Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006
To: touring@phred.org
From: "Michael Ayers" <michael@terminalia.org>
Subject: Nitwits, colors, and Incomparable places in Northern India
Namaskaar Phreds,
I must admit that I really had no idea what to expect from touring in India. Everyone is probably familiar with most of the important aspects of that diverse land; thousands of years of civilization during which numerous empires and kingdoms rose and fell, center of the Hindu world but with many people who practice Islam and other faiths, a frequent target for invasions from near and far all of which were eventually either repelled or absorbed, and a rather rough time of things during much of the 20th century. These days we often hear it described with superlatives such as "world's largest democracy" or "fastest growing economy." So would I be traveling through a place reminiscent of the land of Kipling, or a place where car-encased commuters wait in traffic jams on their way to call-center jobs? More likely, it seemed to me, that there would be a little of each of these facets, and others as well, found over the various distinct regions of this large land.
With that in mind, my route through India will see me enter and exit the country no less than five times, starting in the north and later heading south, though that part of the tour is currently a little unsure. The first of these visits was a simple one day whirlwind crossing of the entire country between Bangladesh and Bhutan, which was just long enough for me to sit at immigration all morning and then get lost on the way to Bhutan. This post deals with the next two visits, beginning at the completion of the Bhutan tour, and heading west through the northern part of the country.
With my special permit to leave Bhutan at its eastern end, I entered India at a rather disorganized border crossing. With all the red tape involved in entering and passing through Bhutan, their border authorities were surprisingly nonchalant about letting me leave, not even bothering to stamp my passport. On the Indian side, things were not much more orderly. The border town of Darranga was just a small bazaar, with no banks or other services that I needed at the time. Even more confusing was that the tiny immigration station was at least 6 km from the actual border, with no easily visible sign to indicate where it was. I think that the officers there were rather glad to see me as I was told that they only have 7 or 8 "customers" each month.
Once through, I needed to find a place to get some cash, as I only had a small amount of Bhutanese script left. I was in the northeastern state of Assam, a section of India that has been dealing with a long-running separatist rebellion. It seemed to me that Assam was a little neglected in terms of infrastructure and community services relative to the other parts of India I've seen so far. However, I can't say whether that is a cause or an effect of the political problems there. In many ways the area was similar to Bangladesh, which is not all that surprising since before the partition of India, Bangladesh and the Indian areas to its north and west were part of the culturally distinct, and often politically independent, region of Bengal. After the tranquility of Bhutan, riding in India again hit me like a ton of bricks. I was back among the speeding, horn-blowing trucks and busses on the narrow roads and crowds of staring eyes along their edges. Feeling a little worn out from the last few days in the mountains, I was planning on taking a day off wherever I could find an enjoyable place to do so. However, since I desperately needed an ATM, which are scarce in Assam, I continued south to Guwahati, the state capital. I had not wanted to go there, as it is a rather large, congested city, but at that point I had no choice. It was a long, and tiring, half day ride over flat terrain to get there, and once I arrived I was too tired to spend just the afternoon there and stayed for the next day as well. That was not quite my idea of an ideal place to take a rest break, but it may have been for the best as on the second day a big wind arrived and blew up enough dust from the bed of the nearby Brahmaputra River to practically obscure the city. Guwahati was my first experience with a large city in India and in many ways it is just as you might expect, hectic, noisy, and somewhat pungent, with a large subculture of street people. In contrast to their counterparts in the U.S., those folks do not interact, nor beg from, passersby, including visiting foreigners, but quietly go on about their unpleasant lives on the sidewalk. What I also learned was that the best time to explore a city in India is just after sunset, when activity of the street drops to a fraction of its daytime levels, but many of the shops are still open. It was fun to stroll along the street that was lined with numerous shops selling brightly-colored sarees.
After leaving the city, there were a considerable amount of very rough road surfaces to negotiate, still with a lot of traffic, which made for a couple of very tedious days. One other thing that puzzled me was an unusual stretch of "dry" towns. As the days grew warmer, I developed a real thirst for something cold and a little more flavorful than water. I investigated a few towns along the main highway and there was not a beverage of any kind to be seen. Not a bottle of juice, soda, or even milk. I asked around somewhat and only received confusing replies. I really couldn't understand that, as there were plenty of shops selling all kinds of products, but not a drop to drink. I have never seen anything to compare with that even in some of the very remote places I've toured through. There was a little bit of bottled water available, mostly for sale at the pharmacies. I suppose, from a certain point of view, clean water is a medical product.
After a little while, the roads and services improved a little and on the next morning I was pleased to be making good progress. That was until the following bizarre encounter occurred. After a couple of hours of morning riding that day, I decided to stop for a quick snack. There were a number of small shops along the highway and I chose one specifically because there was a cement bus stop shelter out front that looked like a decent place to hide for a while to escape the usual crowds of staring onlookers. That only worked for a few minutes, so I gobbled up my food and got ready to continue the ride. However, I had neglected to notice that right next to the shop was the district police headquarters. With its ongoing conflict, there is a sizeable military and police presence in Assam. Just moments before I was about to ride off, a uniform-clad man, looking to be a little younger than I am, walked up and started a conversation. At first it was the usual questions; "where are you from?", "what is your good name?", "are you married?", "where are you going?" I answered as politely as I could given that I'd been asked most of those hundreds of times before. Then the officer said that I should come inside with him as there was some "procedures and paperwork" to take care of. Uneasy at the thought of that, as I really wanted to take advantage of the nice morning and cover a lot of ground, I went with him anyway as I had heard that at one point foreigners needed special permission to visit parts of Assam, due to the conflict there. At first things seemed normal. He wrote down, in a scruffy paper notebook, most of the usual information, my name, address, parent's name, passport number, occupation (I always lie for that one and say "teacher"--although I did teach a few summer classes over 10 years ago, so it's only a little lie). A that point, things took a turn to the strange.
The next question was, "what is your motivation for coming here?" I answered truthfully and said "tourism". That brought out a painful grimace in my inquisitor as if to express, "No, no, that's not right!" This exchange was repeated a few times and I searched for some variation of tourism that would be more acceptable, but to no avail. I suppose I could have said that I really didn't especially want to come to Assam at all, but as it was the only way to get from Bhutan to the rest of India, I had no choice. At that stage, confident that I had done nothing wrong and had all the proper documents, I should have just gotten up, walked out, and continued on my way. Of course I didn't, as my first instinct in such a situation is to be as cooperative as possible. I'm going to have to work on changing that behavior. This continued on for several minutes during which time the man apologized several times for his poor English skills.
Then I was told that I was about to receive some free advice that would help me avoid future troubles along the way. What I needed to do, so I was told, was to make a big sign, which would be hung on my bicycle, and which would state my motivations for my trip. This should be some combination of; Anti-Violence, Anti-Corruption, Child Prostitution, or Anti-Drugs. If I did that, I would have no problems at any future police checkpoints. He must have thought that this was very worthwhile advice, as he repeated it perhaps 20 times over the next hour, however he never put the "Anti-" prefix onto Child Prostitution, so I wasn't really sure whether I should be opposed to, or in favor of, that particular cause.
It was becoming clear that I was in the midst of a social encounter, not an official one. So, I replied that the sign was a really good idea, and that I would make one right away. I hoped that would get me off the hook, but, alas, no. He then said that he wanted to show me something, and lead me outside towards a small collection of traditional thatch and bamboo buildings. Along the way he asked where my home was in America, and when I replied that most recently it was in California, he said that it was his dream to visit there, and sang a few bars of Hotel California. I thought that there might be some sign-making facilities in the small buildings, but I was told that he wanted to show me how common people lived in Assam. I declined to point out that that these homes were not very different from those I've seen in literally hundreds of other places. Inside, I was seated at a simple wooden table and given a little dish of spiced chick peas and a glass of the local distilled beverage, which is made from rice. Not really wanting either of those items, I nonetheless politely sampled a little of each. The drink felt as if it were close to 180 proof. The policeman sat down, with a similar glass, and told me several more times that I should make the sign for my bike. Once I had forced down most of the drink, I said that I was going to go now and get started making it. He had nothing of that, and in spite of my protests, had the lady of the house fill up my glass again. I sensed the possibility that a drinking contest, as in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" might soon develop. Such an event I would most certainly lose, given my state of slight dehydration, and my usual tee-totaling status. So I discreetly avoided consuming much more.
Not able to break out of the conversation, I began to sense that my companion was not pleased in any way in being assigned to Assam, and that the whole encounter was meant to impress upon me that no one in their right mind would want to come there. Well, I was already there, and if I could only get moving again, I would be into the next state in a couple of hours in any case. Next, I was told that the fellow was "The Don" of the local area, and was asked who The Don of California was. Not having any family or friends in the Mob (that I know of,) I said that I had no idea. He continued asking, which lead to the following exchange;
"Michael, who is The Don of California?"
"Well, I suppose that would be Arnold Schwarzenegger,"
"Ah yes, Kindergarten Cop!"
"Right, and The Terminator,"
"Yes, yes, number 1 and 2."
Followed by a bit of a pause.
Sensing an opportunity, I started to stand up, saying again that I was going to go off and make my sign, and it seemed that this time I was going to break free. I offered my hand to shake his, but apparently his right hand had recently been banged up in some sort of fisticuffs, and I squeezed it a little too hard. That caused him to jerk his arm back quickly, and in the process he spilled his glass of rice liquor, predictably, directly onto the crotch of his pants. Surprisingly, he did not seem nearly as bothered by that as I assumed he would be, which was a good thing. However, I then felt obligated to a few more minutes of pointless conversation. During that time he asked if I could help him get to California, as it had always been his dream to go there. I replied that I would do what I could, but I sensed that he could tell that I didn't really mean it.
Shortly, I made another effort to get up to go make my sign. This time I was finally more successful, largely thanks to another policeman who had come in and was sniping at my host in Hindi, perhaps for wasting time and not doing anything useful. However, I was not quite done yet. The other officer was apparently also saying that I needed to go and speak with the superintendent. Fine. I walked over to the office, followed by my host who started to sing Hotel California again. Inside, I sat down in the waiting room for my turn to meet the boss. My new "friend" told me that I should not appear to be afraid, or I would get locked up. I nodded, but wanted to say that fear was the last emotion I was feeling at the time.
The superintendent was an older man who spoke English well. He began with the usual questions; my name, my parent's names (why do they always ask that?), was my visa valid, etc. At this point my thoughts were "Sheesh, here we go again!" Then he asked if his officer had given me any trouble. I calculated that the response most likely to get me out of there quickly, was "thanks for asking, but everything was fine." He said that he was pleased, but wanted to be sure, because the policeman in questions was a drunkard. Wow, what a surprise! With that I was excused, and, armed with a pardon from the superintendent (the true Don?) I dashed out and was back on the bike within a few seconds.
During the rest of the day I passed many checkpoints. In every case the soldiers and officers smiled and waved as I went by. Not one seemed to be concerned that I was not displaying a sign advocating Child Prostitution. The moral of the story is that if you ever stop to rest next to a police station, be sure that the local equivalent of Barney Fife is not on duty at the time.
Before much longer I crossed into the next state, West Bengal, over a border which seemed more like an international port, with huge queues of trucks lined up on each side waiting for inspection. In West Bengal, conditions slowly improved with better roads and just slightly less traffic. Once reaching the areas where large Tea plantations filled the countryside things actually became rather relaxing. The tea gardens were rather attractive at this time of the year with their hectares of leafy shrubs grown thickly along the rolling hills and trimmed flat across the top at waist height. Fresh, green spring growth and the larger trees grown at intervals across the garden to provide shade enhanced the scene. After a couple of days in such areas, I approached my next destination, the old British hill station of Darjeeling.
Famous for its tea of the same name, Darjeeling is perched high on a mountaintop at the southern edge of the Himalaya. So it would be another, albeit brief, ride up into that range for me. After covering most of West Bengal fairly quickly, I thought that I would have a relaxing time of the climb on one morning and then rest in town that afternoon and all of the following day. Ha. From where I started that morning it was a mere 60 km to town after a climb of 2,100 meters. I naively assumed that most of that gain would be spread along the entire length. Ha, again. Almost all of the climb occurred over a short section at the center of the route, and it was crazy stupid steep. Over just 14 km there was a 1,600-meter gain, for an average grade of 11%, and I have to say it felt even steeper than that. Indeed, some sections were, probably well above 20%, and I can admit to walking over several short stretches, which is pretty rare for me. I suppose I should have anticipated the state of the climb since the highway there is call Old Hill Cart Road, being the original horse cart path used by the British when they founded the town in the 19th century. Consequently, it was early evening by the time I had arrived and settled down in town.
Darjeeling was not really what I expected at all. It looks nothing like a British town, but more like a typical Indian city that folds along the steep hilltop. It is also has a rather regional feel, with large Nepali and Tibetan communities. In spite of the fact that I had a few chores to take care of, and that the town was typically noisy and hectic, I found my short stay rather rejuvenating. The one bit of sightseeing that I had time for was to take a short ride on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, the original narrow-gauge steam train built by the British to bring passengers up from the plains below. The railroad is now a World Heritage Site, but is still used by locals as a means of transport. It was a pleasant little ride at that.
The next day was the descent to the south, on the other road out of town, back down to the plains. Portions of that route were as narrow, winding, and as steep as the climb had been, making me glad that I have very good brakes. Once in the lowlands again, the most direct route to my next destinations in north-central India would be through southeastern Nepal. For clarity purposes, I'll skip that section until a future post. Several days later, I re-entered India at the main Indo-Nepal border crossing at Sonauli. Arriving just at sunset, the large border towns were hectic and jam-packed with waiting trucks and buses. I crossed that night, which might not have been best since the better shops and places to stay were on the Nepali side.
From there, my next destination was Agra, site of some of India's most famous landmarks, located just to the southeast of the capital, New Delhi. It would have been much easier from a routing perspective to visit Agra later on, but I needed to kill some time in order to delay my tour into Tibet for a few weeks until better weather arrived there, so I would do Agra now, not later.
This section started off rather well as somehow a large fraction of the traffic that was crowded around the border seemed to vanish as I headed south. The road was good as well, and the surrounding countryside was leafy and green, which I always appreciate. The first major town I came to was Gorakhpur, a hectic market town. As I entered town, weaving through the crowd of trucks, rickshaws, and people, someone tossed a bucket full of blue-colored water at me. It just missed, only staining my panniers a bit. Little did I know that was a precursor of things to come. Another thing that I first noticed in Gorakhpur was the phenomenon of urban cows. I have long heard that cows have free run through Indian cities, being most revered animals, but I wasn't sure if they still roamed around in these modern times. They do, and actually seem to like it, often hanging, out or even sleeping, in the most noisy and seemingly dangerous places, such as traffic roundabouts. What I don't understand I'd what these creatures subsist on. I am used to seeing cows munch away in some pasture all day long, but with everything paved over in the city there isn't a blade of grass to be found anywhere. I suppose that they can find enough nutrition from the garbage left lying around in the evenings, which must be the case as they all appear to be plump and well-fed.
It was a bit farther to Agra than I expected as my map of northeastern India cut off a few hundred kms east of the city. As I had a hotel reservation in Agra, and a looming deadline to return to Nepal later on, that meant a couple of rather long days, with some good roads and some bad, some heavy traffic and some light, some decent meals and some sparse ones. Overall, I managed fairly well, but there were still about 170 km left to go on the day which I hoped to arrive. I started out early, as usual, but it was not long before I realized that this would not be a usual day. That day was the Holi Festival, the Indian festival of colors, held every year on the full moon just before the first day of spring. The celebrations mark the coming of spring and involve a most peculiar custom, whereby people throw loads of bright-colored paint (thankfully, water-based) on each other, though sometimes they skip the water altogether and just toss a handful of the powdered pigments. Ever since my narrow escape in Gorakhpur, I had noticed street vendors selling pigments, piled up in separate heaps of pink, green, blue, and yellow, as well as various types of delivery devices, squirt guns, buckets, and so on. That day was when in all got put to use, and there were numerous people now stained vivid shades of pink or green from head to toe, walking about the villages and towns. And guess who suddenly became everyone's favorite target?
With a long ride left that day, and a room at an upscale Agra hotel awaiting me, I can say that I was not thrilled at the prospect of changing color that day. So I did my best to keep a low profile. That worked for a while, with only a few splashes of color hitting their target, but by late morning I started to lose ground. The driver of a passing truck got me in the head with a glassful of pink, and from then on there were occasional packs of teenaged celebrants waiting in ambush across the width of the highway. Though I tried several approaches to avoiding their bombardment, their well-practiced aim was rather good and they usually got me, at least a little. Once the initial damage was done I got into the spirit of things a little and just took what I got. Of course it was all completely unfair as I had no paint of my own with which to retaliate, so I could only receive and not give back.
However, as the day wore on, with still a good distance left to ride, some of the teenage boys in the string of small towns along the highway got a little out of hand. Though I tried to indicate as best I could that I'd had enough color for one day they didn't get the message. When some of them began hanging onto the back of my bike to slow me down in order to get a better shot, the normally mild-mannered and non-violent me began to lose his temper. In fact when one youth tossed a bucket full of mud, which smelled of sewage, on me, apparently an acceptable substitute once you've run out of paint, I nearly lost control completely. Had I not been apprehensive about leaving my bike behind, I was prepared to chase him down and extract a rather aggressive and painful revenge, which would have been a first for me. Eventually, as the highway approached the city and widened, there were no more incidents to deal with, but by then I was a real rainbow. Fortunately, the staff at the hotel did not think that I was all that unusual as I checked in, set to spend the rest of the evening wringing out my clothes.
Agra, of course, contains many impressive and historic places, three of which are World Heritage Sites, which I visited. Those include Fatehpur Sikri, a one-time capital city of the Moghul Empire, built by Akbar the Great over 12 years in the 16th century, but abandoned after only four years due to a poor water supply, and Agra Fort, built later in the 16th century to protect the new capital in Agra. Both of these are fascinating and beautiful places filled with amazing examples of masonry and stone carving. But, of course, it is the stunning Taj Mahal that steals the show. So often famous buildings don't quite live up to their hype, but in the case of the Taj, the hype doesn't do it justice. It is indeed one of the world's most beautiful buildings, and in contrast to many structures, that beauty it more apparent the closer you get to the building itself, with its incredible inlaid marble decorations.
What struck me after seeing these places is that there are so few modern structures that can compare with these centuries-old buildings in terms of aesthetics and craftsmanship. Even the interior passageways of Agra Fort are lined with decorative stone carvings, each carved by hand. So much of what was built around the world during the 20th century were purpose-built structures, most revolving around commerce, with little regard for creating a beautiful place. Nowhere is that more apparent than in India where virtually all of the buildings built during that time were plain to say the least. With little incentive to maintain such places, most are literally falling down around their occupants. Agra has probably the most vivid examples of beauty juxtaposed with plainness of anywhere on Earth.
The last segment of this section was a return to Nepal crossing once again at the Sonauli border point. However, for the second time now, with a travel deadline approaching, I managed to consume some foul food while eating at one or two of the supposedly better-quality tourist-oriented restaurants while in Agra. That hit me again, just as I was set to leave, causing me to stay an extra, expensive, day there and to severely tighten my schedule to get back to Nepal on time. I did my best to ride back the whole way, but with my energy levels at rock-bottom I was falling too far behind and so I had to skip forward a little via rail. Normally I would hate to do that, but as I had ridden through the same general area jus a week before, I didn't mind too much. Also, I am a bit of a train fan, and I've been considering experiencing a short train trip on a "classic" style train somewhere along the way. In this case it worked out rather well, giving me an extra day for rest and recovery and making up for lost time. It was a pretty interesting experience as well, once I managed to dodge the cows walking around the inside of the station and find the right train to board. It was even four hours behind schedule, which made me feel like I was back at home on Amtrak. Eventually, I arrived back in Nepal just about when I needed to be there.
There will be another short section in that country, but the next post will be after Tibet. Until then.
Dhanyavad,
Mike
--
The Tour of Gondwana
May 02005 - Oct 02007
http://www.terminalia.org/tour
Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006
To: touring@phred.org
From: “Michael Ayers” <michael@terminalia.org>
Subject: Gondwana - Early Inferno in Eastern India
Kemitee Choo Phreds,
A new route led me through my fourth visit to India, albeit a fairly short one.
First, though, is the very good news that I now have BOTH of my remaining ocean crossings, on container ships, booked and paid for. The bad news is that none of the four ports involved are the ones that I had hoped for. That means that some major route realignment is in store. Some of that has already occurred here in Asia, a little will be needed in S. America (which may turn out to be a good thing), but Africa will need some serious reworking on both ends. That’s going to be a real challenge, since I’ve also been intending on adding some new countries to the route there. I’ll have to work out something, I suppose, and that may involve the painful process of eliminating sections of the planned route. On the other hand, by a truly amazing coincidence, both of the anticipated sailing dates fall on EXACTLY the dates that I had penciled in as the most ideal dates to depart. That’s not such a big deal for the forthcoming Indian Ocean crossing, but it is for the South Atlantic crossing. There are only one or two passenger-carrying ships working that route and they sail a crazy loop from East Asia to South Africa, South America, and back, so there is only one westward departure from Africa about every three months. I got really lucky, then, that there is a sailing in mid-November, just when I needed one.
The change in ports here in India did require some big changes in my route at the last minute, though I was not particularly disappointed by that. My original plan was to ride all the way to the southern end of India, transfer to Sri Lanka, and end the Asian Stage there. However, though there is one ship a week sailing from Colombo to Kenya, none take passengers at this time. Strike One. For my back-up plan, I had learned that a new passenger ferry/cruise ship was about to begin a weekly service between Cochin, on the southwest coast of India to Dubai. So, I thought I would go to Sri Lanka a little earlier, transfer back to southeastern India, do a short section to the opposite coast, sail to Dubai, and then work out some way to get to Africa from there. Of course, though that ship has been supposed to start sailing “any day now” since last November, the service still has not begun. Strike two.
The only option left is a ship that sails from Mumbai and on to the Mid-East, North Africa, and beyond. I will take that one, and while departing from Mumbai is fine, and actually preferable in some ways, there is a hugely annoying issue about where I’ll be able to get off the ship. Hopefully, I’ll be able to resolve that somehow, though I doubt it. In any case the end of that crossing is going to involve a certain amount of flying (Boooo!!). The only question is how long (and how costly) that will be.
In order to get to Mumbai on time, I needed to shorten my next section through India by a few days. That was not as easy as I had hoped, as I still wanted to get over to Sri Lanka, and see as much as I could of southern India. I had hoped to ride down through the center of the country and see the famous ruins at Kajuraho, another World Heritage Site, but that would have made for too long a route. Since I also needed to get to an appropriate place from which to depart for Sri Lanka, I decided to head towards the southeast, and the coast of the Bay of Bengal, through the states of Bihar, Jharhkand, and Orissa, ending at the city of Bubaneshwar. There I could start the transfer to Sri Lanka, though that would be a much longer transit than I had hoped. On the plus side, this route would let me visit two World Heritage Sites, and a two-for-one trade seemed like a good deal.
The first part of the ride ended up being a lot more difficult than I had wanted, for one reason or another. After the last, tough, day in Nepal, and crossing the border at Raxaul, I had a half day left to get as far into India as I could. Unfortunately, the highway south from the border was an absolute disaster, rough and rocky, which took me by surprise as it was supposedly a major trade route. I had hoped that I had left all of the lousy roads behind for the rest of the way, but no. To make matters worse, I stopped twice, to fix a flat and to fiddle with my chain, and somehow after one of those stops I set off riding back in the direction from which I came, too brainless to realize the mistake for a considerably long time. Eventually, after being straightened out by some local townsfolk, I was heading the right way again, but that meant I had to ride over the same nightmarish stretch of highway three times. After the road finally smoothed out, two days of strong headwinds took over, stirred up by a typhoon churning out in the Bay of Bengal (which ended up hitting Myanmar). And the most difficult of all was the weather. The local forecasts kept mentioning that the “pre-monsoon heat was building,” but to my mind it had already arrived. Only five days earlier I was trudging through deep snow in Tibet, but now I was withering in 41C heat. The rapid change really took it out of me and the heat felt much more draining than it had in Australia. Fortunately, in contrast to Oz, there were plenty of places to get water and drinks along the way as this part of India is just slightly more populated than the Outback. With all of that, my pace had dropped off quite a bit, and I was a little behind schedule when I reached the first major place that I wanted to see, after passing through the towns of Muzaffarpur, Patna, and Gaya.
That was the Mahabodi Temple, the place where Buddha attained enlightenment, and one of the most sacred temples in the Buddhist world. Being only 16 km south of Gaya, where I spent the previous evening, in the town of Bodh Gaya, I arrived reasonably early in the day. I had planned on only making a short visit and then continuing on. However, while the small town was crowded, it seemed friendly enough with numerous tourist services, and the temple was among the most attractive I’d seen lately, surrounded by beautiful gardens and trees. So, after having a quick snack, I was about to go see the temple and then ride on, when one of those “I think I’ll just stay here today” thoughts came over me. The previous week, or so, had been fairly rough, and once I got a place to stay, cleaned up, and rested for a while, I knew it was good idea to take a day off, even if it made me run late. In the afternoon, I was able to see the temple at a relaxing pace. The main tower was pretty impressive, but more interesting were the grounds, which contained numerous places with historic relevance, such as, “Buddha walked up and down this path for six days while meditating,” as well as the famous Bodhi Tree under which, according to the story, he was sitting when he obtained enlightenment. It is a pretty tree indeed, but it seemed surprisingly small to me for a 2,600 year-old tree. Another note about the temple was that all of its walkways were made from smooth marble, and like most temples in Asia, it was a No-Shoes site. In the blazing 42C sunshine, the walkways were so blisteringly hot that I had to sprint between whatever tiny shady places were available in order to avoid burning my soles. No one else seemed to be affected by this. Indian people must have very strong feet.
After the day off I felt a little refreshed when I set off again. South of Bodh Gaya, there were some nice conditions but a few rough places. Shortly I entered the state of Jharhkand, and I noticed a change in the human presence there. In the earlier states I had been through, Assam, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar, the population density was as high as 900 per square kilometer, which, when you think about it, is really a lot. Now I was into a region where it was only 200-300 per square kilometer, and the difference was quite apparent, with occasional patches of forests or other open spaces. South of Ranchi my route crossed the Eastern Ghats, a low mountain range which appeared more like a hilly plateau. However, they were high enough to be rather green and leafy, and the shade thus provided made the heat seem much less oppressive. Moreover, the road through that section, right from the start and for the entire day was one of the best in India, smooth and quiet.
Paradoxically, the next day, in the state of Orissa, the road, right from the start and for the entire day, was a complete disaster again. It seemed likely to me that the terrible condition of the highway may have been a result of the super-typhoon that blasted Orissa several years ago. Then the next day the roads were good again, right from the start and for the whole day. Funny how that happens sometimes. Of course, due to stopping in Bodh Gaya, and the slow pace I set on the previous day, I was well behind, and with strong headwinds, I did not get as far as I needed to easily see the last place I wanted to visit and still make my transfer south.
I had an afternoon flight from Bubaneshwar, but I wanted to see the Sun Temple at Konarka 65 km to the east, and right on the coast. There wasn’t time to ride out and back before the flight, so I took a taxi out to the see the temple instead. It was a pretty impressive building, somewhat different from others in India. Built as a giant stone pyramid-shaped chariot pulled by a team if 12 stone horses, it was covered with finely-detailed carvings and topped with large statues of the morning, mid-day, and evening Sun Gods. Unfortunately, parts of the temple were in fairly bad shape and, in fact, the interior had been sealed up in stone by the British in the 19th century. In the end, I made my flight on time, and was on my way to the next country, ready for a change of scene. Orissa, looked nice to me, and it would have been nice to be able to tour around there a little more.
Danna Waat,
Mike
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The Tour of Gondwana
May 02005 - Oct 02007
http://www.terminalia.org/tour
Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006
To: touring@phred.org
From: "Michael Ayers" <michael@terminalia.org>
Subject: Gondwana - Stage 2 Complete!
Hello Phreds!
Whew, that was a tough one!
But I'm here in Mumbai, India at the end of the Stage 2, the tour of Asia.
Total cycling distance in Asia: 17,587 km;
Period: 199 days;
12 countries;
And a rather impressive count of 27 World Heritage Sites along the way.
Unfortunately, I've been rather negligent in writing the posts for the most recent three sections, so I'm afraid, I'm a little out of date.
I was hoping to do them tonight, but my eyelids feel as heavy as my load of gear right now, and there's not a chance that will happen before I board the M.V. London Senator tomorrow morning, for an (annoyingly) complex transfer to Africa.
At least I'll have plenty of time to finish them while at sea. That is, if I can avoid the rather appealing prospect of sleeping steady for a few weeks. We'll see, I suppose. Hopefully there will be a bonanza of somewhat-interesting stories pouring onto the list next month.
Until the next continent...
Cheers,
Mike
P.S. A note of thanks to list member Sujay, for all of his help and advice on India over the past year!
--
The Tour of Gondwana
May 02005 - Oct 02007
http://www.terminalia.org/tour
Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 (delayed)
To: touring@phred.org
From: “Michael Ayers” <michael@terminalia.org>
Subject: Gondwana - Slowly Inching across Southern India,
Vaanga Phreds,
At times it seemed so far away, but the final section of Stage 2 was upon me in Southern India, however, once again it was a route I made up at the last minute.
With my sailing now booked from Mumbai, about two weeks after my return from Sri Lanka, I had to come up with a new plan to get there. However, I didn’t want to short-change southern India, and just take the fastest route, as there are many places in the area that I really wanted to see. On the other hand, the thought of going slowly, with my tired legs and sick bike, was also appealing. In the end, my desire to see as much as possible won out and I plotted a route which was fairly long, and would not allow any slack in my performance. As it turned out, I didn’t quite make it, for more reasons than one. The plan was to head south from Chennai, where I arrived after flying back from Sri Lanka, for about a half day, then turn inland. Following that would be a rather winding course across the peninsula to encounter the east coast and the Arabian Sea at the small state of Goa. There I would turn north and ride straight up the coast to Mumbai, hopefully arriving a few days before I was due to sail.
In a big boost to my plans, the touring conditions were the best of any region I visited in India, and by a wide margin. With the exception of a couple of fairly short rough sections, the roads were consistently in good shape, and better yet, traffic was a notch lighter and a little calmer than in other places. Good food was more readily available at both shops and restaurants, and ATM’s were relatively abundant, though I didn’t need one during my ride. Good-value, mid-range accommodations were common in most moderate sized towns, which was good for me as I has about had my fill of basic places for a while. In fact, there were enough opens spaces occasionally found along the route, which could have made good camping spots, though because of timing, I didn’t really take advantage of them. And, thankfully, during the first part of the route, at least, the weather was good, noticeably cooler than my previous ride in India, but with a couple days of stiff headwinds. All of this helped me out quite a bit, though my slow pace caused by my ailing bike made it seem like a tough section in any case.
Along the way, I had the chance to see four World Heritage Sites, and then two more in Mumbai. Mamallapuram, south of Chennai along a stretch of coastline, which was hit by the tsunami in ‘04 that appears rather barren, is a large area of rocky hills in which temples were carved ages ago, with elaborate reliefs of a distinct style. In the center of the peninsula were the sites of Hampi, which is a huge collection of ruins from an ancient city of the Vijayanagar Kingdom, and Pattadakal, which has several ancient temples built in an “experimental Dravidian style”. The last site were the old Portuguese Churches in Goa, which I found to be surprisingly large and elaborate. These were a nice set of places to visit, and it made the change to the route seem more palatable to me.
The section of the route across the peninsula took me over the Deccan Plateau, one of the oldest landscapes in India. Crossing the eastern Ghats to get there was not a big deal as in the south the range is rather insignificant. Once up onto the plateau proper, which actual blended seamlessly in appearance with the hills to the east, I instantly noticed a distinct similarity with parts of central and western Australia. The landscape consisted of fairly low, widely-spaced, and heavily weathered granite hills, which often appeared more like big piles of giant boulders. The area was not exactly like Australia, however, as the flora and fauna, at least what still remains, was completely different, the rocks were missing the characteristic red stain from a high iron content seen in Oz, and, of course, the human presence was considerably greater. Nevertheless, it was great to be able to easily see such a clear relationship between two large Gondwanan fragments.
Of course, nothing ever works perfectly, and with two days to go before reaching Goa, the pre-monsoon heat, which had turned into the pre-monsoon winds, then became the actual monsoon rains. This year they arrived 10 days earlier than expected, and if they had been on schedule I would have been fine. Instead, the heavy showers which hit that day, of course coinciding with one of the sections of gravel road along the way, were the straw that broke the back of my poor bike. Another dose of wet, gritty sand completely wore down what was left of my drivetrain, which had bore the brunt of all the lousy roads in Asia, and had been the source of my slow pace in recent weeks. The next day, when I expected to finish the section to Goa, the bike was almost unrideable. In fact, I needed to catch a train to get to Goa.
With no end in sight to the heavy rain, now falling all the way up to Mumbai, and a bike that was not up to the task, I was forced to end the Stage in Goa, and once again skip the last 3 or 4 days of my original route. That was incredibly annoying, just as it was in Stage 1 (though for different reasons,) especially as it necessitated another transfer up to Mumbai, but faced with the prospect of missing my ship, it was the only sensible choice. Actually, Goa was probably a better place to end, as its capital, Panaji, was a much smaller and calmer place.
So that was that, once again the end was a little anticlimactic, and then a little hectic as I rushed to catch my ship. However, as a whole the Asia tour was a great experience. Hard in some places that I didn’t expect and others that I did, but with fascinating culture around every corner. It was a tour that I am quite happy with, the achievements in the mountains, the places I saw that were far off the normal tourist circuit, the occasional plate of delicious food, and the literally tens of thousands of people I encountered, essentially all of whom were incredibly hospitable and friendly towards me. I hope Africa turns out as well!
Namaste!
Mike
--
The Tour of Gondwana
May 02005 - Oct 02007
http://www.terminalia.org/tour