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2003-08-31 - Nanital - Banbassa (Day 138)

The weather has cleared up a little and I am off to the border of Banbassa. The ride out of the hills and back onto the plains is nice but the weather gangs up on me again and drenches me on the way onto the plains. It is a heard shower and I am soaked again though it is ceasing to matter to me and I drive on through the rains. By this time, I have learned my lesson and everything except my clothes I have wrapped in plastic so I can relax about the rain. Getting down onto the plains it becomes clear and quick riding. The afternoon passes quickly as the clouds clear and I am sad to reach Banbassa in the middle of the afternoon when the riding had just become comfortable.

Banbassa is a horrible truck-stop town and I was only able to find a single hotel, which equals any of the lowest classes I have been in yet. Bare concrete floors, cardboard for windows on one wall and broken glass and no screen on another. The mattress is a 1/4 inch thick on boards and the bathroom is the Asian squat toilet and a bucket. Fortunately it is priced accordingly at US$ 3.00 but being right in front of the bus station, I have Tata horns every minute or so late into the night.

This is one of those occasions I am glad that I have the MP3 player and a selection of audio books. Spreading my clothes out on the railing outside and propping my feet up on the railing with a Coke, not being able to hear the mess in front of the hotel turned the place in to something relatively hospitable.

Dinner however could not be avoided and as much as I tried, the only selection was the "rice/dal" (dal is a kind of puréed corn sauce for the rice) mainstay which has come to turn my stomach at even the mention of the words. It has also come to epitomize the Indian plains to me and I am very ready to be out of India at this point when everything seems as bland and tasteless as rice/dal. I decide I can go hungry for this one night, as I just do not want any more dal and no more India and just munch on a cucumber for dinner.

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