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| Thanjavur Temple |
There are many ways to focus the mind. It is a useful skill in our world of many demands, constant emails, and potential distractions from what is at hand, what the present is. Some do yoga, some meditate, some take a bath. And on occasion I will do all of these things. But my latest form that I have found to focus the mind is this: riding a motorcycle through the often crazy streets of southern India.
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| Mamallapuram |
Now I am new to riding a motorcycle, in fact I learned less than two months ago in a process that took a few tries and included a few bumps along the way to get my license. But I did it, and put over 500 miles under my belt in Colorado (on my cute red Honda Rebel) before heading out to India, specifically to Chennai in the state of Tamil Nadu.
I came prepared with tips from my dad, long a motorcycle rider. I had heard his story of riding around Lake Michigan when he was 16, and how was faced with two cars moving toward him in two lanes on a two-lane highway that didn’t see him; he moved to the white line to give them enough space. As it turns out, I employed this strategy a few times in India when, for example, a bus would be passing in my lane, passing the small car who would be passing a bicycle rider. Only one time did I actually need to go off of the pavement (to avoid the bus passing the bus).
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| Val on a Royal Enfield Bullet |
I had many tips from my motorcycle safety class instructors. Looking very far ahead (12 seconds) and always anticipating what could happen and forming a plan to implement should things get crazy. Knowing how to stop very quickly, employed when you thought the road was just fine, then a very rough section comes up and you put on all the brakes hard (only squealing just a little bit). Raising up to lift off your seat when going over a bump – or in the case of the toll road two-wheeler free bypass in India, going over 5 tightly spaced bumps.
But back to the mind. Riding a motorbike in India is intensely mental. It requires 100% of your attention. There are the busy streets. There are nine lanes of traffic on two lane roads. On the road there may be (in generally increasing speeds): groups of school kids, single walkers, bicyclists carrying heavy loads, bicyclists carrying just themselves, ox-driven carts, slow-moving auto rickshaws, fast-moving auto rickshaws, slow-moving motorcycles (often the 50 or 100cc versions), motorcycles with two to five people on them, small cars with their mirrors folded in, buses loaded down with 50 people or so, motorcycles with one person on them (now 250 or 500 ccs), bigger (sometimes taller) cars with loud horns, fast buses in a hurry to get where they are going. And of course any one of these might be stopped at a given point.
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| Light and interesting traffic |
Now, add to this vision that any one of the modes of transport may decide to change their pecking order and pass another, sometimes on a blind curve, sometimes when they can actually see.
Traffic rules are not exactly followed in India. As a result, there is a cacophony of horns (generally the bigger your vehicle, the more elaborate or loud the sound) that communicate your intentions. Now there is the occasional traffic light, but that is taken as more of a suggestion. Our chosen roads (roads along the ocean and curvy ones and ones with trees lining the tops and ones through smaller towns and not the newest multi-lane highways), these chosen roads were sometimes good and sometimes quite worse for the weather (rain).
One thing that made me feel better was the motorcycle with a family on it in the midst of city traffic - chances were that the dad carrying his wife and baby son wouldn’t be too reckless.
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A few other views of my first visit to India are below in photos: many World Heritage sites and temples (such as Mamallapuram and in Thanjavur), tea estates in the Western Ghat mountains, local lunches, the wedding of friends, and the inspiring Taj Mahal.
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| Local lunch |
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| Temple elephant in Thanjavur |
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| Tea estate in Western Ghats, Kerala |
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| Madurai |
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Taj Mahal
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