BMXStunts Reports from India Todd's long Version

Start Date: 10/26/00 San Diego @ 6:00am British Airways Approx. Travel Time: 22 hours total Flight time to Bombay, India Rest Before Shows: 5 hours Total Shows: 27 shows. 3 perday. 9 days Riders: Todd Pelio, Jeff Winston, Dave White, Brian Blyther Purpose: 4 undercover agents disguised as BMXStunts riders were to complete a mission. The mission at hand was to retrieve a top secret fish scent in a air tight canister designed by Dr. Noah Wieder, and bring the samples back to America. All four agents were to be stationed along the Arabian Sea. The prime location was Essel world, Bombay, India This whole India trip started with an e-mail I received last year from a guy named Sanjay Barreto. Sanjey is in charge of Marketing for the one of the biggest amusement parks in India. The name of the park is called Esselworld and it is located in Mumbai(Bombay), India. Originally Sanjey wanted us to come to the park and perform shows in May of 1999. We e-mailed each other back and forth for weeks trying to make it happen but it never went through due to budgeting problems. Fast forward to April of 2000. I arrive in the office one morning and receive another e-mail form Sanjey with the with the first line asking, "Todd, this is Sanjey from India, do you remember me?" I replied, "of course I do". How could I not. It is not everyday we get e-mails from India for shows! He was again, interested in having us come to India and perform shows. This time Sanjey had the ok to bring us to India, but we still had a lot of work to do to get Perfection On Wheels on a plane to India. Me and Sanjey e-mailed for months figuring out costs involved, discussing the wood for the ramps, making sure everyone had their passports etc. We only talked on the phone once this entire time due to the time difference in India. Bombay is 13 ˝ hours ahead of California time so we would just use e-mail to plan everything out. Thank God for the Internet!

Everything went along pretty smoothly. It was the first time we booked anything overseas so we learned a lot. We didn't even know we needed Visas until it was almost too late. Our Visas showed up the day before we got on the plane! Talk about stress, me and Jeff were running around like mad trying get everything done and set to go. This was also in the middle of Red Ribbon Week; our busiest season so we were both doing shows up until a few days before we left. Everything fell together though, we had our plane tickets, passports and Visas, everyone had their vaccinations and we were ready to go. Our plane was set to leave October 27th at 7:55am. We were all anxious and excited to go to say the least. We had no idea what to expect in India. The only thing we knew was that we going to be very far from home. The riders who went to India were me, (Todd Pelio), Jeff Winston, Dave White and the legend himself, Brian Blyther. We all showed up early to the airport to check in. We were going to San Diego to Chicago to London to Bombay. Our flight was British Airways and the total flying time was around 23 hours just in the plane! Thank God British Airways was a good airline. We watched movies, listened to music, tried to sleep and I would read my book about where we were going. The city of Mumbai! We got a quick bite to eat at McDonalds in London before leaving to India. It was kind of surreal to be actually getting on the plane from London to Bombay because I think for me, at least, it was the realization that we were definitely doing this. Our next stop would be India. We arrived in India at the Sahar International Airport in Bombay at 12:00am. We were all pretty tired and delirious from the long flight but we were all stoked to have finally arrived at our destination in one piece. Now we had to make sure our bikes made it, which they did. Everyone's' bikes were fine, but Dave's bike box was pretty much destroyed but his bike was fine. After going through customs and immigration we headed outside to try to find Sanjey and his helpers. We headed outside the airport and were confronted by a mass of people, mostly taxi drivers, trying to hook people up with a ride to their destinations. It was so humid and hot, even at midnight. The heat blew us away right off the bat. We made it to through the crowd and when hope was almost up on finding Sanjey I heard, "Todd, is that you?" It was Sanjey and we were all relieved he found us. We stuffed our bikes and luggage into two cars that could barely fit all of us. It was off to the hotel from there. Culture shock hit us on the way to the hotel. Driving in Bombay is something that has to be experienced to be believed. Words cannot express the madness. Cars driving with no lights on, no lights at intersections, no speed limits, people using horns instead of brakes for getting past each other, cows, dogs, people, garbage etc. in the middle of the roads. It was nuts! But to the people of Bombay it is just another day. The car ride was about 1 hour to our Hotel, which was located in northern Bombay. The name of our hotel was called The Retreat. It was a five star hotel that was located on the shores of a fishing village and the stench of the drying fish would not let you forget where you were. The hotel workers greeted us all at the hotel with a warm reception. The bellhops who insisted they bring the luggage up to our rooms brought up our bags. Jeff and me shared a room and Brian and Dave shared another room. I put my bike together while Jeff slept. Brian and Dave went to he 24-hour café to get something besides airline food in their stomachs. We all went to bed at about 3 am. We were going to get picked up the next day at 12:00pm to begin doing our three shows a day for the next 9 days. Everyone was just happy to lie down in a bed and get some rest. Sunday morning arrives with plenty of sunshine. I think I was the first one up that morning. I had a hard time trying to sleep. I wanted to check out the beach behind the hotel. I went outside to be greeted with the overwhelming stench of the drying fish and the incredible humidity. The beach was crowded with men bringing in baskets of fish while the women would hang the fish to dry on wooden fences. I took some pictures before the smell really got to me and then I headed back to the hotel to meet the other guys to get some breakfast. Needless to say, after smelling the fish, I did not have a big appetite that morning. We ate some eggs, French toast and bacon, which was our mainstay for morning dining everyday. Photos by Rahul

A guy named Amit greeted us at 12:00. He was going to be our tour guide and right hand man throughout this whole journey. We packed our bikes into two cars and headed to a ferry that was going to bring us across a creek to where Esselworld was located. The ferry was very crowded and the sun beat down on us as we were stared at by the locals on the ferry. Not everyday do 4 Americans with BMX bikes travel on this ferry so they were in awe of us. The ferry lasted about 20 minutes and everyday Amit would school me on India, Bombay and the Hindu religion. This was very fascinating to me because I received a degree in Sociology and the only thing I learned about India was through textbooks. To be there and learning first hand was amazing to say the least! Anyway, we arrived at the dock and saw the sign for Esselworld. The mud hoppers by the dock blew Dave away so we had to stop while he took pictures. They were pretty rad looking. We entered Esselworld to warm greetings again. When we arrived at the show area we were amazed on how great of the job they had done on the box jump. Me and Jeff, who were the flatlanders, weren't so amazed, however, on the flatland area. Very uneven bumpy tile. A flatlander's nightmare, especially when you have to do 27 shows on it. We swallowed our pride and dealt with it. Our next stop was our little "cabin" as I like to call it.

This is where we would spend a lot of our time in between shows because it had couches, a fan and was air-conditioned. It also had Geckos and Rats, which would bite holes in Brian's and Dave's gloves during the night when we were gone. We had three shows a day, 3:00, 4:30 and 6:00. We went to our first show and met our announcer. His name was Sagar, but we called him Shaggy. He was a cool kid who we ended up being pretty good friends with the by the end of our stay. Our first show went pretty smoothly despite the jet lag and the heat. Our shows were 30 minutes long and it always seemed like the first show was the longest due to the heat and humidity. The second show was a little better and the last show of the day ended being dubbed "the sweaty palms show" because your hands would get so sweaty and slippery due to the humidity and lack of sun to dry any sweat off you. The crowd was always large during our shows. This was "the first time ever in India history" as Shaggy would say every show, that this kind of event was ever performed in India. Bicycle stunt riding had made its way to the continent of India and the people there loved it! People cheered but most stayed in complete awe of what we were doing on our bikes. After each show many people came up to us and said "congratulations" or "very nice".

We also posed for many pictures after the shows and let the kids ride our bikes if they wanted to. The people in India are the nicest people I have ever met in my life. Very well mannered and polite. We were just blown away on how nice they were. I still kind of miss it. On the second day of shows all of the TV news stations were there and I was the man "in charge" so to speak so I was the one they all wanted to interview. The official spokesperson so to speak for Perfection On Wheels. It was very weird having five news cameras in my face and 6 or 7 microphones by me. I felt like a superstar of something. I guess that is how they looked at us but I never could comprehend it. Anyway they asked a series of questions but one question that stood out was from a lady reporter asking me this; "how do you feel your performance today will affect the state of India"? Needles to say I was blown away by this question but I did my best to answer it. I just told here that Perfection On Wheels supports a drug-free lifestyle and by all of us riding our bikes and finding something we love to do, we have no time for drugs and hopefully the kids in India will enjoy what we are doing and maybe start riding as an alternate to getting involved in drugs or anything else negative. Anyway the question threw me a bit off guard but I think I handled it correctly.

The shows went very smoothly. We dreaded the first show the most due to the heat but we dealt with it. Jeff got sick the 3rd, 4th and 5th day with sinus problems but he still rode and pulled off a few double whiplashes and Pegades during the shows. I kept it safe on the crappy riding area by doing a lot of spinning tricks. Brian and Dave had trouble with getting speed to hit the ramps but they did manage it by going up the road through a crowd of people, bunny hopping a curb to the ramp. The highlights of the show were when Blyther jumped over the announcer on top of the box jump. The crowd loved it and Brian would usually do it twice to appease the crowd. We ended our show with Brian and Dave doing big 360's over the box while I would yell "Tallia" on the microphone, which meant, "make some noise" in Hindu. The Indian people would love when I announced Hindu words on the mic so I tried to learn more words to say throughout the week to make the show even better. At the end of each show we would all say, "Ghar Nehin Junga Mein" which meant we love Esselworld and never wanted to leave. The crowd would usually laughed then applause after we said this. The shows were all in all pretty fun but it would have been nice to have a good flatland area. Oh well maybe next time. All the shows got pulled off. One show Brian had real bad stomach problems and had to leave the show in the middle but me, Jeff and Dave pulled together and pulled the show off. It was really hot this day and I almost passed out because of the heat at the end of the first show. This was nearing the end and we were looking forward to the weekend because it meant bigger crowds.

Saturday and Sundays shows went really well. The last show on Sunday, the head of marketing was in the audience to see the show. This is the guy who gave Esselworld the OK to have us come to the park and perform so the pressure was on. We didn't disappoint. It was by far our best show yet. Everyone stepped it up and rode really well and the crowd was really into the show. They gave us a loud applause at the end of the show and we knew we turned it out. Monday was our last day. Time to do shows 25, 26, and 27. We were excited about what we accomplished and we all just wanted to end the 9 days off with three more good shows. In the last show we took Sanjay and Amit out of the audience and had Brian jump over them to end the show. Amit looked really scared but Sanjay didn't look nervous at all. Brain jumped them and the crowd once again went nuts. We were all pretty tired. I was overwhelmed at the end of the last show. I couldn't believe we had actually pulled this whole thing off. I actually stood at the end of the ramp, bloody shins, sweaty as ever and just took it all in for a moment. It was a cool feeling. Traveling overseas to do shows has been a goal of mine for many years and to finally have done it was amazing.

To have been a major player setting this whole thing up was just as amazing. It is something I will never forget. After the show, we went to hang out with Sanjay, Amit, Shaggy and the marketing crew for a while before heading back to the hotel. We went to catch the ferry at around 8:00pm. We threw our bikes in the front and just relaxed on the ride home. Back at the Hotel we just chilled out for a while and got something to eat. The next day we had off. The first day off since arriving in Bombay. We all agreed to take it easy the next day and then check out downtown Bombay on Wednesday. Tuesday was our first day off and we all just relaxed. At least Brian and Jeff did. Me and Dave shot some pool, played golf, played ping pong, went into the pool and played water volleyball with a big Fosters in one had the entire time. It felt good not to have any more shows to do. The next day we went to downtown Bombay to do some shopping and to check out the sites. It took nearly 1-˝ hours to travel 30 miles to downtown due the road conditions. Driving there was crazy. For some reason our driver kept bringing us to carpet shops because he thought we wanted to buy a Persian rug or something. We just went with the flow. In one shop Jeff and me took off out of the store and found some rad little stands where people were selling stuff real cheap. I did some X-Mas shopping and finally bought my Ganesh statue that I wanted while Jeff bought cool paintings. Bargaining was a must at these stands I you wanted a good deal and we weren't afraid to bargain with the people. We bought everything at the stands there were a stone's throw from the Gateway of India and right behind the Taj Mahal Hotel. People kept hounding us until we jumped back into car. It was getting late so we started to head back to the hotel. The ride home took forever due to the fact it was rush hour. We finally made it back to the hotel a little more than two hours later! We ate then Me, Brian and Dave played pool while Jeff was somewhere being Jeff. The next day was our last day and we were all pretty excited to go home.

Thursday was our last day and we just basically spent the day packing and taking our bikes apart. Amit and Shaggy met us at around 9:00pm to bring us to the airport. Before we left the hotel we played some more pool this time with Amit and Shaggy. We also paid our telephone bills. $135.00 for two 20-minute phone calls to the United States. Crazy but we paid it. We said goodbye to everyone at the hotel and left around 10:30pm. Our flight wasn't until 2:00am the Friday morning but for international flights you have to be there 3 hours early. We didn't argue. We just wanted to get going and have plenty of time to spare in case something went wrong. We arrived back at the Sahar Airport at around 11:30pm. Said our goodbyes to Shaggy and Amit. Those guys rule! Two of the nicest people you will ever meet. Anyway we went through customs, then checked in, went through immigrations, showed our passport about another 150 times then sat and waited for our plane to arrive. We should have been tired but we were too excited to get back home.

Total days gone would be 16 and all of us had a lot do to when we got back including Blyther who was off to Brazil a few weeks later. The plane ride home was long to say the least but we knew we were headed home so this softened the blow. The plane ride from London to Phoenix was nearly 12 hours! Talk about stir crazy. We watched two movies including the Perfect Storm, which was a very good movie. This movie reminded me of home, home back in New England. Anyways another cool part of the trip back home was seeing the glaciers when we flew over Iceland and northern Canada. Brian pointed this one out to me and I just had to get up and look. It was very cool to say the least. We arrived in Phoenix to recheck our luggage and to go through US customs and immigration. I called Dennis to have someone pick us up when we got to Sand Diego. He said he was "going to take care of it" which he did. We jumped on our last plane headed to San Diego. This flight was only 45 minutes long so we didn't care too much. Besides, we had the entire 747 practically to ourselves because the flight was nearly empty. Plenty of room for our last leg of this unforgettable journey.

We arrived back in San Diego at around 5:00pm Friday evening only to be greeted by a hailstorm. Nothing fazed us, however, because we were so glad to be back home! Dave was picked up by his girlfriend and no doubt went to get some Carne Asada Burritos to satisfy his withdrawel symptoms from the lack of beef in India. Me, Jeff and Bryan piled into our friend Stephanie's truck in the middle of the hailstorm. We dropped Jeff off and Brian and me went to get our cars to go back home. The trip was truly unforgettable. I had never been out of the United States and to have India been my first experience was incredible. I definitely want to travel more overseas to do shows in the future. To get paid for traveling rules! Anyway, India definitely wants us back next year bigger and better. Sanjay wants me to send him plans for a half-pipe! He also said he would pave the whole area for us to make it smoother for us to ride on. Talk about accommodation! Esselworld doesn't play around. The people in India were also talking about 100 school shows for next year. This would include the entire country not just Bombay. Pretty exciting stuff to say the least. Maybe I will be back there sooner than I think!

The scent of fish was as thick as George W. Bush's head. Without much investigating, the riders pinpointed the source of the scent. A lady stood on a chair and hung dead fish skin on pole. It was a scene from National Geographic if they ever saw one. After taking a photo of the women hanging the fish, the riders decided they would have to come back to gather evidence of the scent some other time. They were within a few hours of performing their first show and couldn't risk upsetting the mission.

© Copyright - 2000-2001 BMXStunts.com, Inc. - All rights reserved. Privacy Policy