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Friday, January 3rd - Moga to Sangrur, 15,749 km
It's another fine day in India. It's quite cool in the mornings here. We have to wear our cycling tights until the air warms up. We have had another relatively early start, around 9:30, which is good because we have a hundred kilometres to cover today. Our route today is still totally flat and the roads quite straight for the most part. The scenery is green field, rows of hedges and scrubs and the occasional irrigation canal. Within minutes, we are smoothly rolling along, watching the world around us unfold as it should.
Other than a village called Buttar twelve kilometres beyond Moga, there are no other settlements we pass through this morning. I much prefer the green countryside landscapes to the dusty, dirty chaos of Indian traffic in towns and cities. We stop at a roadside restaurant for lunch, which looks like one of those farmer's produce kiosks one can see by the highways in Ontario during harvest times, but these kiosks have large stainless steel stewing pots lined up along a serving bar with different types of food. The proprietor lifts each lid to show us what is inside. We have already learned the Indian word for cooked vegetables - "subsee". Cooked vegetarian food is probably the safest here. With saffron rice and potatoes, it gives us all the energy we need. There are macramé divans made of hemp under the filtered shade of palm trees where we lounge, Roman-style, to eat our meal.
I have noticed a strange phenomenon here. Most of the trees only have a fringe of green on their upper extremities. It has taken me until now to figure out why. The locals use wood for fuel. Instead of cutting down trees, they just trim the branches leaving behind only the hardest to reach. But once this morning, while gliding along in a semi-trance I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, a tree that was totally green. I didn't give it much thought until I was right beside it when I got this creepy feeling that I was been watched. And it was true. The tree was cropped like any other but its remaining branches were filled with perhaps 200 of more green parrots watching the world from their vantage point. I did a double take. This could only happen in India.
In the afternoon there are more trucks speeding by us, but nothing too threatening. There are the slower moving cotton trucks with their ridiculously swollen loads bulging over the sides and the faster trucks weaving back and forth across the road. I am used to it. The traffic is picking up as we near the town of Barnala, which we reach around 2pm. We pause there for another break.
During our break we encounter a holy man on a pilgrimage, a follower of the Jain religion. He wears the saffron and orange robes of a monk and carries with him a staff and small pail for handouts of yogurt and milk people offer him along his way. I have noticed how most people in India will let you take their picture. They do not try to smile or pose but just stay still to let you take them as they are.
From Barnala, there is an hour and a half of riding to reach Sangrur, today's destination.
Sangrur is approximately 80 km south of the city of Ludhiana. It is another non-descript, dusty town, full of life and more noise than any Canadian town its size would have. There are vendors on the sidewalks and edges of the street, rickshaws belching black smoke and cows wandering around like they own the place. Frank guards our bikes while go into a small hotel to negotiate a room with two beds. The people here are always friendly and helpful, though usually only the well-educated speak English fluently. Our room is cheap and clean, the way we like it.
Frank is frustrated because another spoke has broken on his rear wheel. It is only 4pm when we arrive so I wash up and wait for his to finish replacing the spoke. When he is done and showered, we find a small restaurant that makes us a great curried dinner. I take a risk and order the lamb, since beef is out of the question here.
PHOTO 1: main irrigation canal
PHOTO 2: small street in Sarhali Kalan
PHOTO 3: Jain holy man on a pilgrimage
PHOTO 4: temple in Sangrur at night
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