A few days ago I made my way up to Ooty, a city in the mountains, with hopes of seeing the beautiful nature and cultures of locals living among tea plantations, the clouds, the cold and amazing sceneries.
It was a ride that I will always remember, as somehow it got me closer to fellow riders, seeing the truth and an injured knee. It was the first time I felt as part of the Royal Enfield family, if there is such a thing. I think there is. You see to get to Ooty from Bangalore you have to pass the Bandipur National Park, where I stopped to see deers in the wild, wild boars crossing the road, monkeys make faces and signs of tigers and elephants.
Yes I did see an elephant just walking along the street. This is when I met other Enfield riders who stopped to ask me about my trip, bike conditions and plans, many are always curious of who I am and where I’m heading (taking group selfies too).
But the unexpected happened while riding up hill, the hair line curvy roads were a new challenge to me, as it was almost 10 hours of riding by then, and heading up in the cold, with my wrist and back tired, not knowing that I have little energy left at this moment. In one instant when I took a sharp turn, I lost balance and the bike fell. I had no energy left to control it and had to jump off. I hit my knee on the bikes protective bars and fell. Yes I was in pain, cold and hurt.
To my surprise, other bikers, mainly those on Royal Enfield’s quickly stopped and helped me up, took my bike to the side and took care of things. It was like an automatic response, they knew exactly what to do. It was a kind gesture like a family traveling together. I felt better, rested as they advised, calmed myself down and made my way up again. My knee still feeling the knock.
Once in Ooty, things got a little bad, I rested to see it the next day. It was raining and cold, temperatures down at 10 degrees. But here is where my observation started, maybe it was the bad knee or the cold rain, I don’t know.
Ooty is a beautiful place, so to say, as a whole, but we see things as they are ‘as a whole’, never seeing in the details. It is like our mind wants to see what it needs, when we are running away from a city into a tourist destination, we see our holiday, we see our vacation time, we don’t see the local reality, the local life or the issues. But when we look closer, not far beyond, when we look right down our every step, bringing our eyes close to the reality, we see the truth of the area.
Ooty today is dirty, polluted, noisy and grey. The only thing good about it is the cold weather, the scenery far beyond, the clouds that you cannot touch, but when you see the day to day life, the streets, the local life, it’s just a sad feeling. The streets are filled with rubbish, commercially it’s been abused with constructions and projects everywhere, building sites, materials, tractors and workers.
The air is dirty today, the mud is smelly, the water is not flowing and the roads are filled with noise, potholes, plastic bottles, traffic is a mess as though the land is crying. It’s a similar feeling I feel in every hill station city I visited (e.g Cameron Highlands, Malaysia).
Today’s vision of travel for some may be different, but we need to see nature as it is, to protect it, to love it, to be part of it’s growth, not to abuse it, with over population, with irresponsible tourism and development. Ooty has been abused for far too long and we can only hope that we learn from this, and keep our nature as it is.
(Ooty, India)
Follow my project Ride Of Lights, where I ride 10,000km across India to Nepal.
