What a Ride Ujjain to Tiger Reserve - Back Yard Betsey our GPS-lost

OK guys I need to leave now

Now thats a BAG load of something!! Believe it or not there is a tractor under there.

The road to Ranthambhore National Park

Ok, so we are aware that our GPS does get us to our destination it’s just a matter of “the route”, well Back Yard Betsey, as we call her, oh my God today was the day we thought would never end!  We started out late from our hotel as it was so noisy all night, Trevor wanted to kill the people next door, who it turns out were just having a wedding! They played very bad, very loud music till 1am and we were already exhausted from the days ride, never mind that we both have colds and Trevor has a sinus infection as well from all the pollution and so has a really bad headache to boot.  Anyway we finally got off at around 8:30am on route to find the Ranthambhore Tiger reserve!! 

Things start to change as the road works begin

The road started out fabulous we were making good time, we expected to arrive around 3:30pm, perfect, not to be, forget it, about half way thru the day the roads got more and more narrow and then we came across a large stretch that they were resurfacing,  that seem to go on forever, I think it did go on for about 60km on sandy dirt with big pot holes, we both had to stand on the bike otherwise I’m sure I would have put my back out, with the trucks barrelling past us kicking up clouds of dust, yuk, pot hole after pot hole. 

We are on route #19 this road winds thru all the small villages, they all look the same after a while, following our purple line on the GPS we find the road not only turns again to dirt but it narrows down so much so that we are not sure we are going the right way now?  We stopped to ask and people gathered around us, we shouted out the town we were headed to, “Mandahor”, and it seemed to be understood by the locals who only spoke Hindi, by now we are in a squaller of mud, they indicated to go straight up a slight hill, thru a narrow gap, between the buildings, along the ruts and then turn right.  I tell you, blind faith, with a wing and a prayer off we go, shouting “Mandahor” along the way as we pass the next group of people.  The road, not a road actually, a goat trail now, isn’t looking good, again we come to a, well I wont say junction, because it’s not it’s an option to turn left or right, neither of which are looking promising.  

Well the GPS said to go this way!!!
See Utube for video!

So right it is, this isn’t going to be pretty, I get off the bike, which I’m more than happy to do, because Trev has to ride thru this wet, smelly water buffalo trail and it looks awfull!! So if he goes down, I’m not going with him, it’s gonna be a mess.  I of course get the video rolling and off he goes, if there is anything that will give you strength to keep the bike upright it would be the thought of falling in this water buffalo shitty squalor!! Few, he makes it across, with a wobble, but didn’t go down thank god, he keeps going along this dirt path which really is a path between the fields, it has never seen blacktop and never will and most certainly has not seen any cars. "check out the video version" on utube accesible from our blog.

The locals here have never seen anything like us before, they are fascinated and I’m sure they think we just landed from the moon, with all our gear on, helmets etc.  The kids cheer and wave and run along side while the adults are thinking what the hell is he doing here.  We keep going along this dirt path in hope that we will cross the GPS purple line once again and get back onto tarmac, all we know for sure is that we are heading north.  Time is ticking and now we are concerned that we will still be here by dark, not what I want at all.

Finally we rejoin the purple track, few, we are met with a large hurd of water buffalo who definitely have never seen anything like us before and they are not happy, they have the right of way and so we have to sit and wait till they pass by us, well two of them decide to have a fight and one backs up against the bike, yikes, nearly pushing us over, thank god for the man with the big stick that smacked it on the nose.

Off I get again as Trev has to manourve yet another tricky spot, thru some more interesting pathways before joining up to the tarmac road, he does it and on I get again, finally we hit tarmac, its been hours since we have seen any, I hope we don’t loose it again.  By now its getting really late and we continue on to our course of the Tiger Park still wondering  if there is in fact anywhere to stay when we do get there?  We can’t check online as it seems the internet in India isn’t readily available so the best we can do just keep asking along the way. We see a sign appear, Ranthambhore Tiger park, wow we made it here, then our town, “Mandahor” where we are going to stay comes and goes on the GPS and we think there is nowhere to stay here afterall, we will have to continue on in the dark to the next town, 60km away.  Driving at night here is not really an option as its crazy enough in the day let alone the night when no one uses their headlights.  As we meander thru the forest I see, cow carcases, strange wilderness beasts that look like antelope and wild boars? Oh and large monkeys and Im thinking to myself, there aint no way in hell that we are camping out here for the night, after all this is a “Tiger” reserve and I don’t feel like being eaten alive.

We get a km or so outside the otherside of the town we thought we could stay at and we come across “the town” i guess it moved on the GPS, as they so often do it seems, anyway we started following a Jeep with two “foreigners” in it, complete with Safari hats and we rode along side them and shouted “where are you staying” is there a lodge close by?  The driver shouted back follow us we will take you to one, bonus he took us to a fabulous little, quiet, out of the madding crowds resort with individual cabins, very nice indeed, we were just happy to “stop” for the day and find a safe place for the night.

 The Owner turned out to be a school teacher who does this for a hobby, he said, he really liked us because we were “happy people”, little did he know what we had been thru today and we would have paid anything just to stay put for the night.  As it turns out he booked us in, gave us a coffee, booked our Tiger Safari for the morning and brought us a beer, what more could we ask for, he said the cottage is normally 2000rupees per night ($40.) but we could have it for a discount, including breakfast, we were in heaven.

What an adventure, please god give me real roads tomorrow.

OK I am ready for the black top again!!