Dr. Arun Kolhatkar, aka "Doc": Adventure Story
DOC'S TOP ADVENTURE TIP: Sing joyfully, lustily and tunelessly around the bonfire!
My adventures on Enduro rides could be beyond number! What to include, what to leave out?
My first adventure must be having Simon Smith come in to see me as a patient with a wrist injury on a pre-Enduro motorbike ride, which made him contact me when Enduro was conceived, and ask me to join him in his new venture...and adventure!
And from that moment forwards I have experienced so many co-adventurers do so many different things: fall off their bikes and fracture bones; ride into each other and dent their bikes; faint from dehydration and need to be transported in an ambulance; develop strange and inexplicable behaviour from side-effects of malaria prophylaxis; jump off their bike in the nick of time, as it went tumbling down a gorge that looked bottomless; ride on resolutely in spite of excruciating toothache; suffer from altitude sickness and need to be given oxygen and be transported down the mountain asap; flop down in 2-foot deep mud and make "mud angels"; attempt to fart in bed and spray out a stream of liquid faeces instead of gas; collapse from overindulgence of alcohol in the middle of the night - at the hotel - and sustain concussion and lacerations; be torn with indecision as to whether to leave the ride and return home after a bereavement in the family; make themselves regular visitors to the evening clinic with daily abrasions and contusions; sing joyfully and lustily, and often tunelessly, with me around the bonfire sharing bottles of Himalayan moonshine; and even - on two occasions - lose their lives.
But it has been a wonder and a revelation how these adventurers, men, women, well-to-do, budget travellers, labourers, academics, working class, titled, whatever they may be, have opened their hearts to revel in the wonder that is India, and to open their wallets to enable those of us who live and work here to help make the lives of others, less-fortunate than ourselves, a little better.
Dr. Arun Kolhatkar, aka "Doc", Adventure Ashram Supporter
