FIRST TIME INDIA
The whole story began and ended with emails from Holland. The first one drastically curtailed our aimless travelling lifestyle in southern India where, for six months, my Dutch boyfriend and I had been wandering whimsically on our 500cc Enfield Bullets. But this was cut short the minute Hendrikus’ best friend Theo sent an email from Amsterdam. His wife had left him. He was devastated. Even before we’d left the internet cafe, loyal and valiant Hendrikus had decided that what Theo needed more than anything at the height of his distress was a month in India riding pillion on bumpy dirt tracks; sleeping in the cheapest of cheap hotels or camping wild; eating street food containing heaven knows what; suffering the relentless attentions of mosquitoes; washing in streams (if at all) and sweltering in heat from which there is no escape day or night, even in rivers, lakes or under cold showers. Actually, there was no cold. Refrigerated beer was merely cool.
“He’ll love it!” declared Hendrikus. Theo would ride with Hendrikus and I would carry the extra luggage. By that time, I’d absorbed so much of the magic and unlimited flexibility of India that it didn’t matter that we would be three people travelling on two
