We blatted across the city, first us in front then Russ, overtaking, dropping back: all that was missing was Murray Walker’s commentary. Russ’s driver was so enthusiastic he forgot to brake and rammed the back of another tuk-tuk, sending Russ flying chest high into the meter.
Delhi is the second-largest city in India and sits on the banks of the Yamuna River, which used to be a trade route with Rajasthan. It has a population of around seventeen million and I think most of them were out and about on the streets that day. Hundreds seemed to be thronging a park where there was a massive World War One memorial to Indian soldiers.
We arrived at the Imperial Hotel almost simultaneously and a debate broke out about which tuk-tuk actually turned in first: while we were arguing I noticed the security guard checking under cars for explosives.
The hotel staff knew we were on our way to Australia and we were met by a woman who dabbed a bindi - a red dot - on each of our foreheads. I’d only seen women with them before, but she explained that on men they’re called
tilak
and generally they only wear them on festive occasions. The other time, though, is when the man is about to undertake a long voyage, so for Russ and me it was not only appropriate but very thoughtful.
After a quick shower we jumped in another tuk-tuk. Sitting back with the canvas sides open and the breeze in my face, I decided this was my favourite form of transport so far. I was looking forward to learning more about Delhi and this was a great way to get around.
We stopped at a massive red fort called Lal Qi’lah, which strangely enough means ‘red fort’. There were thousands of tourists milling about, but fortunately we bumped into a guide called Raijpal, who agreed to show us around. The fort had been completed by the Mughal Emperor Shahjahan in 1648 and it only took ten years - not bad at all considering its size. Shahjahan not only built the fort but also what is now Old Delhi, what he called Shahjahanabad. It was the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1649 until 1857.
The colour of the sandstone is natural and every piece was shipped up the Yamuna River from Agra. Shahjahan built the place as a palace but designed it like a fort; the four sides of the exterior wall are one and a half miles around and the height varies from about sixty feet where it borders the river to over a hundred where the wall faces the city. Much of the art work is marble and Shahjahan’s centrepiece, the Peacock Throne, was inlaid with a hundred kilos of gold. It’s not there now though; Raijpal told us that the Persians carried it off in 1739.
There’s a mosque in the grounds as well as a separate palace Shahjahan used only in the monsoon, and a place on the river where he liked to fish. He had thousands and thousands of servants, acres of ornamental gardens and a hundred and twenty fountains that were pumped by hand.
There’s a poem inscribed in the wall of the room where the Peacock Throne used to stand: ‘If heaven is on earth it is here, it is here, it is here’.
The fort is still one of the most important landmarks in the country and each year on 15 August - Independence Day - the Prime Minister makes a speech there.
After the magnificence of Lal Qi’lah we searched for some decent crash helmets but without much luck. I’d stopped earlier at a roadside vendor but the helmets were of such poor quality you could bend them, and on these roads they’d be useless.
The next morning I was woken up at six-fifteen by music blaring, and had to call down to reception. After the luck I’d had with hotels, I was beginning to wonder whether I should just find a nice quiet park to sleep in in future.
It was Monday 19 May, our thirty-eighth day on the road, and the rains had come to Delhi. While Russ went out to buy crash helmets and wellies, I did an interview for Indian TV about Long Way Down. I took the opportunity to recount how the Lord’s Resistance Army stole children as young as seven or eight in Uganda and forced them to become killers, how if one of their comrades escaped but was recaptured the others would be made to beat them to death. Some of the stories Ewan and I heard in Africa still have the power to move me to tears of sorrow and anger. I knew there were more stories waiting for me in Nepal.
By the time I was finished the Royal Enfields had arrived, parked out of the rain next to the owner’s beautiful old Jaguar. They were sit-up-and-beg Bullets, silver tanks with a black frame, and one of them had two holes in the seat. Looking at the rain coming down hard and fast I knew those holes would quickly take on water and the seat would get soaked from the inside. Sitting there in a pair of jeans wouldn’t be much fun. When Russ came back with a couple of lids, I took the matt black one and bagged the bike without the holes by hooking it over the mirror. Sorry, Russ.
The bikes were built in India and a few years back Russ had been to the factory at Chennai. He told me they were assembled entirely by hand and there wasn’t a computer in sight. No CNC machinery, the old lathes were turned by hand and the workers wandered around in bare feet: an iconic British marque produced on the subcontinent then sold back to Britain.
It was midday before we got going. Jo had flown in from the office in London to pick up the next batch of film rushes and she would be with us all the way to Varanasi. Mungo was going to film from the back of a battered old pickup, and Rina was still with us to help with the language. It was still chucking it down and at the gates I reminded Russ that we needed to be careful, the roads were thick with traffic and as this was the first rain they’d had in months, they would be like glass.
Just as I had predicted, it was very scary, the cars all bunching up behind one another; trucks, buses, tuk-tuks. It reminded me of riding in Cairo - that had been pretty mad too. One guy came alongside on a scooter, controlling the thing with one hand while texting with the other. Another scooter had an entire family on board, two kids together with Mum and Dad. I saw another with three kids, the youngest hunched goggle-eyed on the petrol tank.
Russ and I were riding along with vehicles coming from both sides, cutting across in front of us and weaving back again. Buildings lined the road and pedestrians crossed back and forth relentlessly. There was not a moment’s respite from the madness all the way to Agra. Every driver seemed to have one hand permanently on the horn and the rain was making the tarmac treacherous. I had to laugh - it had been raining as we crossed the Wicklow Mountains, raining in Georgia when I was on the Ural, and it was raining here in India now I was on an Enfield. Every time I got the chance to ride a motorbike it was fucking raining.
I was really enjoying myself though, the bike was quite powerful and the brakes weren’t bad. They were new bikes but they looked exactly like the originals; in fact if you put them side by side the only thing to differentiate them would be the electric starter.
Once out of Delhi the land spread out and there was the odd hint of greenery, but the entire way was lined with homes and shops; homespun markets that spilled into the road. I saw horses and bullocks pulling carts, and one enormous load being dragged along by a camel.
The traffic lights were particularly mad: when they changed to red the vehicles would bunch up and squeeze into every gap imaginable. Then as soon as they went green again they’d all just go for it. It was chaos, but somehow it worked. I guess if you lived there and rode those roads every day you just got used to it.
Thankfully the rain stopped but by about two o’clock it was searingly hot, so we pulled into a car park packed with bikes and went to find some lunch. We had a little bit of a drama when Russ couldn’t find his key - after much alarm and self-recrimination, he found it in his back pocket. I could hardly blame him as riding along these roads was enough to frazzle anyone’s brain - even one as organised as Russ’s.
About two thirds of the way to Agra we pulled over to pick up some water and take a breather from the heat. Mungo was in the back of the pickup, where he’d been alternating between standing up and leaning on the roof of the cab and kneeling by the tailgate. He was kneeling as we pulled in and, shouldering the camera, he shifted his weight to hop down. As he did he cried out.
It didn’t sound good: it didn’t sound good at all. We went straight over. ‘Are you all right, mate?’ I asked him.
Mungo didn’t reply right away, just let go a little breath as he lowered himself to the ground.
‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve done something to my knee.’ He tried to straighten his right leg and a line of sweat broke out on his face. ‘Fuck,’ he said, ‘that hurts.’
‘Maybe you’ve bruised it or something.’
‘I don’t think so, I felt something go. It’s really painful.’ He tried to put some weight on it and winced. ‘Jesus: that feels like someone’s stabbing me.’
This wasn’t good: he couldn’t walk, couldn’t put any pressure on the leg at all. Putting down the camera, he reached for the tripod that was lying in the flatbed and used it as a crutch to move around. I took a good look at his knee - the joint was already swelling.
‘That’s not a good sign,’ I said. ‘Sorry, Mungo, but swelling so much and so soon: that’s the joint trying to take care of itself.’
‘There’s no way you can film,’ Russ added, concerned. ‘You’ll have to ride up front, mate; try and keep the weight off it.’
‘Fuck,’ Mungo said. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve had injuries before, done ligaments and stuff, and this feels bad. I’m really sorry, guys, really; I’m gutted.’
We tried to reassure him, and said we’d check it out when we got to Agra. I suggested it might be OK after a rest, but Mungo didn’t look convinced. I knew from my own experience that when you really do have a bad injury, you just know.
‘My brother-in-law is an orthopaedic surgeon in Newcastle,’ Mungo told us. ‘I’m going to try and get hold of him and see what he thinks.’
‘Good idea,’ Russ said, and between us we helped him into the cab.
Russ rode on ahead, which is never a good idea. I’ve always thought that when you’re riding in a group you should stick together; you ride to the level of the slowest rider - that’s the unwritten rule. I remember in Siberia on Long Way Round, Ewan and Claudio were ahead of me when my back tyre blew. I pulled over, expecting them to stop, but Claudio wasn’t checking his mirrors and they rode on for forty-five minutes before they realised I wasn’t with them.
But Russ was determined to see the Taj Mahal in the sunset, and with the injury to Mungo we’d stopped longer than expected. I’d hoped for a little respite from the traffic between Delhi and Agra, but we weren’t getting any. I hung back with the truck while Russ weaved between the cars, and that was the last I saw of him until later that evening.
An hour or so down the road I could feel movement at the back wheel of my bike. Looking down I saw oil on the exhaust. That meant there was oil on the back tyre. I pulled over immediately. Stripping off my helmet I took a closer look. The bike was definitely leaking oil. I thought the most likely explanation was that the Enfield technicians had overfilled it. Unhooking the air box, I saw the filter was black.
I rode it a little further down the road and pulled into a petrol station so I could figure out what to do. The oil must have bubbled up when I cracked the throttle and soaked the filter, before spurting out onto the exhaust and the rear tyre. I imagined the little overflow tank would be choked as well.
At the petrol station I had quite a crowd around me as I took the filter out and tried to give it a clean: one big guy in a brown shirt was talking away nineteen to the dozen. I explained to him, as best I could, that there was too much oil in the engine. He kept on though, pointing at the bike then pointing down the road. Finally Rina came over.
‘Charley,’ she said. ‘He’s telling you there’s a Royal Enfield agency a hundred yards down the road.’
I couldn’t believe it - here I was with my bike leaking oil and there was a dealer literally just down the road. I thanked the big guy and rode off. Sure enough, not a hundred yards on the right we saw a shop front with a black and red sign: ‘Choudhary Motors, Royal Enfield agent’. An enclosed passage ran alongside the shop front and I could see a few bikes lined up. Riding the Bullet straight in, I stopped beside a smiling, bearded guy in a green shirt and explained the problem. He told me they could sort it out right away. Together with another chap he stripped the filter and cleaned it; then they cleaned the air box and the overflow tank. The bill came to about £1.50. For good measure they also tightened the chain.
In the meantime I’d been trying to get hold of Russ. I called him from the shop and walking out to the roadside I called again, but all I got was an answer phone.
‘Russ,’ I said. ‘If you get this message you need to switch manually to another network. We’ve got an oil leak on my bike and we’re trying to sort it out.’
Mungo was no longer limping - he was hopping. It looked very bad - he couldn’t even put his foot on the floor now. With his arm around my shoulders I helped him get to the toilet.
‘I spoke to my brother-in-law Steve,’ he said. ‘He reckons it’s a classic torn cartilage: you know, kneeling down for a long time then giving it a twist as you get up. The cartilage catches between two bones and when you try and stand it tears.’
This was exactly what I’d feared. A torn cartilage would take a lot more fixing than an overfilled engine, and if Mungo was out of action we had a real problem. ‘What did he say you should do?’ I asked him.
‘Give the knee a day’s rest and take anti-inflammatory tablets: if it’s still bad after that I’ll have to get it seen to.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s not too bad: Steve reckons with keyhole surgery I can be back to normal in a few days.’
‘But you’d have to fly back to London?’
He shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. He knows a really good surgeon in Delhi he can hook me up with.’
We carried on with no sign of Russ and no answer from his phone. We really did need to stick together in future; there hadn’t been a disaster with the bike or anything but you never know. Mungo was there, but if we had been in a bad accident there was nothing much he could have done to help.