A very brief posting to say that myself and Will are doing just dandy. We have abandoned the two wheeled transport in favour of speedier modes of transport and are now in the city of Quetta in the Western Province of Pakistan. We will catch a bus to the Iran border tonight or tommorrow (depending on the availability of petrol!!). The blanks shall be filled in once we are Iran.
For now, I wish you all a very happy New Year. I have not touched a drop of alcohol for 21 days and it's looking like it could be several more weeks before I do so again. I hope you all take up the slack on my behalf!
Sunday, 30 December 2007
Tuesday, 25 December 2007
A sober Christmas (but a very good one nonetheless!)
Stage 4: Amritsar to Multan
Day 1: 58.9km Lahore
Day 2: 0.0km
Day 3: 135.6km Okara
Day 4: 0.0km
Day 5: 41.3km Sahiwal
Day 6: 81.8km Mian Channun
Day 7: 97.8km Multan
A clean, green, quiet city with wide boulevards and fast flowing traffic. I am, of course, referring to Delhi. Though it should be noted that this description is only the case when compared with the city of Lahore.
Eyes in the back of our heads would have been a significant advantage when approaching this city, and indeed any major town we have since passed through. I guess that mirrors on our handlebars may do a similar trick, but given the choice, I'd go for eyes. A motorcyclist almost took out me(or rather I almost took out him) in one manoeuvre as I tried to avoid an autorickshaw, and further along the road another autorickshaw ran into the back of me as I braked to come to a standstill in stationary traffic (minus the aforementioned tuktuk). It was stressful, dusty and dirty, but at least we got to rest for 2 days in our rat infested hotel. We preferred to refer to them as large mice while we were there, but they were definately rats!!
If the city was not fantastic, the complete opposite must me said for its inhabitants, and for all further Pakistani people we have met along the way. They are, without a shadow of doubt, the friendliest and most caring race of people I have ever come across in the 25 years of my existence. Everywhere we go we are offered cups of tea, cold drinks, food to eat and places to stay. Their hospitality knows no bounds. In the city of Okara we were taken on the back of a motorbike to the family home of one of the people we met on the street. It was the festival of Eid (one that lasts for 3 days and celebrates the sacrifice that Abraham was willing to make to god, being his son), and blood and guts of sacrificed animals lined the streets. We were entertained with good company, Islamic music and dance and provided with an evening meal. The food here really is fantastic.
The following morning we returned to witness the sacrifice of the family bull for Eid. It was quite a sight, and one which I will not go into. I have other photos, but figured that the ones below would suffice. Children watched on and not one shed a tear, or uttered a word of complaint; they were even eating their breakfast 2 minutes later beside the carcass. They already knew well enough where food on the table comes from and how it gets there.
before
after
After a lunch of the heart, liver and kidney's of the freshly butchered bull (almost the entire mass of meat is redistributed between poor friends and relations according to Islamic tradition, with the family just taking enough for a meal or two)we continued on our merry way. I have mentioned a long time ago that plain cycling can become monotonous, but here's another fact: we have now travelled over 500km without a single hill. Three times the road has inclined before declining as we pass over bridges over the train lines. THREE times in 500km we have had view of some description. I'm fairly sure that's further than the entire width of Ireland. And there's still more to go...
We arrived in Multan on Christmas Eve and have decided to spend a couple of rest days here. Our hotel is clean, has space to wash ourselves, clothes and bikes, and most importantly of all, is free from the pitter patter of tiny rat-sized feet. A Christmas (and even an entire November and December) without a single Christmas Carol is a Christmas well spent!
I hope you all had just a pleasant Christmas, and I wish you all well in the New Year.
Family we stayed with in Mian Channun
Day 1: 58.9km Lahore
Day 2: 0.0km
Day 3: 135.6km Okara
Day 4: 0.0km
Day 5: 41.3km Sahiwal
Day 6: 81.8km Mian Channun
Day 7: 97.8km Multan
A clean, green, quiet city with wide boulevards and fast flowing traffic. I am, of course, referring to Delhi. Though it should be noted that this description is only the case when compared with the city of Lahore.
Eyes in the back of our heads would have been a significant advantage when approaching this city, and indeed any major town we have since passed through. I guess that mirrors on our handlebars may do a similar trick, but given the choice, I'd go for eyes. A motorcyclist almost took out me(or rather I almost took out him) in one manoeuvre as I tried to avoid an autorickshaw, and further along the road another autorickshaw ran into the back of me as I braked to come to a standstill in stationary traffic (minus the aforementioned tuktuk). It was stressful, dusty and dirty, but at least we got to rest for 2 days in our rat infested hotel. We preferred to refer to them as large mice while we were there, but they were definately rats!!
If the city was not fantastic, the complete opposite must me said for its inhabitants, and for all further Pakistani people we have met along the way. They are, without a shadow of doubt, the friendliest and most caring race of people I have ever come across in the 25 years of my existence. Everywhere we go we are offered cups of tea, cold drinks, food to eat and places to stay. Their hospitality knows no bounds. In the city of Okara we were taken on the back of a motorbike to the family home of one of the people we met on the street. It was the festival of Eid (one that lasts for 3 days and celebrates the sacrifice that Abraham was willing to make to god, being his son), and blood and guts of sacrificed animals lined the streets. We were entertained with good company, Islamic music and dance and provided with an evening meal. The food here really is fantastic.
The following morning we returned to witness the sacrifice of the family bull for Eid. It was quite a sight, and one which I will not go into. I have other photos, but figured that the ones below would suffice. Children watched on and not one shed a tear, or uttered a word of complaint; they were even eating their breakfast 2 minutes later beside the carcass. They already knew well enough where food on the table comes from and how it gets there.
before
after
After a lunch of the heart, liver and kidney's of the freshly butchered bull (almost the entire mass of meat is redistributed between poor friends and relations according to Islamic tradition, with the family just taking enough for a meal or two)we continued on our merry way. I have mentioned a long time ago that plain cycling can become monotonous, but here's another fact: we have now travelled over 500km without a single hill. Three times the road has inclined before declining as we pass over bridges over the train lines. THREE times in 500km we have had view of some description. I'm fairly sure that's further than the entire width of Ireland. And there's still more to go...
We arrived in Multan on Christmas Eve and have decided to spend a couple of rest days here. Our hotel is clean, has space to wash ourselves, clothes and bikes, and most importantly of all, is free from the pitter patter of tiny rat-sized feet. A Christmas (and even an entire November and December) without a single Christmas Carol is a Christmas well spent!
I hope you all had just a pleasant Christmas, and I wish you all well in the New Year.
Family we stayed with in Mian Channun
Monday, 17 December 2007
The day that had it all
Stage3: Dharamsala to Amaritsar
Day 1: 94.3km Pathonkot
Day 2: 145.7km Amritsar
I am talking of the second day. The first day was relatively nondescript; that's if you can call a 1300m descent away from snow covered peaks nondescript, which you probably can't, but it was a straightforward kind of day. It was the first time I've cycled with someone else, and it was actually quite a strange experience seeing someone else on a fully laden bike for the entire day after weeks of nothing.
No, all the fun happened on Day 2 of this short leg towards the Pakistan border. As with all great days, it started with a lie in, a solid breakfast of bananas, chocolate and biscuits; and then, shortly before 9am, we were once again on our saddles headed towards Amritsar.
It didn't take long to remember the monotony of the plains. A lack of sugarcane made this journey somewhat different from the first 2 days, but the flatness was unmistakable. We stopped for a cup of sweet tea after an hour and following a leisurely sip was back on the road.
I'd been thinking earlier how great the trip had been so far. There was only 1 road that I'd cycled along twice (2 if you count my initial foray in Delhi), every other route was unidirectional. A certain smugness had settled at the thought of the greatness of circular routes.
It took a further 2km for the thought to hit me. Where was my bag with my camera charger? I'd taken it out the previous night, but couldn't remember putting it back. I stopped, checked all my bags, but it was nowhere to be seen. I must have left it back in the hotel a full 17.5km behind! The thought of continuing certainly did cross my mind. 17.5km is no small distance on a bicycle, but 6 months of no photos seemed (at the time) worse. I bid farewell to Will and returned towards Pathonkot, arranging to meet up with him in Amritsar.
The room had no bag with my charger in it, and a black cloud descended at the realisation of a wasted trip back and yet another proof of my idiotic self for my refusal to fully empty out my panniers by the side of the road. But I was saved on my arrival downstairs to find out that yes, I had left it there. Although I should never have left it in the first place, at least my return was not in vain.
By this time it was 11.20, and the thought of 106km to Amritsar did bring images of buses and trains into the recesses of my mind. But there they stayed. Flat roads at 20km/hr resulted in 5hrs of continuous cycling. I could be there by 4.30 with no stops, and that gave me 1.5hrs to play around with before it got too dark to cycle. If worse came to the worst, I could always catch a bus the last section.
Head down, my only thought was on Amritsar. It would be a monotonous day of plain cycling. How wrong was I...
The first interesting event occurred when a motorbike in front of me crashed into a dog. The bike flipped, the rider went over, and the dog went howling into a field. I stopped to check the rider was ok. He was up right away, but my lack of Hindi restricted me somewhat, so as soon as other people turned up, I got back on my bike, turning away from the dog dragging it's two back legs behind itself in the middle of the field, and continued on my merry way.
After another 20km or so, I decided to try my hand at truck surfing. It goes like this: find a motorised vehicle going at (or slightly above) the speed you yourself are going; extend a hand (left or right depending on preference); grab hold of vehicle; coast and enjoy the scenery. The best thing about it is that it works. Tractors pulling trailers of bricks work quite well, autorickshaws don't. I figured it wasn't cheating so long as my coasting was less than the extra 35km I'd put onto my journey.
Autorickshaw drives past, driver points to side bar. Translation: "you want to hold on?". I nod yes, grab hold, driver accelerates to over 30km/hr. I think "sh@t this is fast, but in no time I'll be in Amritsar". Truck comes from other direction, autorickshaw moves left, I let go. Truck goes on, disaster averted. Driver slows, I grab hold of bar, driver accelerates. Cyclist on left (another one, not me) decides to move right to avoid pothole just has autorickshaw driver decides to move left. I get caught in middle, wheel turns, I go off road.
Only, it's not just a road, we're on a raised bank with about a 10 foot drop either side. I end up at the bottom of said bank. I don't know what happened. I remember being in the air, but I don't know if I came off the back of the bike, or if the bike rolled over me. Either way, my panniers are off my bike, my brakes are off to one side, and I'm thinking my journey is over. Nowhere in India will hold the spares for my brakes. Nowhere.
So a little frustrated I stand by the side of the road while the autorickshaw driver yabbers at me in Hindi. I think he was being apologetic, but that was all I got. I get pissed off, think a bit of brute force on my brakes would be a good thing, and what do you know? It is. Brakes return to proper location, and gears appear to work. Sorted; all I have is a little graze on my right forearm. It could have been worse.
Adrenaline took me 10km of the final 24km. With thoughts of truck surfing put to one side, I concentrated solely on my destination. Sun is getting low, dust is being thrown up, but as I enter the outskirts of the town I spot 2 red bags attached to a bike and see Will's blond head. We make our way to the accommodation at the Golden Temple.
Once again, the job's a good 'un. We should enter Pakistan tomorrow. "Should" being the definitive word.
Fuzzy Golden Temple
Oh, yeah. Forgot to mention that my little detour back to the hotel has meant that today I passed the 1000km mark on this trip. It stands at 1036.0km (by my calculation).
Saturday, 15 December 2007
The beginning of the beginning
After a hellish night bus back up from Delhi to MacLeodganj that included broken seats, windows that opened themselves throughout the night and a distinct lack of warm clothes on my front, we are now set to begin the task of cycling back that short distance to Ireland.
My bike is oiled, the breaks appear tight and my panniers are half packed (in my usual fashion). Visas are in passports, cash is in the wallet and fears of so-called extremist islamic states are put to one side. I would like to state here that the decision to continue into Pakistan and Iran is choice made entirely on my own. WaterAid, nor any of the sponsors thus far have any responsibility for anything regarding this trip.
And with that little disclaimer aside, I can say that I am excited about the next leg. Nervous, yes, but excited all the same. It should be an easy 2 days to the border, with a little stopover to see the Golden Temple in Amaritsar, then good food a go go!!
My bike is oiled, the breaks appear tight and my panniers are half packed (in my usual fashion). Visas are in passports, cash is in the wallet and fears of so-called extremist islamic states are put to one side. I would like to state here that the decision to continue into Pakistan and Iran is choice made entirely on my own. WaterAid, nor any of the sponsors thus far have any responsibility for anything regarding this trip.
And with that little disclaimer aside, I can say that I am excited about the next leg. Nervous, yes, but excited all the same. It should be an easy 2 days to the border, with a little stopover to see the Golden Temple in Amaritsar, then good food a go go!!
Friday, 14 December 2007
Passport Please?
It was a simple enough question, and one that's asked at every hotel, guest house and rest house in India. I should have been prepared for it. I was, of course, not.
It wasn't until I'd actually opened my money belt that it dawned on me that of course I didn't have my passport, it was with the friendly Iranian embassy where we'd been that morning and had handed over our vital documents to be told that we could pick them up 2 days later (this was on Wednesday). It had been a good morning - we were finally getting somewhere.
But that all changed as I was standing in the foyer of Hare Krishna Guesthouse. No passport, no room; it was as simples as that. It didn't matter that I'd stayed there 2 weeks ago. It didn't matter that the guy recognised me, and it certainly didn't matter that ALL the info from my passport was written in the book from the last time, including my passport number and expiry date of my Indian Visa. Without a receipt from the embassy (which they hadn't given me), I could not get a room. I could sleep in the foyer on some cushions, but a bed was out of the question. A quick search of my bag failed to reveal the photocopies of my documents that must be with the rest of my gear in Dharamshala.
This all happened at about 4pm, just when the consulate was shut, but with no other option (Will was staying with Indian friends on the other side of town and I hadn't got their number), I jumped into an autorickshaw to take be back to the embassy. The consulate was closed, but the main window was open. I explained exactly what a fool I was, and inquired if there was there any way I could get a receipt. I was asked to wait, so wait I did.
About 20min later, the stern yet polite man who had softly shattered our dreams of easy visa obtaination (I think I just made up that word) with the line "only 7 day Transit Visa" emerged from the Consulate. In his hand were two red passports. After a stern scolding for returning when I shouldn't have and for not having photocopies of my important documents, he told me that "you only bring trouble on yourself", and handed me the little red books with two brand-spanking new Iranian Visas.
So now we wait for the bus to take us back up North. Pick up our bikes, and in 4 days we should be in Pakistan.
So, all in all, the moral of the story is that if you want a quick visa to Iran, be an idiot. The second is to always check your bags. When I finally did get into my room and empty my bag, what was there? Photocopies of certain relevant pages from a little book.
It wasn't until I'd actually opened my money belt that it dawned on me that of course I didn't have my passport, it was with the friendly Iranian embassy where we'd been that morning and had handed over our vital documents to be told that we could pick them up 2 days later (this was on Wednesday). It had been a good morning - we were finally getting somewhere.
But that all changed as I was standing in the foyer of Hare Krishna Guesthouse. No passport, no room; it was as simples as that. It didn't matter that I'd stayed there 2 weeks ago. It didn't matter that the guy recognised me, and it certainly didn't matter that ALL the info from my passport was written in the book from the last time, including my passport number and expiry date of my Indian Visa. Without a receipt from the embassy (which they hadn't given me), I could not get a room. I could sleep in the foyer on some cushions, but a bed was out of the question. A quick search of my bag failed to reveal the photocopies of my documents that must be with the rest of my gear in Dharamshala.
This all happened at about 4pm, just when the consulate was shut, but with no other option (Will was staying with Indian friends on the other side of town and I hadn't got their number), I jumped into an autorickshaw to take be back to the embassy. The consulate was closed, but the main window was open. I explained exactly what a fool I was, and inquired if there was there any way I could get a receipt. I was asked to wait, so wait I did.
About 20min later, the stern yet polite man who had softly shattered our dreams of easy visa obtaination (I think I just made up that word) with the line "only 7 day Transit Visa" emerged from the Consulate. In his hand were two red passports. After a stern scolding for returning when I shouldn't have and for not having photocopies of my important documents, he told me that "you only bring trouble on yourself", and handed me the little red books with two brand-spanking new Iranian Visas.
So now we wait for the bus to take us back up North. Pick up our bikes, and in 4 days we should be in Pakistan.
So, all in all, the moral of the story is that if you want a quick visa to Iran, be an idiot. The second is to always check your bags. When I finally did get into my room and empty my bag, what was there? Photocopies of certain relevant pages from a little book.
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
A brief history
Stage 2: Rishekesh to Dharamsala
Day 1: 95.8km Ponta Sahib
Day 2: 85.0km Sarehan
Day 3: 54.4km Solan
Day 4: 45.5km Shimla
Day 5: 0.0km
Day 6: 84.1km Bilaspur
Day 7: 101.0km Jwalamukhi
Day 8: 70.5km Gallu (near MacLeodganj)
The story as far as Shimla has already been recounted elsewhere, and I have never been one to flog a dead horse, but the picture to right was sunrise as I left the mountain town.
The fruits of my labour seemed to appear only after I had recovered from losing my lunch through the consuption of chips and chocolate in Shimla. It would appear (from the source of all knowledge - Wikipedia) that this fine city sits comfortably at an elevation of 2130m. The source of no knowledge (me) puts the less than fine city of Bilaspur at an elevation of about 900m. This discrepency results in a whole lot of fun as I found myself (for the first time) descending more than I was ascending. I have decided that this is what cycling is all about. Good roads coupled with these fine, fine gradients all led to me arriving at quite possibly the creepiest guest house I have sejourned; where I was the only guest, the man could speak no English, and the "restaurant" could only offer 3 choices off a menu with about 60 options. Rice was not one of the available options, and I had to make to with eating my 10th chipati of the day.
Highway 88: it wasn't all like this...
An early start to escape the possibility of being murdered in my sleep led me all the 101km to Jwalamukai. Apparantly there is a famous temple here. I did not see it; I was too tired. I had planned to stop at a town 15km before Jwalamukai, but after eating an Indian desert roughly equivalent to shovelling 5 spoonfuls of Demara sugar straight into one's mouth, it was made quite clear to me by the owner of that shop that there were no Guest Houses of any description in Nadaun (the town of my choice), which was (at that stage) about 9km away. As I passed by a hotel, a guest house and a rest house, I was forced to reflect on the accuracy of Indian advice, but decided that I would strike out for Jwalamukai all the same.
Then the fun began:
70.5km in 6hrs 40min resulted in the incredibly respectable average of 10.6km/hr.
Though before people start to think that all those banana pancakes have finally caught up with me, I would like to state that I crossed the 650m elevation TWICE, ending up at the reasonably respectable elevation of just over 2000m. From start to finish I must have risen over 1400m in the day. This included being chased up steep inclines by mangy dogs and swearing quitely through gritted teeth at tourists who rather than moving out of my way on steep sections, decided they would stand and gawp instead.
Having found nowhere inspiring to stay in MacLeodGanj, or the adjacent Bhagsue, I decided to continue up the steep road for a further 4km to where Lyon (a friend from Raleigh) was working. It was here that I ended up staying; away from civilisation and internet. It is for this reason that this update was so long coming, and indirectly why it is also so shit; all this happened several days ago.
Get with the times.
View from Eagle's Nest, up top
Day 1: 95.8km Ponta Sahib
Day 2: 85.0km Sarehan
Day 3: 54.4km Solan
Day 4: 45.5km Shimla
Day 5: 0.0km
Day 6: 84.1km Bilaspur
Day 7: 101.0km Jwalamukhi
Day 8: 70.5km Gallu (near MacLeodganj)
The story as far as Shimla has already been recounted elsewhere, and I have never been one to flog a dead horse, but the picture to right was sunrise as I left the mountain town.
The fruits of my labour seemed to appear only after I had recovered from losing my lunch through the consuption of chips and chocolate in Shimla. It would appear (from the source of all knowledge - Wikipedia) that this fine city sits comfortably at an elevation of 2130m. The source of no knowledge (me) puts the less than fine city of Bilaspur at an elevation of about 900m. This discrepency results in a whole lot of fun as I found myself (for the first time) descending more than I was ascending. I have decided that this is what cycling is all about. Good roads coupled with these fine, fine gradients all led to me arriving at quite possibly the creepiest guest house I have sejourned; where I was the only guest, the man could speak no English, and the "restaurant" could only offer 3 choices off a menu with about 60 options. Rice was not one of the available options, and I had to make to with eating my 10th chipati of the day.
Highway 88: it wasn't all like this...
An early start to escape the possibility of being murdered in my sleep led me all the 101km to Jwalamukai. Apparantly there is a famous temple here. I did not see it; I was too tired. I had planned to stop at a town 15km before Jwalamukai, but after eating an Indian desert roughly equivalent to shovelling 5 spoonfuls of Demara sugar straight into one's mouth, it was made quite clear to me by the owner of that shop that there were no Guest Houses of any description in Nadaun (the town of my choice), which was (at that stage) about 9km away. As I passed by a hotel, a guest house and a rest house, I was forced to reflect on the accuracy of Indian advice, but decided that I would strike out for Jwalamukai all the same.
Then the fun began:
70.5km in 6hrs 40min resulted in the incredibly respectable average of 10.6km/hr.
Though before people start to think that all those banana pancakes have finally caught up with me, I would like to state that I crossed the 650m elevation TWICE, ending up at the reasonably respectable elevation of just over 2000m. From start to finish I must have risen over 1400m in the day. This included being chased up steep inclines by mangy dogs and swearing quitely through gritted teeth at tourists who rather than moving out of my way on steep sections, decided they would stand and gawp instead.
Having found nowhere inspiring to stay in MacLeodGanj, or the adjacent Bhagsue, I decided to continue up the steep road for a further 4km to where Lyon (a friend from Raleigh) was working. It was here that I ended up staying; away from civilisation and internet. It is for this reason that this update was so long coming, and indirectly why it is also so shit; all this happened several days ago.
Get with the times.
View from Eagle's Nest, up top
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
5.5km/hr
What is faster?
Buses
Trucks
Jeeps
Cars
Motorbikes
Scooters
Dogs (normal)
What is slower?
People walking
Dogs (3-legged)
Cows
5.5km/hr was a sustained speed up much of the inclines on my journey so far. It was steep, the road was broken (a "potholed road" does not give justice to its description - it was impossible to find flat sections on either side to cycle across and each little bump is like a hand pushing you back, or a finger tugging at your top), and I have been puking (I was more interested in ensuring that the liquer the guest house owner was offering me wasn't meths and didn't register him topping it up with water). Below is the classy joint I was staying in. Note the fact that there is no pipe connecting the cistern to the hole in the ground. There is also nothing under the sink, as I discovered after pouring some water down there. You can't see, but the pillow cases are of Minnie Mouse. I think it gives the whole place a homely feeling. All for the bargain price of Rps125 (a little over 2 euro).
Though the highlight was heating the water for a "shower" (in India, this means bucket). Wires straight in socket (who needs plugs?); cracked wire casing (who's scared of a bit of electricity); wires in water. Though at least a full risk assessment was conducted, and a wooden stick was used to insert and remove the wires from the bucket. This nifty method took just 10 short minutes to change water from freezing cold, to nicely toasty.
Am now in Shimla trying to recouperate after emptying my stomach contents by the side of the road 10km back. After two days of trying to push on on a nearly empty stomach (yesterday I did 55km on bad roads with just 1 samosa and 2 banannas!) I decided to cut the day short and try and eat some bland, bland continental food.
Though there is some good news. Have found out that our bid for Iranian Visas was a resounding success. PTA has come up trumps. All we've got to do is pay the fellows...
ps Let me know if the video's working. It worked in the preview, but doesn't seem to now it's been posted!
Buses
Trucks
Jeeps
Cars
Motorbikes
Scooters
Dogs (normal)
What is slower?
People walking
Dogs (3-legged)
Cows
5.5km/hr was a sustained speed up much of the inclines on my journey so far. It was steep, the road was broken (a "potholed road" does not give justice to its description - it was impossible to find flat sections on either side to cycle across and each little bump is like a hand pushing you back, or a finger tugging at your top), and I have been puking (I was more interested in ensuring that the liquer the guest house owner was offering me wasn't meths and didn't register him topping it up with water). Below is the classy joint I was staying in. Note the fact that there is no pipe connecting the cistern to the hole in the ground. There is also nothing under the sink, as I discovered after pouring some water down there. You can't see, but the pillow cases are of Minnie Mouse. I think it gives the whole place a homely feeling. All for the bargain price of Rps125 (a little over 2 euro).
Though the highlight was heating the water for a "shower" (in India, this means bucket). Wires straight in socket (who needs plugs?); cracked wire casing (who's scared of a bit of electricity); wires in water. Though at least a full risk assessment was conducted, and a wooden stick was used to insert and remove the wires from the bucket. This nifty method took just 10 short minutes to change water from freezing cold, to nicely toasty.
Am now in Shimla trying to recouperate after emptying my stomach contents by the side of the road 10km back. After two days of trying to push on on a nearly empty stomach (yesterday I did 55km on bad roads with just 1 samosa and 2 banannas!) I decided to cut the day short and try and eat some bland, bland continental food.
Though there is some good news. Have found out that our bid for Iranian Visas was a resounding success. PTA has come up trumps. All we've got to do is pay the fellows...
ps Let me know if the video's working. It worked in the preview, but doesn't seem to now it's been posted!
Saturday, 1 December 2007
Carlsberg don't do internet...
But if they did, they sure as hell wouldn't own a subsidary company called Tata Internet. Anyone who has been to India will know that Tata are taking over the world. They're into everything from trucks, to tea, to t'internet (sorry). They're also shit at about everything they do. Think "Alba", then times it by 16, add 7 and you're about there. It reminds me back in the day when we all had dial up connections (which is actually what this is, at a whopping 230Kbps. I don't know what it means, but I know it's slow). So don't be expecting any updates on GoogleMaps, I'm going nowhere near that beauty.
Monkeys scare me what with their human characteristics, intense stares, incredibly sharp teeth and countless diseases, and unfortunately today I had to cycle past many troupes such as the one above. It's a bit blurry because I refused to stop in front of them, opening up possibilities for attack; but as it happens these monkeys were about as scared of me as I was of them!
I had decided that a week of stretching and 9 days of eating chocolate banana pancakes was sufficient and that it was time to move on. So at 7am this morning, I left the comfortable surroundings of Laxman Jhula and started (for the first time) heading West.
I had been lulled into a slightly false sense of security with the large distance I'd covered on the completely flat plains, and it didn't take long to notice the difference. Hills tend to slow me down, but after the first couple of hours, I found myself on flat ground once again. However, a combination of laziness and a suspected cold coming on made me stop after just 95km in a random town called Paonta Sahib. There's not much apart from an apparently famous Sikh temple of which I have only seen the outside.
I plan to rest up before tomorrow which promises to be a hard day. My give-up attitude results in an extra 40km of plain cycling being tagged onto my journey tomorrow before the joy of the hills start once again.
And a note on the cold. It's possible it's just something I picked up, or it's possible it has arisen from me pouring warm salt water into my nose before stuffing a rubber tube up there and removing it through my mouth. It's meant to be a cleansing ritual - I beg to differ.
Monkeys scare me what with their human characteristics, intense stares, incredibly sharp teeth and countless diseases, and unfortunately today I had to cycle past many troupes such as the one above. It's a bit blurry because I refused to stop in front of them, opening up possibilities for attack; but as it happens these monkeys were about as scared of me as I was of them!
I had decided that a week of stretching and 9 days of eating chocolate banana pancakes was sufficient and that it was time to move on. So at 7am this morning, I left the comfortable surroundings of Laxman Jhula and started (for the first time) heading West.
I had been lulled into a slightly false sense of security with the large distance I'd covered on the completely flat plains, and it didn't take long to notice the difference. Hills tend to slow me down, but after the first couple of hours, I found myself on flat ground once again. However, a combination of laziness and a suspected cold coming on made me stop after just 95km in a random town called Paonta Sahib. There's not much apart from an apparently famous Sikh temple of which I have only seen the outside.
I plan to rest up before tomorrow which promises to be a hard day. My give-up attitude results in an extra 40km of plain cycling being tagged onto my journey tomorrow before the joy of the hills start once again.
And a note on the cold. It's possible it's just something I picked up, or it's possible it has arisen from me pouring warm salt water into my nose before stuffing a rubber tube up there and removing it through my mouth. It's meant to be a cleansing ritual - I beg to differ.
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