Motorcycle Road Trip in India - And Hiking Sacred Mount Arunachala in Tiruvannamalai
I was visiting friends in Pondicherry, staying at the beautiful L'Escale in the French Quarter, overlooking the ocean from the breakfast deck on the roof, when Nicolas, the owner, who was helping me make arrangements to visit Arunachala, asked the fateful question...
"Why don't you take a motorcycle???"
The energy that flew thru me in that moment just about blew every fuse in my brain...
"OMG Yes!" was the initial impulse...
"You're gonna die!!!" was the second...
You see, I've been tooling around India by taxi, rickshaw, bus, train and scooter plenty over the past few months, and I'm still in awe of how it all works... without daily carnage... everywhere...
And, I've never driven a motorcycle, not since I was 10...
"You're gonna die" kept repeating...
But something else was more prevalent, something else was just sitting there smiling... a Cheshire cat smile... as if, somehow, it knew the deal had been sealed...
May 8, 2011
Photos: 83