Living the Alchemist's Dream

It gets harder and harder not to draw at least some parallels between the past two weeks and the writings of good ol' Paulo (thank-you Adam for bringing it up). The path is easy to begin with and gets harder and harder as one continues.

After the surfacing of a Pakistani sponsor from the depths of Delhi, and the subsequent issuing of our Pakistani Visas it appeared fate was not tempted by my previous ramblings; however, with only 20 days to cross the entire country, some might argue that he shrugged a shoulder in our direction. Those minuscule facts aside, it appeared that nothing stood in our paths between Delhi and Turkey (at the very least). Iranian visas would be a breeze. There was no state of emergency, we had our snazzy letters of recommendation from our very own embassy and we weren't British or American. Visas being a formality, we would be fleeing the smog of Delhi [as above] in a matter of days to spend the crystal clear winter days in the refuge of the foothills of the Himalaya.

With this in mind, I did an extremely brave thing (some may say foolhardy - but I prefer brave) and took my bike for a spin around Delhi. Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, I actually cycled. With my departure imminent, I wanted to be sure that I knew my escape route, and I figured it prudent to discover this escape route "sans baggage" (as they say in France).

So...33km later, and exactly back from whence I started, I am pleased to announce that I have:
-found the road to Rishekesh
-traveled the Grand Trunk Road
-passed two elephants traveling the other way
-become dehydrated
-been smiled at and had my hand shaken at roundabouts
-complete and final proof of myself in India [see below of me with cow]
-calculated that, to date, if I was to end my trip now, and if my sponsors did not lynch me, and instead decided that WaterAid could keep their generous donations, that I would have raised 83.36 pounds for every kilometre. That's nearly 120 euro! (So thank you all so much to those that have sponsored; and to those that wish to, there is a link to the left)

And, most importantly, I have lived to tell the tale!



Such elation; such ease; it should have been easy to see the fall. But blinded by our luck to date, we arrived at the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran with smiles aplenty only for the best laid plans of men to be shattered by a simple statement uttered in total politeness: "You can only get 7 day Transit Visa".

And so, I shall leave it there. We have irons in the fire so to speak. All is not lost. There is more that one way to skin a cat (or skin a dead cat as I used to say, until I was corrected by Ollie). Plus, you're probably bored of reading, so below are another couple of photos





I did miss the elephants, but here's a cow on the Grand Trunk Road.










And here's a boat on the Yamuna (the 2nd most holy river in India, and one that conveniently flows near Delhi).