Day One Tues 24 Oct Amritsar - Dharamsala 215km

NOTE: I'm having a few problems posting pictures, so you may find that if you come back to these posts after a day that there will be more photos up.

The day started with Bev having a tadette of a sense of humour failure when our 5.30am call only came at 5.45, giving us 15 mins to be washed and dressed ready to go to the Golden Temple for sunrise. Apologies to the group if I was a bit grumpy - fear (or rather absolute terror) was playing a major part in my mood (not to mention sleep deprivation!).

At the Temple we all had to go barefoot and have our heads covered - hence the men's fetching orange head-dresses in the previous post. It was a magical experience which the photos don't do justice to. We also looked inside the langar where up to 10,000 pilgrims a day can be fed for free - and saw the most fantastic semi-automated chapati making contraption. Then back to the hotel for a quick ride around the block on the Royal Enfield Bullets before breakfast - aaaarrrrrggggghhhh!

We were given a briefing and introduced to the mechanics who would ride behind us in a green Maruti Gypsy jeep, the driver of the people carrier that took our luggage, and Ed - the very nice English chap whose job it was to follow behind and pick up stragglers or wait with a broken bike/rider until the mechanics arrived. Matt would be riding at the front. There were 9 of us riding on the challenge, for different charities. Luckily the bikes had electric start which actually worked the majority of the time. Bev was dead chuffed with her circuit of the block (well, I made it back to the hotel alive, which I thought was a significant achievement!) but Jon stalled (a common problem for all of us during the week) and had problems restarting.

After breakfast (2 onion omlettes with toast, jam and coffee for Jon, half a piece of dry toast and tea for Bev) we set off into the traffic... Getting out of Amritsar was a bit of a nighmare as the traffic became very heavy and then was stopped by a level crossing. Bev stalled many times during the morning and had trouble restarting before getting the hang of it just before lunchtime. We were at the back - Bev being v. nervous and not wanting to hold anyone up. But it's amazing how quickly we settled into the bikes and the vagaries of the traffic. Basically the traffic rules are: everyone drives on the left, except when they don't - it's not uncommon to be driving down a dual carriageway and be confronted by someone comming towards you on your left; pip to tell someone you are going to overtake; pip as you overtake (indicators are optional - rather like British roads these days!); pip as you go round corners; be prepared to take to the hard shoulder/verge/dirt on either side of the road if confronted by a bus overtaking a truck coming towards you; defer to anything bigger than you.

The first accident happened before our first tea stop that morning when Colin got hit by a donkey. It was being chased from a side-road in town by a dog and Colin said it was obviously terrified. It headbutted him just below his left shoulder (we'll post pictures of the massive bruise when we have them) and sent him into the path of an oncoming bus, which he hit. Luckily as it was in town everything was going so slowly, so it could have been a lot worse. The mechanics bent the bike back into shape and Col hopped back on (you're going to hear that phrase a lot!). Bev needed the front wheel changed before lunch as a wheel bearing went. Whenever we stopped we'd always get crowds of people gathering to watch - not to offer advice to the mechanics, just to have a look at what was happening. The ears and tail on Bev's helmet proved a great success all week and had people waving, cheering and laughing as we overtook (or was that my riding?!).

That meant that we were a bit late catching up with the others before lunch and led to Bev being 'told off' by Ed for being too slow passing trucks - Jon's frantic signals to Ed that he was taking his life in his hands were ignored as he blithely carried on suggesting techniques for passing these lunatics. Rather than hit him, I thought "I'll show you" and I was 4th when we pulled into the restaurant for lunch.

After lunch we began to climb up into the foothills of the Himalayas. The road surfaces got rougher, either bumpy or potholed, some areas had lost their tarmac altogether. The road up to Dharamsala was amazing - I've never see as many hairpin bends let alone driven through them! We were staying the night at Mcleod Ganji (named after Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, David McLeod, in the 1840s) at a height of 1,800 metres (Snowdon is 1085 metres high). Our hotel was built into the side of the mountain (wasn't everything?!) so the views down onto the plains were stunning and really emphasised how far we'd climbed during the day. We couldn't belive that we were here and that we'd got here by biking on the most amazing roads. By the end of the first day many of us had ridden on surfaces that we'd never previously been near and there was a great sense of achievement. A candle-lit procession by Buddhist monks below our bedroom window seemed a perfect end to the day really. The hotel was lovely and after a hot shower we collected in the bar. We were all in bed by about 10pm!