Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Dec 26: Bihar, here I come(part 2 of 2)

Some of the riding happened in extremely foggy conditions, so foggy
that I remembered our Tour de Coorg. With 8kms left for Purnea, I
stopped for tea at a hotel. After tea, the hotelwala advised me that
it wouldn't be wise to goto Purnea. He mentioned that 5 kms later the
place was dangerous. Equally dangerous was the place from where I had
passed a kilometer earlier! He advised me to stay in a Dharamshala 2
kms away. He said that these theives would take away anything even
from the local people - starting from 100 rupees to the bicycle. At
this point, the others, who were sitting and warming themselves,
joined into the conversation. One of them objected to the old man
giving me all this information, and said 'aap to Bihar ki Badnami kar
rahe hain. Ye jab ghar vaapas jaayega, to kya kahega. Ke Purnea theek
nahi hai, vahan badmash log hain.' to which the hotelwala promptly
replied 'aur kuch ho gaya to?'. I backed the old man and told the
others that indeed the image of Bihar as a whole is not good in the
outside world. I mentioned it wasn't fair that a whole state gets a
bad name owing to a few places.

With that, I was off for the next 8 kms. 2 kms later I enquired about
the Dharamshala. Here the story was a bit different. The roadside
vendor said, no danger, it's a scary place with too much for, just go.
OK, I said. And I didn't stop till I reached Purnea line bazaar! It
was extremely foggy with a km to goto Purnea, but there were a few
motorcycles ahead of me, and I stuck to their tail.

Settled in a lodge. I'm getting to like the Roti-Subji and Dal tadka
these guys make! I intend to be a bit more watchful from tomorrow and
strictly not ride during the night – getting robbed is not an option,
see :-)

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