Keeping cool in India is important for us Northern Europeans. We tend to overheat in warmer climes. We burn in the sun, sweat a lot, dehydrate and become a little fractious. It doesn’t matter how many times people are advised to increase their fluid intake and decrease their alcohol consumption they invariably get it the wrong way round and forget to stay cool.

It is impossible to get things the wrong way round on the roads of India. The central white line is absent from most roads. Keep left / right arrows are universally ignored. Traffic lights tend to be advisory unless faced with certain death and there are as many lanes on the road as you wish to make.

I kid you not!

I will recount some of my personal experiences to prove the point.

On what we would consider to be a two lane road on the outskirts of Mysore there was a car passing a bus that was overtaking a lorry. All this was heading my way on a road with a ditch on either side. On my way up a mountain I leaned the Royal Enfield over to take a hairpin only to find that I was being passed on the inside by a motorbike coming down the mountain. At Ooty I was undertaken by a car going the wrong way round a roundabout. I can go on and on. The point is this happens everywhere so just keep cool.

The horn is the only part of any motorised transport in India that is guaranteed to work. It is an audible warning instrument  and is used by motorists instead of speech or gesture. Road users in India have an awful lot to say to each other. As part of a stream of traffic I was followed up a mountain road by a lorry who was trying to overtake me in the face of a stream of traffic coming down. The hooting and honking behind me was continuous despite the fact that the driver must have realised that overtaking was impossible. We would consider such overuse as rudeness. Here it is the language of the road so don’t take it personally, just keep cool.

Restaurants advertise if they are air-conditioned. Even if they are there is no guarantee that the clientele won’t overheat.

It is a fact of life all over the world that restaurants have waiting staff. There are some where the staff are so attentive that just as you are thinking of something, it appears. Others where they seem to go on a long break as soon as you walk in the door. India is a frustrating mix of the two. Waiters are attentive, the problem is they are attentive to everyone. Halfway through ordering a meal they will break off to get someone a drink or greet a new customer. One person in the group will order their meal and the waiter will vanish before asking the others. They will reappear a short time later with the drinks asked for by half the party before going to tidy up someone else’s table. Despite all this or maybe because of all this the meal and the drinks end up getting served with the efficiency of a German train line. Don’t ask me how it’s all a bit of a mystery really. The important thing is, just stay cool.

We handed our Royal Enfields back to the hire company a couple of days ago. It was a bit of a wrench for me. I got so possessive about it that I wouldn’t let the mechanics warm it up for me in the morning. I hoped I looked after it because it certainly looked after me during the odd moment of ill timed exuberance. The Bullet, thankfully, is a very forgiving motorcycle and for me it will always be cool. From the bikes we moved to a house boat and spent a very pleasant 24hrs on the river at Alleppey. The river breezes took away the heat of the day. The tranquility took away the stresses of the Indian roads. I relaxed enough to enjoy a bit of fishing, I said fishing not catching. Here it was impossible not to be cool.

Now I’m writing this, my last entry, with the sound of the Arabian Sea breaking its waves on the shore beside my sun lounger. Tomorrow we fly back to the UK full of precious memories and new friendships.

So thank you Gordon for organising this. It has been outstanding.

Before I leave I have time for another drink so I’ll tell the barman once again,”Just keep it cool”.

Iankosi