TRAVERSE 159
TRAVEL FEATURE - INDIA MARIA SCHUMACHER
JUST A COUPLE OF STRANGERS
The Rann of Kutch in Gujarat , India , is described as a “ landmark salt marsh with surreal scenery ” on Google Maps , but we didn ’ t know that . Our simple offline map downloaded onto a cheap tablet computer showed a yellow line that went straight through a big patch of blue to a spot of brown in the middle . A road across a lake to an island sounded enticing , and it was on our way . My partner Aidan and I had bought a couple of second-hand Bajaj 220 bikes in the famous motorcycle market of Karol Bagh in Delhi a few weeks earlier and had ridden a loop through the Himalayas and the deserts of Rajasthan with a plan to zigzag our way south .
By now we had become accustomed to the notoriously dangerous roads where a whole set of unwritten rules applied . Where there is more than one lane , slow overloaded trucks drive in the fast lane and fast cars and small motorcycles drive in the slow lane . This does make sense here . The laden TATAs prefer to truck along as they don ' t have enough power to constantly get back up to speed after slowing for merging traffic . Cars and bikes on the other hand are agile enough to allow joining traffic in seamlessly . No one stops at a junction to wait for the road to be free to join ; it is far too busy for that . Instead , everyone approaches at a predictably constant rate to allow everyone else to adjust their speed enough to create a gap just at the right time . Not forgetting of course that if it is bigger than you , it has right of way . And it is not what you see that counts , but what you hear , so the first thing every mechanic checks when you bring your bike in for repair , is the horn .
Once we had wrapped our heads around these rules , we did as the locals do and found riding in
TRAVERSE 159