Africa Hot and further into the jungle

....touched down at 1 am to 95 degrees and a sporty 87% humidity, little did we know we hadn't seen anything yet.  Airtel cell joint was open and we were out the door in 15 minutes with international sim cards for 30 bucks and 1100 minutes of of talk time.......beats my second car payment I have with AT&T back in the hood.

Hotel gooned our airport taxi pick-up, so it's out to the cab stand and into the madness......uneventful to our hotel other than cabbie has zero clue where it is at and stops every 5 minutes to ask drunk Auto Rickshaw guys where Hotel Bonlon is.......finally two nice older gentleman in front of a hotel 6 blocks from ours points us in the right direction.......the smog and the heat are relentless!

In bed by 2:30am and pop one of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind......no..... it doesn't require calling your doctor for erections lasting more than four hours.....

Ohhh Ambien.....

Flying half way around the world? Try planning on landing in the middle of the night, pop one of these and poof......wake up at 11am local time and yer ready to roll.  No jet lag, no wasting a precious day of adventure, no big deal! 

In search of bikes.....

Had a good idea of who we were going to rent from based on research on ADVrider and BCMtouring, the Oracles of all things adventure on two wheels.  Out of the hotel and into Winston's first ride in a Auto Rickshaw.....I love these things and at a buck across town, how could you possibly beat that?

Nice horse 'eh.....

Motored up to Abdul Azziz and alley 55.....Boom!  Meet Lalli Singh, Royal Enfield restoration, rental, exporting........you name it Guru.  Walked around the shop to check things out and readied for 10km test ride with one of his dudes.  Pretty impressive operation! Many of his guys' having worked there 10-15 years,  they all had different jobs and were meticulous in tearing down and working on the bikes.  No A/C, tight quarters and hotter than hell working in this small space, but they seemed really happy and always had smiles on their faces.  Over the course of the day, we had lunch, talked politics, about our families, and had a lot in common with these gentleman.  At the end of the day we all agreed on these three things:   politicians suck, be kind to others and YOUR BIKE and they will be good to you; and my all time favorite:  "Mr David, that is no problem."

The Garage

They Boys

The Adult supervision

Tore this thing down in 10 mintues

Not a mechanic......

Let's do this.......

Dude......where's my KTM?????

You can read all you want about the psychology and descriptions of driving and riding in Dehli traffic.......it is organized chaos.  It is very apparent right off the bat........tonnage has the right away and these people are experts at making five feet of vehicle fit in six inches of space.  We motored around our little escorted 10km loop, stopped for gas and for water and brought the bikes back in one piece. 
The heat is impossible to describe, it was 117F during  our ride and it was suffocating......like sitting there with a hair dryer on hot 3 inches from your grill.  This place makes Africa hot feel like winter in Manitoba........I guess it's cold there, that's what Winston told me.  Even the guys at the garage said it was miserable.......crazy!  Have I mentioned the heat is relentless?



Closed the deal.......

1950s Technology at it's best

Ready to roll

 
Paperwork is done, bikes are loaded and the shop performs a prayer ceremony to bless every bike that rolls out the door, a safe journey to the Bozos' that try this stuff and sweets are distributed to everyone.

Minalli is one of their head mechanics and also Muslim.  We lit the incense, and he let her rip........20 minutes later......Allah was officially on board.

e

Please god hold together, please god hold together........

Tomorrow we ride!