A ride to Surat from Bhavnagar.
A pleasant start up the estuary and through some pleasant rural landscapes. Birds, crops animals, all pretty good. Then came the bad stuff. The main road to Mumbai. With excellent planning the roads board are upgrading the highway so they built the overpasses first. No roads, and the old roads have been completely shagged in the construction process. Then of course there are new sections. Not joined, just randomly constructed, and incomplete. Compacted metal, shagged tarseal, new seal, the whole sideshow. And traffic.
So Surat is the textile city and it surely is. Down every side street are rows of weaving machines (and the odd street barber) all clattering away producing fabric by the truckload, ( and I mean truckload) except it is transported by truck only to the market and then it is carried in large bundles on porters heads.
The textile market has to be seen to be believed. Sadly I couldn't find the diamond market. Surat is the diamond polishing centre for India. It is on the coast, not that I could see it as here I am lucky to see across the road through the airborn grime.
What a hellish city, crowded is hardly adequate, noisy is not adequate, and hell to drive in is a total understatement.
I did find a Hotel. I did find a mechanic, a Royal Enfield specialist, and we did manage to get the treacle out of the bike and replace it with oil. No luxury of a new filter, but clean oil is better than nothing.
Same with the Air filter. It was like beating a dirty carpet the dirt that came out, but back in it went.
Why the BMW is considered a bike suitable for round the world rides does leave me with more questions than answers. Perhaps if you have some mechanical aptitude and a box of spares that may be different but the damn thing is designed to break bits and guess what then you have to buy some new parts....I think Henry Ford had a similar strategy.......let it break and sell em spare parts !
I can report that the "gunge" that does have a trade name but is a mixable resin product that was applied to the leaking water pump gasket is still holding water. That was a result of a well meaning mechanic putting the old gasket back because it looked allright. Well it was for 5000 km but then it failed. The reason it was not replaced was "we do not carry spare parts" and it will take several days to get a gasket, "but it looks good to me". It wasn't. To be fair it was replaced under warranty but no one knows where it is ? It was sent surface mail to India ! Good one BMW !
The most number of problems faced by BMW riders (650's) are caused by mechanical error.
I shall prevail, but think Kawasaki.... Kawasaki.... Kawasaki..... or even Honda a bike they have in in the mega millions.......they are everywhere, I have never seen so many bikes. You could walk across the road standing on them they are so thick however I digress.
With any luck I head for the hills tomorrow. Inland toward Ngapur if you are following this on a map.
Then I turn north toward Nepal but that will take a few more days.
So tonight its yes CURRY ! However it is not really hot and it is tasty and I am actually enjoying it.
I am still hoping to find out for my own curiosity why people actually come here ?
NZL04
The textile market has to be seen to be believed. Sadly I couldn't find the diamond market. Surat is the diamond polishing centre for India. It is on the coast, not that I could see it as here I am lucky to see across the road through the airborn grime.
What a hellish city, crowded is hardly adequate, noisy is not adequate, and hell to drive in is a total understatement.
I did find a Hotel. I did find a mechanic, a Royal Enfield specialist, and we did manage to get the treacle out of the bike and replace it with oil. No luxury of a new filter, but clean oil is better than nothing.
Same with the Air filter. It was like beating a dirty carpet the dirt that came out, but back in it went.
Why the BMW is considered a bike suitable for round the world rides does leave me with more questions than answers. Perhaps if you have some mechanical aptitude and a box of spares that may be different but the damn thing is designed to break bits and guess what then you have to buy some new parts....I think Henry Ford had a similar strategy.......let it break and sell em spare parts !
I can report that the "gunge" that does have a trade name but is a mixable resin product that was applied to the leaking water pump gasket is still holding water. That was a result of a well meaning mechanic putting the old gasket back because it looked allright. Well it was for 5000 km but then it failed. The reason it was not replaced was "we do not carry spare parts" and it will take several days to get a gasket, "but it looks good to me". It wasn't. To be fair it was replaced under warranty but no one knows where it is ? It was sent surface mail to India ! Good one BMW !
The most number of problems faced by BMW riders (650's) are caused by mechanical error.
I shall prevail, but think Kawasaki.... Kawasaki.... Kawasaki..... or even Honda a bike they have in in the mega millions.......they are everywhere, I have never seen so many bikes. You could walk across the road standing on them they are so thick however I digress.
With any luck I head for the hills tomorrow. Inland toward Ngapur if you are following this on a map.
Then I turn north toward Nepal but that will take a few more days.
So tonight its yes CURRY ! However it is not really hot and it is tasty and I am actually enjoying it.
I am still hoping to find out for my own curiosity why people actually come here ?
NZL04
