Motorcycle Emptiness

Friday 28 November
Arambol Beach, Goa

So someone had the bright idea of hiring some mopeds to go driving round the local roads to find a few other beaches and see which of them might be good to move on to. Now, I've never driven a moped or any version of a motorised bike before, so how hard could it be?

Driving a moped is simplicity in itself. There are no gears so you only have accelerators and brakes. You accelerate by rotating the top of the handlebars towards you, and the brakes are the same as on human powered bikes – squeeze a lever in front of the handlebars.

So I mounted my steed, set my motor running, and jerked forwards. This wasn't comfortable. Rotating the handlebars backwards wasn't a natural feeling for me. That felt like breaking. And that would turn out to be a problem.

From our starting location we had a couple of narrow streets to navigate and then a wider main street to go down. I worked my way past the first street, only narrowly avoiding running into the back of the guy in front when I accelerated instead of braked. Hmm. Not so sure.

Then on the next street the same thing happened again – I accelerated away when I meant to break, and ploughed into a row of stationary mopeds at the side of the road.

Now if you had told me I was going to do that and asked me what the resultant injuries would be, I would have said that I would have a lacerated leg, skin scraped off and muscles gouged, and possibly a broken bone. As it was, all I had was one small graze and bruise on my shin, and a lot of adrenaline in my system. I was a bit shook up but totally fine.

The bike was only slightly damaged, a few skuffs here and there, a cracked indicator light and one dent. The guy charged be 1000 INR for it which was perhaps a bit steep (I did try and barter him for it but for some reason he wouldn't budge) but affordable so I paid it anyway.
No more mopeds for me. On a wide, open road with no traffic and probably a smaller motor, I could learn to ride a moped quite easily. On a narrow road in India, it wasn't going to happen.

I calmed down back at the room, and went for a walk on the beach and a swim. There were a few clouds in the sky – and proper clouds, like ones that could actually block out the sun rather than the wispy efforts which were all that I had seen so far – and a harder than normal wind coming off the land rather than the sea. A weather system was moving in from somewhere. I wouldn't have thought it possible, it seemed like constant sunshine all the way. But here it was.

I made my hay while the sun shined and tried walking down the beach to the next one along. It didn't look far, about 20 minutes walk, but it turned into a good 45 minutes at least. When I returned I ate and blogged as the sky became fully overcast.

Having finished that I chilled out by the beach huts and waited for the guys to return from their trip. They wanted to be back before nightfall, and as it became darker and darker I started to wonder whether they were lost or injured.

At about 7.30 they turned up and they were all OK – there had been some confusion in the directions but they returned home eventually. They'd been to a couple of the next beaches along. Apparently none of them were as nice as Arambol but Evan had a plan for which one to go to next.

We chatted about my accident and they all agreed that the first part of the journey – from where we picked up the bikes, through some narrow streets to the main road in the town – was actually the hardest part of the whole tour.

We all had a few drinks, some food, and watched the movies in the local bar. Then called it a night. As we walked home, we noticed that there had been some light rain while we were in the bar. Rain? Rain?!? Humbug!