The worst and the best day

today started off beautifully. our plan was to rent motorbikes and drive 160km to bundi. after a few lessons by jack on the enfield i decided it was not going to be a good idea for me to drive a temperamental beast of a machine with gears thru the insanity that is indian traffic. so i opted for the more automatic, a scooter. a few hours after setting the scooter up with the hotel manager it arrived. and it was bright pink! yes ladies and gentleman, i drove a pink scooter around india. and might i point out i have never driven a scooter, motorcycle (well i have now driven both) let alone hardly driven a car. as embarrassing as it is, i do not have my drivers license. so yes the plan was to have jack and alicia on the enfield and me buzzing along on my pink scooter 160km to bundi. to get there we had to drive thru ajmer, which is one busy city! the good thing however for me not having a driving license and not having much practice on the road is there are no road rules in india. they drive on the left hand side of the road but really it doesnt matter which side, it is a god damn free-for-all. and i was having the time of my life! honestly i think buzzing around on that scooter thru india and seeing the amazing views and everything you are passing by, the wind in your face. all of it, i dont think i have ever had a happier moment in my life. i got the hang of driving like an indian pretty fast and had no problem driving thru traffic on my scooter, and as i was having the time of my life, in the middle of no where, in the middle of the desert about 30 percent of the way to buni, BANG! my engine pretty much blows up (no mom i did not get in an accident, my engine pretty much just killed its self) my engine stops and i pull over to the side of the road, try to start up the scooter and it wont start... in the mean time i stubbed my toe, bent the nail back and it began oozing with blood, so we continued waiting for about 40 min in the rajasthani heat for the engine to cool down a bit, and it still wont start. so we are thinking, shit, we are in the middle of no where, cant go anywhere. how are we going to get out of this. luckily we had with us the chains we use to tie our luggage up on the trains and we also had two padlocks. so we wrapped the chains around the front of my scooter and around the back of the beast enfield to see if we can tow it. and it worked! i sat on the scooter while jack and alicia where on the enfield and we towed the scooter 15-20km up road to the next town to find a mechanic, we found one. but he wanted 3500Rs to repair the engine, way to expensive for me as it is almost the end of my trip and if i pay that i will be hard pressed to get back to delhi to fly home. so we arrange for a rickshaw/truck thing to pick me and the scooter to drive back to pushkar. jack and alicia kept going on the trip to bundi while i stayed behind to take the bike back to the rental place in pushkar. while i was waiting i became, well the only way to really explain it is a temporary celebrity. the town we stopped in rarely, if ever, sees foreigners...unless they are on a enfield with a chain attached towing a scooter thru town...and the moment i stepped out of the mechanic shop within 3 minutes i was surrounded by at least 30 indians just standing there starring at me with curiosity. i was quickly rushed back inside by the shop owner and offered tea. once the rickshaw arrived i packed the bike in and off i went, the entire way back half of my body was sticking out the side of the rickshaw because there wasnt enough room for the driver and me in one seat. once i arrived back in pushkar at the rental place all hell broke loose. the mechanic at the shop took apart the engine and the problem was that the piston basically blew up. and they said to repair that would cost me 8350Rs, that is about £120! ($240) and i would not have it. i do no think i have ever argued and yelled so much in my life. not with my parents, past and present girlfriends, at no point in my life have i ever argued with someone so much and so hard for so long, over one and a half hours of yelling at the top of our lungs. by the end of the argument we had both threatened to take this to the police and we almost did. the argument was that i had driven about 40km at a normal speed for a scooter, stopping every 30min to let the engine cool down, and i was told that it would be able to take me to bundi. i was not driving like a lunatic and was sensible with the machine and it just blew up on me in the middle of no where. i was not going to pay for that, it was not my fault that they had not kept the engine up to parr before renting it out. (also when i got the bike the lights did not work, the speedometer, the fuel meter and the kick where all broken) at the start of the argument i was only willing to pay 500Rs for the rental and the rickshaw back to pushkar but it had just gotten to the point where i was so angry and so drained from yelling for one and a half hours and i really did not want to have to go thru the corrupt bureaucracy of the indian police force (i would of had to of paid them also), even through i had my bags on and threatening to go to the police station. we finally agreed on 2200Rs for everything, and i walked away angry as all hell and wondering how i am getting to delhi. i am now sitting on my rock hard single bed in the shittiest little windowless/bathroom-less hotel room i have ever seen (thankfully i am getting a nicer one tomorrow morning once some people check out) sunburnt like there is no tomorrow, caked in dirt, unable to shower because someone is using the bathroom and about ready to get back to london. oh and my towel is in the laundry and my tooth paste blew up all over everything in my bag...

that was my worst and best day ever.