A chance trip to a motorcycle show has opened up a whole new world of adventure for one Newport man, as Jo Barnes found out when she met Simon Wiltshire...
The adventure bug has bitten and, it seems, there is no looking back for Newport businessman Simon Wiltshire.
Simon, 44, who has always been keen on bikes, recently rode a vintage-style Royal Enfield across India in aid of charity. It was definitely a life-changing trip for him and one he's already planning to repeat next year but in Africa instead.
Simon, of Insight HR Consultancy, said: "I hadn't ridden a bike for about 10 years but that 10 year abstinence has now come to an end. I've come back from India and have bought a bike! I am planning a biking trip to Iceland later this year and then another charity trip across Africa next year. This trip to India has definitely given me the adventure bug."
It all started when Simon was persuaded to go to a bike show with a friend of his and spotted a stand advertising charity bike rides across India. "I'd not heard of this before but was really taken with the guy who was organising it, who was called Simon Smith. He had been working in London and was caught up in the rat race. He went out to India and wondered what he was doing with his life. It took him two years to set up this organisation, Enduro India. I was really taken by him as an individual and the idea of doing something that had a charitable side to it. "The whole idea was different from anything I had done in the past and it just fired my imagination," he said.
He travelled to India earlier this year, was kitted out with a new Royal Enfield built in the same way it would have been in the 1950s, met up with about 100 other people from all walks of life who were embarking on the trip and set off on the journey of a lifetime. "The experience for me worked on so many different levels. On one side it was just getting back on a bike and really enjoying riding again with all sorts of different people staying in all sorts of places, some of which were really quite rough. You are mucking in and getting to know loads of people and there is a really sense of camaraderie because you are all there for an adventure. "There was also incredible contrast with what the people had over there and what we have got in this country. The people were so friendly but they have so little. When I came back I couldn't turn the tap on to have a glass of water without thinking of what I had seen over in India."
The trip took the riders from Goa across the southern tip of the continent. It was 2,100 kilometres and took in all sorts of terrain from jungle to mountains, paddy fields and tea plantations - all of which took Simon's breath away and not always for the right reason!
"The contrasts were staggering. One minute you were riding through some incredibly beautiful jungle areas with the wonderful smell of the flowers and then all of a sudden you were in a place with an open sewer where the stench would be unbelievable."
Riding on the roads in southern India was not without mishap - one of the riders had quite a serious injury when a brake cable snapped and cut through their calf muscle.
Other riders came off their bikes and Simon had a few near misses. "It was a well organised event and we had good support the whole way including medical support for any of the accidents. "We rode in groups of five most of the time and then sometimes during the trip we met up with all the others. Sometimes when we rode through towns, children would come running out the schools to see us. I handed out pens to them and was even asked for my autograph as some point! It was a real experience. "If you go on a normal holiday you can be in a different country for a few weeks and you are surrounded by the same sort of people that you would be at home. But when you do something like this India trip you are right in the thick of it - you get the smells, the dust and you get to meet the ordinary people. It gives you a very unsanitised view of things.
You get a great sense that you are somewhere different from home," he said. "The whole experience seriously made me think about a lot of different things including what I would spend on a coffee here and what that would be worth over there. Also the friendliness of the people over there just takes you back. They don't know you and they smile more than anyone I have ever seen!
"This whole trip has given me some fantastic memories and given me a new set of friends who I know I will know for the rest of my life."
The money raised by the event will help to build a Mother Theresa hospital for people with HIV/Aids among other things. The bikes used were also all donated to charity.
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