Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle (17 page)

If India had been giving us the shits, it was Harold Weinerman that was going to give us the colonoscopy.

‘I am known as the man that makes the cocks grow!’ the old American hippy said proudly, his lined face tightening like a tree knot. What was left of his hair stuck out from the side of his head like question marks.

‘Grow?’ I asked.

‘“Crow!” Each rooster was in a cage, and, as I passed, they crowed. I have this magic that moves through my heart chakra,’ he pointed to his spleen, ‘and through the petals of my cranium. I hear birds sing,’ he grabbed his lower abdomen and his eyes bulged, ‘here!’

Bec had met Harold at a bank in Lucknow. He had kindly invited us to stay at his house, and, going by what he told me of his Afro–Cuban jazz collection and his 30 years chasing the hippy trail in India, I was looking forward to hearing his stories. And, because he was a hippy, I thought he would have kaftans full of dope; not that I’m a prodigious smoker of the precious weed but I was beginning to wonder why so many Westerners smoked the stuff here and I came to the conclusion that it was to anaesthetise themselves from
every
reality that India had to offer.

Alas, Harold, to my horror, did not have any. ‘Aspirin? Do you at least have fucking aspirin, Harold?!’ What he did have a lot of was conversation, and that was neither pleasurable nor, thankfully, addictive.

Harold could talk for hours without a break and had ideas so disconnected it was like trying to listen to a scratched CD that had been frisbeed through a bead rack.

The only good thing about our experience with Harold was that he had taken us to the Hanuman temple where we spent three hours with other worshippers chanting ourselves into a delirious trance.

‘Sai Baba abused his magical powers!’ Harold went on, chasing another incoming tangent. ‘You know, they say the reason he looks so young is because he jerks off little boys and drinks their sperm. Anyway, he used it against me.’

‘What? The sperm?’

‘No! His magic!’ He rose up. ‘I’d arrive in towns and people would just act weird towards me.’

‘Oh,
really
?’ I said, edging away from him.

‘Yeah! He was jealous that I was more enlightened than he was, that I could tune people, take them 20 miles above the earth with my magical powers —’

‘Harold,’ I cut in, ‘how many times have you dropped acid?’

‘What? Er. Oh …’ He looked to the ceiling, eyes swirling about in his skull. ‘About 500. At least.’

‘Couldn’t you suppose, and, hey, this could just be a long shot, but couldn’t your self-possessed powers and enlightened “beingness” be, say, the effects of all the drugs? Hmmmm?’

He became flustered. ‘Well, one might think that. Sure. Just be quiet and let me explain.’ He then began a longwinded rant about being able to hear bells in his liver and then of all things, his ex-wife ‘losing’ her orgasms like loose change that had fallen down the seat of a taxi.

We leapt up in the middle of it and said that we suddenly had to take a bus to Rishikesh.

‘Why?’

‘I feel Mother India calling us from the Ganges, Harold, a … a spiritual awakening that has struck us since talking to you. Your enlightening wisdom has shown us the way.’

‘Really? Well. You know, I was trying to tune you—’

‘No, don’t get up, Harold. Thank you, thank you for everything!’

We rode away from his house as fast as we could and jumped on the overnight bus to Rishikesh. But that turned out to be trading one form of madness for another.

India is hell, I tell you. Hell!

Both fighting diarrhoea, speeding off our heads on too much Imodium, heads banging on the steel seat rungs in front of us as we tried to sleep, while the bus overtook into the pathway of countless trucks, we also had to fight the conductor of the bus who wanted to charge us the same price as the tickets for our bikes (420 rupees). The most I had ever paid was 30 rupees for my bike and this really felt like we were being shaken down because we were white.

I yelled at them. Bec urged me to calm down. ‘I’m not paying full price for bikes that I put on the roof myself!’ I asserted. ‘Screw them, the thieving bastards!’

But this purgatory didn’t end when we got off the bus in Haridwar, some ten kilometres short of Rishikesh.

As I got the second bike off the roof, I felt myself being lifted then pushed up against the side of the bus. It was the conductor and the driver who, after making
puja
(prayers) by the peaceful River Ganges, were both now incarnated with Kali – Goddess of Destruction.

‘He says you must give him 420 rupees for the bicycles,’ said a smiling moustached old man who I recognised as one of the passengers. Indians, it occurred to me, always smiled when bad shit was going down.

‘We’re not paying 420 rupees. This is robbery.’

‘Yes,’ the old man agreed, smiling again, goddammit. ‘Robbery. But if you don’t … they are going to beat you!’

‘Ah! Well, why didn’t they say this before!’ I started searching for my wallet. It must be said, I’ve got a bark but I’ve got absolutely no bite.

Bec was ever so supportive.

‘Don’t pay them,’ she ordered, and then disappeared.

They moved closer. I smiled.

‘I’m a guest in your country. It is your duty to be good to us,’ I cheesed, half winding them up and half sucking up. ‘Right, guys?’

The driver punched the bus panel near my head and made cutting noises towards the bikes, which I had unwittingly left at the rear of the bus. He climbed up onto the driver’s seat and started the engine. The conductor pulled at my shirt and screamed incomprehensibly.

‘Peace! Calm down,’ I said, putting my hands up. ‘
Shanti, shanti
. (Peace, peace.)’

‘Don’t talk to them, Russ!’ Bec shouted as she reappeared. ‘Don’t pay them!’

‘Don’t worry. I won’t. Absolutely not.’

Two minutes later …

‘Why did you give them the money?’ Bec’s voice was sharp, accusing.

‘They were going to fuck up the bikes.’

‘They wouldn’t have fucked them up.’

‘Oh, you’re so sure, aren’t you!’

‘And you were sure you weren’t going to pay them.’

‘Bec,’ I raised my voice. ‘I was too tired, too sick to fight them, okay? And really, is it worth getting our bikes mashed for twenty bucks?’

‘You could have just said no.’

‘Let’s not argue about this now. We’re both tired.’ But stupidly, I continued. ‘You so fucking know, you’re so cocksure.’

‘They just wouldn’t have.’

‘What do YOU KNOW?!’ I erupted. ‘You weren’t there with two guys threatening to beat your head in, trying to get money out of you.’

‘Russ,’ she said calmly. ‘Why don’t you ride up ahead?’

‘YOU GO AHEAD! PACK YOUR BIKE AND LET’S GO!’

Bec stared back at this rabid-dog man, this mad beast, and put her hands up, facing me with firm resolve. ‘I don’t want to be around you right now.’

Then all that heaviness that had been getting heavier every day since I met Bec in Kathmandu came tumbling out: ‘AND I WISH YOU’D NEVER COME WITH ME!’

‘Get ready for eyeballs’, said our Sikh Yogi master, his eyes first wide and centred, then darting from left to right, down and up. He wore shorts and a singlet and had removed his turban to reveal a small bundle of hair under what looked to be a jam preservatives cloth.

Twenty or so other Westerners were sweating it out under fans that wobbled menacingly from cords high up on the ceiling. A small bat darted around the temple before skitting off into the night.

We were staying at the Ved Niketan Ashram in Rishikesh, at the foothills of the Himalayas. The ashram was founded by a 96-year-old Swami who, if you believe the literature in the reception area, ‘can be still seen to this day labouring with workers building the new
ghats
(stairs to a river)’, though all I had seen him do so far was sit in a small chair in the office and stare at the wall.

The ashram wasn’t exactly a welcoming place. It was high-walled and wired, and various statues of deities were locked in steel doghouses to keep the prying hands of rhesus monkeys from making off with the fruity offerings.

In fact, the only difference I could see between the ashram and Stalag 13 was the fresh coat of gaudy yellow paint adorning the high wire fences; I could almost hear the
Hogan’s Heroes
brass number playing as we walked up the stone path. And, if this wasn’t enough to let us know that we were entering some form of imprisonment, signs around the place were hardly shy about the fact:

INMATES WILL RETURN TO THE ASHRAM NO LATER THAN 10 P.M.

NO PLAYING OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, SINGING, TALKING AFTER 4 P.M.

NO NAKED BATHING NEAR THE ASHRAM.

NO PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION OR REVEALING DRESS ALLOWED.

NO TAKING OF DRUGS OR ALCOHOL PERMITTED.

PEOPLE FOUND SMILING WILL BE SHOT. DONATIONS WELCOME.

Well, not really the last one, but it felt like it.

It was here in Rishikesh, in this town of hippies,
sadhus
, spiritual healers, yoga retreats, meditation ashrams, and once-Beatles hang out, that I thought Bec and I could at last find the peace that had been eluding us in India.

But after our horrid bus fight, and despite my profuse apologies, peace was the last thing on Bec’s mind and she shut me out for days, not saying a word. Thus, like the broken spokes on Bec’s rear wheel that always seemed to snap when we argued, we were breaking apart, the tension between us too much and our relationship buckled.

Then one evening, she surprised me with this revelation: ‘You care more about writing this book than me.’

‘What?’ I did a double-take. ‘Are you jealous?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

I wouldn’t be surprised if she was. I gave my journal an inordinate amount of time: I had long conversations with it in restaurants while Bec stared out of the window with boredom; I fed it anecdotes while Bec waited impatiently up ahead; in the middle of the night, Bec would catch me poring over it, pages indecently asunder. It was like I was having an affair right in front of her with this … this A4 mistress.

‘Anyway, I’m toying with the idea of only going with you as far as the Pakistani border,’ she said finally.

‘I see.’ I thought for a moment. ‘In light of things, that may not be a bad idea.’

She began to cry and I hugged her, feeling her tears on my face. I softened.

‘It’s just that not once have you said, “Bec, don’t leave me, I love you”.’

She had a point. We had only been cycling together for six weeks and I was already growing restless; more restless with each passing day, taking walks by myself, trying desperately to find my own space. To be alone.

‘Let’s work it out, Bec. Okay? Come on,’ I said soothingly.

We made up and, later, headed for a restaurant.

Even at dusk it was still humid in Rishikesh.
Sadhus
sat by the walls of ashrams, walking sticks propped by them like rifles, eating alms out of tin pots. A middle-aged
sadhu
with brilliant chocolate-coloured skin shiny with sweat passed us while combing his hair, handsome in the dying light.

There are around five million
sadhus
in India, mostly men and made up of different sects. Their aim is to achieve enlightenment by focusing on the ‘higher reality’, and so they renounce worldly pleasures, cut ties with family and possessions, wear little or no clothing, and abstain from sex. (Some
sadhus
go to great lengths to achieve this last requirement by wearing steel chastity belts or a chain around the scrotum and penis.)

A sign at our ashram warned against mingling with
sadhus
, claiming that a tourist had been murdered by one. I doubted this and saw the ‘warning’ as just another one of the ashram’s attempts to control their ‘inmates’ and steer them clear of indulging in hashish (which the
sadhus
openly smoked). I was told that this practice was part of their religion: Shiva, the god of creation and destruction, apparently smoked hashish, and he was reverently referred to as the ‘Lord of Hash’.

We had dinner on a rooftop café and watched candles float down the Ganges River, their orange lights disappearing in the distance while women, some bare-breasted, bathed at the
ghats
(steps at the edges of the river).

‘We’ll be all right, Bec,’ I said, squeezing her hand. ‘We’ll make it work.’

The ride out of Rishikesh was beautiful but hard, and we were thankful to be up on the undulating highlands, allowing us to avoid long, all-day climbs. Like the temperature, our tempers dropped. We weren’t being stared at by hordes of men anymore, and this made a huge difference to our peace of mind.

The monsoonal clouds undressed the Himalayas; revealing
green-forested
breasts and terraced bottoms. In case we got too excited at such metaphors, a traffic sign warned us to contain ourselves:

Laughing, we enjoyed a giddying descent but then faced another slow, arduous climb. As I pedalled I watched a pregnant woman softly whip the rump of a water buffalo.

‘
Le, le, le, le
!’ she urged it, but it ignored her and clomped lazily up the road, sometimes stopping to eat the long grass.

Over the coming days we battled the numerous hills to Chambra and then, to our relief, coasted over quiet potholed roads through sal forests and green-terraced fields to the hill station of Mussorie. It was here we caught glimpses of the Himalayan snow ranges to the northeast, down the valley to Dehra Dunn and, somewhere beyond it, Haridwar where I’d been shaken down by the conductor and bus driver.

Eventually, we rattled into Solan – a busy, noisy town pouring over the slopes like a giant cowpat. A festival was in full swing and thus crammed with tourists, cars, motorbikes, donkeys and trucks. Every hotel was full and expensive at 500–700 rupees ($US20). To add to our woes, ominous clouds curdled above us like a bruised face. A flicker of lightning, then the inevitable thump and growl of thunder echoed through the valley.

‘Better make it to that village,’ I urged Bec, pointing to a cluster of shacks at the bottom of a small valley. ‘Sounds like God is moving furniture again.’

The rain came hard and fast, soaking us so quickly we hardly had a chance to put on our raincoats. Thick ochre coloured runnels washed mud and rocks on to the road and I became wary of landslides, common as they are at this time of year.

The water from the road had turned the village into a brown lake. We pedalled through it, legs frothing the water like egg beaters, panniers dragging in our wake, the brown water coming right over our axles. I felt like a boy again and enjoyed seeing the bike create giant waves.

Villagers sat up on plastic white tables in the flooded
dhaba
cheerily sipping
chai
, feet dangling in the water. We found an ‘island’ and ordered a
chai
. The
chai
wallah
, up to his groin in water, fired up a pot of milk, unperturbed by his new aqua surroundings.

‘Oh!’ Bec groaned. Like the clouds above, Bec was dark and threatening. She wasn’t enjoying this wet business one bit. ‘It’s hard today.’

‘I know.’

‘It’s hard every day!’

‘I know.’

‘Stop saying, “I know!”’

‘Yes, dear.’

‘Don’t you “Yes, dear” me, you patronising bastard!’

‘Sorry.’ I put on an Irish accent, trying to charm her. ‘
Why don’t we find a hotel and have a nice hot shour for an hour.
’

‘A what?’

‘Shour …
shower
!’

‘Oh.’

‘Or a place to camp.’

‘Oh, great!’ she moaned, her feet splashing back into the water. ‘Camping! Well, that’s just going to be a load of fun, isn’t it?’

Bec’s mood was to be expected whatever the weather. Afternoons were her worst whereas mornings were mine. We often played opposites, one comforting the other. Or rejecting the other.

Chai
-ed up and slightly recovered, we peddle-paddled out of the flooded village and climbed into the hills, as the rain pelted us. Halfway up the climb, a spoke on Bec’s rear wheel broke.

‘Ah!’ she screamed. ‘You know why it didn’t work, Russell?’

I was going to say because we were arguing again. (I’d replaced nearly half of the spokes so that gives you an idea of how many arguments we’d had). Instead I said, ‘Yes, yes,’ knowing what she was going to say, ‘“Because it’s made in India”’.

It sounds harsh, but this maxim had proved to be true. Though I admired the willingness of Indians to fix anything, the issue was the bike wouldn’t stay fixed for long. Indian spokes broke frequently, tube valves shot out, tyre beads ripped under pressure and puncture patches popped (I ceased using the I.R.A for this reason).

Light falling, I looked for a flat piece of ground in the valley below, hoping to find a place to pitch our tent. But the mountains were steep, forcing trees to cling desperately to their slopes. Around a bend, I spotted the last hotel I could see in the valley. I cycled up the drive past new Toyotas and Hondas. A Sikh family was having tea at a large table. I asked the manager if we could stay the night.

‘Sorry, sir. Full.’

A grey-haired woman got up from the table of Sikhs and trundled over to me. Her name was Arti, and her warmth reminded me so much of my Nan that I wanted to cry into her soft, wrinkly hands.

‘Any luck?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Where have you come from?’

‘Solan. Before that, Nahan.’

‘Oh, my! That is so far. You must be very tired. Would you like some tea?’

‘That is heaven to my ears.’

I explained to Arti that we had a tent and asked if she thought the hotel staff would mind if we set it up behind one of the rooms.

‘Oh, let me see what I can do. We have done them a big favour today. They cannot refuse us!’ She bustled off to see the manager and made grand remonstrations with her hands at him until the two of them smiled and laughed at each other.

‘There. It is done,’ she said as if casting a spell. ‘You can pitch your tent.’

Arti turned to a tall, plump man who was hovering around our bikes. ‘This is my nephew, Vinnie, who has just come back from Melbourne.’

He stuffed his chunky hand into mine.

‘I have many friends there,’ he said. He got out his black notebook and began listing names while looking for shimmers of recognition on our faces ‘Scott … Burwood? Jeremy … Bayswater?’

He put the book away when I gave a blank look and rocked back on his feet while he watched us set up our tent. He then followed us into the hotel restaurant.

‘All the hills,’ he said, pointing outside as clouds mushroomed in the twilight, ‘were bare until the British came and planted trees. There were only grasses here before and there was much silting of the rivers. This hotel was a hill station like many you see around here. They were built for the British troops, as the generals found that after two years their troops would die. They would be stationed in Calcutta in their woollen uniforms in the heat and this would eventually kill them off. This hotel was a barracks to keep the troops in good health.’ He pouted, happy with his facts. ‘Actually, things were better under the British. Here is so corrupt. The minister for Bihar has been accused of rape 52 times, yet they do noth–’