Conquest by the Guardians of the North

Right, after reading the respective narratives of Marty and Matt I feel about as underwhelmed as I did the moment I left Ranthambore tiger park where the tour group was trying to decide what was more annoying - the lack of any actual wildlife in a supposed wildlife sanctuary or Marty's incessant whinging over that very fact. However having been given the honour of penning the final comment on the "boys Indian adventure" I've decided to gloss over what Marty would deem as essential points of mention - these being disrupted bodily functions and "wobbly bits."

With a string of disappointing 'tours' under our belt we headed for India's most ogled attraction, the Taj Mahal, to see if it could hold Marty's attention span for longer than 5 minutes. The journey was reasonably uneventful by Indian standards - averaging only about 6 near collisions per bike with either pigs, dogs, cows, beggars or oncoming buses in your lane of a dual carriage highway. Naturally there were a few wrong turns as Matt was having trouble prioritising between his pillion duties - these being: reading the lonely planet, asking locals for directions in his best attempt at Hindi, drinking 4 litres of soft drink a day and working on his photographic skill-set by seeing how many pictures he could take of the pavement or the back of Marty's helmet. (see one of the attached photos of Matt's extensive portfolio) It is also important to mention that Matt's preconceived romanticism of himself being a modern day James Dean was somewhat affected by his pillion status. Naturally, in the end, navigational duties had to be turned over to a 13 year old tout who excitedly rode pillion to the rider with the most obvious movie star appeal and natural bike riding aesthetics. Needless to say the rear seat of Chris' sleek Enfield Bullet remained unoccupied as we manoeuvred through the narrow streets to our Hotel with a view of the famed Taj.

The familiar early morning get-up was the direct result of our self appointed tour leader and all round tyrannical despot - Marty. The increasingly ridiculous revisions of what could be considered a civilised wake -up time was an continued source of conflict between Marty and myself. And of course we settled the dispute as mature long term friends should with incessant whinging and petty name calling. Luckily Matt used his well developed diplomatic skills to negotiate a compromise for the next day despite his inability to obey Marty's request for uniform T-shirts (complete with lame nicknames and numbers on the back) to be worn on our visit to the Taj. After a quick change of clothes we headed for the legendary Mausoleum built for love which, due to Marty and Matt's childish preoccupation with the close companionship of Chris and myself, was somehow befitting.

For the first time something in India lived up to expectations... except perhaps the tour guide who seemed to be even less informative than the Lonely Planet. His efforts were perhaps only slightly more credible than our guide at the Tiger park who responded when Matt asked as to the species type of spider he was pointing out with "exotic."

The rest of the day was occupied with all the regular activities of a usual excursion abroad. These included pitting young poverty stricken souvenir peddlers against each other in order to pay 30 cents less for an already grossly inexpensive set of marble coasters, Chris riding on a cart harnessed to a camel and Matt's futile attempts at playing Sitar.

The next day, our final in India, one thing was to expose the complete idiocy of our idea to motorbike in India - Delhi traffic in the middle of the day. Fortunately Matt was praying more times a day than a Muslim during Ramadan and we found our way safely to our final destination. The rest of the day was spent shopping and generally antagonising Marty by delaying, at all possible opportunity, his imposed deadlines...to the point where I almost missed my flight.

And so we all headed to Croatia satisfied that our adventure had entitled us to the self appointed status as Guardians of the respective compass cardinals according to the religion of universal Unitarianism. The only thing we didn't envisage was how important our newly discovered spiritual selves would be during the service of Harry and Ana's wedding union.

to be continued... (in a country more in tune with our delicate western sensibilities)

(Dirk Petrusma - writing from an internet cafe which allows smoking, beers and crap music ... so close to a great combination)