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2003-04-24 - New Delhi (Day 9)

Technology again surprised me both for better and for worse. Now that I've got my butt back in gear about finishing this site and getting it up, I started looking on the laptop for some of the tools I need to do the pages. I found that in the rush to leave I'd left behind the tool I plan on using to do the photo galleries. Not to worry I thought, as I had planned for this eventuality and brought not one, but two sets of all the software I thought I'd need on DVDs, talk about being prepared! Well so I thought... as I went to get the software, one of the DVD's was completely unreadable and the other had various programs that had become garbled. While it was a good plan, I was brought down by saving a few dollars and using cheap DVD-R's which when you are in the middle of nowhere India isn't a good thing to find out. However, in this case there is a way out. I took my trusty USB memory key (which I really am learning to love) down to the local internet cafe and in the time it took to catch up on the latest news, I had a copy of the 8 meg program safely saved on the key. Now a coupe of lessons learned here - one, testing your backups before the date you need them is a very good idea. Certainly not rocket science but one I wish I hadn't skipped. Second, having the portable hard disks and the memory key have already proved a heck of a boon. Should I not have had them, there wouldn't have been much of an opportunity to get the file transferred - it being too big for floppies, and since this computer doesn't have a floppy drive anyway, it wouldn't have been a lot of use.

The afternoon went by relatively slowly, as the little odds and ends that still had to be completed on the bike ended up taking the entire day. Allam walked me through basic maintenance again but in all I'm feeling pretty confident that I understand the basics. Another couple of things came together in that the license plate which I had worried would be a problem arrived and we were able to pack the entire set of spare parts which really covers most all the common problems I should run into into a single one of my rear boxes. I can feel that the trip plan is really starting to come together and perhaps this will all work out as planned after all.

With nothing much to do, I spent most of the afternoon doing interviews with Lalli and Allam for the People section of the site and you might jump over to take a look. Their insights on biking in India certainly come from years of experience and overall, these two are two wonderful people I'm glad to have met besides being a pleasure to do business with.

Late in the evening the bike is finally ready and I learn that there is a traditional blessing ceremony for the bike and the trip that we need to perform. Allam performs the honors and expect for both Lalli and I snapping away trying to capture the moment - and the glossiness and beauty of what will probably be the only time this bike is every shinny, clean and new - the ceremony is a solemn and serous affair. The guys decorate the bike's rear cases with symbol for "Om" which in Lalli's words, "everything starts with Om". I get a garland of chrysanthemum's and we burn some incense over the bike. All in all its not only a very attractive bike, but hopefully the blessing will help me stay safe on these Indian roads.

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