Day 74: Getting towed in Koregaon Park

I was kidnapped - by relatives only, don't worry - on Friday afternoon and thus unexpectedly stayed the night in the suburbs of Pune. Once everyone finally got ready to go this morning, and after a long journey that involved me being left alone for an hour with a nice girl who spoke no English (but we seemed to have a lot to talk about anyway), I finally reached Koregaon Park around 2PM (four hours later than I had hoped). Mangesh parked the bike outside German Bakery so that we could pick up my mobile, and ten minutes later, the bike was nowhere to be seen. We instantly realised it had been picked up by the municipal corporation because it had been parked in a no-parking zone. Not that it had been signposted or anything; you're just meant to know these things. Anyway, so this was a regular occurrence when I lived in Pune in 2004, and it just meant taking a rik to where the bike was meant to be held. Once the truck (in the photo) was full with illegally parked bikes, it came to this lot where we paid off a small ransom to the guys holding it.