Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
standing back to let me pass. If only my Greek friends had been so kind. I finally stopped
to ask someone, “Why are they are not screaming at me? I am used to being screamed at!”
“The yellow bike they like,” an Indian traveler bellowed at me from his rickety old
Vespa. “It's famous celebrity in India!”
For a moment, I thought Kindness One's reputation had begun to precede it, but the man
continued, “Famous Bollywood movie film made on yellow bike.”
It turned out that my bike really was famous. A similar yellow bike (probably a distant
cousin of Kindness One) had appeared in a movie, and the revelers of Patna had appar-
ently all seen it, leaving them in a trance as I dragged my defeated motorbike through its
crowded streets.
People patted Kindness One as I walked through the throngs, wobbling their heads and
touching me in awe. I was so surprised by the attention that I almost forgot Kindness One's
current condition. A condition that I feared might be terminal.
All of a sudden, I felt a sense of hope that maybe all this love for Kindness One would
give it the energy to start again. I pulled over and got on the bike, ready to hear its little
engine roar. Instead what I heard was the dead-end click that had started this latest long and
weary chapter. A man saw me struggling and asked in English if I needed a mechanic.
Do
I need a mechanic? I always need a bloody mechanic!
After another long day of rejection, this stout man was the angel I had been waiting for.
Together we pushed Kindness One two miles to a motorbike repair shop—a shop filled
with vintage Royal Enfields. Royal Enfield is a famous English motorcycle that is now a
mainstay of India. Like the English cab in Colorado, a little piece of my homeland was
calling to me, gently saying, “You are in the right place.”
I walked up to the mechanic and decided to manifest my own success, informing him,
“You saved me. Thank you.”
He looked confused, which was actually a good sign because it meant he understood
me.
I explained my troubles in English, giving the mechanic and the three assistants that
surrounded him the whole story—Los Angeles, New York, Atlantic Ocean, Turkey, cargo
plane, India, broken-down bike.
The mechanic acted as though he heard this tale every day. Turning to the bike, he asked,
“So it just won't start?”
I sighed, “It just won't start.”
The mechanic was right. The whole of my trip mattered little next to that truth.
