What a difference a day, ( along with some mature reflection and so many positive comments) can make. Yes. Last night was the classical case of emotional meltdown! I’m totally overwhelmed by your responses to my predicament and am pleased to tell you that your comments, likes and shares have redoubled my commitment to finish this thing! Many of the comments make me out to be some kind of hero. I don’t feel especially heroic but nevertheless these comments have worked wonders for my confidence. I spent an hour or two this morning worrying about the fallout from my drunken post but when I saw your comments I realised that with so many people behind me, I just cannot stop and need to finish what I started. There were several comments made which suggested stopping for a rest but this was a grim town and I knew that staying here wouldn’t help and that powering on was my best option. I hope to reach Kolkata in a weeks time and will take a break when I get there. Cycling today was difficult as the temperature has risen sharply here in India after the monsoon. It was over 40 degrees for most of the afternoon and even the locals were sheltering in the shade. I was almost grateful for the headwind which cooled me down but made progress slower. I’m also hampered by my cracked rib which prevents me from exerting maximum power. However I managed to cover 140k and got to my destination well before darkness fell. The road today was much better than what I’ve been cycling on for the past few days and it looks like I’ll be back on the highway as I head to Nagpur, 160k away tomorrow. Nagpur is a big city, famous for orange growing and happens to be right in the centre of India, which means of course that by tomorrow evening, if all goes well, I’ll be half way across India! You’ll also be happy to know that I’ll be drinking plenty of orange juice there.
An epic day in the saddle and it’s been a while since I could say that! Today for the first time since I left Kazakhstan, I managed to cover the 160 km target and really enjoyed the journey. It was really warm when I left the hotel and after an excellent breakfast and the usual round of photos and interviews, I was on the road eastwards by 9.00am and in good spirits. It was really warm again and by midday temperatures had reached 40 degrees. There was a strong headwind and it was difficult to maintain 20 km per hour but the road was good and I made good progress.
At this point, with my emotional breakdown behind me I was keen to reach my target, Naigpur about 160 k to the east. At about lunchtime it got really dark and within minutes it was bucketing down and I had to rush for shelter. After lunch the temperature dropped and I was able to forget about my ribs and just power on. The headwind which had plagued me for the past few days suddenly disappeared and I was able to do 25 k per hour until I reached my destination. Unfortunately the rain had soaked my shorts and I had a bad saddle sore after a few km but it didn’t stop me. I checked into the, by now familiar grotty hotel and had a good dinner. I’ve been thinking a lot about my motivation for doing this trip. I’ve read all your messages of support and advice and am in a very positive frame of mind but I think I need a bit of time on my own to fully absorb the experience and reflect on where to go from here. I know that many of you look forward to my posts but I believe that now is the time for me to be really alone! For this reason I’m going to maintain radio silence for a while. I’ll continue to jot down my thoughts and will post again in due course. Many thanks for your continued support.
100 Days on the Road
Yes, today is Day 100! Of these hundred days I’ve actually been cycling for 82 and have covered a total distance of 11,255 km, almost a third of the way around the world. I haven’t posted in three days but I’ve recorded the events of each day so here’s the ‘omnibus ‘ edition…. Day 98. Jungle Book. The landscape through which I’m traveling has been changing gradually over the past few days. The open fields and farmland have been replaced by jungle. The final 50 k of today’s cycle was on a really good road which formed a corridor through dense undergrowth and towering trees. It seems that I’m passing through one of India’s national parks where population density is much lower, there’s less pollution and much of the landscape is verdant green jungle. The wildlife is amazing! Today I saw the most wonderfully plumaged birds hanging from the trees. I saw several species of snakes, some dead and some very much alive on the roadside. Brightly coloured butterflies were sipping water from pools on the roadside, which was littered with the bodies of enormous frogs. Troops of monkeys were feeding in the jungle clearings and one really big monkey flew a huge distance just over my head, scaring the daylights out of me. There was a chattering and a chirping and a myriad of all sorts of other animal noises coming from the jungle. I found out later that panthers and other wild cats are quite common in this area but that they generally keep away from the road. Still I’m glad I’m not camping! The cycling was great again today and I had no problem covering the 150 k target. I was delighted to pass the 11,000k mark and to see a road sign which read ‘Kolkata:999k.’ Temperatures remain high, hovering on 40 degrees, but there’s a gentle breeze blowing and the trees provide some shade. The dreaded saddle sores have returned and are really painful. I’ve tried all the usual tricks, -changing saddle position, applying sudocream and spinning for long distances but nothing seems to have worked. I’ll just have to grin and bear it until I can rest in Kolkata. The hotel I’m staying in is of the grotty variety but the staff are very helpful and the food is exceptionally good and very cheap. I had a huge feast of fried rice with meat and vegetarian dishes for three euros. I treated myself to a beer too, as I’ve been abstinent for the past few evenings. It was worth waiting for! Tomorrow it’s back into the jungle for another 150k to a big city called Raipur where apparently there are lots of tigers! Does anyone know the drill for tiger encounters?
Day 99 A Facebook Holiday
What a weird and wonderful thing is Facebook and I guess all of the other social media platforms that we’re all using. Before this trip I have to admit that I was an ardent social media cynic. I hated seeing people addicted to their profiles, likes and shares. I saw so many young lives ruined by the plague of cyber bullying and I vowed never to be involved in what I saw as the most unsocial forms of human interaction. Now I’m thousands of miles away from my friends and family. I don’t change SIM cards when I move from county to county so my only access to communication with the word outside of my own little bubble is through wifi in bars and restaurants and the weird and wonderful Facebook. Many adventurers have performed heroic acts of endurance both in the past and recent times without access to social media. The result has often been amazing factual accounts, travelogues, and novels, hundreds of which I’ve enjoyed reading over many years. I’ve had many adventures myself in the past and didn’t feel compelled to tell the world about them. For whatever reason, this trip was different and right from the off, I took time out every evening when I had access to wifi to post on Facebook and I took plenty of photos and video to upload when I was ready. The result of my regular posting has taken me by surprise. It was shocking to be getting so many likes, comments, shares and friend requests. It all came to a head a few days ago when, I found myself dealing with hundreds of private messages, all of them positive and well meaning but totally overwhelming and I knew that I couldn’t possibly answer them all, which left me feeling guilty and emotionally drained. That is why I decided to go on a Facebook holiday for a while- and what an amazing holiday it’s been. I’m no longer concerned about what I have to write, who I have to reply to. I’m still jotting down my thoughts each evening as I find that therapeutic but am really enjoying the privilege of keeping them to myself for the moment. I’ll know when I feel it’s right to post again. Today was another great day’s cycling. Over 160kn and feeling super strong all day, despite very heavy monsoon showers, – which have exacerbated my saddle sores and to make matters worse there was a strong headwind all day. The first 50k was through dense jungle which was amazing with so much wildlife and beautiful landscapes. The rest of the day was spent in the terrain that I’ve become accustomed to in India and the last 50k was especially difficult through a conurbation of dirty little towns in chaotic traffic. I was delighted to reach Raipur and found a lovely hotel. The manager brought me in his scooter to another hotel to get beer as his bar was closed and treated me to a wonderful meal. It seems that a succession of articles in local press have turned me into a minor celebrity here and I’m treated like royalty in all of the hotels I visit. It’s going to be another long day tomorrow will more monsoon showers in the forecast. I have set a challenging target of getting to Kolkata in another 6 days of all day cycling. It sounds tough but targets such as this keep me focused . I can’t wait to get to Kolkata and exchange stories with other adventurers there.
Day 100 Finding my way in the dark
There was a particularly scary start and end to today’s cycle. I had a late start as the hotel manager had arranged a newspaper interview and the reporter was late . This kind of thing really annoys me as I knew that my destination was over 160 k away and a late start would mean finishing in the dark. Thankfully it was a little cooler when I eventually got going. I thought that traffic out of town would be light, given that this was a Sunday morning but if anything, it seemed more chaotic than usual. Schools, banks and public buildings were closed but it seemed that half the population of India was on the move. Raipur is a considerably large town with a poor road network. At one busy junction where, as usual there were no traffic lights and the familiar chaotic free for all ensued, with horns beeping and drivers yelling at each other. A bus was edging closer to me as the driver tried to weave his way through. I had to swerve to avoid being run down and ploughed straight into two teenage girls in bright yellow saris who were crossing. Both of them were floored but I managed to stay upright, got Karolina off the road and went their assistance. Both of them had some grazes and one seemed to have a sprained wrist. The usual crowd of curious onlookers soon gathered but dispersed quickly when the girls dusted themselves down and made no fuss. They knew that they were in the wrong as technically pedestrians are not supposed to cross at these junctions and the episode didn’t seem to have bothered them much. I was far more shaken but at least nobody was seriously injured. I lost my nerve for a while after this incident and as a result was far too cautious, which is actually worse than being reckless in this kind of traffic. By the time I got out of the city, it was 11.00am and I was nearly two hours behind schedule. The road surface was excellent and there was hardly any wind so I made good progress for the first 50 k section. After my morning break, the landscape changed again. There were some long ascents and soon I was cycling through a valley in an upland range of rocky mountains. There were several posters on the roadside with pictures of bears, panthers and tigers so I pedalled as fast as I could. I took a really short lunch break after 100k and as soon as I was cycling again there was an exceptionally heavy shower which soaked me to the skin and made my saddle sores really sore! Then just before 6.00pm, almost as quick as the flashes of lightning which were lighting up the sky, everything went completely black and I still had a great 20k to go. There were no other hotels on this road and I had no choice other than to plough on into the darkness. Fortunately my bicycle lights were charged and the road surface was good but nevertheless it was a scary hour, made worse by the number of pedestrians, cyclists and even motorists who were traveling towards me on the wrong side of the road, many without any lights at all. Eventually I reached the town and found a nice cheap and for once clean hotel where I’m enjoying my nightcap to celebrate the first 100 days.
Oooaghoaagh!
No! I know what you’re thinking, – Dermo’s back on the whiskey…… It’s not true because that my friends….that, was actually my Tarzan impersonation….When I was a boy, way back then, the superheroes of my peers were Batman and Robin, maybe Pele or John Lennon but mine was Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, -not the Disneyesque Phil Collins version but the equally inaccurate but hugely romantic Johnny Weissmuller thing which was kinda popular way back then. I actually chose Tarzan as my confirmation name! Why bring back something which may seem so insignificant? Because today, I was brought back, with a sudden jolt to my childhood. I was cycling into an upland region and struggling in the heat and on bad roads. I wasn’t too happy as I’d made an uncharacteristic navigational error and had to backtrack for 10k or so. A fairly big range of mountains appeared ahead of me and as I hadn’t done much climbing for some time, I wasn’t too happy. However, as I began ascending, the temperature dropped and the open farmland was replaced by lush verdant jungle. Everywhere around me there was a tumultuous orchestra of animal noises, impossible to describe. Howling, chirping, screeching. It was all there! Every so often there were roadside signs saying ‘ Slow Down, Animals Crossing’. I’d seen many of these before and naturally took no notice. Then, on a steep descent, I rounded a corner and WTF! …. A herd of elephants was crossing not 10 meters from me as I hurtled down the road. My brakes were good and I was able to stop before hitting them but they heard the screech and the F***! !!!!!!! as I skidded to a halt. There were probably about 10 of them, much smaller and squatter than the giants of the African plains but seeing them here, smelling them, hearing their wildness like this, so suddenly and so unexpectedly is something which will be etched in my memory until the day I die. The elephants took little notice of me and ambled on, just like India, leaving me breathless, heart thumping and full of joy. For a few brief seconds I was transported back to my childhood and I was Tarzan! True, there was no Jane and I was in the wrong continent but details like that didn’t matter. …..I was Tarzan! It took a while for me to recover from the elephant encounter but my soul was elevated to the highest plain you could imagine and I ploughed on through the dense jungle, monkeys swinging from the branches around me and the treetops full of birds, butterflies and unfathomable beauty. Then to cap, what may be the most memorable day of Gogodermo, I’ve found a real gem as my destination. I’ve seen very little of “colonial India’ . Most of the buildings are modern , ugly and shabby. But the Jasmine Hotel on the outskirts of a small town called Barakot, about 450 k from Kolkata is an exception to the rule. It’s so full of the last days of the Raj….. -Think ‘Grand Marigold Hotel’-marble staircase, shuttered windows, verandas and courtyard , etc….but also the quintessential India, no electricity, no beer!!!! squat toilet, only one item on the menu,- a suspiciously dodgy chow mein, but what the heck, today I was Tarzan and that’s all that matters! Tomorrow I’ve been invited to partake in a sort of Hindu baptism in a holy river before I depart. Sacraments are not my thing but these days my mind is open to everything!
