We pull up at the Gagal crossroads, and Jim gets his map out. If we hadn't bumped into him and Des, we would have turned right here for Amritsar, but Deepti had, as usual, taken her time this morning, and what with stopping at the mechanics and bumping into the others, we didn't have a lot of time to look at the scenery.

"Well the lake is this way, " Jim motioned left with his arm. On my map it looked like the right direction, but just slower roads. The new plan was to get to the reservoir, drink in its immensity, and then Des and Jim would decide whether to come with us to Amritsar. "

"Ok we'll come, but not too many chai-stops, ok?" I decided, as Deepti puts our map back in the bag. The road is down all the way, down the slope that fringes the Himalayas. The bike is sounding good, though the clutch needs a little adjustment. Jim keeps a slow pace, and we mostly stick together.

This trip is a warm up for my journey down to Pondicherry, literally a subcontinent away from here, but the difference is that I've got to be back for work on Monday. When I decided to get a bike, and then realised that owning it was no bed of roses, I didn't really know where I was to go going on it, only that Indian buses are no fun. But now the idea of owning a bike has matured and I've decided to go with it all the way. For this excursion, Deepti is my passenger and girlfriend. She's Indian and brings with her the sense of timelessness that India is famous for. She walks at tortoise speed, and stops like the hare to rest and look at nature's details. I'm a foreigner with places to go and things to do. I like to set a goal, and go for it. This causes a little friction between us, but we compromise.

The map says we're nearly at the lake, so we stop for a chai. Its nearly mid-day. We don't know each other very well, so the talk is mostly of bikes and maintenance. Des has a new 500cc model, which mechanics lust over, and he maintains that a bike must be loved if you want it to keep running. That includes buying the odd accessories, but not so much that its not lean any more, and regular cleaning and attention. Jim complains that his light has a loose connection and needs soldering. I adjust my clutch screw by half a turn, and the others speed off, but I can't get into first gear, so I take it a quarter turn back, and we soon catch up. It's never been quite right since I had a new one.

The clutch still isn't right, but it'll do for now. It must be very sensitive. I've learned that owning a bike is like that. And owning a computer. Its such a complicated system that there's always something not quite working, always something you need to look into. Then you tinker with it and set off a whole chain of other problems. But you can't hold up the journey while you learn about your equipment. We can't hold up this journey for anything. Amritsar is 5 hours away, and riding at night is not reccommended.

Jim stops by an electrical shop. We hang around while the electrician comes and study the map with the speculations of the locals mediated by Deepti's lack of fluency. The soldering gets done. Jim is happy. We speculate some more and depart.

Deepti gasps as we round a corner and ride high on the side of the valley. The river at is fresh turquoise meandering along the bottom of this deep gash in the Himachal landscape. Himachal Pradesh seems to be so full of deep gashes and gullies, and lumps and mounds, and ridges that it doesn't seem to have its own level, she points as a hilltop fort emerges, but I'm driving, and can only glance. When I go South. There will be no time limit. I look forward to that. We cross a large river and realise that we've come too down stream to see the lake. The map isn't clear. Then up and up and round and up a Himalayan ripple, and the whole span we've covered seems flat. Des parks next to a restaurant. We wait for Jim.

"Well we seem to have missed the lake," he concurs, "How about a spot of lunch and we'll decide about going on?" By my calculations we were still five hours away.

"Well okay," I say, "but bear in mind I don't want to be on my own rushing for Amritsar in the dark." Having had so many breakdowns as a baby biker, I'm not 100% confident in my machine.

"You're not alone, " Des pointed out, "What about Deepti?"

"I meant alone cyclically speaking, " I retort. His comment doesn't comfot me. Over lunch we decide we're still five hours away from Amritsar, and Jim says he's heading back because he has some lessons to prepare, and is going to Amritsar next weekend anyway. Des is also sounding a bit evasive. He could go with Jim next week, I could come too, he suggests, but Deepti and I want the adventure this weekend. In the end Des opts out. I go back to adjust the clutch 1/8th of a turn, but it seems to be worse, so I turn it back again. Des and Jim head off. "Go fast!" is their parting advice.

I try to keep the pace up a bit, but these mountain roads, like the country they inhabit, don't accomodate rushers.

"I'm cross now" I confess to Deepti, feeling let down by Des. We took what turned out to be a huge diversion believing that we'd have some company for the trip, and now we're late and alone, and the clutch still isn't right. She advises me to be cool, but I'm already thinking my way through the complex clutch system. If the adjusting screw is too much one way, you just can't get into first; too much the other way, and it doesn't engage properly and slips under load. There has to be a margin between these two points, but what if this margin is so narrow that it's negative? What would cause that? Why can't I get hold of an Enfield manual for love nor money? Even Des left his new one in a hotel. I'd love to have motorcycle maintenance as a string to my bow, but how can I learn when the mechanics hardly speak English and seem to want to retain the knowledge for themselves? The loss of Des is still leading me to negative thoughts.

We pull over at the next village to consult the map. I adjust the clutch while some Indians look on. As we leave they point out that the tyre looks low. I acknowledge their helpfulness but the tyre looks okay and I pull away. The clutch feels just right.

"That was a tyre repair place," Deepti informs me, "but I looked around and they didn't have a pump, they must just stick the rubber over the puncture.

"They must have had a pump, " I argue, "Or else how can they check the puncture is fixed? Without a pump its only half a business!" She doesn't answer. We both know that in India, anything is possible.

"Well we must be sure to stop soon and blow it up!" I agree. We hit a bump, and I feel the tyre is low, and then all of a sudden it's flat, and I am struggling to keep control in the face of an oncoming jeep. We pull over. We won't be in Amritsar tonight. We dismount and put the bike on the sidestand. Its flat alright. We're must be less than 1km from the tyre place. Is that luck? or did they somehow cause the puncture without even getting close to the bike? The bike topples over and as I pull it up I notice a screw on the ground. Curiouser and curiouser! I look back for the bump just as a scooter comes down the hill and bumps right on cue, and a package falls off. I go to help him pick it up, explaining that this bump has brought us grief too. The bump was a typical Indian road hazard, but nothing special. The guy doesn't seem to understand. He rides up to Deepti, and speaks to her, and rides off. "That guy just asked if I want to come with him!" she explains.

We arrange that Deepti will go back to the place and I'll stay here. She gets a lift and I fend off passing help, then two men come up on a scooter and take the wheel away, with my spare inner tube, and Deepti comes back. We play with the camera, and fend off a bunch of Sikhs on scooters, who have nowhere urgent to go. Then in half an hour the wheel comes back. Its all mended. He had cut open the old inner tube and wrapped it around the new one. He promises it will never puncture again!

Deepti's knowledge of Hindi certainly made that easier. The guy didn't speak a word of English. She doesn't speak a lot of Hindi, in fact. She's one of the 3% Indian elite for whom English is their mother tongue, and outside of McLeodGanj, her chosen home, its surprising how much like a foreign country most of India is to her. She can speak fluent Bengali though, but that's three days away.

We descend from the hills into a town. Its late afternoon now. Deepti admits we're not going to make it, but wants to push on. If we can make it to Jalandar tonight, there will be an 80km stretch in the morning. The road is flat and straight and lovely and it feels like we're making progress. Getting back tomorrow will be a hard ride, but it'll be ok. I'm glad that I don't feel disappointed, I'd been stealing myself for such an eventuality all day. Deepti complains that I work too much to a schedule. If I plan to have some time reading, and she walks in with a better idea, I'm likely to be reluctant because I know I will genuinely miss the time I had planned. With an eager girlfriend and a full time job, my time alone has never been so precious - I have to plan it. If I gave way to her spontaneity, I would be missing myself all the time, and resenting it. I've never felt so strongly that time alone is precious. In the past I always managed to fill it, but not really to appreciate it. Must be getting old. From the other end of her twenties however, Deepti loves her solo time, but now she's in the flush of her most serious relationship ever, and would happily spend every hour of every day with me. Anyway, this counts as solo time. My thoughts are flowing, but its still nice to be interrupted occaisionally.

Jalandar, Punjab. We keep straight assuming it will take us to the centre where we can get a guest house and wonder around before bed, Its dust, and I switch my lights on. The traffic is a bit on the thick side, and then we come to a cross roads with one policeman trying to help everyone get on their way. The two flows meet head on and there's a struggle in the middle. My clutch is sticking in this traffic jam and the bike keeps stalling so we get off and I push the bike through the throng. Damn this clutch! After several more stalls, we find a guest house, park up, move in and shower. We hope there are no bedbugs. Eventually Deepti is ready for a night on the town.

Well, it may be Saturday night, but there's not a lot of action that we can see. There are however some wonderful new sweets to try and we stuff ourselves, then I fancy an icecream next door, and while eating it notice a special Punjabi icecreami dish, served with plain cold noodles. Yummy! Then we find a daal shop and the town is winding down by the time we emerge. We need a good night's sleep anyway.

Osho is on the telly but it's his last series of talks before he died and isn't inspiring. We read a bit. Its hot. We read a bit more and Deepti puts her head down. Both of us seem to be getting bitten, and we can't see any mosquitoes. That can only mean one thing: bedbugs. We try to sleep on the middle of the sheet, but then we notice mosquitoes, so I go round the room and kill them, five in all. Then we still can't sleep. I go and wake up the receptioninst, asleep on a bed behind the desk, and get another sheet for protection. We wrap ourselves up to keep all insects out, but maybe its just keeping them in, our faces and hands are still getting bitten. Its hot. I read some more and scout around for any kind of insects before covering myself up on the floor. That does the trick, and I fall into a doze.

"Owwww!" cries Deepti, distressed, and I know that was the only sleep I'm getting tonight. Its a quarter past five, and time to go, I decide.

We chug out of town and onto the main road, where we soon find a place for breakfast. As it gets light we criticise the photoshop work on the Pepsi billboard featuring Deepti's friend. She swears they've swopped her nose, and I point out the cheap trick they've done outlining her with a white glow to save anti-aliasing her hair. Then with a dawn yawn, the road to Amritsar is wide and straight and cool and ours!

It doesn't feel dangerous driving this tiredly, because the driving draws the concentration out of you. I guess it's much easier to fall asleep at the wheel of a car, since you are reclined, and boxed up; but on the bike with mine and Deepti's limbs exposed to every other vehicle, and the wind and noise, not to mention having to pilot around the steeper contours of the road's surface, and the anarchy Indian drivers. There's no way I'm falling asleep, but a kip this afternoon might come in handy nonetheless.

The traffic slows and turbanned police with curious fringes above their ears are flagging most of us off the road. We too are directed onto another road, by a succession of men waving flags but who won't explain. Deepti reckons its because of some religious meeting, some big baba in town. Aat the end of the diversion we appear to be headed NE instead of West. We finally ask some semi-official who is standing around, and go back the way we came and back onto the original road. This is typical. Now where was I?

I'm glad I learned to mellow out as a driver, and start taking it seriously. These long stretches are starting to feel like meditation because I'm relaxed, yet concentrating. Ten years ago, I'd have been in a slight rush, and less safe and less relaxed, and there wouldn't have been room for this feeling. I'm actually looking forward to a fortnight of it. Not because I'll arrive in Pondicherry enlightened, but perhaps extremely calm. I wonder how comparable is such a drive is to a 10 day Vipassana course? We'll see.

Amritsar approaches. I'm not looking forward to another city of stalls. We plunge right into the centre and the morning traffic, but its not too bad and we emerge from some back alleys, park up and enter the outer gate. Here is a shoe repository, much like at a skating rink, but without the skates, and some baskets of head cloths - compulsory for all. We step through a foot bath and the man in front scoops some water up and drinks it. Though the archway . . .

The Golden Temple itself in the middle of a lake (Amritsar means 'Nectar pool', which is how the first guru described the place), then a wide white path, then cloisters and the surrounding building which provides accommodation, food and doubtless religious classes and ceremonies, and then the city, capital of Sikhism and the Punjab. When extremist Sikhs fortified the Temple and proclaimed the Sikh state of Khalistan, Mrs Ghandi sent in the Indian army to sort them out. There was a battle for several days and much damage done, and she was assasinated for it. They say she should have used Sikhs to sort out the fundamentalists, not Indians. Then a similar thing happened under Rajiv Ghandi, who handled it better, but still did a lot of damage. Anyway the point is that the place is pristine. As it should be.

There's a family atmosphere as men bath in the cool waters and women and children watch from the shade. A slow moving column was walks into and through the temple itself, and visitors walk clockwise around. We don't fancy that so we walk out the other side and into the gardens and play with some rather undernourished puppies. Eventually, since smoking isn't allowed within 200m of the temple environs, and nor are there any toilets, we are forced outside for brunch, and when the heat and noise and beggars and traders get too much, we load up the bike and stall our way out of town. 200km and six hours before dark. No problem!

The first 120km is in three stretches of straight flat, main road, sheathed with occaisional towns and villages. The sun is warm and we make good time amongst the Sunday traffic. So we've just seen what must the holiest shrine of Sikhism. It was impressive for sure, but everything about Sikhism seems to be somehow designed, like its a religion modelled as a religion. The bathing and the veneration are straight from Hinduism, the gold straight from Catholicism and Pharaohism. The clockwise circuits I saw in a Buddhist Monastery a few weeks ago. And this temple feels located and designed to be the capital of a Punjabi religious empire on the basis of the first Guru saying it had a nice feel to it. It doesn't compare with the church of the nativity or the river Ganges, or the tree at Bodgaya, or the dome of the rock, all of which became sacred almost by accident. When it started about 500 years ago, there were no world religions with which to compare it, there was just the native, anything goes Hinduism, and the more doctrinare but foreign Islam.

The bike lurches sideways and Deepti apoligises for having nodded off. I try to keep her awake with random conversation until we stop for chai and Coke. I ask for the toilet and am directed to a section of wall accross the road. No thanks.

I'm tempted to criticise Sikhism for being a young religion, for having become over politicised and defensive in its formative stages, for struggling to survive by carving out a stronger identity for its members, and using the sacred warrior cliche. At least circumcision used to be a matter of desert hygiene which later became associated with Jewish identity - but what's the point of making hair sacred? And wearing a symbolic comb, bangle, blade and pants? How does enforcing the group identity against the identities of your neighbours make anyone closer to God? The first Guru, Nanak, was a meditator, a mystic, a Hindu. And even now I wonder how far I'd get describing Sikhism as a sect of Hinduism, I bet it would inflame some Khalistani tempers!

I'm feeling weary, though not sleepy. We've come to the end of the long straight roads and must soon cross back into Himachal pradesh for the last 80km. It could be a long haul, but I take a proper break, eat, shit, smoke etc. Deepti is patient. She seems to like riding the back of a bike, but then she takes pleasure in many activities with which I am unable to engage without herbal assistance.

We cross a river, and start our 80km ascent. At once the air seems cooler and fresher, the pace limited by the bends of the road, and the gradient, and I am relaxed, but evening can't be far away. In India, evening happens around the same time all year, but since I lost my watch, I don't know what time that is. In India it doesn't seem to matter so much. Things just take longer, sometimes much longer, but then, what else would I be doing? Sitting around, drinking chai? Rushing around ticking off all the places on some arbitrary list? I'm about to pass a teenager on a bike when he randomly swerves a couple of metres into our path. We miss him by about a second. Phew! Was he trying to get himself killed? You've got to be careful in this country! In India, on the roads more than anywhere, anything is possible! There's no rush whatsoever. For reason the roads in this area are suprisingly wide and relatively straight, and new, which means lacking potholes. I'm greatful for that. A bus overtakes me. He has nothing to fear if he hits anything, he knows the road. He stops and we fly by. Presently he's roaring up behind me again. I should be able to go at least as fast as a bus, but I can't shake him off. I tell Deepti to wave him off my tail.

"Let him pass, calm down!" she reminds me, and I'm greatful. We pass each other a few more times before he rushes off. I nearly lost my cool then. Not all of India is shanty. Its getting dark and a wave of tiredness hits me. but I don't want to stop for chai. We go slowly until my energy comes back, but in the failing light I remove my sunglasses and an insect finds its way into my eye. We stop and when my eye is clear, I know its a snails pace from now on. Everything is overtaking me, but I'm not in the mood for surprise bumps. Tired, we crawl on. Eventually Deepti exitedly announces McLeod twinkling up the mountain Just a few more kilometres to Gagal, then the home run. Ahhhh. At the crossroads, I just have to stop for Chai. Then less slowly, we inch our way up to Dharamsala, and up the really steep bit to McLeod. Three times previously I've ridden Deepti up that hill and we haven't both made it because of the clutch adjustment, but this time we rise like a tired dream, the exhaust reverberating through the street in steepest lower McLeod, and up, and up until at long last, we park, and peace descends like a shroud.

Post Script.

One day the clutch made an odd noise, and my mechanicdissembled it to discover that one of the plates had been fitted the wrong way around. Another day I was investigating a clanking noise to find that one of the screws had fallen out of the rear seat support.