Mangalore

January 1, 2011

New Year's Eve

I'm divorcing the NH 17, so to speak, or at least getting a Temporary Restraining Order on it. I need space and get the Nelles map out of my rear pannier's zipped pocket and trace the highway north and wonder what the alternatives are and don't see many if any, not that I would on this large-scale sheet of the subcontinent.

The LP book skims the area: a nice beach 12 km south of Mangalore is about as much as it says. Another beach.

The train station is right across the main street and the baggage office guy who has one glass eye that's so obvious says there's a 9:30 departure this morning, but it doesn't stop at the beach place. It seems best to skip it and just head to Mangalore and find a bar and have a pint and chill out a bit more. It's New Year's Eve and I'm on vacation.

I buy a ticket and there's time for two quick fresh orange juice then back to my room to stuff the panniers, check out, load up and return to the luggage guy with the glass eye and pay 40 rupees and wait.

It's 10 when the 9:30 trains leaves and it's already overflowing when it pulled in, so I stand in a doorway that's open so the breeze wafts across my face.

Three hours to pass. After one of them it seems a heck of a long time and I sit on the dusty floor in my cream travel trousers, with my freshly scrubbed green Crocs perched on the step and each hand holding the vertical rails as we're moving at perhaps over 60 miles an hour. A lot of palm trees whiz by.

A pregnant woman replaces me when I stand to let some people off at a stop and I notice she has a tattoo on her left arm, which is something I haven't seen on women here - or men for that matter.

Mangalore... the guide book has a map and I look up accommodation and notice there's a Coffee Cafe Day and as it's a while since I had one of those.

Once the train arrives and my chitty for the bike is sorted and I've refused to give a platform guard the 20 rupees he asks for because he hasn't done squat for it I ride off to find it and do so after 15 minutes and order myself a King Cappuccino, which tastes strange after eating the spinach and corn toasted sandwich and two veg samosas, so I get a bottle of water then have another one.

I clocked a nice hotel on the way here and ride back, but they want 3,000 rupees a night and that's a bit much and as there are options I pedal to another one - a 'lodge'. This means it'll be cheap and it is at 350 a night. It'll do.

My bike is allowed up in my room when I tell the guy it's a one-lakh gear cycle - one lakh, or one-hundred thousand rupees. That's a lot of cash here... more than a motorcycle, or even two. While I carry my bags up the hotel guys gather around it and repeat one lakh a few times like it's a mantra.

I've my new plaid shirt on as the 'Bangladesh' T-shirt is a bit stale and it's far too warm for merino wool tops - doubtful those will be worn again on this trip.

What's for dinner? Something Western would be nice for a change, although it's doubtful there's much on offer here apart from Pizza Hut. The book mentions a Liquor Lounge and it could get my custom later as I also like the idea of a beer, seeing as it's New Year's Eve and there're few decent watering holes in these parts.

Sixty days on the move now and a lot's happened. I can reflect a bit as that's what you're supposed to do at the end of a year.

It's around 7:00 when I stroll up the main street just outside the lodge with the LP book under my arm just for reference and get to a junction where there's a flash new building that includes a restaurant, so I go in as it has a bar too.

Staff are polite as you expect in expensive places and there are more of them than customers. My dinner is tandoori broccoli and off-the-bone chicken cooked in a spinach in a ghee stew. I have two garlic nan breads which are buttered and order a bottle of Fosters lager plus a sweet lassi and some water.

I can't finish it all - the nan and spinach are just too much - but I've saved a little space for desert, which turns out to be something new to me -'noodles' fried with honey and cashew nuts served with ice cream. Fab!

As it's still early I reckon I can chill in the adjacent bar area and sit with a second Fosters, which again I can't complete. By 10:00 I'm in bed. Game over.

No it's not.

Something is not quite right. The meal feels like a brick lodged inside me and as time drifts by I get the urge to pop into the bathroom where I have a serious diarrhea attack and simultaneously vomit my stomach's contents onto the tiled floor between my big bare feet.

As luck would have it's midnight and fireworks are lighting up the walls and revelers' voices drift in through the window.

New Year's Day

When I wake feeling like death warmed, my head is throbbing and I stay there dozing and don't get up until 3:00 PM and eventually book to stay a second night.

Today's ride: 2 km (1 miles)
Total: 2,585 km (1,605 miles)

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