Hard work

Day 284. Wednesday the 12/04-06

When I woke up I was feeling fine again, which would turn out to be good as this day would bring lots of hard work. All the hard work would on the other hand bear fruit and take me a big step towards a finished motorcycle.
This day had furthermore allowed me to realize that it wasn't just India's fault everything was so damn difficult; things simply just didn't seem to go like a train and fortune didn't really smile upon me these days. I did not let myself get stopped one second though!

When I woke up I more or less jumped out of bed given that I had an appointment with the mechanic at 10:00 to go look for luggage carriers.
We immediately headed out and bought a couple of, at first sight, reasonable side carriers but back at the workshop I saw during the mounting that they were all wrong. The back mudguard was with this version only supported by the luggage carriers, which even lifted the mudguard up high so the motorcycle ended up looking like an ugly offroader from the 40ies. Off again to get som almost original side carriers and mudguard supporters. They only had one side carrier so while they got one more I had a much needed meal.
Back at the workshop we installed the newly bought items afterwhich I launched a grand scale hunt for a single-seat, which lasted several hours. In the end I succeed finding a super nice seat though, which actually wasn't even for sale but still became mine for quite a handsome amount of money. I wasn't particularly lucky though as the original mounting bolts was not available, the small backseat was askew and required a special fitting (which I would do back in Denmark) and the main frontseat had a hole in the leather. For the latter I had a new cover though after a loud discussion with the salesmen who accused me of having made the hole. Bastards!
But, finally I had a super nice seat.

I also spend some of the day acquire a chain and a lock for the bike, which apparently wasn't normal in this country... or at least not with my specifications. Everywhere I asked for a chain for a motorcycle they showed me a thin chain whose size was no match at all compared to a necklace of an average rapper on MTV.
In the end I luckely found a nice guy who pointed me to a place in the other end of town. There it turned out they had industrial chains, which, in my opinion, had a very suitable thickness. The salesmen, who were puzzled and asked what I would do with the chain, just laughed when they heard it was for my motorcycle. When I shortly after bought a big lock they too laughed at my chain. Last stop was a HWS supplier where I bought a rubberhose to jacket the chain.
Yeah, I now had the most secure chain lock in all of India.

The rest of the evening I spent with the mechanics mounting the seat. It wasn't easy and when they closed the workshop at 21:30 we still weren't finished.
Now I was tired and pretty hungry so I thought I'd spoil myself with a meal on Subway, which I had seen would close a 22:00. After a drive in a rickshaw I stood in front of Spencer Plaza, which on the other hand closed at 21:30. I felt like strangulating a Subway employee but the guards wouldn't let me in. That was probably somewhat lucky.

Instead I spoke to a couple of rickshaw drivers who told me about a Pizza Hut. Great, off we went and there I had a lovely meal.
After this I went back to the hotel and had some much needed sleep.