Where the road runs out
Two bikes, one GoPro with a dying battery, and a strip of tar with the sea on both sides.
Two bikes, one GoPro with a dying battery, and a strip of tar with the sea on both sides.
We left before five because someone had read online that the wind gets bad after noon. Nobody checked if that was true. It didn't matter. Leaving in the dark always makes a trip feel more serious than it is.
There were two of us and two KTMs. Mine had a bag strapped to the back that kept sliding left no matter how many times I fixed it. By the time the sun was properly up we'd stopped three times, twice for the bag and once for tea that was mostly sugar.
The Pamban bridge is the first moment you realise you're going somewhere strange. The land just stops and the road keeps going. The water underneath isn't one colour, it's about six, and they change as clouds pass. I pulled over, which you probably shouldn't do on a bridge, and held the GoPro out over the railing as far as my arm would go. That's the photo on this site. I didn't frame it. I just pointed and hoped.
Some of my favourite photos are ones I didn't really take. I just happened to be holding the camera.
After Rameswaram the road to Dhanushkodi gets thinner and thinner until it feels like a ruler laid on top of the sea. Water on the left, water on the right. The wind was exactly as bad as the internet promised. At the end there's a roundabout, and then nothing. Just sand, and the idea that Sri Lanka is somewhere out there, closer than most cities I've been to.
We sat there longer than planned. Nobody said much. The GoPro died around then, which is why the shot of the bike at dusk is from my phone. I almost didn't take it because I thought phone photos "didn't count". Funny, it's one of the ones people ask me about most.
I don't remember most of the ride back. I remember the colour of the water from the bridge, the sound the wind made in my helmet, and my friend laughing at my bag sliding off for the fourth time. The photos help, but honestly they mostly remind me of things the camera didn't catch.
I want to go back with a proper camera one day. I also kind of don't. Some places are better as one imperfect memory.
— Desly