Day 202 – 25th October 2014 Leave 7.45am Miles rode 150 Shillong – Silchar

An early start as we had a long day ahead.

We have been at around 1,500 metres altitude for a number of days now so it was freezing last night, not so this morning the skies were blue again and although early I could feel the morning warmth already. For the first few hours the roads were very good and we climbed to 2,000 metres and although I was getting cold the road twisted and turned and the ridding was great.

Mid morning everything changed and the good road started to have the odd pot hole and then parts were under repair and by early afternoon the road had deteriorated to 50:50 average / poor road to off road conditions with stones, rocks, fine dust and massive pot holes everywhere. The bikes took a bashing and Garth and I were knackered.

By the time we arrived in Silchar we had had enough for the day and when I looked at Garth I laughed so much as his face was black with the diesel fumes from the many lorries we had to wait behind before we could pass on the twisty roads.

Whilst it was a really hard days ridding I am in an amazingly beautiful part of the world. I had no idea this landscape was here I made the complete wrong assumption that it was all flat and water was everywhere as in Northern Bangladesh, but what I’ve seen over recent days culminated in ridding across mountains which have dense forest, I’ve never been in a jungle but either side of the awful road looked like one.

I’ve been pondering on the word jungle today – I know what a tree is and when there are a certain amount together in England we say it’s a ‘wood’ and when it’s bigger we call it a ‘forest’. In the tropics I’ve ridden through tropical forest and when it rains a lot it’s a ‘rain forest’, but what’s a jungle? I imagine it to be very tropical and have amazing wildlife and you need a machete to get through? Anyway, you now have an insite into what I think about whilst ridding.

It’s still Diwali Festival so the city was in full festivities in the evening with amazing lights, music and vans with models of their gods, sound systems and young people dancing behind. These guys sure can party!