My brother, Ryan, flew into Delhi and immediately emailed us that evening to say all was well and that he’d be renting an Enfield and joining us in the next few days. The original plan was to meet north of Delhi, but as you all know we are a little off our schedule. Well actually, we don’t have a schedule, but anyway the new plan, if you want to call it that, was for Ryan to meet us in either Udaipur or Jodhpur. We were finishing up the web site at Hotel Sai Niwas and waiting for Ryan to reply via email. One day passed, no word from my bro. Ok, he’s probably busy or getting over jet lag, etc. Two days, three days, no word whatsoever. Not an email saying, "sorry, just really busy", or something like that. Nothing. We were getting worried. Four days and again no word at all. I was seriously thinking of going to Delhi to start looking for him. The next morning as we were eating breakfast and talking about what the hell Ryan was doing, there came a call at the hotel. Shankar said to me, " Hey, it’s your brother". I grabbed the phone, "Where in the hell are you!?" I was thinking he was still in Delhi. " I’m in Udaipur now, just got off the train, drove to some email shop, and I don’t know where the hell I am!" After a few minutes of directional confusion, we figured out that he was actually relatively close to our hotel, so we gave him directions of the city palace and told him we’d meet him there in five minutes. We were all relieved that all was well on the western front. It was exciting seeing my brother pull up in such a strange place like India, we were all looking forward to riding together. And ride together we would…

Chapter March 29 "And Then There were Three" or "Your Beard is in Perfect Harmony"
We packed up, placed breakfast material inside our bodies, said our good-byes, filled up our tanks with ancient compressed carbon based material refined into a liquid suitable for use as fuel for the internal combustion Otto engine, and slid out of town. Now, however, there was the sound of an extra "THUMP" echoing off the narrow, crumbling walls of the old city of Udaipur. The three Enfields, the Three Amigos, the Three Musketeers, scouring the Subcontinent in search of…well, just "searching’ I guess. As we drove out of town, we received the usual stares from the locals. Three people, three Enfield 500s. Often oblivious to the actual situation, when Indian people see this spectacle the must say, ‘Damn, those people have some money to spend." Many times Indians can’t believe it when we say that each of us has our own bike. They can easily fit the same amount of people (3) on a tiny 100cc Honda…hell, it’s common in India to see a family of 5 riding through the town or on country roads. I’m thinking or introducing the old "banana seat" of the seventies into India. I’d be a millionaire, which in Rupees would make me a thousandaire.

Anyway, it felt really good to be on the road again (it always does) and it was really nice to look over my shoulder, or more often than not, to look far ahead and see my brother joining the gang of ruthless outlaws… "The Christ Punchers". Watch out India, a new menace is on the prowl and there’s gonna be trouble. The ride into Mt Abu first brought us west into the heart of the Arvali Mountains. It turned out to be our best ride so far in India and an excellent introduction for Ryan, much different from our rude introduction of 250km of pothole-ridden dirt/pavement. The clean, smooth roads carried us along the tops of ridges and along switchbacks taking us deeper into the dry, lonely mountains. Further on, the road carried us down into beautiful valleys surrounded by small green farms dotted with tall, Dr Seuss-esque desert palm trees and flanked by steep barren hills on all sides. Along the way we streaked past villagers leading their camels, overloaded with freshly cut wheat, on their way to nowhere in particular or who knows where. It was a thoroughly enjoyable ride. The one drawback (there is always something, isn’t there) was that it was warm….Shiite-Muslim, it was HOT! In the low valleys the wind was dry and unbelievably hot. We felt like we were in an convection oven… poor us, wrapped tight in cow skin, slowly roasting from the intense, piercing sun from above and the black, melting road beneath our rubber. Umm… "pigs—in—a--blanket" …gaaaa (cue Homer Simpson drool).

We were all keeping a close eye (or ear) on the bikes to make sure they weren’t overheating. So far, so good. As we approached the junction road to head up the 3500ft (1500mts) road up to Mt Abu, there in the center of the desert lay a cluster of mountains. At the top of this cluster lies the city of Mt Abu. The town of Mt Abu is the only "hill station" (a term left of from the British meaning a cool, high retreat from the Indian heat) in Rajasthan. It is a culturally interesting place because it is primarily a tourist destination for Indians from all over the western states. It gives the western tourist a chance to watch Indian tourists performing various "leisure" acts while on vacation. Quite interesting, indeed! It is oddly comforting to see that there is even more "lame and corny" tourist bait so to speak, hoping to catch a rupee or two, for Indians than there is for foreigners...well, maybe not. Let’s just call this one a tie. Our most entertaining moments came while walking around the main strip and watching all the Indians getting hassled to "come, eat here", or " come into my shop", etc. Ha! that’s how we feel all the damn time in your country!

We had a pretty funny experience the first night in town. We all took Ryan’s bike to a place called sunset point, and did it Indian style, that is to say, rode three-up on the Enfield (three-up = three humans riding together on the same bike). We wanted to watch the sunset that evening, so we logically headed for "Sunset Point". We hiked out a bit to a rock overlooking the vast expanse of desert to the west. We started to see quite a few other people at some of the cemented, pre-made lookout points, and there started to be a faint background hum of people talking. Just after sunset, we decided to head back to the hotel. As we hiked back onto the main cemented trail, there, from out of seemingly every direction poured an endless stream of Indian tourists. They just kept coming and coming like ants heading to a sticky picnic. At first we were amazed, then the amazement transformed into utter bewilderment. "Where in the hell did they all come from?" When we rode up an hour earlier, there was next to no one, now there were…I have no idea how many! The trailhead on the main road where we parked alone an hour ago now was a circus of selling, picture taking, horse rides, and many other strange carnival-like activities. The way down was an obstacle course of tourists, horses, and taxis. It was unbelievable how quickly the place transformed. One of those "guess you had to be there" experiences.

Chapter April 3 "The Sun Also Sets" or "Meet Me at the Bus Stop"
After that "tranquil sunset" the night before, we decided to find our own sunset point the following afternoon. Once again this is where having your own mode of transport becomes invaluable. We headed out of town, stopping off first at the famous Dilwara Temples. The temples turned out to be simply one of the most beautiful buildings any of us have stepped foot in. The Jains (a branch of Hinduism) employed over 1500 highly skilled marble artisans to carve intricate patterns, figures, and designs on the walls, arches….come to think of it over almost every square centimeter (notice the use of metric…how international of us) of the temples. The work took over ____ years to complete, and even more unbelievable is that on their breaks from work, the artisans themselves found the time to construct their own temple from the left over or unused pieces. In some cases, the carvings were so fine that the marble almost became transparent. An absolutely mind blowing piece of work. The Jain builders were cautious in their planning; they designed the outside to look like a below average, plain-Jane (couldn’t resist the pun) temple in order to hide their painstaking work.

From the Dilwara temples, we meandered along small, windy roads past some of the most pristine scenery we’ve seen yet in India due to the fact that much of the land around the area is well protected and preserved by Wildlife Sanctuaries, gardens, and parks. About 15km down the road we branched off on a small dirt path the looked like it lead to no where in particular and rode on compacted grass and dirt for about 1km. We parked the bikes and hiked a bit to the edge of a cliff with sweeping views of the desert floor to the north and west. Ahh, the perfect sunset spot; no people, no noise, perfect. We returned to this same spot for two more sunsets. This time we were properly armed with some semi-cold beer. All told, we spent 4 nights in Mt Abu. We really enjoyed the good food, temples, and most importantly the quiet, serene land around the city.

Just about one week earlier in Udaipur, we revamped our travel plans. Now, instead of cruising through the blazing desert and heading north of Delhi and into Nepal from the west, we decided to put the bikes and ourselves on the train and make way across the heartland of India into Calcutta in the Far Eastern part of the Subcontinent. From Calcutta, we plan to head north into the West Bengal hills and into Sikkim. From Sikkim, we will cross the border into eastern Nepal, pick up my girlfriend Lisa in Kathmandu, and then make our way westwards until we once again enter India from western Nepal. Whew! By proceeding in this "new and improved" way we will be making one giant loop, and as you all know we prefer loops to backtracking (who doesn’t?). Sound good? Well, what would you do? We’re just making this up as we go folks, so only time will tell if it was a good plan. First things first, for we are still only in Mt Abu and we need to get all the way across the Subcontinent somehow. We are going to do this by way of train (hopefully a direct one) from a city called Jodhpur, approximately 360km to the north of Mt Abu. Jodhpur, by necessity, has now become our new destination. That wasn’t so hard, now was it?