Our Guy in India

[Blackleaf]

Lincolnshire lad Guy Martin's two greatest loves in life are motorbikes and tea.

The 33-year-old has competed in the Isle of Man TT, the world's most prestigious motorbike race and, in between speeding about on motorbikes, likes drinking copious amounts of his favourite beverage.

So he can think of nothing better than to travel through India - tea-growing country - on a motorbike!

In this first episode, Guy sets off on a 1000-mile motorbike trip through this vast land, exploring a rarely-seen side of modern India as he heads to one of the world's maddest bike races - Rider Mania.

At a Delhi market Guy buys a Royal Enfield bike with a traditional Hindu blessing. He rides with a biker gang, visits Asia's biggest truck yard, and sleeps among rats as he waits for a late train.

Intially exasperated with the chaos of India he soon falls in love with the country when he visits a tea plantation and samples some of the delicious tea.

Watch it here: Our Guy in India - Episode 1 - Channel 4

 

[Ludlow]

cain't tolerate the lipton tea nauseates me to the quick

also leaves a nasty film on the rim of the cup

 

[Blackleaf]

Guy Martin (in the black helmet on the ride) finally arrives at Rider Mania


In the second and final episode, Guy is in Mumbai (known as Bombay until November 1995). With a population of around 20 million, it is the eighth-largest city on Earth.

He clambers up India's tallest building and has his preconceptions about slums challenged, before heading to Goa and the Rider Mania motorbike race. How will he fare in the race?

Watch it here: Our Guy in India - Episode 2 - Channel 4

 

[Blackleaf]

cain't tolerate the lipton tea nauseates me to the quick

also leaves a nasty film on the rim of the cup

My favourite at the moment is Yorkshire Tea, so I feel a bit of a traitor as I live in Bolton, which was part of Lancashire - enemy territory of Yorkshire (going way back to the Lancastrians and Yorkists, with the Yorkists losing, of course) - until it became part of the then new county of Greater Manchester in 1974 (poor old Lancashire lost 709 square miles of territory to the new counties of Greater Manchester, Cumbria and Merseyside that year). Many people in the town, though, still consider Bolton as being in Lancashire (and our county cricket club is Lancashire, based in Manchester). So I'm sort of collaborating with the enemy.

I not only like Yorkshire Tea because of its nice taste, but I also like the box that it comes in, which features a quintessentially Yorkshire landscape of green fields with sheep, dry stone walls, country lanes and two local village cricket teams having a match.

Funnily enough, I haven't yet tried Lancashire Tea.

On enemy ground: The Yorkshire Tea van at Old Trafford, home of Lancashire County Cricket Club, and former Yorkshire and England star Michael Vaughan