Mud glorious mud!
Early to bed and early up. Garth, Ian and I were on the road at 5.30am and prepared for a long hard ride to our final destination in India, Imphal, where all 11 of us crossing Myanmar meet up. We had been told the road was very bad.
It didn’t help that for the first time in ages it was drizzling when we left and continued on and off all day which made the conditions less than perfect, we were lucky it wasn’t heavy rain otherwise what was a hard day could have turned into something much different.
The 267km (167 miles) was maybe 60% tarmac and the rest off road, after a couple of hours the mud was very slippery, the vehicles had created deep ruts where their wheels had been, maybe half metre deep. I both loved it and realised if the conditions carried on we would be ridding into the dark tonight. I did have a smile on my face and laughed to myself when I couldn’t control the bike at one point and the bike and me slipped over, crash! Ha Ha, Ian & Garth came around the corner saw the bike on its side on the floor, parked up and we got the bike upright. The drizzle wasn’t helping as it caused a wet slippery layer only mm or so deep with solid mud below, this meant the tyres had nothing to bite into.
The conditions varied throughout the 10 hour ride but it was a challenge and ridding through the remote tropical forests heading towards SE Asia was a pleasure. Culturally everything was changing, not only the extremely poor road but the houses were more like huts, they were mainly made from wood, bamboo and straw, the people had changed and they looked far more oriental and they spoke ‘Naga’.
The scenery, the conditions, the company I loved it.
I’m on an adventure not a holiday:)
One Response
Hope that u took a bath after that..