patron's Medal from the Royal Geographical Society for his discoveries!
This Bailey-Morshead expedition was also a very cool story btw! This was towards the end of the golden age of British exploration, and probably the last of the great British explorers with big-big balls.
Frederick Bailey was a proper spy-explorer - like something out of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Kim’. He was an Army officer who served as a British ‘political officer’ and was one of the last protagonists of ‘The Great Game’. He climbed and explored and did photography, butterfly collecting and trophy hunting in the high Tibetan region. During a mission in Sikhim, he began to study Tibetan and became so proficient that he accompanied Francis Younghusband in his 1904 invasion of Tibet! He was so well regarded scientifically that he was awarded the Patron's Medal from the Royal Geographical Society for his discoveries!
We crossed this mighty river near Tezpur and I was reminded of the first time I had come here many many years ago, when I had done my first backpacking trip in 1999 (check out ‘One Man Goes Backpacking’ for that story). I had come by train and bus at that time and had never dreamt that I would be coming here on a motorcycle!
What happens when you use a Thunderbird saddlebag - which is designed for a traditional horizontal exhaust - on a Himalayan, which has an upswept one?
It you are not careful, then the very hot fumes from the upswept exhaust of the Himalayan can burn a hole in the bottom your saddlebag!
Which is exactly what had happened!
It was just the second day of the ride, and I had a saddlebag with a big hole in the bottom!
It you are not careful, then the very hot fumes from the upswept exhaust of the Himalayan can burn a hole in the bottom your saddlebag!
Which is exactly what had happened!
It was just the second day of the ride, and I had a saddlebag with a big hole in the bottom!
Wonderingly, I opened up the pack and saw that there was a neat hole entirely through the inners. Many holes, in fact - because it had burnt through the folds.
The pants had neat round holes at regular intervals, and the top had two holes on the chest, right at boob level.
It looked like a kinky suit for a very weird kind of stripper or belly dancer.
The pants had neat round holes at regular intervals, and the top had two holes on the chest, right at boob level.
It looked like a kinky suit for a very weird kind of stripper or belly dancer.
What to do now? It was quite late, and there was no chance of finding a cobbler or bag repairman in Itanagar at this hour. And chances of finding a new saddlebag in Itanagar sounded quite remote.
‘Not to worry old man!’ Delzad said, clapping me on the shoulder. ‘We shall improvise! Indians are known for their jugaad, after all! And we are carrying duck tape! Duck tape is the answer to all the world’s problems!’
We went into the hotel corridor and tried to ferret around for some repair materials, and bawa said a loud ‘AHA’ and came back with a bunch of old corrugated paper cartons.
‘What are you planning to do with those?’ I asked.
‘This, my fat friend - is the new bottom for your saddlebag! We don’t want the hole to get bigger and have the rest of your possessions drop through it!’
He put the cartons in the bottom of the saddlebag and then proceeded to wrap an alarming amount of duck tape on the outer side of the bags. It wasn’t the original Duck tape - I couldn’t find any in India - this was some shitty no-name stuff from Amazon - but it was tape and it was sticky…so it would do in a pinch. I hoped.
‘There we are!’ he said, slapping his creation proudly. ‘As good as new!’
‘Not to worry old man!’ Delzad said, clapping me on the shoulder. ‘We shall improvise! Indians are known for their jugaad, after all! And we are carrying duck tape! Duck tape is the answer to all the world’s problems!’
We went into the hotel corridor and tried to ferret around for some repair materials, and bawa said a loud ‘AHA’ and came back with a bunch of old corrugated paper cartons.
‘What are you planning to do with those?’ I asked.
‘This, my fat friend - is the new bottom for your saddlebag! We don’t want the hole to get bigger and have the rest of your possessions drop through it!’
He put the cartons in the bottom of the saddlebag and then proceeded to wrap an alarming amount of duck tape on the outer side of the bags. It wasn’t the original Duck tape - I couldn’t find any in India - this was some shitty no-name stuff from Amazon - but it was tape and it was sticky…so it would do in a pinch. I hoped.
‘There we are!’ he said, slapping his creation proudly. ‘As good as new!’
