Agra was the last on our to-see list on this month-long trip. I know it is the typical, most touristy thing anyone can do in India, but I wanted to see the Taj Mahal. So we set off from Jaipur – after doing all the touristy things we could do there, of course. If arriving in Jaipur was challenging, leaving it was worse. I have no more words left to describe the chaos called traffic here, and starting each trip with heightened stress is not easy. In half an hour, my hands were numb, and I had no sense of the clutch, just the painful tingling, but we somehow made it out of town. We stopped for a coffee an hour into the trip, and when leaving the roadside restaurant, I managed to lose grip of the bike, walking it backwards on gravel. It tipped and pegged my leg to a metal post, resting on my thigh comfortably until David helped me out. It was more ridiculous than bad, but I managed to pull the same muscle I pulled when falling a few days earlier, which wasn’t pleasant.

Elephant ride up to Amber Palace.
Touristing at the Hawa Mahal.

Nothing interesting happened for quite a while on this stretch of the road until my bike decided that it’s had enough and – like a stubborn child – refused to take another step. The engine cut out while going up on an overpass, and I could not restart it, no matter what. We looked up the nearest Royal Enfield service centre, and David left to get help (then turned back, deciding that the opposite direction was the right one, after which he had to turn back again to go where I sent him in the first place, flipping me the bird as he went past). While I waited on the overpass with the bike, kids coming from school shouted and waved at me tirelessly from the road below until they were ushered into their homes on dirty little lanes. Finally, David called with good news: the service centre will help us. Now if we could only get the bike there somehow …

Stranded.

As if by road magic, a small pick-up truck displaying ‘Highway Patrolling’ approaches at low speed. Three severe, dark faces look at me with a sense of authority over the road I am occupying with a motionless motorcycle, seat and luggage on the ground. I resort to Google translate to explain that I have a problem and a solution. Sort of. Then inspiration hits, and I ask them whether they could help me get the bike ‘off the road,’ and the boss-looking serious face nods. Bingo! Except that the back of the teeny-tiny truck is shorter than my bike, they have no ramp, and this bike is a lot heavier than they expected. By then, we are surrounded by a small group of excited kids, so we have a few ten-year-olds, three patrol men, and me pushing and pulling the Himalayan up the truck. Ropes and some impressive expertise secure it upright, with the back wheel almost hanging off the open platform. My luggage and I are squeezed in the back seat, and we take an excruciatingly long 12 km ride at an average of 30 kph. I am the only one constantly looking back at the bike, terrified that it’ll fall off. It doesn’t. Eventually, we make it to the service centre where David awaits, recording the procession with a large smile. The bike is dragged down by group power, many thank yous, handshakes, and photos… the first obstacle is cleared with success.

Getting Hiho off the small truck required team effort.

We sit down to wait for the mechanic, who kindly agreed to come in on his day off. We receive hot and sweet chai, chat with the owner of the shop, and end up buying some cool Royal Enfield T-shirts. The mechanic arrives, the bike is taken down into the immaculate underground service area, relays and fuses are replaced, and we are asked to come back for the bike in the morning, so it can be tested on the road at daylight. Fair enough. We book into a nearby hotel, and I am offered a ride by the mechanic. By now, I am seriously limping from the pain of the pulled hamstring, but I decided to walk it off. There is no way on earth I am pillioning with a local rider! (David had that pleasure the next morning when the mechanic took him to show how well the fixed bike rides and came back somewhat white-faced. Locals have some mad riding skills that our nerves decline to handle.)

Ready to go.

After a surprisingly good dinner and a great night’s rest at a hotel in a small town that was never meant to be a destination, we got my bike back in perfect condition in the morning and had the surprise of not being charged anything for the repair other than some mandatory photos for advertisement, and we finally took off towards Agra. Having had only 65 km left, we were in no rush, but – as usual – the last leg was mayhem. The navigator took us on back roads – some of which qualified more as muddy donkey tracks – and when at some point it suggested to ride up a ridiculously steep, half-broken ramp, I gave up. David went up – the Himalayans are made for that kind of riding, I am not – and got blocked at the top by a tuk-tuk. There was a lot of yelling and swearing until he could clear the top, only to realise I didn’t have the cojones for the climb. I did not think I could do it, but I knew that if I fell halfway up the climb, I would be unable to get back on the bike. Sometimes it’s best to know your limits and when to call it quits. As a result, however, David had to do what we hate when locals do it: ride against traffic to come back to me, refusing to leave me behind to find our separate ways. Eventually, we found a decent road that led us straight to our accommodation: a lovely home-stay in a gorgeous large house with a rooftop terrace overlooking the Taj Mahal – at least, in clear weather, it is, because during our stay, the weather was so overcast and foggy that we couldn’t even figure out which way the Taj was. We were, however, compensated by a very nice dinner and an evening spent with a piano on a balcony, where David played some Frank Sinatra, accompanied by our host and some of the more enthusiastic stray dogs, who joined in the singing; everyone’s a critic.

David became part of the evening entertainment in Agra.