Highway's End

20 years ago today – Day 331

2012-01-28T08:29:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Tuesday, January 28th – Mumbai

I have had the most wonderful night's sleep. I really needed it. I wake to the honking and shouting that is common fare on the streets of India. It is so exciting to be in Mumbai as close to the end of my endless trip. It is hard to believe I have made it this far. I am the first one in the shower as Frank is still only half awake.

We go for breakfast at the Leopold Restaurant in the neighbourhood. It is an interesting place, a good place to lounge and people watch. Besides the backpacker crowd, the restaurant is a popular place for Saudis and other Middle East types. The streets here remind me of New York but with less tension. There is a constant commotion, even at night, and so many things happening at once.

After breakfast, Frank and I walk to the jetty at the south end of Colaba Causeway and back up to Marine Drive at Back Bay. He wants to check Poste Restante at the main post office again and then tour the Prince of Wales Museum. I am in a mellow space and want to stay outside in the semi-fresh sea air, so I go my own way to keep walking.

I end up at the pier of the Gateway of India again, in front of the massive Taj Mahal Hotel. The pier is alive with activity. There are tourists and backpackers walking around and several merchants with their wares set up on the ground in front of them. It seems that everything is for sale here: soaps, clothing, tools, toys and books. I talk with a couple backpackers from England and the US. They tell me that most items here are counterfeit, including brand names like 'Camay'. The packaging has been carefully recreated but there is a good chance that the contents don't resemble the original. I sniff a bar of soap while the merchant regards me nervously. It should be perfumed but it isn't.

There was an article in an English newspaper I read at the restaurant this morning, about responses from foreigners solicited about products manufactured in India. The people interviewed had lots of reservations about Indian goods, saying that they cannot be depended upon. It is the quality that is the problem. With clothing, it is not the cloth but the thread that is the problem. I have learned this already. My lovely Rajasthan pants with colourful embroidery and pieces of mirror on the cuffs are already falling apart as the thread breaks. Also, often the dyes are not set and they run when washed. So I don't buy any clothing. I buy a novel instead, assuming I cannot go wrong with that.

I stop by one vendor who is chatting with a cute backpacker with a lovely, welcoming smile. I greet them both as soon learn the older man is not a vendor, but a sage of some sort. He has a spiritual, balanced energy that enthralls me. The cute backpacker moves on, which is fine because the sage has captured my interest. He asks me about my life in Canada and what I have learned from my travels. I answer him honestly that I am still to close to my experiences to analyze them yet, that I am still trying to figure that out. I love how his questions and responses seem so free of judgment. We chat about many things for as hour or so and I feel invigorated by our talk.

I thank him for his time and generosity and leave the pier. I walk through the Taj Mahal on the way back to my hotel. The main floor has mall with a wide variety of shops. I stop into a pharmacy to look for hair bleach. Again, as in Udaipur, I can only find small tubs of bleaching cream that Indian women use to bleach their mustaches. I buy a tub and take it back to my room.

My first attempt to beach my hair is not very satisfying. I left it on for 15 minutes but that isn't enough. The short hair on the sides of my head are now brown but the longer hair on top of my head has a disturbing burgundy tone and it's not very even in colour. I walk back to the pharmacy, more self-conscious than ever about my hair colour, and buy another tub. I want to complete a second bleaching before Frank returns.

The second bleaching evens out much of the colour, but the sides are now a dark blond, the back of my head (according to Frank) is now a light blond and the top of my head is now a medium brown with a hint of purple it in, just enough to look weird. I don't want to try again as my hair is already feeling fried. It looks better than the black, but definitely not natural.

Frank is kind enough to say it looks better, but I get the sense he is just trying to be unjustifiably nice. I can use a little of that now so I don't object. When the time comes we head out for dinner again, choosing a different restaurant this time, but one just as fine as last night. Mumbai is full of restaurants so it is hard to choose one. When we return to our room after dinner, I settle down to read the novel I purchased on the pier. It is a good one and I am quickly engrossed, but at page 29 it suddenly changes to a different story by some other author. I feel disappointed, because I have been duped again. I wouldn't care it was a second hand book, or one that has been copied, but obviously Indian counterfeiters have no interest in developing a repeat clientele.

PHOTO 1: Taj Mahal Palace Hotel
PHOTO 2: Bombay Municipal Building

20 years ago today – Day 330

2012-01-27T07:29:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Monday, January 27th – arrive in Mumbai

The bus rolls into the Long Distance Mumbai Bus Depot early in the morning, when Monday rush hour is in full swing. I am groggy and bleary eyed and so ready to sleep but life doesn’t work that way when you need it to. Frank and I load up our bikes and try to figure out where we are. Our guide book shows we are on Boman Behram Marg, quite near the YMCA International Guest House. But it is still several kilometres for the core, and we down want to ride in Mumbai traffic every time we need to go somewhere.

The guide suggests the cheapest hotels are in a strip called the Colaba Causeway, right in the city centre beside the Gateway of India, the most famous landmark in Mumbai. We ride south until we reach Back Bay, a semi-circular bay between Malabar Hill to the west and the southern point of Mumbai to the east, which is Colaba Causeway. It is just to the behind the Taj Mahal Intercontinental Hotel.

We follow Marine Drive east, around the shore of the bay. It is a scenic route, obviously designed by the British. At the end of the drive, we are only a kilometre away from the Causeway, which is on the opposite side of the peninsula. There are a myriad of cheap hotels in the Causeway, but it is good that we are here early because they fill up fast. The one we choose is the Carlton, which has reasonably priced rooms and the rooms and hallways are cleaner than the first one we looked at. It is immediately behind the Taj Mahal Hotel and only 200 m from the Gateway of India.

I am so dead tired after my shower that I go straight to bed. Frank does too, but when I wake up around 2 pm he has already slipped out. I decided to head out and do my errands. The consist of visiting the Tourist Office, which is in Churchgate, a kilometre north and closer to Back Bay. Streets in the Causeway are a calm chaos but near Churchgate they are all broad avenues. The tourist office is open and busy. The staff are efficient and show me a host of brochures. I only want a local map with more detail than my guide book, and they have them.

Churchgate used to be one of the gates of the city before the walls were torn down in the middle of the last century. Now it is know for its huge train station, the second largest in the city. It stands impressively high for a train station. I presume, until I see the sign, that it is a cathedral, perhaps responsible for giving the neighbourhood its name.

The largest and most famous station is the Victoria Terminus Railway Station, back on the east side of the peninsula but further north. It’s a fifteen minute walk from the Tourist Office. I head there because the main post office is across from the station, and I am hoping I will have some mail waiting for me. I haven’t received any main since Istanbul.

But I am disappointed again. I suppose everyone thinks I will be home soon enough anyway, but other than speaking to my parents I haven’t heard from any of my friends in months. Perhaps my mail was returned too early, or lost or stolen.

I walk back south past the old Custom House, the majestic Town Hall, the tiny St Andrews Church and the Prince of Wales Museum, the latter being one of the splendid buildings in the core. From in front of the museum I can see the Gateway of India, a heavy basalt structure that was built in 1911 for George V and Queen Mary’s visit. It sits at the end of an expansive dock that is full of activity. But I am too tired to take any more in. I make it back to the hotel and return to my bed.

Frank wakes me up when he comes in an hour later. He has been to the tourist office too, as well as the post office and has done some banking. He is hungry and ready to go eat. I pull myself together and we head out. We find one called the Apsara, which specializes in Indian and Chinese food. It is delicious, but with a meal in my belly I am more tired than ever. Frank is too so we stroll back to our room. We are both in bed by 9 pm.

PHOTO 1: in the Colaba Causeway
PHOTO 2: Churchgate Station
PHOTO 3: Victoria Terminus Railway Station
PHOTO 4: Prince of Wales Museum
PHOTO 5: the Gateway of India
PHOTO 6: Taj Mahal Hotel/Palace in front of Colaba Causeway

20 years ago today – Day 329

2012-01-26T07:19:00.001-08:00

View Larger Map

Sunday , January 26th – Udaipur, catch bus to Mumbai

It is sunny and cool this morning as I take a walk Frank before we stop for breakfast. We first walk to the base of City Palace and to its intimidatingly high walls, with its many turrets crowned with pagoda-styled observation posts that look like gazebos. It is so massive. We follow the base of the walls down to the lake, and from there we follow the lake shore for a kilometre, circling the lake in a clockwise direction.

It’s a lovely Sunday morning, perfect for a walk along the shore. At first, there is a haze or smog that hanging over the valley that keeps the city in shadows. By the time we are across the lake from the City Palace the morning sun is high enough now to light up its walls with a golden glow. The distance mountains to the south still have a layer of mist along their base, but the Lake Palace stands out clearly in front of them. The island it sits on is completely consumed by the palace, so the buildings seems to float on the surface of the lake. From what I can see, it seems to be a shallow lake. We pass several women washing clothes at one of the lakeside ghats, dressed in their colourful Indian saris. This place is so beautiful.

We cut back into the city streets that slope up from the lake to reach the bus depot. We find the ticket booth and learn that there is a bus leaving at 4 pm for Mumbai. It will arrive around 8:30 tomorrow morning. After purchasing our tickets we wander back into the centre of the city looking for a place to have breakfast.

I dread this coming bus trip. It already sounds like an ordeal. I realize that I am resisting leaving Udaipur so soon, and even resisting ending my trip, as tired as I am or traveling. I won’t be able to deny that it’s the end of the trip once I have arrived in the city I will be flying home from, even if it’s still almost three weeks away. We walk back to our hotel and complete our check out, leaving our bikes and bags there until later this afternoon.

Frank is anxious to see about his rear wheel so we search together to find the address of the bike shop that Edward told us about last night. It takes us half an hour. By the time we get there it is already noon. One of the mechanics is familiar with Western mountain bikes. He tells Frank that the spokes are too tight and that is why they are breaking. He shows him how much looser the front ones are.

Finally knowing why the spokes of his rear wheel have been breaking puts Frank in a jovial mood. We return to the hotel and they let him work on his bike on the rear patio. He doesn’t need my help so I set off looking for a pharmacy. The manager of the hotel points me towards the nearest one. It turns out to be very small and doesn’t have any hair bleach except for small tubs of bleach cream used by Indian women to bleach their moustaches. I search around for other pharmacies but only find one. It too has nothing else. The proprietor looks at me very puzzled. He has never heard of hair bleach for men. I decide to wait and look in stores in Mumbai, which should be better stocked and more international. Now that we have check out of our hotel I have no place to bleach my hair here anyway.

Frank has almost finished truing his wheel by the time I return. I watch wrap it up and then we load up our bikes and head to the bus depot to be there an hour early. We see the bus to Mumbai sitting in one of the bays and walk over to it. It is a modern one with air conditioning, which is a great relief to both of us. The driver tells us we are too early and recommends we wait inside the station for half an hour. We follow his instructions but when we return at the prescribed time, he tells us it is full.

He says not to worry because a back up bus has been ordered. It pulls up five minutes later, creaking and shuddering as come to a stop. It is an old one terrible condition, undoubtedly without air conditioning or suspension. Frank goes to the first driver and complains that he has not saved a seat for us when we were first and we returned when he told us to, but the driver says there is nothing he can do now that the seats are all taken.

The one consolation is that our bus is only half full. At least until we get to Ahmedabad three hours later. From that point on it is packed and dark as the bus driver hurtles our bus along the highway with dangerous aggression. On Indian highways, metre-high concrete barriers separate the lanes on curves so drivers like ours won’t try to pass on blind corners. No doubt they would if not. One often reads about buses colliding head on in India, killing and maiming most of the passengers as well as the drivers.

There are also speed bumps of all the highways to discourage drivers from speeding, but they speed anyway. Before I boarded I had visions of leaning my head on one of Frank’s ample and firm shoulders as I snoozed, but there is no chance of dozing off. Each time we hit a speed bump at 60 miles/hr I am almost thrown out of my seat. I have to brace my arms against the seat in front of me most of the trip, until they are sore from doing so. I am sure even Frank would prefer enduring my head on his shoulder instead.

PHOTO 1: at the base of City Palace
PHOTO 2: Lake Palace on its island
PHOTO 3: City Palace from across the lake
PHOTO 4: women doing laundry a the cleaning ghat

20 years ago today – Day 328

2012-01-25T07:33:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Saturday, January 25th – Ranakpur to Udaipur, 17,021 km

The ride to Udaipur begins at 9:30, after Frank and I have finished with breakfast. Our quiet route south is Hwy 32, which climbs and falls through small, isolated valleys in the rocky Aravalli Mountains. There are a few climbs but mostly, after the first hour, the road begins to drop as we leave the mountains.

This is real rural India without any tourists. We pass through a few small villages or hamlets, none of which are identified on my map. The locals are farmers, eeking out a existence. We see women carrying loads of straw and at one place where we stop for a break we watch a team of oxen being used to pump water out of a well to irrigate a small field. We never see men working here, only women. That would drive me crazy because I like to work, but the culture here is very different.

The land is quite dry in the hills, though there are always some trees and grass. The lower we drop the warmer it gets and the more vegetation we see. In some places at the higher levels the road is dirt, but not for extended periods. Frank and I are both enjoying this day with its hazy sunshine and comfortable temperature. Hwy 32 takes us half of the way through the day and the traffic remains quite light it entire length.

Around noon we merge with Hwy 76 and the story changes. This route takes us the final 45 km into the city of Udaipur, still dropping much of the way. It is increasingly busy with trucks and buses the closer we come to the city. I cross the 17,000 km mark of my trip less than half an hour before we arrive at the edge of the city.

There are some wonderful views of the city as we drop into it in the late afternoon sun. They are swallowed up by the narrow, congested city streets a few minutes later, but not before we realize we are arriving into a very special setting.

Udaipur is built on hills around a small lake named Pichola, which sounds strangely Italian. It is the commercial of south Rajasthan, just as Jaipur is the centre of northern Rajasthan. It is a city of palaces, a seat of government for local maharajas for a couple hundred years. There is a huge complex of palaces called City Palace, which were added on to again and again by successive maharajas. It looks like a giant fortress. It is very high and must have an impressive view over the lake. I capture a shot of it in the afternoon sun.

A couple of palaces have been turned into hotels. Udaipur has two of India’s five-star hotels, which is impressive considering the city only has about 150,000 people. I like it better than Jaipur because it is smaller, greener and less dusty. It is not as flat either, which makes it more scenic.

Udaipur is the end point of our Rajasthan trip. From here, to get to Mumbai, there is only one direct and very busy route south to Ahmedabad, a huge city almost the size of Delhi, and from there down the west coast of India to Mumbai. It would take two weeks to reach there and it would not likely be pleasant cycling with all the traffic. We will catch a bus to Mumbai tomorrow, which will probably take a full day. From there we will try to arrange transport to Goa, before returning to Mumbai. There won’t be much cycling left before I fly home to Canada.

We first spend half an hour of valuable time as the day is waning, searching for the international youth hostel. We eventually find it on the outskirts of town, but it is full. But our search has not been a total waste of time. We meet another cyclist staying there, a rather glum fellow named Edward, who has a tear in his front tire. He has inner tube patches but has not been able to find any patches strong enough to patch a tire at the bike store in town. I have tire patches so I give him two. Now that I am near the end of my trip I don’t think I will need them. He is thrilled and gives Frank the address of the bike store where he can check out why his rear spokes keep breaking.

There’s not much light left so we check the Lonely Planet Guide to find a cheap hotel. We chose the Lakeside Hotel, right in the city, on a sloping street close to but not right on the lakeside as it suggests. The prices have risen significantly since it was listed in the guide, but the management is friendly, the rooms are not dorms, it has room for our bikes and it is central to everything, which the youth hostel at the top of the hill definitely was not.

We find a restaurant a few doors away from our hotel and enjoy a great meal while we discuss tomorrow’s plans. At the hotel, there is a brochure about the motor launch that takes visitors to Lake Palace, the five-star hotel situated on an island in the lake. It has a breakfast buffet with 230 different food items for the equivalent of $30. We muse over whether we want to do this to celebrate the end of our Rajasthan adventure, but a day’s worth of food generally costs us no more than $2. Neither of us like hanging around the type of high-end tourists that would attract.

We also discuss touring the sprawling City Palace, which would take at least a couple hours. We may not have enough time. In the morning we will check out the bus schedules for Mumbai to figure out what we can do here. Neither of us want to leave before tomorrow afternoon. We want to have time to check out the city sights, at least briefly. Frank wants to find the bike store and I want to find a pharmacy where I can buy some hair bleach.

PHOTO 1: hills south of Ranakpur
PHOTO 2: oxen used to pump water
PHOTO 3: woman carrying straw
PHOTO 4: local transport
PHOTO 5: coming into Udaipur
PHOTO 6: City Palace, Udaipur

20 years ago today – Day 327

2012-01-24T06:47:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Friday, January 24th – Devgarh to Ranakpur, 16,918 km

Frank has a smirk on his face this morning that broadens into a smile whenever he looks at me. "Is it that bad?" I ask, referring to my new hair colour. "Perhaps you could be an extra in a horror movie with a little make-up," he chuckles. "I wish I had a mirror," I groan, "or maybe not." "Oh, it's not that bad," he consoles me, suppressing another grin.

Today we are riding to the Jain Temple at Ranakpur, one of the most highly recommended sites to visit in Rajasthan. It will be our last stop before Udaipur. By air, it would be about 60 km but the most direct route by road requires us to cross the Aravalli Mountains and follow the east side of the mountains south to the town of Sadri, and then back into a valley in the mountains. It will take about 85 km.

It is a pleasant day with a little wind that keeps changing direction. It is in our faces while we crossing the mountains west of Devgarh. But crossing the mountains actually means dropping from the plateau that Devgarh is on to a plain 200 m lower in altitude, so it is an easy crossing. Frank stops to catch of picture of me with my black hair coasting down the hill to catch up to him.

Once east of the mountains, our route is relatively level. We are using a minor state highway to make our way south to Sadri. It zigs and zags inefficiently, but that means there are fewer trucks. It is a wonderful route, really. I am very glad we chose it. There are only a few villages along the way, but we have brought enough food and water to last us to Ranakpur.

At Sadri we turn left, back towards the mountains, and we climb from 360 m to 1080 m to get up to the pass over the Aravali Mountains, and from there we drop down part way to another highway that follows a trench valley south to the great temple. The temple, made of white marble, sits impressively in the middle of the valley floor with its mountain backdrop, its turrets and shikharas adorned with flags. It is 20 m square and very ornate. Inside it has 1440 columns, each uniquely carved. Walking through it, I am astonished by the detail. It was truly made with love. My guide book says it was made over a 400 year period.

In spite of its notoriety, it is a real temple, not a tourist attraction. We are, in fact, almost alone in the temple except for the priests and a small number of worshippers. The priests, wearing Jain robes, are friendly and happy to meet us. One of them gives us a quick tour of the temple and points us in the direction of the Sun Temple, another smaller temple on the same property. I wander over to it on my own. There are a couple of women wandering through it who find it very humourous that I am there. I ask one of the English speaking priests why they were tittering. Apparently it is a fertility temple where women come to ask for a husband. He tells me they were probably joking that I have been sent by the gods. Only if their gods have a cruel sense of humour, I think to myself.

Back at the main temple, one of the priests introduces us to the head priest, a slender, effeminate man with a graceful poise. He questions us about our travels and then tells us that he will be making his first trip outside of India next year. It will be a trip to the United States. He is looking forward to it but he has some set and negative ideas about the Western world. One thing he finds decadent is that men and women hold hands. I explain to him that it is just a cultural thing. In India boys and men hold hands which we would find this bold and sometimes unacceptable. 'Oh yes, because they think this means they are..." he struggles to find the right word "...homosexual." "Right," I say, smiling because of his obvious effeminate leanings. I wish I could talk to him after his trip to learn how it was for him.

One of the priests offers to take our picture, me with my arm slung over Frank's muscular shoulders and his arms folded across his chest. They have a fascination with us as two men together, though somehow they seem to have figured out that I am gay and Frank is not. I am not aware of giving off any clues, but one of the priests is rubbing my foot with his foot under the table, rather boldly. I don't let on to Frank what is happening, No one is pursuing him although he is hunkier and more handsome.

The priest who is flirting with me offers to show me the underground chamber where the treasures of the temple were hidden whenever the temple was threatened with attack. Frank says he wants to stay put, so I follow the young priest to the underground chamber. He makes no attempt to play tour guide. As soon as we have climbed down the ladder to the underground chamber, which is a smallish room where one might keep their canning preserves, he whips out his cock and starts beating off. I join him and we watch each other cum. It has been 11 weeks since I have masturbated, but my long-awaited climax is very anti-climactic.

When we return, about 15 minutes after we left, Frank decides is it time to find a room in the nearby village. The inn is small and rudimentary. We boil some water to make noodles with cheese and bread for dinner. I feel mildly sheepish about the episode with the priest in the underground chamber. If Frank sensed anything was going on between us he certainly isn't letting on. In retrospect, I think the episode was rather funny but disappointing too, after a record length of abstention. I regret that my record is not still intact.

PHOTO 1: me with my new hair colour
PHOTO 2: the entrance to Ranakpur Temple
PHOTO 3: a Sun Temple nearby
PHOTO 4: the Jain Sun Temple up close
PHOTO 5: inside Ranakpur, forest of columns
PHOTO 6: the columns in detail
PHOTO 7: the ceiling of the centre of the temple
PHOTO 8: detail of marble frescoes
PHOTO 9: Frank and I cuddling together
PHOTO 10: bleached out pic on me and elephant's ass

20 years ago today – Day 326

2012-01-23T07:29:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Thursday, January 23rd – Masuda to Devgarh, 16,833 km

With nothing much to shop for in the village of Masuda, Frank and I set off early, around 9 am, heading westward on another narrow, twisty side road towards Beawar. There is next to no traffic, a blessing in India, but he has a slight headwind. Half an hour out of Masuda the road switchbacks up 180 m to get over a rocky ridge, and then drops down again. Half an hour later we are on the outskirts of Beawar.

Beawar is a relatively new town, built by the British as a cotton and wool processing centre about 156 years ago. It has the well-planned, wider streets and streamlined look of a planned city. It is the largest city we have passed through since Jaipur. The name Beawar, which looks Indian, actually came from signs set up at the edge of town when it was created, warning locals to "Be Aware" of vehicles moving cotton.

We stop here for breakfast and to buy snacks for the road, then set out again heading south. The new road is larger, but not the main truck route. It takes us another six hours at a steady pace to reach our objective, the town of Devgarh. The road follows the flow of the Aravali Mountains south-west, passing through the villages of Bali and Barar along the way.

At one point we encounter a group of villagers gathered around a truck that has run into a small ditch. They have built a diversion to direct traffic around it, complete with a carefully-constructed rock wall with a "Diversion ->" sign on it. The ditch is very shallow and it doesn't look like it would take much to get the truck out of it, while they have probably spent hours building the diversion. Perhaps there is something else wrong with the truck preventing it from working, but Frank and I concur that it would not be unusual here to see so much energy being spent inefficiently, sometimes for no other reason but to provide employment for workers.

We also come across a team of women digging a ditch through the rocky soil with pick axes and shovels. The ditch will be used to bury optic cables for telecommunications between Delhi and Mumbai, we are told when we ask. It is hard labour, considered men's work back home, but here the men stand around and watch the women do the heavy work. It's about status, not chivalry, here.

It's our afternoon break in Barar. We stop to adjust our bags beside a school where a teacher is teaching his class in a covered area outside. The teacher pauses to speak with us in English, asking about our travels. The young boys in his class seem to be mesmerized by us so Frank snaps a picture. They don't smile or ham it up like children in Canada would. They stare transfixed as though they are trying to make sense of us.

We continue on to Devgarh, a modest-sized town, but there is plenty of traffic and a confusing street pattern. There is a campground in the vicinity but we cannot find it. I stop to ask a man on the street who gives us directions and engages us in conversation for a few minutes. His name is Gurdev and his English is excellent. He seems anxious to be an intimate friend. He tells me he is a hair salon operator and points out his shop to us. Out of politeness, I tell him that if we have enough energy we will return to visit with him.

As soon as we set up the tent, Frank inspects his rear wheel and finds two more broken spokes. He is more frustrated than I have ever seen him before, and I know well enough to leave him alone. I take a walk to the centre of town and locate Gurdev in his shop, which is empty when I arrive. "Would you like a haircut?" he asks me. I need one so I say yes. Half a dozen men of varying ages come into the shop to watch the White man get his hair cut.

Gurdev says I would look better if he dyed my hair to get rid of the grey. Oh no, I think I better not, I tell him, but he asks my viewing audience if I should have my hair dyed and they all agree I should. I laugh and give in. One should try new things when traveling, I decide, but when Gurdev starts applying black dye to my light brown hair I freak out. Not black dye! That will look terrible, I exclaim, but Gurdev explains that black is the only colour they have in India. I should insist he rinse it out right away, but I give in again, hoping that it will not look as bad as I fear it will.

It looks worse than I feared it would. Gurdev even managed to dye the top edge of my right ear black. The black colour makes my skin look so sallow, so anemic. I leave his salon regretting the whole experience, as though I have just wet my pants and there is no way to hide my accident. It will pass, but for the coming weeks I will suffer the consequences of my stupid choice.

It is pitch black (like my hair) when I get back to the campground. Frank is in his sleeping bag in the tent when I arrive. I am relieved that he won't see my hair until morning. But I don't want to shock him either. I have something to confess, I tell him. I have had my hair dyed black. Why did you do that? he asks me. I will be asking myself that question for years to come, I reply.

PHOTO 1: Hanumann Temple in Beawar
PHOTO 2: the diversion
PHOTO 3: men supervising women digging a ditch
PHOTO 4: the outdoor school room

20 years ago today – Day 325

2012-01-22T09:15:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Wednesday, January 22nd – Pushkar to Masuda, 16,729 km

Our next major destination is Ranakpur, the holiest Jain site in Rajasthan. It is about three days ride from Pushkar, or perhaps two if we wanted to follow the truck route from Ajmer to Udaipur most of the way, but we don’t. Our map is not that detailed, but there is a longer route heading south-east towards the city of Nasirabad, an army town of about 50,000. It won’t be quite as busy as the main route, and part way to Nasirabad there is a side road that heads south through what should be a very quiet region.

Regardless of what route we end up taking, our first step of the way is to return to Ajmer. Once in Pushkar, we learned there is a shorter route back that climbs through a small pass. So we load up and head back to Ajmer. It is a pleasant ride on a smaller road but the traffic is not too quiet, being that is the most direct route between the cities. Most of the traffic in the morning seems to be coming from the direction of Ajmer, that doesn’t mean anything as trucks frequently cross onto our side to pass other traffic.

This route passes a Scouts Camp just before the climb to the pass. The climb is only 100 m, which takes us about 10 minutes, but it provides a nice view of Ajmer on the other side, and then the route takes us around the opposite side of Anasagar Lake, the beautiful lake that Ajmer is built beside. When we reach the city centre, we stop to buy fruit and breads for the rest of the trip.

At the street market, I wait beside an older woman seated with her produce for sale on the ground in front of her, while Frank finishes his purchase. One of the sweet natured ‘bapelos’ (oxen) strolls by and spies her cabbage. It rolls its eyes but waits until it is right in front of us before swinging its huge head our way and taking an impressively large bite out of the cabbage before the woman can stop it. She is on her feet swatting the bapelo’s rump and cursing it as it trots away. It was funny to see, but his poor old woman has just lost a meal’s worth of wages.

It is too early to take a long break so we set off again after 20 minutes. There doesn’t seem to be many villages on the stretch of highway we want to take. That the pay-off: a route with less traffic has fewer opportunities to buy food or fill our water bottles.
Nasirabad Road is easy enough to find, branching off from the main route after two kilometres. It too has its share of truck traffic, as well as every other kind of vehicle, but it is definitely the lesser of the two evils. We are only on it for seven kilometres, shortly past the last industrial buildings associated with Ajmer.

The side road we have chosen is paved but without painted lines for much of it. The traffic is very light, as we can see why. It twists and winds all over the place over rolling terrain. It is hard to tell which direction we are going half the time, since the sun is behind the clouds most of the way. But we trust the map and enjoy the feeling of being lost in the desert steppe lands of western India. There are short razorback mountain ridges jutting up here or there a couple kilometres away, but no passes we need to climb through.

An hour on the road brings up to a crossing with an east-west district road that leads between Nasirabad and the main truck route. At this point we can place where we are on my not-too-detailed map. From here to the town of Masada, our road is flatter and generally straighter, but just as barren and unpopulated most of the way. Closer to Masada, we see more farmers and vehicles, but that is almost two hours further.

Masada is not much of a town, but it does have an inn, which saves us having to cycle another hour west to Beawar, a city of 100,000 on the truck route south from Ajmer. There are small stalls to buy our dinner in and desert stalls too, but no facilities for travelers other than these. We are well off the beaten path and are probably the only foreigners in the town tonight. It is boring but cheap.

Frank has yet another broken spoke and he is fretting over it quite a bit. He is getting faster at fixing them though. We won’t be able to find a bike shop before Udaipur and he is getting low on spokes. He’s down to his last half-dozen. I forgot to bring any spare spokes for myself so I am glad I am not having his re-occurring problem.

PHOTO 1: leaving Pushkar
PHOTO 2: friendly cow at the market in Ajmer
PHOTO 3: small village of Masuda
PHOTO 4: women in the desert outside of Masuda
PHOTO 5: temple outside of Masuda

20 years ago today – Day 324

2012-01-21T09:53:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Tuesday, January 21st – Pushkar

The morning is magical in the golden glow of the desert. The temperature is perfect outside and the whole environment - the town, the lake, the Thar Desert, our hotel - is peaceful and idyllic. I am showered and dressed first so I head to breakfast downstairs while Frank is showering. I promised David, the young Vancouverite, that I would meet him for breakfast in the hotel restaurant at 8 am. I am already 15 minutes late. When I get down there, he is in line-up to get his banana porridge.

"Oh good, I'm not too late," I say to him, but he looks upset. "Well, I was here right at eight," he says, "and I have lined up once before. I sat down at the picnic table to start without you and suddenly this big male monkey stuck his head up from under the far side of the table and glared at me fiercely. Then he reached out and snatched the bananas off the top of my porridge with his dirty fingers that he has probably just used to pick his ass with."

I can't help laughing, and suggest it will be a good story to tell back home. I offer to sit across from him and help ward the primates off. Because this is a sacred pilgrimage town, a "tirtha" in Hindu, no animals are allowed to be injured. The smarter ones like the local apes have figured this out long ago and take full advantage of it. I can't even get eggs for breakfast here because animal products of any kind are not allowed to be served.

Frank and I decide to go for another walk to check out the souvenir shops along the main drag. As we are leaving the hotel we see one of the hotel managers chasing a group of monkeys who are scampering along the edge of the roof. They have probably been up to some mischief. He is threatening to swat them with his broom. They keep out of reach, screeching back at him and occasionally tossing something at him in retaliation.

We wander through several shops, looking at clothing, postcards and small carvings. I buy myself a small teak elephant and some Rajasthani pants with patterned cuffs decorated with pieces of mirror. I also pick up hopefully the last supply of postcards I will need. Every week I have been sending a postcard to a different member of my department at work at the City of Toronto and of course to most of my friends again and again, more than two hundred during my trip, although I have only received maybe two dozen back. I sit in a sidewalk café and fill out a few more over the next hour.

When in comes time for lunch I am on my own. I stop at one of the restaurants along the strip. It is comfortably dark and cool. As I am sitting waiting for my meal to arrive a monkey pushes the back door open gently and sits there, ever so politely, waiting for the restaurateur to notice her. He picks up a tomato and tosses it past her. When she goes to retrieve it he closes the door again. "I don't mind giving them something when they are polite about it," he comments to me.

After lunch, I walk around Pushkar Lake. On the far side, I decide to climb Ratnagiri Hill that houses the Savitri Temple on its top, which offers the wife of Brahma. There are only a small handful of temples to Brahma in the world, the main one being in Pushkar, which is why it is known as Dham Raj, the king of Hindu pilgrimage sites. The hill is more than 200 m high as is about four kilometres from my hotel. I don't climb all the way to the temple but make it most of the way there, far enough to get a good photo. The town looks so new from this height. The guide book says it is one of the oldest settlements in India, but the Muslims destroyed it completely during their conquests so the present buildings are not very old compared to many other places.

I stroll back down the hill and make my way back to the hotel to shower before dinner. Frank is on the patio, relaxing in the sun. He says he has enjoyed the day immensely but there isn't much to do here. One day is enough. Tomorrow we will continue are ride to the south to see the Jain temple at Ranakpur and the city of Udaipur. There is so much to squeeze in before I fly back to Canada in 23 days.

PHOTO 1: Langur monkeys in Pushkar
PHOTO 2: Pushkar, from across the lake
PHOTO 3: from Ratnagiri Hill, the best view

20 years ago today – Day 323

2012-01-20T07:26:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Monday, January 20th – Parbatsar to Pushkar, 16,653 km

Having gone to bed around 9pm last night, I am up and fully rested at sunrise this morning. The Jain priest stops by our tent and summons us to join him on his morning walk. I am not sure where he will be leading me but I am on my own. Frank has found another broken spoke and is silently fuming while taking his rear wheel off. I leave him to do what he needs to do and I follow the priest silently. He leads me along scarcely visible trails that follow the edges of fields and through small thickets. This must be what much of India is like, small trails through rural fields linking close-knot villages. The priest carries with him a small tin pail on a handle.

He is making his rounds to the faithful, offering his services and collection yogurt in his pail as his reward. He stops at a mechanic's shop and at a couple merchants, then at a farmer's house before returning to his temple. Each of the followers he visits eyes me with curiosity and surprise. My presence makes the priest's visit more interesting. I am not sure if he is bringing me along to show me a slice of Indian life or for the added prestige of having a foreign visitor gives him. Whatever the reason, I appreciate participating in his routine.

When we return, I find that Frank has finished fixing his bike and has broken down and packed the tent. He has his camera out and uses mime to offer to take a photograph of the priest on the outdoor meditation veranda of the temple. A few of the boys from yesterday have dropped by and watch the process with delight. The priest poses in a lotus position as though he is really meditating, but he is at the wrong angle for the light. Frank asks the boys if it is all right to interrupt him to suggest he move, wanting not to offend him, but the priest is more than willing to have the best shot possible. The photo shoot serves his vanity.

We thank him for his kindness and he offers a blessing for our travels through the translation services of the boys. We say our goodbyes and leave Parbatsar, following Hwy 7 southwest through the villages of Rupangarh and Sursura, and then south to the city of Kishangarh. It is 1 pm when we arrive in Kishangarh so we here stop for lunch. Kishangarh isn't very large, perhaps 15,000 people, but has a huge fortification. Rajasthan was constantly divided and almost always in a state of war so all major towns have serious fortifications. We don't have time to visit them all.

It is slightly more than an hour's ride to Ajmer, the major town of this region of Rajasthan. Like Kishangarh, it is situated on a pretty lake, with bathing ghats for religious cleansings. There is a lovely Red Fort and a bustling market. I am sure I could find enough to do to spend a day in every larger town we have passed though because there is so much to see. But both of us are anxious to get to Pushkar so we move on after a quick tour of the city.

As we are leaving we witness and a silly piece of drama on the street. One driver cuts off another and horns start blaring. Both drivers get out and have a heated argument over who was in the wrong. Suddenly, James, the impatient, hot-tempered, bossy Brit we met at the tourist camp in New Delhi and again in the youth hostel in Jaipur, is right in the middle of it on his bicycle blowing a gasket. He's screaming at the drivers at the top of his lungs, telling them to stop acting like idiots and tying up traffic. His reaction is totally out of proportion and unnecessary, and embarrassing to me as a Western visitor. The two drivers who were arguing stare at him is disbelief, look back at each other and break out laughing. All the onlookers are watching James, not the drivers, so he rides away in an angry huff. I feel relieved that he hasn't seen or spoken to us.

Pushkar is maybe 8 km from Ajmer as the crow flies but a large ridge of the Aravali Mountains stands between them. It requires us to use a 25 km route that goes around the north end of the ridge. We get lost outside the city at a T-intersection, about half of the way there, not knowing which way to turn to get to Pushkar. Frank leaves me holding his bike while he goes into a store to ask directions. While I am standing there, a heavy set, shirtless man comes out onto his second floor balcony in a house across the road. He stands with his arms braced at the railing like he enjoying the morning air, but then he bends over and starts puking onto the ground below. A dog sees this and runs over to lap it up. The man heaves again, totally covering the head and back of the dog in puke. The dog does not react other than to keep gulping down the puke with zeal.

Frank returns a few seconds later, while I am still queasy from the scene across the street. "We turn left," he informs me. I don't want to talk about what I have seen so I say nothing.

I am thankful for the ridge of mountains between Ajmer and Pushkar. The extra effort to get there increases our anticipation and it sets Pushkar apart in a world of its own. It is quaint town of under 10,000, set around the northern perimeter of a small circular lake. Being a pilgrimage site and the location of one of the largest annual camel fairs in India, Pushkar is full of small hotels and inns. It has the charm of Sagres in Portugal, Goreme in Turkey or Provincetown in Massachusetts, a town built for and its economy based on travelers. Unlike most Indian cities, it is clean and neat, almost pristine. There are dozens of sacred bathing ghats along the edges of the lake, and the buildings are mostly painted white, adding to the illusion of purity. The open Thar Desert to the west comes right up to its door and seems to stretch on forever.

The main street follows the shoreline behind the row of buildings that front onto the lake. We find a pleasant hotel with about forty rooms along here. There are no Hindu religious holidays on at present, or the famous camel fair that runs through November and December, so there are plenty of available rooms. The guests are mostly Western travelers. Frank and I take a walk after our shower. We follow the main street to its end a kilometre later. Most of the town is stretched out on this street so we have seen it all in twenty minutes. From the end of the street where we can see the town wrapping the lake, the sunset looks lovely glowing on the surface of the lake and on the white walls of the buildings.

I meet some of the travelers in our hotel at dinner in the hotel's dining room, which also has a restive outdoor patio with picnic tables. I spend most of the dinner chatting with a tall, handsome youth from Vancouver, named David. He is charming and attractive, full of youthful energy and attitudes. It occurs to me that I am lonely for intimate contact. Due to illness, depression or sharing rooms with Frank and other straights, I haven't masturbated since I was in Iran, about 10 weeks ago. I haven't ever gone anywhere nearly as long since I discovered the magic of beating off when I was a teenager. Gandhi stopped having sex or masturbating when he was 37. That is a comforting thought!

PHOTO 1: Jain priest is a praying pose
PHOTO 2: school children in marching exercise
PHOTO 3: Kishangarh Fort
PHOTO 4: Red Fort in Ajmer
PHOTO 5: bathing ghats on Anasangar Lake, Ajmer
PHOTO 6: Mansingh Palace, Ajmer

20 years ago today – Day 322

2012-01-19T07:37:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Sunday, January 19th – Bhaisala to Parbatsar, 16,592 km

It is a day like yesterday, mild, mostly sunny, but it is windier than it was yesterday morning. The wind is coming from the west so for most of the day it will be against us. Frank spends the first half hour after our breakfast fixing the broken spoke in his rear wheel, the fifth broken spoke since entering India. I haven't had even one broken spoke in more that 16,500 km, so there is definitely something wrong with his wheel. We just haven't figured out what it is.

The wind is annoying once we are on the road, but I have dealt with worse many times over. We are following State Hwy 2 northwest through an increasingly drier landscapes. There aren't many farms here. There aren't any rivers or sources of water either. The wind and the dust dry us out faster so we are careful to fill up our water bottles at every opportunity. The villages are sometimes half an hour apart.

In spite of the persistent broken spokes, Frank is in an excellent mood. He is enjoying the desert and seeing the camels and other attractions. He stops to take pictures from time to time. I appreciate riding with him as his mood is infectious. A few kilometres past our first town, Lohrana, I have a flat tire. Deserts come with thorns and they can lead to flat tires. It is my sixth flat since Portugal. A woman gathering sticks for fuel stops out of curiosity while I am changing my tire. Frank takes her picture. This delights her.

After an hour of cycling, not counting the time to fix my flat, the road bends to the west and passes close to the north end of Sambhar Lake, a large salt lake. We have been riding about five kilometres east of it since Bhatipura, but because the terrain has been so flat we have caught only the briefest glimpses of it. Now we come within half a kilometre of it. The road climbs some low hills so we have a better view of it. Other than being large, it is not interesting.

Eventually we move out of view of the lake, continuing west. We stop for lunch when reach Kansera, sitting on the side of the road to eat the food we bought at a restaurant stall in the town. It is getting warm now in the afternoon, warmer enough to make us sweat while we are sitting here taking in the sun. The wind at least keeps us dry while we are moving.

We pass through the village of Mithari on our way west. When we reach the junction with Hwy 2B we turn south, following a valley with ridges of rocky hills on either side. We are headed directly towards tomorrow night's destination, Pushkar, a sacred pilgrimage site of the Hindus, known as a "dham". Our guide book highly recommends Pushkar as one of the most important sites in all of Rajasthan, but we won't reach it today.

After another 30 km, the highway splits into two directions, south-west and south-east, at the village of Parbatsar. We can't see a hotel in the village, so we stop a teenage boy and ask him is there is a place to stay nearby. He leads to a Jain temple half a kilometre outside the town. On the way, several of his friends notice he is assisting us and come to join us and introduces us to the priest. The priest is wearing orange robes and has a shaved head. He's a bit shorter and probably in his early 40s. He welcomes us warmly, although he speaks no English. The boy translates for us.

The priest lives in the temple and he invites us in. Ignorantly, Frank and I try to enter with our shoes on and that causes gasps and exclamations from the boys. We quickly correct our mistake and apologize and everyone laughs it off. The priest tells them that we can set up our tent in the yard of the temple, which will be under his protection. The yard is surrounded by a shoulder-high, metre-thick hedge of a thorny bramble, more ominous that a coil of barbed wire. The boys want us to take a picture of them with the priest in his praying gazebo, so we do this first before the light in the sky dims too much. Several of the villagers have arrived by this point to be part of the photo shoot.

A couple of the families bring cooked potatoes and other vegetables for our dinner while we are setting up the tent. We are really impressed by their kindness. It is dark and the boys and their families need to get home, which leaves us alone with the priest. There is a communication barrier between us so he bids us good night and we retire to the tent to read and rest up for tomorrow.

PHOTO 1: woman, bull & lake, typical scene
PHOTO 2: Indian woman carrying supplies
PHOTO 3: me taking a rest
PHOTO 4: Rajasthani with saffron turban
PHOTO 5: rural Jain temple
PHOTO 6: photo op at temple
PHOTO 7: Rajasthani sunset

20 years ago today – Day 321

2012-01-18T07:35:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Saturday, January 18th – Jaipur to Bhaisala, 16,522 km

Once we have had breakfast at the youth hostel, Frank and I load up our bikes and head out of town. It is perfect cycling day, pleasantly warm with only a slight breeze and mostly clear skies. The broad avenue in front of the Hawa Mahal and the City Palace, Nirwan Marg, becomes Kalwar Road and Hwy 11 as it leads us west out of the city. Within ten kilometres farmlands appear on either side of the road, and in the distance beyond them, low rolling hills covered in scrub or uncultivated grasslands. It is an arid landscape. The traffic is still quite heavy here for the first few kilometres, until we are well beyond the city.

An hour west of Jaipur, as the bicycle flies, we come to the village of Kalwad, which has a ranch-style palace in white stone. I take a shot of it but we don't go in. We only pause here five minutes before continuing on. The highway continues by the villages of Pachar and Laipura and through the village of Bassi Naaga. Forty minutes later, the highway makes a 90-degree turn north at the town of Jobner.

Jobner has a busy street market where we buy our lunch. Our bicycles, loaded with gear attract the attention of several youths and men who gather around us. They each try to play with my gear shifts, not knowing that changing the speed while I am not moving may cause the chain to come off when I start to ride again. Indians do not have the same respect of personal space that Westerners do. We would not think of reaching over and fiddling with someone else's equipment without asking, but no one here ever asks. Frank is especially irritated by their behaviour and is more forceful in telling them to leave his bike alone.

Frank likes to take pictures. He snaps a few of the crowds and one of a proprietor in his shop, which is more like a moving crate with doors that open like an armoire. It is painted pink inside. The old merchant is selling various small trinkets and house wares. He is sitting cross-legged and poses as Frank shoots him. There's a mirror on the back wall and Frank catches his own reflection in the photo.

Frank also loves taking pictures of women. He catches a group of them of different ages coming back from the fields just outside the town. He is great at composing pictures and especially likes taking pictures of the people we meet, their colourful turbans and their camels with their decorative tassels and beads. The camels are adorned lavishly and carry themselves as though they are loved, like noble but stupid princes. The farmers here take great care of their personal appearance, waxing their beards and mustaches and wearing clean and colourful clothing. They are kind and humble too, never pasting on a false smile for a photograph.

There is a steep outcropping of rock that rises above the town. On top there is a temple called Jwala Maiya. It is a small temple and the hill is way too steep to negotiate with our loaded bicycles.

We leave the highway at Jobner to continue west on a small dirt road that leads through the villages of Deodi and Laakhan Pura. It's a long, dusty ride that lasts two hours before reach Hwy 2 at Bhatipura. The wind has picked up and is blowing a sandy wind in our faces so we decide to stop here for the night. Frank is also choked because he has another broken spoke on his rear wheel. He can't deal with it now so he says he will fix it first thing in the morning.

Bhatipura is a smaller town. It looks much like other Indian towns with rickshaws and livestock, but there are definitely more camels and goats. It has a couple small inns, and there are plenty of small stalls and restaurants for dinner. Rajasthanis in the streets are more colourful too, so the street scenes are more interesting. I much prefer Rajasthan over the lush green pastures of Haryana or Punjab for this reason, but it also much more attractive than the towns and cities of western Pakistan. We are well off the beaten path here. Western travelers and tourists keep to the better-known areas of this largely rural and mysterious country. The locals smile at up that are both welcoming and shy.

PHOTO 1: Kalwad Palace
PHOTO 2: shop in a crate, Jobner
PHOTO 3: Jawala Ji Mata temple in Jobner
PHOTO 4: women, girls coming home from work in the fields
PHOTO 5: goats and Rajasthani sky
PHOTO 6: man with a red turban
PHOTO 7: an 'elephant mount' with big steps in Bhatipura

20 years ago today – Day 320

2012-01-17T07:27:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Friday, January 17th – Jaipur

It is a glorious morning, mildly warm and sunny, as we set off to tour the city after our breakfast in the hostel cafeteria. Out first destination is Jantar Mantar, in the heart of the city core. It is built as an observatory by Sawai Jai Singh II, the best of its kind in all India still in existence. UNESCO has classified it as a World Heritage Site. It is an outdoor site, certainly different than any other attraction I have seen. There are stairs leading up to nowhere, at the top of a large sundial, and various other astrological measurement devices. We can climb around and above them, but they are left unexplained, without plaques or diagrams, so it feels more like a playground than a museum.

Also downtown, we visit the Maharaja’s Palace (we don’t go inside) and the beautiful white marble Sgri Narayan Temple. Since everything in the city is relatively new – not more than 250 years old – it is generally in excellent condition.

The most spectacular attraction in the downtown is the Hawa Mahal, the official palace of Sawai Ujjawal Singh, built in 1799 to house his harem. Its fanciful pink five-floor façade resembles a beehive with bay windows. Its more than 950 small windows and lattice work that honeycomb the façade, allowed the women of the harem to look out over the street life of the city without being seen, who were under strict observance of “purdah”, the law forbidding them from being seen in public. The palace behind has inner courtyards and lots of rooftops to walk around on. It is quite magnificent.

After a quick lunch at a restaurant near the Hawa Mahal, Frank ride up to Amer Fort, the hilltop fortress we saw yesterday coming in from the north. On the way we stop to photo graph the Jal Mahal, a palace in the middle of Man Sagar Lake, which lies between the city and the fort. The palace takes up the whole island and appears to be floating on the lake itself. There is no apparent transportation out to it from this side, but we wouldn’t have time to visit it anyway.

It is a steep climb to the fortress. The fortifications we saw were not the main part of the fort. The main part faces onto small Maotha Lake. Inside it is massive, made of sandstone and marble and extending over four levels, each independently defensible, and leading up to the older Jaigarth Fort which it connects to through an underground tunnel. Frank and I scattered to explore the fortress on our own. The guide says it is also called the “Amber Fort” or “Amber Palace”, because of its colour and elegant design.

The afternoon has grown hazy and views from the fortress overlooking Jaipur to the south filter with smog. The sun is still setting early so Frank and I head back at
4:30, heading home from the north exit that leads around through the village of Amer below the fort. It leads back to the highway we used to enter Jaipur last night, so it is easy to find our way back. In fact, Jaipur is an especially easy city to find one’s way around it. It would be a nice Indian city to live in, if I wanted to live here.

We save money by having dinner at the hostel tonight. It is simple cafeteria fare and a chance to hang out with other travelers again. It will be our last chance for a few days. James has made a stink to the hostel management about our dorm’s squeaky door. They sent a man around with a can of grease. He attempts to pour the whole can over the hinge but James stops him, screaming at him for being so stupid. “Use a pencil or a stick to put just a little bit on at a time, you idiot!” he screams for all to hear. The worker is laughing at the scene he is making, and so are the rest of us. In the end, James decided to show him how to do it and ends up doing it himself. One requires a sense of humour to live here.

PHOTO 1: Jantar Mantar, stairway to nowhere
PHOTO 2: Jantar Mantar, sundial
PHOTO 3: Jantar Mantar, satellite dish?
PHOTO 4: Maharajah's Palace
PHOTO 5: Sgri Narayan Temple
PHOTO 6: front facade of the Hawa Mahal
PHOTO 7: from the rear walls of Hawa Mahal
PHOTO 8: Jal Mahal on Man Sagar Lake
PHOTO 9: entrance to Fort Amer/Amber
PHOTO 10: arches in Fort Amber
PHOTO 11: view of fortifications from Ft Amber
PHOTO 12: old gate near Fort Amber
PHOTO 13: view of Jaipur from Fort Amber

20 years ago today – Day 319

2012-01-16T07:35:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Thursday, January 16th – Sariska to Jaipur, 16,440 km

Today we are leaving the tiger reserve and moving onto Jaipur, the Pink City, the capital and largest city of Rajasthan. It is one of the most fabled cities of India. It is a newer city. It wasn’t in existence much before the arrival of the British. It was founded by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II in 1727. It was a Hindu stronghold against the Mughals of Delhi and Agra. It is a must-see when visiting Rajasthan.

Our ride today is 100 km long. Within half an hour we are out of the park and at the northern end of Hwy 55, a quiet road that zigzags southward for the next hour and a half. We pass by a palm forest, the first I have seen since Spain, and some nearby wet areas where we see a couple of Sarus cranes.

At the village of Ajabgarh, the highway jogs west though a pass between to mountain ridges, and then turns south and west towards Jaipur. For the next hour and a half, the terrain is flat, more open and semi-arid. There are no interesting sights. At a small village called Andhi, we stop at a roadside restaurant for lunch.

It takes another two hours to arrive in Jaipur, passing through a short series of hill on the way and following the base of the ridge on which Fort Amer is built, the hill fort that was used as the capital of the Rajput Hindus before Jaipur was built. We see it on the crest as we are riding towards the ridge, but from the base of the ridge it is mostly invisible. I haven’t researched it yet so I make a mental note to find out what it is once we are settled in Jaipur.

It’s another 11 km to the city centre. It’s a big noisy city with hectic traffic but not as big or hectic as New Delhi. Besides all the rickshaws, I notice more carts and cows in the streets. The sun is sinking as we arrive so we focus on finding a place for the night. There is a youth hostel in Jaipur, a more traditional one than the tourist camp in New Delhi. It is a bit dirty and dingy, and there is only dorm room accommodation but we take it. There are hot showers, other European travelers and a safe garage for our bikes. The English backpackers, James and Patrick are here as well as a couple others we saw at the tourist camp in New Delhi. Everyone is using the same guide book so it is not surprising.

By the time we have washed and changed, there isn’t enough light to take any good pictures. We walk around the core of the city. The streets are wide and laid out in a planned fashion. It is quite alive and interesting looking but we are too hungry to walk for long. We search out a good restaurant that’s not too expensive and treat ourselves to a mice meal. This may be the last major city we see until Udaipur, so we enjoy our dinner out. Afterwards, we head back to the hostel. We have agreed to spend the entire day here tomorrow to see its many attractions, but tonight we just take it easy and chat with other travelers.

Two Koreans in our room have left the window open and now there are mosquitoes in our room. James has a fit and is shouting at them. They take off for a walk to be free of him. There is no curfew at the hostel so young people are coming and going at all hours, including long after we have gone to bed. They try to sneak back in quietly but the door to our dorm room squeaks horribly, like a coffin opening in a bad vampire movie. I am woken several times but I manage to fall asleep again every time.

PHOTO 1: palm forest near Sariska
PHOTO 2: Saurus cranes
PHOTO 3: Surajpole Gate, Jaipur
PHOTO 4: pausing with my bike to decide where to go
PHOTO 5: in Jaipur at sunset

20 years ago today – Day 318

2012-01-15T15:45:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Wednesday, January 15th – Sariska

Frank and I would like to bicycle through the Tiger Reserve in the hopes of seeing the scenery and some of the wildlife here, which includes spotted leopards, jungle cats, striped hyenas, golden jackals, sambhars, spotted deer, antelopes, wild boars, several interesting birds as well as the Bengal tigers. After hearing Tigerman Edelman’s story last night of being charged by a tiger I am not sure this is a good idea, but we have seen locals riding on the narrow paved road through the park we assume it can’t be that dangerous. We are told at the hotel that we would need the permission of the park ranger, who is based in a ranger station half a kilometre from here. Once we have had our breakfast in the restaurant, Frank and I walk to the station.

The head ranger is a middle-aged man who could have stepped out of an Indian movie, the way he holds himself with an air of professionalism and importance. If anything, position is more important in India than it is in Britain. At least in Britain, one can change classes, albeit with great difficulty, but the caste system in India is more rigid and controlled completely by one’s birth. Still, being born into a caste cannot be taken for granted, I suppose, so one’s image must reflex his caste. The ranger is likely a Brahman, though I am not certain.

I thought it would be easy to convince him that since we have seen locals riding through the park we should be allowed to do so too, but he will not have it. The risk of having international visitors attacked by a tiger or something else to not worth it to him and he will not budge on denying us permission.

We walk around the vicinity of the lodge and the ranger station and catch a spotted deer crossing the road. My guide book speaks of “hideouts” where one might see a tiger drinking at a waterhole, so we ask Joel about them when we see him at lunch. He tells us the official “hides” have been removed but he knows a place where we can wait to see one. He has seen them come to drink from this place. He says they are most likely to come to drink near dusk and suggests we wait until about 5 pm if we want to see them.

We relax at the palace hotel for the afternoon, talking with a German couple who have been driving around Rajasthan. They are mostly interested in the standard tourist attractions and not in Indian life itself so we don’t learn much from them. They are astounded that Frank and I are traveling around India on our bicycles. They think it is too unsafe, even though they must have seen thousands of native cyclists commuting that way. We entertain them with stories of our adventures, together and apart, in a pointless effort to have them consider other options than car travel.

Tigerman Joel meets us on the patio of the hotel at 4:30 and leads us on a 20 minute walk to a local stream in the jungle. This is the tiger watch he mentioned. I do my best to walk quietly, not stepping on twigs or dry leaves, but it is pointless to try to walk through the jungle silently. Peacocks are the alarm system of the Indian jungles. They sit in the trees 15 m above our heads and scream hysterically once we are immediately below them. They fly a few metres ahead to get away from us and scream again as we catch up to them. Their screams could be heard by anyone a couple kilometres away, so I suppose tigers and leopards can probably hear them from much further away.

We sit on the hillside amongst the ferns, waiting and occasionally whispering. An hour passes without incident. Then we hear the screams of peacocks across the valley, gradually getting closer. Even the big cats with their silent padded paws are at the mercy of the peacocks’ warnings. The screams die away and we see nothing. Frank tires of waiting as the light fades. He leaves Joel and I and makes his way back to the hotel on his own.

Another half hour passes and the light is getting quite low. Joel says we should leave while we can still see our way back to the road, so we set off. We have waited until the last moment. It is completely dark by the time we reach the road but we are guided by the glow of the lights at the front of the hotel a kilometre away.

When we are only 300 m from the building Joel leads me through a shortcut through the scrub bushes to the side of the hotel. Only the lights of the hotel are visible. Everything else is a silhouette. Suddenly, about 10 m in front of us, something very large clears its throat. We freeze. My heart is in my throat. Tigerman reaches over and puts a finger to my lips. We stand there for what seems like an eternity, the lights and safety of the palace only 150 m away but not able to move.

Finally, Tigerman tugs my arm to follow him and we move, ever so gently, around the closest patch of scrub brush and towards the palace. We reach the side of the hotel and follow it around to the bright lights at the front before either of us speak.

“Was that a tiger?” I ask, barely able to contain myself. “Of course,” he replies. “He could see us. His cough was a warning not to come any closer.” He explained further that if a tiger stands facing you and staring you in the eye, he is not afraid or uncomfortable, but if he starts to turn this way and that he is uncomfortable and likely going to charge. Without seeing him Tigerman could not tell how the tiger was reacting. “Of course, if he had decided to attack it was already too late. We were way too close, just a leap and a half away by Tigerman’s estimate.

It was probably a jackal, is all that Frank says, when I get back to our room. If it was a tiger you’d already be dead. I am not sure, I say. It had an awfully big throat to make a cough that deep. He still dismisses it and doesn’t want to talk about it further, perhaps because he is jealous, but I can’t stop thinking about it. Perhaps the tiger was just coming around to view humans. Anyway, he saw me, but I didn’t see him. Adventure is highly over-rated. I don’t want to try again.

PHOTO 1: Sariska Tiger Reserve road
PHOTO 2: this deer has been spotted
PHOTO 3: me and Tigerman Edelson waiting and watching
PHOTO 4: Sariska Palace Hotel at night

20 years ago today – Day 317

2012-01-14T09:05:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Tuesday, January 14th – Kishangarh Bas to Sariska, 16,339 km

Frank has taken to testing the spokes of his back wheel at the start and end of each day. This morning he finds another broken spoke which he had missed last night, unless there is some way it could have broken during the night. He is quite concerned and asks if I have any idea why this keeps happening. My wheels are doing fine so all I can think of is that there is something wrong with the way they have been threaded, but we cannot see anything wrong with them. They feel tight and sound enough and they are still quite new. He takes the first half hour to replace the spoke and true the wheel again.

Today we continue south, skirting the western edge of the mountains to get to the Sariska Tiger Reserve. The route is mostly flat but it winds between hills on either side, the largest being the Aravali Mountains to our left. Our roads today are quiet and scenic. We pass small shrines and even a temple complex in a valley sloping off below us but we don’t pass through any sizable villages. The valleys are very green here, with palm trees scattered around the fields and along the roadsides.

As the day progresses and we move further south, our route takes us into the Aravalis. We pass a couple small lakes and more dramatic outcroppings of rocks and sedimentary mountains. At mid-afternoon we arrive at the village of Sarska, the only settlement in the Sariska Tiger Reserve. It’s main feature is a palace-sized hotel that dwarfs the rest of the village. I presume it existed long before the reserve was established and was probably used for tiger hunts by the rich and powerful, both Indian and British.

The Lonely Planet Guide says there are 21 wild Bengal n the reserve. They are generally solitary and territorial animals unless they are mating. They do not form “prides” or family units like lions. For some reason their hunting and living style is more successful than lions and they have gradually driven lions out of most of India. The last prides of lions in India exist only in the western-most state of Gujarat. Tigers prefer a good hunt over easy prey, so they usually hunt the local sambhars and spotted deer instead of humans or cows.

We know the chances of encountering a tiger are next to nil. They are very discreet, well-camouflaged and not prone to sleeping most of the day, like most cats.

The lodge has a beautiful setting in its valley in the reserve though, so we are very happy to be here. It is the most beautiful and natural place we have encountered in India so far. It is mostly empty, perhaps with a couple dozen tourists, and none of them beings cyclists or backpackers except for us. It has an elegant and affordable dining room, which we splurge to have a meal in. From the top floor of the palace there is a postcard view of the valley. We linger here after dinner to watch the sunset.

After dark the outside of the palace is lit with lights, outlining its frame. It begins to feel a bit like Disneyland without the crowds. Frank and I meet a German fellow named Joel Edelman who has been living in the lodge for the past two months. He is fixated on tigers, which explains his presence here. He asks us to call him Tigerman Edelman. The title probably sounds less cumbersome in German.

Joel is full of stories about tigers. The one the remains as I lie in bed tonight is his encounter with a tiger that charged him. Three years ago (he has been coming here every year for some time) he accidently surprised a female Bengal who had been lying invisibly in tall grass. She let go a terrifying roar and made three huge bounds towards him before veering off. He said the roar was so fierce that it paralyzed him. Tigers, he told us, always make three leaps towards you. Her intent was only to warn him but had be been within the range of her first three leaps she would have killed him. As it was, she was less than one leap away before she veered away. He was convinced he would be killed, and for the next two years he had frequent nightmares about her charge.

PHOTO 1: road south from Kishangarh Bas
PHOTO 2: temple near the road
PHOTO 3: Aravali Mountains and cows
PHOTO 4: moon and rock bluff, coming into Sariska
PHOTO 5: Sariska Palace/Lodge
PHOTO 6: overlooking the valley from the hotel
PHOTO 7: the dying sunset

20 years ago today – Day 316

2012-01-13T09:10:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Monday, January 13th – Gurgaon to Kishangarh Bas, 16,263 km

From our campground north of Gurgaon, we cross the city, stopping long enough to eat breakfast in a small restaurant. We have decided to head south towards Sohna, taking us away from the valley floor and away from the major truck traffic that follows the highway southwest to Jaipur. This route isn’t free from traffic but it is much better.

It is a bout 30 km to Sohna, and we reach it by 10:30. We stop for a fifteen minute break here before heading west to Taoru on Hwy 28. There is a notable change in both the terrain, which is now a series of rolling hills – our first in India – and the dryness of the land. Farmlands are giving way to low, scrubby trees that dot the hillsides and patches of denser greenery in the valleys and gullies. I am excited by the change after so many days of either urban congestion or flat farmland in Haryana and Punjab. The population is much sparser here too.

Sohna in fact sits at the base of a 40m escarpment that we must climb as we leave town. The terrain flattens out slightly as we continue west. Taoru is a cute little town so we take another short break there. Then we continue west to Bhiwadi and Dharuhera, turning south again on Hwy 25 just before Dharuhera. For the next two hours we ride south towards the town of Tijara.

It takes two more hours to reach Tijara. The road starts climbing and the topography getting more interesting as we approach the town. It’s not much of a climb but at least there are views here. There is a 14th century octagonal-shaped temple to Shiva on a hill outside of the town.

For the last hour of the day we continue along Hwy 25 to our destination for the day, Kishangarh Bas. Along the way, we stop at a newly-created park that protects a small lush fern forest beside the highway. The new boardwalk through the jungle only goes a hundred metres, as if they ran out of money after starting it.

As we approach Kishangarh Bas, the first ridges of the Aravali Mountain Range appear. These are supposedly the oldest mountains in Asia. Kishangarh Bas is nestled at a crossroads at the north end of the mountains. It has a campground there, where we stop for the night. We have covered 107 km today.

There are rudimentary outdoor showers with semi-private stalls. Frank and I use them before preparing dinner. This campground is more interesting and has more campers than last night. An American couple, Jim and Natalie, invite us over to share a dinner together, which we are happy to do. They have bought a jeep and have been traveling around India for a few months. Deanna and Sean, and Irish couple, have already joined them. It is a simple meal of dhal and cooked vegetables on rice. The common area for food preparation, set up by the campground, is a colourful array of tarps and tapestries set up to deter the wind more than the rain.

The two couples are already in the midst of preparing dinner when we arrive. They want to finish early so they can take a ride into the hills in the jeep to watch the sunset. They invite us to come with them and share a bottle of wine. It is a treat to meet other travelers after being on our own since we met, except for a few encounters with fellow campers at the tourist camp in Delhi.

The hills are not very high so it does not take long to reach the tops. The sunset isn’t spectacular but I enjoy the hill vistas. This is not the image I had n my mind of India. It could be in Africa or Turkey. The single glass of wine is all it takes to get me yawning tonight. I am tired from the first 100 km ride in more than a week. Jim sees me yawning and suggests we return to camp.

The night air is still cool here, cooler than in New Delhi for sure, but cleaner too. The group of us build a campfire and sit around talking until about 10:30 when Frank and I call it a night.

PHOTO 1: a banyan tree
PHOTO 2: Shiva temple in Tijara
PHOTO 3: rain forest reserve near Kishangarh Bas
PHOTO 4: northern edge of the Aravali Mountains
PHOTO 5: food tent at the campground
PHOTO 6: Jim, Nathalie, myself and Deanna with the jeep
PHOTO 7: Frank and I in the back of the jeep

20 years ago today – Day 315

2012-01-12T07:41:00.001-08:00

View Larger Map

Sunday, January 12th – New Delhi to Gurgaon, 16,156 km

After our hiatus in New Delhi, Frank and I are on the road again. Starting out on the road again brings with it feelings of excitement and anticipation. We are headed in the direction of Rajasthan this morning, a drier area than what we have been through so far, so we will be seeing new landscapes and sights.

It is a fine day, with sunshine and a soft breeze. We are in no rush. We make breakfast and load our bikes in the courtyard of the tourist camp. We pause while Frank has one of the other travelers at the camp, an English girl, take pictures of the two of us posing with our bikes. Then we are out in New Delhi traffic again. It is Sunday morning but that does not make much of a difference here, even though India has copied so many English traditions. For most people in the city, it is a working day. The traffic is as horrendous as any other day.

Coming into the city a few days ago reminded me of a live video game where everything rolls along smoothly, and then suddenly a dangerous obstacle or threat pops up in front of you. As kind and courteous as Indians are in person when they meet you, it doesn't translate to their driving habits. Anything could come reeling at you without warning, but it isn't personal. It isn't due to road rage.

Delhi is a city if more than five million so it takes a couple hours to get beyond the bulk of urban traffic congestion. It only gets better the farther we move from the centre, I tell myself, but the process seems to take forever. On the outer edges of the city, we pass through the vast and fragile shanty towns of the poorest inhabitants - homes packed tightly together, made of corrugated tin and any other found building materials with their flimsy roofs weighted down with large stones, the dirt pathways "streets" between them strewn with sewage and garbage. These people have next to no services - no medical, transit, water, sewage. The highway is elevated above them, as if on a causeway over a marsh. The slums stretch out grey and brown for a great distance. It is depressing and sobering to witness this.

I am not sure why but seeing the slums seems to sap my energy, as though my spirit has stepped into quicksand and cannot free itself. The extent of the misery seems too large. I feel helpless and insignificant. The rest of the day's ride seems like work, although the traffic is lighter and more predictable. Beyond the slums we pass the international airport to our right, and beyond that, farmlands on either side.

We pass through a couple villages. On the edge of one, while Frank stops to fill up our water bottles, I see a dog and a flock of vultures feasting on the carcass of a dead steer. The carcass is rocking from the weight of the large birds as there must be at least two dozen of them. They are clearly annoying the dog, who obviously thinks he should be dominant here, and given feasting privileges. He darts at the closest birds from time to time, but he isn’t much larger than the largest of them and he’s so outnumbered. This is more interesting than sad. It is something I wouldn’t see in Canada. Dogs, vultures, cows, cats, rats and pigs are India’s recycling system. My guide book says there are no garbage dumps here.

Less than half an hour later we enter Gurgaon, a satellite town about 55 km from the heart of New Delhi. It is a sleepy little town, most suitable for shopping for groceries. We stock up and head for a campground on the west side of town mentioned in my guide book. The campground is a flat space of grass and reddish dirt. There are a few other tents sprinkled around the grounds but very little activity. Frank and I set up his tent and make sandwiches for dinner.

Frank has discovered another broken spoke today, although it has not been either a long or stressful ride for the bikes. There is no apparent reason for it. He is puzzled and focused on repairing it. I ask if I can help but he says no. I leave him alone and walk around on my own. There is no where to go of interest in walking distance so I relax and read my guide book on the grass until it is too dark to read.

In case of mosquitoes, we stay in the tent after dark talking about Frank’s previous adventures mountain climbing and scuba diving in lakes in the Alps. Instead of riding directly to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, we have decided to detour to the Sariska Wild Life Tiger Preserve north east of the city.

PHOTO 1: Frank and I ready to leave the Tourist Camp, New Delhi
PHOTO 2: the slums of New Delhi
PHOTO 3: dog and vultures feeding on a carcass

20 years ago today – Day 314

2012-01-11T07:50:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Saturday, January 11th – New Delhi, return bus trip to Agra

The morning is fresh and I feel well rested. As I roll out of my cot bed to sit up, a rat scurries across the floor and wiggles his fat butt under the door to get outside. I think nothing of it. Rats are so common in India they are like pigeons without wings.

Frank is up and raring to go. He greets me enthusiastically, rubbing his hands to warm them up although it is not that chilly. Today is the day that we are going to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. We make a breakfast of cooked porridge and bananas with toast and jam, using the toaster in the tourist camp kitchen. We seem to be the only ones up.

We pack sandwiches for lunch and head towards Connaught Circle to meet our bus which is leaving at 9 am.Our bus is questionable at best. It is dented, scraped and worn and its seats are threadbare. Frank and I exchange looks and shrug. Either we make it to Agra and back or we don't. One takes what one gets here.

The bus is two-thirds full, mostly older tourists. This my first trip on an Indian bus. There are no accommodations made for the foreign clientele. The driver is aggressive, driving rough shod over the speed bumps. Yes, there are speed bumps along the highway, especially where slower speeds are advisable. Driving safely is not common practice. There are also metre-high concrete dividers separating opposite sides of the road whenever there are blind curves to prevent trucks and buses from passing without concern for the on-coming traffic. Double-lines don't seem to work here. The bus's suspension isn't working well either. Not surprising given the constant rough treatment. Today, the adage, "It's the trip, not the destination, that matters," seems inappropriate.

Our first stop is the Red Fort in Agra. We are here for 90 minutes. The passengers are given a yellow slip of paper as we disembark to show the driver when we re-board. Frank and I are relieved to be on solid ground again. We pay our 20 rupee admission and enter the massive and decorative gate that must be 15 to 20 m high. Inside it is massive, with sprawling lawns and palaces. It is more a walled city

than just a fortress. It is impossible to see it all in the allotted time. The fort was a brick structure as early as 1080 AD, but it was added to through the centuries. The Mughals took possession of it in 1540 when it was in a ruined condition, and used more than 1,400,000 workers to rebuild it into its modern state.

It is magnificent. We could wander for days in here if we had the time. Of course we don't, but I like it much better than the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. It would be incredible to live here. From the top of its walls we could see across the sprawling mud flats of the Yamuna River to the Taj Mahal, 2.5 km south east of the Red Fort. The day is perfect and from the walls I believe it cannot get any better.

We find our bus amongst two dozen others in the parking lot, return our yellow slips and climb on board. Our impatient driver is kept to a crawl in Agra's traffic so it is a smoother ride to the Taj Mahal. The parking lot is more crowded than the Red Fort. I cringe at the idea of facing a sea of tourists, especially since the Taj is built on a much smaller site than the Red Fort, but the instant I see the famed mausoleum I am spellbound.

The Taj is considered the pinnacle of Muslim architecture. Anything that gets that much press is a set-up for disappointment, but the Taj breaks that rule. Like the pyramids in Egypt, which I visited seven years ago, the Taj is indescribable. Nothing really prepares you for it. It is elegant beyond description and more beautiful than any structure I have ever seen. My throat is drying out because my jaw is hanging open all the time. The fact that it was a

In spite of borrowing extensively from Persian, Arab and Hindu architectural styles, it feels fresh and original. Its tall, stately form and iconic dome and minarets, made of white marble instead of red stone and inset with hundreds of thousands of semi-precious gems, becomes more overwhelming the closer I come to it.

The attention to detail becomes obvious. There is calligraphy running up the sides of the main pishtaq (entry arch), supposedly poems and prayers. Inside, it is crawling with tour groups. A guide shows up how the agates and other semi-precious stone conduct light by lighting a match at one end and the other end begins to glow.

After half an hour inside, Frank and I walk around the grounds in front the Taj and take pictures of each other in front of the reflection pool that extends a long way and creates an amazing view line. There are gardens and a beautiful mosque on the grounds and we can gaze out over the river at the Red Fort to the north-west. What a beautiful sight!If there is anything else worth seeing in Agra, I am sure it would be dwarfed by the Taj and the Red Fort.

Anyway, there is no more time before catching our bus back to New Delhi. Frank and I go out to dinner to celebrate our wonderful day, and then retire to the tourist camp. This is our last night there. Tomorrow morning we will leave New Delhi to explore Rajasthan, en route to Mumbai.

PHOTO 1: the Red Fort in Agra
PHOTO 2: entrance gate of Red Fort
PHOTO 3: white marble rooms inside
PHOTO 4: view from the top
PHOTO 5: Frank and I at Red Fort looking towards Taj Mahal
PHOTO 6: me in front of the Taj Mahal
PHOTO 7: inscriptions written on exterior wall by entrance
PHOTO 8: inlaid semi-precious stone in the walls
PHOTO 9: screen inside the Taj

20 years ago today – Day 313

2012-01-10T07:51:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Friday, January 10th – New Delhi

Frank has gone shopping to look for gifts for his family before leaving New Delhi and I, not having much better to do, take out my bike and ride to Canadian High Commission south of Connaught Circle to read Canadian newspapers so that I have some idea what has been going on back home recently. The CHC is in a pompous, prestigious office in a low complex about three kilometres south-west of the south end of Janpath Ave, off a broad boulevard called Shanti Path. The staff members there are not too accommodating to Canadian visitors and make no effort to interact with me. They have copies of the Ottawa Citizen and the Globe & Mail, which I spend 45 minutes reading in the outer lobby.

There isn't too much interesting in the papers. Brian Mulroney's government is struggling with only an 11% approval rating so it looks like it won't survive the next election. There are several articles referring to the new recession that is affecting the economy, especially in Ontario where many industries were protected by trade tariffs until free trade cut them loose. Thank gawd I have a secure government job. Afterwards, I cycle east to see the India Gate, a tall, narrower

version of the Arch de Triomphe in Paris, built to commemorate Indian soldiers who died in WW I. From there I check out the Qutub Minar, the world's tallest free standing brick minaret, built in 1193 AD during the ancient Tughlaq Dynasty.

I return to the tourist camp and lock up my bike again. I buy my lunch from a local restaurant that serves falafel sandwiches. Frank has still not returned after I have finished so I head out on my own. I walk north to the Old Delhi Bazaar on Chiti Qabar Marg, less than a kilometre away. It is a less congested and more

pleasant market than Pahar Gang, certainly less tiring. I continue north to see the large Jama Masjid Mosque and sprawls out majestically at the end of a long promenade with dramatic view lines about half a kilometre further north. I walk halfway around it without paying admission to go inside. It was built in 1650 AD by the same Shah who built the Red Forts in Agra and in Delhi, half a kilometre east of the mosque, as well as the famous Taj Mahal in Agra.

North of the Jama Mosque I pass through the colourful Chandni Chowk market, which is perhaps the most interesting of the three I have visited so far. From there, I walk east to the massive Red Fort. The Red Fort is incredibly large. I start walking around it but I give up part way. The commotion and excitement of the day has tired me out. I stop to pick up some vegetables in the Old Delhi Bazaar to share with Frank on my way back to the tourist camp.

Frank is relaxing the sun of the courtyard of the tourist camp reading a book when I arrive back. He greets me in his usual cheery manner. We chat for a while about our respective days and then make dinner together. The two English fellows have left for Agra today so we eat dinner alone tonight. After dinner Frank tells me he has researched tours to Agra for tomorrow. The fees are a bit steep but how can someone come this close to the Taj Mahal without seeing it. I am very excited about seeing it. For a change, I will spend the day with Frank.

PHOTO 1: the India Gate
PHOTO 2: Qutub Minar
PHOTO 3: Delhi street
PHOTO 4: Chiti Qabar Marg
PHOTO 5: Old Delhi market
PHOTO 6: Jama Masjid Mosque
PHOTO 7: entrance to the Red Fort
PHOTO 8: arches inside the Red Fort
PHOTO 9: Frank's photo: minaret at sunset

20 years ago today – Day 312

2012-01-09T07:49:00.000-08:00

Thursday, January 9th – New DelhiI have an airline ticket home, leaving from Bombay (Mumbai) on February 14th! Wow, I had not realized how exciting this would be. I remember being this excited when I bought my ticket to Lisbon from Toronto in mid-February a year ago, and now it seems ironic that I would be just as excited to reverse the process. I have chosen to spend $300 extra to fly over the Pacific on Swiss Air to Hong Kong and from there on Air Canada to Taipei and then Vancouver, where I'll stop over for two weeks to visit with my good friends Bill and Lee and my sister Linda. This means I will have circumnavigated the globe. Amazing!Steve Dynes, my manager in the Research and Information Section of the City of Toronto Planning Department, questioned whether taking a whole year off would be too much traveling for me. I wasn't sure, but the thought of returning to Toronto early, having to stay through a bleak winter in windy, icy Malton by the Toronto International Airport with my parents for a few months until I could move back into my sublet home, was so disheartening that I was determined to make this work. I have suffered at many times on the trip and wasted away to 125 lbs (57 kg) but I have almost made it.

I headed out into the city streets in my new Indian garb this morning. They feel so right in this climate, both warm and airy enough to feel comfortable. I am sure I look like a demented tourist dressing in anachronistic clothing - the locals mostly wears jeans and T-shirts. There is actually a huge variety of clothing and ethnicities on the street here. I really enjoy it. It feels cosmopolitan, in a very Asian way. No one stares at me like I do not belong here.

So I made my way back to Connaught Circle around 10 am and spent the next hour and a half researching prices and talking over options. Now that I have my ticket in hand I am heading west to the famous market district called Pahar Ganj on Main Bazaar Rd north-west of Connaught Circle. The street is crowded with pedestrian shoppers and vegetable, fruit and retail clothing stalls with six to eight floor buildings on either side. Rickshaws, wagons, cars and bicycles inch their way along the crowded corridors. I wonder why they even bother trying as it must take them a half hour to go a block. There is nothing I want to buy but it is fascinating to just to watch the flow of humanity. People seem happy here and many greeted me warmly. I can see why people stay in India for prolonged visits.At 3 pm, I meet Frank at a tea house between Connaught Circle and the tourist camp where we are staying. He has been checking out bike shops and shopping for his ticket home too. He will stay in India a few days in Mumbai after I leave, then fly home to see Eric and his family. He plans to go skiing in the Alps and might even try scuba diving below some alpine ice again. I haven't told him yet but he is my superhero. I haven't told him I am gay either. Perhaps he has figured it out. He never tries to talk about women with me. If he does know, he is clearly OK with it. On the chance he isn't OK with it I want to leave it unspoken, at least for now. He is wonderful company, warm and protective of me, and I wouldn't want to lose that. Tracy Chapman is playing on the stereo at the tea house. She is singing "You can say 'Baby'..." Frank is trying to explain something to me but he has forgotten the word. 'I don't know what to say...' he starts, and I chime in "'You can say 'Baby...' and we have a good laugh over this. We have such a good time together I wish he lived in the same part of the world so we could stay close friends when we return home. At least I can enjoy his company for now. I have started taking the malaria medicine again with the expectation that if there are not mosquitoes in south Rajasthan then there will be in Mumbai or Goa. This is the third time I have started taking them, which is highly discouraged, but the side effects for taking the medicine for an extended period aren’t something I want either – problems for the liver and hair loss, etc. I hope I am not fucking up my system too much. PHOTO 1: washing dayPHOTO 2: getting your wires crossedPHOTO 3: street scenePHOTO 4: PHOTO 5: PHOTO 6:

20 years ago today – Day 311

2012-01-08T08:47:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, January 8th – New Delhi

Frank is off on his own this morning, looking for a bike shop that might have patches for a tear in his pannier. He might have to look in a hardware shop instead. Western concepts of what a “hardware” shop or bike shop might be often differ here. They are more apt to be repair shops here. I go crazy shopping in the crowded shopping streets here and trying to find a place using the directions given. You have to live here to find your way around. I suggest he should go to the tourist office on Janpath and they will help him find what he wants.

I head off on my own shortly after he leaves to follow my advice. I am only going as far as Connaught Circle with the hope of finding few travel agencies where I can compare air fares to fly home. I only get two blocks when something I have eaten has come alive and is trying to claw its way out. I stop two distinguished gentlemen on the sidewalk and ask them where I might find a public toilet. They chuckle, woggle their heads and reply in unison, “India IS a public toilet!”

It’s true, though I wasn’t going to say it myself. And I am not going to squat at the edge of the sidewalk to empty my bowels. That would be easier to do when wearing the loose fitting robes, like the loose-fitting “kurta”, a man’s shirt that hangs down to the knees, but I couldn’t have brought myself to do it anyway. Mahatma Gandhi’s campaign fifty years ago to convince Indians to build latrines and not shit in the open public for sanitary reasons was not very successful. I struggle back to the hostel and make it just in time to avoid an embarrassing eruption.

I set out again, a few minutes later, and visit three different travel agencies. They had comparative prices for a trip back home over Europe and the Atlantic to Toronto, but the third agency asked if I would prefer to fly over the Pacific instead. It is a bit longer and a bit more expensive but I could stop off for a couple weeks anywhere I might want to. At the moment, I admit I have had enough psychologically and mentally, trying to adjust to new cultures. I think I would prefer to spend two weeks in Vancouver visiting my sister and my good friend Bill Emery. That thought feels like a welcome offer for a hot bath after a week of hard labour, but I only have one quote for that route so I delay my ticket purchase at least until tomorrow.

While walking between Outer Circle and Middle Circle, and an thrilled to find a shop that sells goods from the ashram that Mahatma Gandhi once belonged to. It is a sizeable store with a wide range of home spun cotton clothing, sandals and simple leather goods.

Gandhi’s life and works have astonished and impressed me more than any other leader in history. After seeing Richard Attenborough’s film “Gandhi” (1983), I became consumed with studying his teachings. I feel totally humbled by his accomplishments and the integrity with which he lived his life, something I feel I should be able to do, but have not been very successful at. No visit to India could possibly be complete for me without some encounter with places he had been. He had visited the well in Jallianwala Bagh Park in Amritsar after the massacre, which was featured at the sobering half-way point of the three hour film.

The ashram store had Gandhi quotes mounted on the walls of inside the store such as:

“I dreamt that all life was bliss, but woke to find that all life was toil and duty. So I toiled and did my duty to serve my country and I discovered that all service is bliss.”

“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

“Every international friendship is a step towards world peace.”

“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.”

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

“Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it is most important that you do it.”

“Poverty is the worst form of violence.”

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow, and learn as though you were to live forever.”

And my favourite, in answer to a reporter’s question when he was visiting England in 1931, ‘What do you think of Western civilization Mr. Gandhi?’, Gandhi replied, “Yes, that would be a very good idea.”

So in spite of the extra weight I would need to carry, I bought a homespun kurta, and pair of churidars (loose cotton trousers that gather at the ankles) and a white cotton Nehru hat. I am not sure where or how often I will wear them but I am very proud to own them.

I walk back to the hostel and try them on, and then wait for Frank to arrive back. He is really tickled when he sees me in them, telling me that they look good on me. I am sure they will look better once I have regained 10 kg on my emancipated frame. We stay in after dinner, after dark, and talk about our plans. Frank also plans to fly home shortly after I leave. We agree to cycle through Rajasthan, south-west of Delhi, catch a bus to Mumbai (Bombay) and then on to Goa before leaving India. He suggests it would be better to fly home from Mumbai instead of returning all the way to New Delhi. That makes sense. We will wrap our business here over the next two days, take a bus tour to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort, and then set off towards Rajasthan on Sunday.

PHOTO 1: street near Connaught Place
PHOTO 2: Paharganj shopping district, west of Connaught Place

20 years ago today – Day 310

2012-01-07T08:43:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Tuesday, January 7th – New Delhi

Both Frank and I slept in this morning. I guess we needed it. I am feeling much better than two days ago when we camped in the sugar cane field. I have learned something a bit disturbing about that episode. Apparently, cobras and black mambas prefer to nest in sugar cane fields. A passage in our guide book warns against camping anywhere near them. Oh well, nothing happened. That makes two close encounters with dangerous snakes, though we saw no sign of them.

So we are up at 9 am and Frank is making tea in the rudimentary kitchen the tourist camp provides. There is a German straight couple and a couple of British guys, Patrick and James, staying here too. There are a couple other tents and perhaps others staying in rooms like we are, but we haven’t met them. We make our breakfast from fruit and cereals we have been carrying with us in our bags.

By 10 am we are off to Connaught Circle to check out the centre of the city. It is a one kilometre walk. The sidewalks are congested and full of activity. There are beggars and vendors and occasionally motorcycles parked on them – lots of obstacles to weave around. There aren’t many open sewers like the one that surrounds out camp, but there is every other kind of filth and debris. But it is all part of life here and Frank and I both enjoy taking it in.

Our first goal is to buy more rupees. In the process of doing so, a bank tellers tell me that I do not have the correct papers to prove I have made the required bank purchase upon arriving in the country. The bank clerk in Amritsar used the wrong form. Surely you can see that I did purchase them though, I tell the clerk. Oh yes, he says, but I wouldn’t want you to have a problem when you try to leave the country. You might be fined, you know, he tells me. But he assures me it can be fixed. I will just need to wait for a while until the supervisor can fix up the right papers for me. I thank him for his concern and attentiveness.

I tell Frank not to wait for me as I have no idea how long this might take. I tell him I will meet him back at the tourist camp for dinner. I wait for half an hour or so until a Mr. Bains is able to see me. He comes out to welcome me into his office in the most gracious manner. Indians can be extraordinarily gracious. He shakes his head over the mess the clerk in Amritsar has made, saying he suspects he was ill-trained or just wasn’t sent the right forms, but he assures me he can fix the papers. He tries to explain the difference between the forms but I am sure only bureaucrats in the profession could make sense of it.

Mr. Bains is a kind and personable man. He tells me his sister now lives in Ontario. Oh really, where in Ontario, I ask him. He searches his desk for the envelope her last letter came in and says the town in called Nokino. That leaves me scratching my head a bit. Oh, I think that is the postal code, I inform him – N0K 1K0. Oh dear, I think you are right, he says with a noticeable blush. The town is Port Dover. But Bains is gracious enough to laugh over his mistake. I tell him the friend I cycled with for the first three months of my trip, Mike Silk, is from there. What a small world this has become. I visited Port Dover to visit Mike and his family a few times the summer before I left.

I do manage to get another advance on my charge card after the forms are properly in order. I should be good now for at least three weeks.

I am on my own when I return to the street. I follow the map from the guide book to get to the tourist office, which is on the far side of Connaught Circle. Connaught Circle is clearly a piece of urban design left behind by the British. The centre of the circle is a circular park called (naturally) Central Park. It is surrounded by three concentric circular streets, the first named “Inner Circle”, followed by “Middle Circle” and “Outer Circle”. There are several streets radiating from Inner Circle like spokes from a wheel.

The street that heads due south from Outer Circle is called Janpath and the tourist office is on there, three blocks south of Connaught Circle. I make my way through the spider’s web of streets to the far side to find the office and pick up maps and brochures. On the way there I pass a store on Middle Circle that sells clothing and other home-spun cotton goods from the ashram that used to be the home of Mahatma Gandhi. It is closed by the time I return from the tourist office so I make a point of returning tomorrow.

I return to the tourist camp and find Frank there preparing dinner. He has purchased potatoes, carrots and lentils and is making a curried stew in the kitchen. James and Patrick are there and they invite us to share a bottle of wine they have purchased. They end up contributing to our meal and we eat it together on the picnic table in the kitchen. After dinner, we play Hearts on the same table while the German couple, Horst and Renate, prepare their dinner.

James is a bit creepy. He has a short temper and snaps at Patrick every time he doesn’t like how Patrick plays his cards. He is a control freak and has a real chip on his shoulder, it seems. He mellows as the wine takes its toll, but I am sure glad I am traveling with Frank and not him. I start thinking about that and I decide that I have never traveled with anyone who is as kind, interactive, playful, considerate and protective as Frank is. Young as he is, Frank feels more like an older brother who watches out for me. I am sure he would have stepped up to the plate if James had turned his anger towards me.

PHOTO 1: rickshaw and scooter
PHOTO 2: Connaught Place, Outer Circle
PHOTO 3: the mall at Connaught Place
PHOTO 4: bookstore in Connaught Place
PHOTO 5: Central Park, in the centre of Connaught Circle
PHOTO 6: a street market west of Outer Circle

20 years ago today – Day 309

2012-01-06T07:03:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Monday, January 6th – Rohtak to New Delhi, 16,079 km

The morning arrives early in the sugar cane field. There is a hazy golden glow in the air as we pack up the tent. Frank is a bit groggy from lack of sleep. No to worry, he says, which is his nature. He says he can catch up on his sleep over the next few days in New Delhi. It is hard to believe that by tonight we will be there. Coen and Vincent should be there by now, but I have no idea where they will be staying.

We push our loaded bikes back to the dirt road and ride out to the highway. It is still early, around 8:30, so the truck traffic is relatively light. In only a few minutes though, we enter the city of Rohtak and are dealing with Monday morning rush hour traffic. Hwy 10 cuts right through the heart of the city, and continues east to New Delhi.

After Rohtak, it wiggles and bends more and the traffic increases. Some of the bends let it bypass towns it once passed through, such as Sampla. We pass by Sampla at 11 am, about 40 km from our start, but we continue on without stopping to the village of Sankhoi at 55 km. That is where we stop for lunch.

We are both anxious to get into Delhi before evening rush hour so we don't linger there long. We are soon back on the highway pedaling in tight formation along the left curb. About 20 km further along we begin to see industrial plants and the outer fringes of the suburbs. The excitement is building, like the traffic. The road surface has improved significantly now that we have entered the Capital Region. The roads are wider too. Every type of traffic fills the width of the highway, from farmers with their oxen and carts and camels, to three-wheeled rickshaws, bicycles, cars, buses and trucks of all sizes. It is a live video game. One moment we are gliding along smoothly and suddenly, without any warning, a bus or a truck swerves across the median from the opposite direction, into the on-coming traffic, and all vehicles on our side crowd over towards the shoulder. I must stay alert.

Except for these moments of high adrenalin, our ride into the centre of New Delhi is surprisingly easy. With a population of 6.8 million, this is the biggest city I have cycled in east of Istanbul - I didn't cycle in Tehran - so I expected it to be more difficult. We find a café with outdoor seating and Frank pulls out his Lonely Planet Guide to read up on where we should go. There is a tourist information office in Connaught Square a couple miles from here on Janpath Dr, which runs south off Connaught Circle, the geographic centre of the city, but we have arrived 1.5 km or so north of Connaught Circle. There is a tourist campground very close to us, on a thin slice of land between two major streets, Asaf Ali Rd and Jawaharlal Nehru Marg. How curious - right in the heart of the city, only a kilometre from Connaught Circle!

The tourist camp is surrounded by an eight foot wall painted a brick orange colour. There is an access from the road over the open sewage ditch, about half a metre wide, which acts as a sort of vile moat. Inside its gated walls I can't hear the constant traffic. In fact, I wouldn't even know I was anywhere near a large city if I hadn't just come through the gate myself. There are mature, overhanging chestnut and other semi-tropical trees and rooms to pitch tents.

There are also low rise motel-styled rooms with doors that open onto the courtyard. It looks like a small, low-key beach resort without the beach. There are two beds in each room. It is cheaply-priced so Frank and I decide to take a room instead of camping. The thin mattresses are quite firm because there is plywood underneath them. I like this set up a lot.

It is too late to do much exploring. The showers are available for two hours in the mornings and evenings so we grab them while we can, and then go out looking for dinner. The streets of New Delhi are teeming with activity and street vendors, but we find a local restaurant and enjoy a prepared dinner.

Afterwards, we return to our room and read the guide book's chapter on New Delhi. Tomorrow I need to get another advance on my credit card and start investigating return flights to Canada. The realization that my trip is drawing to a close is slowly sinking in.

PHOTO 1: Rohtak
PHOTO 2: the Tourist Camp in New Delhi
PHOTO 3: the street immediately outside the tourist camp

20 years ago today – Day 308

2012-01-05T06:36:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Sunday, January 5th – Barwala to near Rohtak, 15,974 km

Leaving Barwala this morning, we pass mounds or cow or oxen carcasses, picked clean of their meat, that have been piled up in a field near the edge of town. Perhaps there has been a plague of some kind here, because they certainly would not have been used for meat. This is something European or North American societies would have hidden from view but in India it’s out in the open.

It is growing a bit warmer as we move south each day. We do not need to wear our cycling tights as long. In fact, today Frank starts without his but he does. Actually, our start is delayed today. Frank has found another broken spoke which he missed on his inspection last night. His frustration is starting to show somewhat. He isn't sure if the mechanics who rebuilt his wheel in Pakistan did something wrong since they were unfamiliar with the way western bicycle wheels are constructed with the spokes crossing each other.

But once he has repaired the wheel and we are moving again he puts it out of his mind. We are moving south on a small paved side road towards the village of Hansi. These first 30 km to Hansi are the best cycling of the day as there is very little traffic, but beyond Hansi we are on Hwy 10 which heads directly towards the city of Rohtak and then to New Delhi. All regional traffic heading to New Delhi uses this road. We have another 80 km to cover to reach Rohtak, where we are aiming for today.

We pass through a couple villages on the way to Rohtak, but only very small ones. There are plenty of roadside restaurants and we do take a few breaks here and there, sometimes to have a break from the annoying truck traffic. I am a bit concerned about making Rohtak before dark but Frank isn't. We can pitch our tent anywhere, he tells me. Thank gawd he has a tent. Not having one myself, I am not used to it and forget I have this option while traveling with Frank.

This is a long day, made longer by the ever increasing truck traffic. It seems to grind on forever. As the sun is near to setting behind us we are still ten kilometres from Rohtak. Frank suddenly veers off the road ahead of me, onto a dirt road. On either side of the road there are sugar cane crops growing. "Let's camp here!" he says with a gleam in his eye, as though this would be something special.

I follow him into a partially cleared field, into an indentation in the tall wall of cane that rises two and a half metres above us. One problem is already blatantly obvious. The cane stubble beneath our feet is tough and uneven. We lean our bikes up against the cane and spend 15 minutes stomping on the stubble until it in relatively flat. Then we set up Frank's tent and stretch out our sleeping bags.

It is proper etiquette to ask a farmer if you can camp on his land, but we don't know which farmer the field belongs to. We don't expect to be seen here by anyone because we won't be building a fire or walking around. As soon as it is dark, we retire to our tent and read. I am happy to in bed early because my stomach is sour and rumbling. My system is fighting something so I skip dinner. Hopefully it will pass without too much discomfort. Frank makes a sandwich and eats it in the tent.

Later in the evening we hear voices of young men. Our lights are out but a few minutes later the light from a campfire they have started hits our tent. From all the laughing and joking, it seems they are here to party. At first they don't see us and I caution Frank not to go out. The last thing I want is to be kept up all night.

They keep adding to the fire and the light grows brighter. Suddenly they see our yellow tent against the sugar cane and this excites them. Frank says he'd better go out and greet them or they'll be sticking their heads into the tent. I am still feeling queasy so I stay put. They hear Frank say something to me and they are convinced he has a girl with him. He tells them I am sick but they want to see for themselves. One of them, the farmer's son I presume, sticks his head through the flap and confirms to the others that I am in fact a guy and I am sick. Of course, for all they know I could be Frank's 'girl' but I am the only one considering that unlikely option.

They are excited to have Frank with them, as I knew they would be. They are loud and boisterous. The concept of keeping quiet when someone nearby is sick doesn't seem to cross their minds. They keep Frank up until the middle of the night. He tells me later that they wouldn't let him return to his bed. By leaving the tent he had committed to staying up with them. There is no way around it.

PHOTO 1: cow carcasses in Barwala
PHOTO 2: me taking a rest in a farmer's field
PHOTO 3: at our lunch stop, road to Rohtak
PHOTO 4: a main irrigation canal
PHOTO 5: our tent set up in the cane field

20 years ago today – Day 307

2012-01-04T07:45:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Saturday, January 4th – Sangrur to Barwala, 15,879 km

Since leaving Amritsar, we have been jogging south and south-east in the general direction of New Delhi, the capital of India. Today we are heading almost due south towards the town of Barwala, and we are leaving the state of Punjab and entering the state of Haryana. Haryana is the same size as Punjab. New Delhi is immediately on the far side of it.

I keep expecting the topography or architecture to change as the days pass but so far that hasn't happened. It is still green and as flat as a pancake. Without any notable change I begin to feel I am on a never-ending loop of scenery, as though I am riding in a great circle.

Most of our route today, except for the last 20 km, follows small side roads that jog around or through settlements. South of Sangrur, we pass through the bigger towns of Chhajli and Lehragaga, but we don't stop until the village of Tohana to have our lunch around 1 pm.

At lunch we talk over something we have been noticing happen over and over again. It usually happens right after leaving a town. We will be riding along at a steady controlled pace that we have set for the day and a man will come riding up beside us on his bicycle, very non-nonchalantly, and continue past us. As soon as he passes us he pulls over. Sometimes this is as little as two metres in front of us and twice now Frank or I have crashed into the person who does this because he literally takes us out by slowing down and pulling aver at the same time.

The rider never tries to interact with us, like ask us for anything, and there is never a particular place or objective for pulling over. What Frank and I have concluded is that they only want to prove they can pass us, that they are better than us. It is extremely annoying and potentially dangerous. We have started calling them “human flies”. For fun, we have tried accelerating and not letting them pass us, which leads them farther and farther from their town and eventually exhausts them, but it exhausts us too, with our heavier loads. The other option is to slow down instantly so that they can pass quickly and get it over with. Either way, we are on the constant lookout for them as this happens almost everytime we pass through the town. If I am at the rear I shout “Fly alert!” ahead to Frank to warn him, and visa versa if I am in the lead.

Coming into Barwala, which is a village at best, we stop at a store to buy drinks. The owner chats us up and another resident of the town, a friend of the owner, overhears us. His name is Amit. He implores us to pitch our tent in the courtyard of his home and to be his guests for dinner with his wife and family. Frank is as zealous as I am at chatting up friendly locals so we accept his offer. His home is nearby as there isn’t much to this town. Within minutes we have pitched our tent and changed into our street clothes.

Dinner is subsee and a goat stew with rice, a simple but elegant meal, and we chat with the owner about his life and our lives back in our home countries. I feel like I am talking about a former life that scarcely makes sense anymore. For some reason, I feel shy in another family’s home outside of a short visit. I am aware that I do not fit in and fear that I might be imposing. I am not sure what this is about. I was not shy when I was in Europe. Perhaps the perceived differences in our class and culture make me uneasy.

PHOTO 1: in Tohana
PHOTO 2: temple in Moonak Mandi
PHOTO 3: Amit's wife preparing our dinner in Barwala

20 years ago today – Day 306

2012-01-03T07:35:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

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

20 years ago today – Day 305

2012-01-02T09:28:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Thursday, January 2nd – Amritsar to Moga, 15,639 km

Our route today is quite simple. We ride due south on Hwy 15 from Circular Rd in Amritsar, through the towns of Tam Taran and Sarhali Kalan. At Harike, we cross a tributary of the Indus River that flows towards Pakistan. On the other side, we leave the highway at Makhu to take a side route that leads directly to the town of Moga. Our route is flat and does not lead to any major centre so the traffic is not heavy.

Frank stays with me, no more than a hundred metres or so ahead or behind me. He frequently catches up with me or drops back to chat with me, just to vary our day. It is easy in this flat environment with straight roads to zone out and get into a quasi-trance while riding. I would probably do this if I was alone, but Frank keeps me interacting. He makes the trip fun.

There isn't much in the way of scenery here, but the riding environment is different from what I am used to. There are many kinds of vehicles on the road, the smaller ones being bicycles like ours. Many locals ride bikes here. They are heavy steel bikes used as utility bikes. I have seen several today where the rider has a pole balanced on his shoulders with heavy kegs of milk on either end or other similarly heavy loads. There are occasionally motorcycles, scooters or motorized rickshaws passing us and slower farmers' carts that we pass. Large bapelos (oxen) stroll along side the road and cross whenever they want to, knowing that no one will ever hurt them. They are ugly but sweet natured.

Trucks speed along the roads here, some of them overloaded with loads of cotton, their cargo looking like a microwave popcorn bag that has grown too large for the vehicle. When a truck wants to pass another vehicle, it will cross to the other side of the road even if there are vehicles approaching in the on-coming lane. Small vehicles in the on-coming lane are expected to leave the road to accommodate what the larger vehicle is doing. If they don't, the truck will win out and they will die. Having vehicles leaving the road suddenly when a bicycle is riding by them can be extremely dangerous. Being smaller, bikes are expected to get out of their way when they leave the road. It is survival of the biggest so it best to stay alert at all times.

Ironically in the reverse situation, where a speeding truck roars up from behind blaring its horn aggressively, I just ignore it. I have picked up that they are not allowed to hit you and you don't have to get out of the way if you are not looking at it. If you understand these two rules you might survive here. Fortunately, there's not too much traffic on the side roads. Like Pakistan, they drive on the left here. I thought that might confuse me but I seem to have adjusted to the change very smoothly.

I can't get over how green it is on this side of the border compared to the dusty fields near Lahore. The vicious civil war in 1947 at the time of partition destroyed most of the infrastructure in Punjab. The Sikhs have a reputation for being talented in engineering skills, much like the reputation Germans have in Europe. Since 1947, they have reconstructed irrigation canals throughout Punjab, and while Punjab has only 2% of India's population they are responsible today for 15% of its gross domestic product. We have passed several of the main irrigation canals on our ride today.

Moga is a rural agricultural hub with not much of interest to look at. There are a couple of inexpensive inns. The first we check out has a room with twin beds and storage for our bikes. I am a little tired tonight as this has been my first day cycling 100 km in quite a while. It is exciting to be venturing further into India, towards the capital. I have the impression that I could spend a whole year cycling here, if I had the time.

Frank's rear wheel has a broken spoke when we arrive in Moga. There seems to be no reason for it since our route today was smooth. He had his rear wheel rebuilt in Rawalpindi and isn't sure if that has had something to do with it. He spent the late afternoon while there was still light replacing the spoke and truing the wheel. I get so frustrated over mechanical problems but he is always mellow and methodical.

PHOTO 1: south of Amritsar along the road
PHOTO 2: Moga

20 years ago today – Day 304

2012-01-01T09:15:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Wednesday, January 1st – Amritsar

Frank and I walk to the Golden Temple as soon as we have had breakfast at a local café near our hotel. It is a mild, sunny morning with only a slight breeze, the type of day that naturally creates a good mood. The hustle and bustle of the busy market streets dissolves into the serenity around the temple and the lake. It is as though there is a magical spell over this area, like Rivendell in Lord of the Rings.

The temple, with its gold leaf covering on its upper floors, is glistening on its island in the lake. The morning air has a smoky blue haze in it, making its colour soft and muted. The clean, white buildings, walkways and pavilions around the lake are its decorative backdrop. There is gentle activity everywhere, people walking along the water's edge, on the causeways to the temple or gathered in small groups. White birds swim in the water and fly over the lake. The same meditative music that we heard last night greets us again and sets a spiritual tone.

The Golden Temple is the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion. It houses the original Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book. A priest sits on the east side and reads continuously from the text, like a soft chant that echoes reassuringly from a loudspeaker. The Baba Atal Tower stands on the sound side in a small park. The excavated lake is named Amritsar, like the city that has grown around it. The name means 'pool of the nectar of immortality'.

The true name of the temple is Harmandir Sahib, which means 'abode of God'. You can feel Her here when you cross the causeway to reach its doors. There are four causeways leading to the temple, one for each direction, to indicate acceptance and openness to everyone. We cause from eastern causeways, remove our shoes and cover our heads with our kafias out of respect as we inch our way through the temple. Inside the walls are marble, inset with rubies and some have beautiful frescoes. There are several shrines to past Sikh gurus, saints and heroes.

In 1984, Sikh extremists seized the temple. Indira Gandhi sent in the Indian army and they took the temple by force. Over 500 soldiers and civilians died in the fighting. I see a couple bullet holes from the battle in the outer walls. The desecration of the holy shrine resulted in Indira's assassination three months later by a Sikh extremist.

Some restoration work has been completed since then. The government expropriated land around the temple three years ago and began clearing a wide swath of land, creating more open area and public park space. The guide says small rooms around the lake and those in the basement of the temple have been sealed. The redesign has met some resistance and the head contractor was assassinated last year so the work has stopped for now. You would never know there was hatred or anger around here though. It feels like the holiest place I have ever been. All I sense is a graceful peace, as though I am being cradled by a greater, loving force.

After resting for a while on the promenade around the lake following our tour, we walk over two blocks to Jallianwala Bagh, the site of the 1919 massacre. There was a lot of unrest in India following the end of World War I, some of it acerbated by Mahatma Gandhi's 'satyagraha' campaign (peaceful truth-force campaign) against the iron handed rule of Punjab's English Governor Michael O'Dwyer. Peaceful rallies were set up between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs to protest the oppressive penalties. On April 13, 1919, such a protest was taking place when the British troops opened fire without warning on the unarmed crowd.

The park is a walled garden only accessed by a single narrow passageway. The troops blocked the exits and started firing indiscriminately for several minutes into the crowd of over 2,000, killing several hundreds. Many hundred others were trampled to death in the panic. Those who tried to scale the walls to escape were shot down and dozens of others jumped into a deep, wide well and were drowned by others jumping on top of them. The officer in charge testified later that he regretted that the passageway was too narrow to bring in a vehicle with a machine gun mounted on it, which prevented him from killing more protesters. Over 1500 people died in the massacre.

There in a scene in the middle of the movie "Gandhi" where he visits the park right after the massacre. To be here in person is overwhelming. I feel quite choked. There is beautiful spiritual music playing and flowers blooming everywhere. I can see bullet holes still in the walls and in the opening of the well, and I feel hugely sad. It is strange that in such an ancient country and a city that has been around for centuries that the most significant and violent historical massacres have both occurred in this century.

The visit to the two sites has had a similar impact on Frank, who is a caring person. We are both rather quiet when we leave and tired from the emotional experience of the day. I am glad Frank was with me today. If I was alone I might feel depressed.

On our way back, we pass through the market area and buy food at a kiosk for dinner and eat it there. Afterwards, we detour to the Golden Temple to gaze at the lake a while longer before returning to our hotel. When we get back to our room, we look over our maps to decide on tomorrow's route, our first step on our journey to New Delhi. We want to avoid the heavier traffic in the centre of the valley where the industrial cities of Jalandhar and Ludhiana are located. We choose a quieter route that heads due south towards the town of Moga.

PHOTO 1: the Golden Temple and Baba Atal Tower, Amritsar
PHOTO 2: prayers by the north entrance way
PHOTO 3: from the walkway around the pond
PHOTO 4: the queue on the causeway to enter
PHOTO 5: at the entrance
PHOTO 6: women on Golden Pond
PHOTO 7: the entrance walkway, too narrow for machine gun truck
PHOTO 8: dedication sign, Jallianwala Bagh
PHOTO 9: bullet holes in Jallianwala can still be seen

20 years ago today – Day 303

2011-12-31T09:35:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Tuesday, December 31st – Lahore to Amritsar, India, 15,536 km

It is definitely warmer in Lahore than it was yesterday morning in Rawalpindi, being lower in elevation and further south. It is easier to get up when it is not below freezing. Frank is up and stretching like a lion. He is definitely a morning person like me.

This will be my first day of loaded cycling since I rode into Quetta almost three weeks ago, but it will not be a difficult one. The route between Lahore and Amritsar is as flat as a pancake and only about 60 km in total distance. After a breakfast of fruit and some chipatis we bought at a street stall last night, we set out. It is sunny and pleasant, a touch on the cool side, but warmer than I have known for weeks. It is a fairly busy road with only a narrow shoulder so we keep our heads down and our legs pumping. The fields on either side of us are dry and dusty. From time to time when there is a break in the traffic, Frank drops back to ride beside me and chat. He stays right with me as he promised he would.

Lahore is a large city, the size of Boston or Seattle by population. It is the traditional capital city of Punjab, a nation which was divided between India and Pakistan with the 1947 partition. Lahore fell on the Pakistani side. On the east side of the sub-continent, the ancient nation of Bengal was also divided, and its capital city, Calcutta, was given to India. Mahatma Gandhi went to Bengal when partition was declared, to try to quell the bloodbath that was sure to ensue. He was successful for the most part, but he couldn't be in two places at once to stop the bloodbath that occurred between the two halves of Punjab on the west side.

The Sikhs of east Punjab sided with India, sighting their distrust of Muslim oppressors in recent history, and their main city, Amritsar, lies right over the Indian border. They were particularly brutal during the massacres, at times stopping trains and beheading all the passengers, cutting the breasts off the women and the hands off children. The Muslims and Hindus also went on killing sprees in retaliation.

At present, Amritsar has the only border crossing between the two countries. Technically, the two countries are at war again over Kashmir, which they have been fighting over off and on for 44 years, which is why I have been a bit concerned about the crossing. We coast up to the crossing around noon and wait in line.

When we reach the border crossing kiosk, two border guards question us. They ask me to open my bag but when they see the laundry on top they say that is good enough. We are asked to fill in a form and they give us an instruction form explaining that a minimum quantity of rupees must be purchased from a registered bank and that we must produce a valid receipt for the purchase when we leave the country. It is a government strategy to limit the black market sale of rupees. When I have filled out their bureaucratic declaration form the guard asks me if he can keep my pen. "No, you wouldn't want to do that," I say to him. "Please," he tries again. "No, I'm sorry, I need it," I shake my head, and he gives it back to me. I feel like I am talking to a child.

I notice a complete change of scenery when we cross the border. The dusty, barren fields have transformed to green on the Indian side. Cascades of fuchsia-coloured bougainvillea hang down from the customs house itself and there are flowers and shrubs everywhere, as if to mock the impoverished Pakistani side. If I felt like I fell off the edge of the civilized world when I crossed into Pakistan at Taftan, I now feel like I have climbed out of that hole. Even the roads have a better surface.

The road entering Amritsar follows the railway line and leads past the railway station. We consult the Lonely Planet Guide that says there is a government information office in the Hotel Palace by the Golden Temple in the centre of town, but we cannot find it anywhere. After asking around, we learn that it was moved three kilometres out of town after the hotel was occupied by the Indian army in 1984 during the siege of the Golden Temple. The information is at least seven years out of date.

We have heard that the Sikhs welcome travelers with free accommodation and food at the Golden Temple residences, but we feel awkward taking advantage of their hospitality because we are not Sikhs. We find another cheap hotel called the Tourist Guest House across from the railway station, which has reasonable rates, but not nearly as low as the guide book suggests. When a popular guide book recommends a cheap place to stay so many travelers show up there that the prices soon rise.

It is early afternoon. Our plan was to visit the Golden Temple as soon as possible, but we realize that is more pragmatic to make our required purchase of rupees from a registered bank as soon as possible. Frank and I go together to a bank on Circular Road, which encircles the core of the city. Besides roads, railways, communications systems and the English language, Indians acquired the art of complex bureaucracy from the English. This is our first encounter with this pervasive characteristic of India. It takes the better part of an hour to fill in the forms to purchase the rupees and then a considerable wait to have them witnessed and our ID recorded.

That process proves to be more exhausting than our bike ride from Lahore. The afternoon is almost over when we finish so we decide to put off our tour of the Golden Temple until the next morning. We use the daylight that is left to ride out to the information office. The brochure for the Temple recommends seeing it in the morning light anyway. The agent also recommends we visit the Jallianwala Bagh Park, site of the famous massacre which was featured in the movie "Gandhi".

Frank and I deposit our bikes back at our hotel and walk through the narrow streets of the market area in the centre of the city. The Golden Temple is right beyond them. It offers free meals for visitors so we check it out. What a beautiful place this is! Spiritual music is playing from the temple, which seems to be floating in the middle of a small lake. Lights from the temple and the walkways surrounding the lake reflect across the water in the night sky.

On one side, a wall of white residence buildings borders a courtyard where the food is served. These buildings are where free accommodation is offered to travelers. They look quite nice and Frank concurs that it would be a wonderful and humbling place to stay. We will stay here the next time we come to Amritsar. The food is served out in soup kitchen style, with warm smiles from the heart of servers who are proud of what they are doing. We bow our gratitude for the excellent vegetarian food they serve us.

Most of those eating here are local and visiting Sikhs, but there are also a few overland travelers like us. We chat with a couple women from Australia and another couple from Belgium who are staying in the residences. They tell us the rooms are small and simple but they are clean and have a view over the sacred lake and temple. Neither of these couples wants to come for a drink with us, but as this is New Year's Eve and we specifically crossed into India so we could have a drink, we stick to our plans and find a restaurant that offers Indian and foreign beers on its menu.

Drinking is expensive and not too popular in holy sites like Amritsar. The waiter asks us if we want seconds but neither of us really likes consuming much alcohol. "What - a Canadian and a German who don't like beer? How is this possible?" the waiter chides us. We have a good laugh over that.

We make our way back to our hotel near the train station afterwards and retire for the night. Tomorrow will be 1992, a new year. If it is anything as exciting as 1991 has been it will probably kill me!

PHOTO: Amritsar's Golden Temple at night

20 years ago today - Day 302

2011-12-30T07:34:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Monday, December 30th - Rawalpindi to Lahore -

Frank is up and rubbing his hands together, both out of glee and to warm them up. His cheery, youthful smile shows that life shines for him, and it shines in his eyes. Every new day is an adventure for him, and his attitude is infectious. I am grateful for it because it isn't easy to get up. It is quite cold in the room at 6:45am. We shower, dress and pack as the light is filling the morning sky. We eat a quick breakfast of fruit and power bars before leaving for the train station.

The station platform is still in shadow. The sky is bright and hazy, but it will be sunny soon. It is a few degrees below zero, so we are anxious to get into the train. Once inside though, it isn't any warmer. All the windows have been broken. The jagged remnants of the windows are still in the frames, although the seats and floor have been cleared of shards. By the shapes of the holes and breakage lines, it appears that they have been broken by rocks thrown at them. I remember how the children would throw rocks at us as we cycled into each town in Baluchistan, so I suppose it is a favourite pastime here too. There is no way of telling how long the windows have been broken. What is the point of replacing them when funds are limited and they will just be broken again?

Once the train is moving, the wind starts the whistle around inside the car. As it gains speed it becomes a blast freezer. Frank and I throw on all our extra clothes. That part I we can manage. What concerns me more is the possibility of a rock coming flying in through the window and possibly hit what glass remains. We move to a seat that is not immediately beside a window and wish for the best.

It will take five hours to get to Lahore. This is an excellent chance for me to get to know Frank better. He's only 22, but I find out he has cycled through more countries than I have, even counting the 23 countries I have passed through this year. When he was 18, he and Eric cycled across mid-Africa starting from Nairobi, Kenya. At one point near the Somali border, troops of a local warlord showed up at their campsite ready to kill them for their goods. Frank had done his research and knew what tribe they belonged to. They were a bit surprised when he knew so much about them. When they told him they wanted to take all their goods, Frank said. "Oh no, you are (whatever) and you are honourable people. You would never do that." This worked. They retreated in confusion and embarrassment. Frank and Eric packed up right away and got out of there.

At another place in western Kenya, Eric wanted to go out to take a piss in the night but he heard footsteps. "If there are people around they are just Massai who are peaceful herders," Frank told him, so Eric goes out. A few seconds he dove back into the tent and the ground began to shake with heavy footsteps that charge up to the tent and stop just outside the door. Eric signalled Frank to be quiet. After a few minutes of silence he explained that there was a herd of water buffalo around the tent.

Their biggest problem in Africa though, was actually a tree that was dropping long thorns. Frank had 25 flat tires in one day, even when he was walking and pushing his bike beside him. He says his parents thought it would be character building to do this trip when he and Eric suggested it, but he knows they would have said yes if they had any idea what was in store for them.

German youths often grow up with one best friend and they spend each summer together. It's like an institutionalized form of male bonding, a gay teen's wildest dream come true if his buddy falls in love with him. Frank's perennial buddy is Eric, and Frank says that has been quite a challenge for Eric. Frank likes mountaineering. A year and a half ago he and Eric climbed all 31 peaks in the Alps over 4000 metres high in one summer, including the Matterhorn, the Eiger and Mt Blanc. Frank also likes white water canoeing, skiing, motorcycling and scuba diving under the ice of alpine lakes in winter. Eric would prefer not to do any of these activities. His one preference is cycle touring, so they chose this trip so both of them would enjoy it. Frank has never traveled with anyone else but Eric.

So I am dealing with a super jock. It feels a bit intimidating, but Frank has made it very clear from the start that he will stick with me. In spite of my meatless bones, I have become quite a jock myself over the past year so I jokingly make the promise to stay with him too.

The train rolls into Lahore and we reclaim our bikes from the baggage car. There are hotel agents at the train station promoting their local hotels. We follow one of them back to his hotel. It is cheap and has a place for our bikes so we take a room with two beds for the night. Frank wants us to stay only one night and cycle into India tomorrow so we can share a drink on New Year's Eve. Sharia Law is in effect in Pakistan and it is impossible to get a drink.

We have arrived shortly after noon and we still have a few hours of light so we set off to see the two most important attractions in Lahore, the Red Fort built by the Moguls and the ancient market district. The Red Fort is impressively expansive and stylish. There are a few tourists around but certainly not bus loads of them like in most of Europe. Frank has his camera out so I might get more pictures of myself for a change, once he sends me copies.

An hour at the Fort is enough to satisfy us. Then we head for the market district. It is set in a maze of tight, narrow streets with overhanging awnings and balconies in such a way that half the time it feels like I am indoors. It is quite overwhelming - the noises, smells, the intense clutter of visual images and items for sale. The proprietors call out and try to pull me in. Motorcycles, bicycles and 3-wheeled motorized rickshaws try to inch their way through the packed crowds. The streets twist around and intersect with each other, many reaching dead ends. A couple blocks into it, I start to feel that I am sinking into quicksand that I might never find my way out of, like a rambling house of mirrors. I retreat to the open expanse in front of the Red Fort and wait for Frank. He isn't far behind me.

We have a good laugh once we are free of the maze, and we walk back to our hotel. In the evening we find a restaurant where share curry dishes and toast each other with chai. Tomorrow will be my last day in Pakistan and my first day in India. Hopefully there will be no complications at the border. I will pack my dirty laundry, skid marks and all, on top of my bags just in case.

PHOTO 1: the train platform in Rawalpindi
PHOTO 2: me in the courtyard of the Red Fort, Lahore
PHOTO 3: front of the Red Fort
PHOTO 4: screen at the Red Fort
PHOTO 5: entrance to the old market district

20 years ago today - Day 301

2011-12-29T07:32:00.000-08:00

Sunday, December 29th – Islamabad to Rawalpindi, 15,470 km

Frank appears at my room at 10 am, where I have been waiting for him since breakfast, having no idea when he would return. I am grateful that it was earlier, not later, as I hate waiting.

He is looking rosy cheeked and is full of exuberance. He says he had a great time in Murree with 60 cm of fresh powder snow to play in. He spent most of the daylight hours snowshoeing. If I had done that I doubt I would be walking as well as he is, as though his legs aren’t tired or sore. He says he has been thinking about India and is excited about traveling with me, which makes me feel honoured. He asks if I am ready to leave tomorrow and I say I am, but there are a few things to do first. The first is to check out of here, say goodbye to Vincent and Coen. They give me affectionate hugs and handshakes for Frank. Frank takes their hugs as a sign that I must be a great guy to travel with. Well, I haven’t always been, but I think Vincent and Coen have given him a glowing report of me to make sure to give us the best foot to start off on.

Frank has to visit the Indian embassy to pick up his visa. He leaves his passport with the clerk at the counter and we sit and chat about his time in Murree and cycling in the North West Provinces, where he was shot at. He really like active sports. I tell him I hope I can keep up with him, but he assures me that he is in no race and that he like to cycle with his partner, not somewhere ahead (like Mike Silk did). Finally his visa has been installed in his passport and we are free to go.

The train to Lahore leaves Rawalpindi at 8 am so we ride back to Rawalpindi to find a place for the night near the railway station. He knows a slightly nicer place not far from the station, a place he stayed with Eric the first couple nights in town. Once we are settled in, we head for the train station to buy our tickets, which requires showing our visitor visas first. Again, it will be second class. The clerk assures with a smile that our car will be air-conditioned. Great!

We pore over the maps of India we have purchased, which are intensely detailed. I have a Bartholomew’s map that covers the whole sub-continent. It is the best and most detailed I could find. Frank and I also look over the Lonely Planet’s Guide to India. He is an easy man to plan with, either because he is easy-going or because we have similar ideas about traveling. We agree to avoid the heavily industrial Punjabi cities of Jalandhar and Ludhiana by swinging to the south after visiting Amritsar. Our route will basically head south-east through Punjab and Haryana to New Delhi, and then south-west from there through Rajasthan. I have not decided if I will fly home from New Delhi or from Mumbai.

We share a dinner out tonight to celebrate our new partnership, which makes sense since we don’t have any kitchen facilities in our present place. My camera has officially died again. I have given up on it but he assures me he will send me copies of the pictures he takes. He says he is a good photographer.

Everything we suggest to each other seems to go down like honey. He is open to trying whatever we want at the time and I know I am going to enjoy his company. I am ready to leave this cold plateau at the base of the foothills of the Himalayas to find somewhere warmer. We both want to visit Goa before we head home. I can’t wait!!

20 years ago today - Day 300

2011-12-28T06:42:00.001-08:00

Saturday, December 28th - Islamabad

We prepare our last communal meal this morning, clean the dishes and then head for the Indian embassy at 10 am to reclaim our passports with our visitor visas inside. The newly installed visas are beautiful. I kiss mine as soon as I see it.

The others are as relieved as I am about having the visas in their hands. Kate and Stephen return the Boys and Girls Club immediately and complete their last minute packing. Before 11 am they have checked out, said goodbye to the Dutch boys and are on the road back to Lahore, headed for the Indian border. They didn’t say anything to me, but I don’t really care. Good riddance, finally!

Coen and Vincent, now having their Indian visas in hand, head to their travel agency to pick up their airline tickets from Lahore to New Delhi. They also pick up train tickets from Rawalpindi to Lahore for the 31st. They will fly to New Delhi on the third and meet their girlfriends on the 8th. They are very excited about this, but I cannot help wondering how their visit will go. Coen and Vincent have been riding for months and are in shape, as well as being used to the strange attributes and lifestyles of Asian cities. They are also accustomed to the local germs and much less likely to get sick by this point. Their girlfriends will not be as prepared physically or psychologically. But that is their challenge, not mine.

As for me, I am not sure if there will be any major challenges for me in India. Frank seems like an easy person to get along with and there are no mountain ranges we will have to contend with. Still, it is strange after all I have been through in recent months to entertain the idea of not having any serious challenges in the last six weeks of my trip.

Vincent and Coen want to share dinner together at a restaurant, since I am not sure if I will be staying here tomorrow night after Frank’s return. We choose an Indian restaurant and have a great meal. It hasn’t been often that all of our digestive systems have been strong enough to handle spicy foods. I thank them over and over again for all they have done for me since meeting them in Istanbul. I certainly would not have ended up here without their support. I feel much stronger now psychologically too. I could travel on my own but I am happy that I don’t have to. Even if things don’t work out cycling with Frank I will be able to handle the rest of my trip on my own. That is a very reassuring feeling.

While I am in India I want to regain some of the weight I have lost. Tonight’s big meal is the first step.

20 years ago today - Day 299

2011-12-27T08:32:00.000-08:00

Friday, December 27th – Rawalpindi/ Islamabad, 15,442 km

Yesterday morning, I felt I had time to wait for my banking and Visa cards to arrive even if I had to wait behind a few more days after the others left. Now, having met Frank, I am anxious that they arrive before he returns from Murree, so that I will be ready to go with him. I don’t want to keep him waiting. I told him I hope to be ready to leave town the day after he gets back.

So I make another trip into Rawalpindi, make doubly longer by the required return. At least it is a lighter, unloaded trip. It is sunny and cold, and there is a wind too, whipping up little dust devils wherever there is enough dirt, which is most everywhere. When I get to the post office I find that both my Visa card and banking card are there. What a relief! I am still addicted to the corporate trappings of my old life.

I am a re-energized man on my trip back the Islamabad. I am a teenager once again. Little things can make such a difference. I want to share my joy with others but there is no one in at the Boys & Girls Club. I don’t feel like reading so I wander the malls and streets nearby. I find a Lonely Planet Guide to India, which has a footnote that it has won awards as the best guide to India. What a find! But it is thick and heavy. At least it beats reading my Harlequin romance, which I will leave here when I go.

When we all assemble at the B&G Club later in the afternoon and traipse over to the Indian Embassy. We are told the visas will be in tomorrow and that we must leave our passports with them overnight so that the visas can be attached. This is last concern I had about being ready to leave with Frank, and the second to be resolved today. I gladly produce my passport and leave it with them.

We prepare dinner and retire to the backyard and the B&G Club Clubhouse we have built in the tree over the past two nights. I have purchased a dozen candles which we have placed and lit in the tree and in the seating area below it. The manager pays us a visit. He has seen the tree fort and seems a little apprehensive, but hesitates to comment about it. We are all mildly stoned by this time anyway. We state how proud we are of it, seeing his apprehension, but if he wants us to take it down he doesn’t say so.

I am so out of character, building this sort thing without getting permission first and not worrying about the manager’s reaction. I am pleased with this, that I am learning to get out of my usual character and approach life from a different angle. I am not trying to win anyone’s approval. Nothing seems to be able to depress me now and I am not as anxious or restless as I was last night.

20 years ago today - Day 298

2011-12-26T10:47:00.000-08:00

Thursday, December 26th - Islamabad

The phone office opens at 8 am so I make sure I am there when it opens. I call to my parents home in Toronto. It is still Christmas evening there, about 9:30 pm. I chat with both of them for about 5 minutes each. I thank Mom for rescuing me financially and assure her that I am healthy now.

When I return to my room, there is a note from Vincent saying that he and Coen are going to travel agencies to check on prices for a flight to Delhi from Lahore, so they won’t need to rush to meet their girlfriends. It is too cold and windy today to want to hang around outside so I stay in my room and read my novel.

It is late morning. I have been reading for about an hour and a half when Vincent and Coen come into the room looking for me. “Ken, we have a Christmas gift for you!” “Thanks,” I say. I sit up, expecting them to produce some sort of package wrapped in used newspaper. Coen beams sheepishly and opens the door. To my surprise, a young, hunky German lad steps into the room, a brunette glowing with so much vitality and wholesomeness that he might have just stepped out of a milk commercial. I am caught speechless.

“This is Frank,” Vincent announces. “He’s cycling to India! We ran into him in the travel agency.” Ah, I get it. They want to make sure I have someone to travel with so they can feel better about parting with me here. Well, I totally approve of their gift so far, but Vincent keeps talking to explain how they met him.

“We met Frank in Kerman in Iran when we were cycling without you. He and his buddy Eric were cycling there. Eric is about to fly home from here. Frank wants to continue on to India but he was on his way to buy a ticket home too because he couldn’t find anyone to cycle with. We told him about you and he wanted to meet you.” Then, Vincent and Coen are off on another errand, leaving Frank to chat with me.

Frank tells me more of his story. He and Eric had cycled from Germany and arrived in Tabriz in north-west Iran seven weeks ago. In a village near Tabriz, both their bicycles were stolen. They went to the police and filed a report. The police, angry that this had happened to two foreigners, went door to door in the surrounding neighbourhood and threatened to kill anyone found with the bicycles. After that, there is no hope that anyone would come forward with a tip. They took a train from Tabriz to Tehran, much as we had, and bought two cheap substitute bikes there. They continued their cycling trip on to Qom, Quetta, Yazd and Kerman, keeping in contact with the police in Tabriz from time to time.

In Kerman, the same day they had met Coen and Vincent, they got a call from the police who related that one of their bikes have shown up and was now in their hands. They didn’t have enough information to determine if it was Eric’s or Frank’s so they returned to Tabriz together. The bike was Frank’s. He ditched his cheap replacement but Eric had to continue on his piece of junk.

They returned to Kerman, cycled across eastern Iran to Taftan (arriving after us), caught a bus to Quetta (arriving before us) and then cycled through the North-West Frontier States to Peshawar. On there way there, they were fired at by a solo thief trying to kill them for their belongings. Somehow they managed to outrun him without being hit. The reported it to the police and they have closed the area to foreign tourists two weeks ago. From Peshawar, near the Khyber Pass, they cycled down out of the mountains to Rawalpindi, where Eric decided he has had enough.

Being shot at, now that’s hard to top, but he is pretty impressed with my stories about the war in Croatia, the mastiff guard dogs in Turkey, my robbery and internal bleeding in Iran, the stones that greeted us in every town and our night in the snake pit. There is no doubt we will get along. He is obviously a kind, considerate man who is filled with positive energy. He’s only 22 but he feels very much my equal, only taller and hunkier.

He cannot stay and chat though. He is leaving in two hours to go to Murree, a town in the hills to the north-east of here, near the border of Kashmir. A European diplomat he met at the German embassy has invited him and Eric to spend a post-Christmas long weekend in his lodge up there. He is anxious to go snow-shoeing as Murree already has lots of snow. He excuses himself to go back to finish his packing. He says he will return on the morning of the 29th.

In a flash he has gone, like a wet dream that is prematurely interrupted. Thank you Vincent and Coen. This is potentially the best Christmas gift I have ever been given. Wow, India is going to be a very different phase of my trip than the one from Istanbul to here, but I am sitting here tonight, the others having disappeared somewhere, unable to concentrate on my cheap hetero Harlequin romance. I am feeling very restless and alone, and for the first time very eager to get on with my journey to India. I feel like a child who has opened a delightful gift for Christmas, only to be told that he cannot see of play with it for the next three days. Bummer!

20 years ago today - Day 297

2011-12-25T10:12:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Wednesday, December 25th - Islamabad

Christmas Day! Islamabad does not have much of a Christmas atmosphere. For perhaps the first time in my life, I have more Christmas spirit in me than anyone around me, instead of the usual opposite. Everyone is up and helping prepare breakfast - toast, jam, eggs and dhal. They don’t want to make anything special out of today, yet on the other hand they do. They each seem more restless than usual, as though they are lost and they need something to fill the time until the restless feeling passes.

After eating and cleaning up the dishes, we scatter. I think Vincent and Coen have gone to the international phone office to call their families for Christmas. It is still way too early in Canada to call there. It is early afternoon here and the middle of the night in Canada. I am better to wait until tomorrow morning, when it will be Christmas evening there.

It is sunny today. The stores are open because there is no holiday here. Kate and Stephen have gone shopping, or at least window shopping. I ride my bike along some of the major streets in the city and through a couple parks before returning to the B & G Club. I am the first one back. I read my crappy novel until the others return.

We make a dinner of dhal, potatoes and chicken breasts, a Christmas dinner of a kind, and afterwards find ourselves in the backyard again. The guys start working on the fort again. Stephen soon quits to sit watching us with Kate. Coen gives up a few minutes later. Vincent and I labour on, enlarging the platform and making a wall on one side to lean on. Vincent tires and retires to join the others but I keep going, making steps that climb higher and a smaller, higher second platform.

I climb down and hand out the gifts I have wrapped for the others. They are a bit bashful because they didn’t buy anything for me, all except Kate who sneers at as though I have insulted her by buying her a bar of scented soap. Oh, I know I won’t miss her at all once she’s gone. I had hoped the gifts would have brightened their spirits but we are quieter and more pensive. Perhaps they are missing a real Christmas with their friends and families or remembering that we’ll soon be parting. The rest of the evening is just soft conversation.

20 years ago today - Day 296

2011-12-24T10:01:00.001-08:00

Tuesday, December 24th - Rawalpindi to Islamabad, 15,417 km

This morning we eat a light snack of fruit and power bars from our groceries on-hand before setting off to Islamabad again. Kate does not want to spend the time having a full breakfast until we are settled in the Boys and Girls Club, which has a full kitchen for the residents to use. It's a dusty, windy day as we make our way north along Murree St again. It is not a grueling trip but it is not interesting enough to merit redoing too often.

I don’t think there is anyone else staying at the Boys & Girls Club in Islamabad, or at least I haven’t seen any sign of anyone else, so they let us have access to the rooms before noon. That usually means there was no one staying in them the day before. This club is the nicest we have stayed in so far, and perhaps the newest. There are four people in two bunks per room. The Dutch boys and I have one room and Kate and Stephen are in another. Besides a spacious kitchen with pots, pans, utensils and plenty of counter space, there is an enclosed back yard that is half an acre or so, filled the small trees and some bushes. There is a shed for our bicycles, too.

Once we are settled, I go for a ride by myself. That’s a treat as I haven’t been riding alone and feeling safe at doing so since Bulgaria. But today I have a second purpose. I visit one the local malls I found yesterday and pick up Christmas gifts for others in our group: new woolen gloves for Vincent, to fit over his cycling gloves; a new handkerchief for Coen, who lost his in Zahedan; a roll of duct tape for Stephen (there can never be too much of that); and a bar of scented soap for Kate. I even find scotch tape and wrapping paper. The passing world gawks at me as I sit on the steps outside the mall to wrap them. I did not want to try to do this at the residence as it would be hard to find a space away from the others.

What I would really like to find a nice bottle of wine, perhaps with a crazy name like “Derriere Les Faggots” that we found in Le Puy, France, and share it with the others. I am in a Christmas mood and want to pass it around, even if the others aren’t into it. The other option would be to glum, disinterested and borderline depressed like some of them.
I am not mentioning the gifts until tomorrow. I doubt they have bought anything for me or each other but if I tell them tonight they might resent the pressure to go out and buy me anything. I just want to have fun tonight, and the secret that I have gifts for each of them hidden in my bags puts me in even a better mood.

The evening turned into something unusual. I think it was Stephen who started it by breaking off a branch of a scrub tree that was hanging down in our faces in the back yard. Then Coen starts stripping the bark off in long strips, trying to see if the wood would be any good to carve. It isn’t. It’s like a soft alder and it snaps off cleanly when broken in two. Vincent decides to use the strips of bark to tie segments of the branch to another tree, making steps so we can climb up into the tree. I get into the act and break off another branch and the four of us do our “boy” thing by building a platform in the tree to sit on. The takes us an hour and a half. It has been fun and a great bonding exercise, just before we are set to part for good.

Kate, who hasn’t participated in the building, doesn’t want to climb up to the platform and doesn’t approve of our bonding exercise either, because we didn’t stop building it when she announced she wasn’t interested in it. She manages to coax Stephen and Vincent down. Coen and I follow soon after. Stephen rolls a ganja cigarette, lights it and passes it around. That mellows everyone out, even Kate to still has a cucumber up her ass.

I survey our little group as we ‘nest’ in the back yard of the Boys & Girls Club. I forgive each one their foibles – Kate, her arrogance and selfishness; Stephen, his frequent bouts of utter stupidity; Vincent, his blowing his nose upwind ahead of me while riding. (There’s nothing I need to forgive about Coen.) I am even ready to forgive myself my many short-comings. In less than a week, we will be scattered like seeds in the wind.

20 years ago today - Day 295

2011-12-23T07:45:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Monday, December 23rd – Rawalpindi/ Islamabad, 15,290 km

We seem to be back on our feet today, a few rumbling digestive systems and the occasion rush trip to the toilet but a good day overall with no one being too sick. I am doing well. My system is still struggling with the food or perhaps the malaria medicine. The weather is cool and cloudy, not cold enough to freeze, but there are no mosquitoes. I settle my digestive system I have decided to stop the malaria medicine for now as there probably won't be any mosquitoes or malaria until we are south of Delhi.

By late morning, all five of us are washed, fed and ready to go about our duties. Vincent, Stephen and I have gone to the post office six blocks away to check for mail. My banking and Visa cards have not yet arrived. I will need to check back every day until they do.

Our next task is to ride north to Islamabad, the national capital, and apply for a visitor visa to India at the Indian embassy. The two cities are two halves to a whole, a double city if you will, like Minneapolis and St Paul, but they couldn't be more different. Rawalpindi is an ancient city with an erratic street pattern, crowded retail strips and the usual hustle and confusion of a crowded Asian city that has a couple million people or more. It has served as the national headquarters of the Pakistan army since its independence from India in 1947.

We make our way from the district of Rawalpindi near the railway station along Murree Road, one of its main streets, through the city to the start of Islamabad. The transition between the cities is stark. Islamabad is a planned city built as the national capital in 1960 directly along Rawalpindi's north side. Its streets are on a grid pattern and are spaciously wide streets with impressive view lines. A row of low mountains form its northern border. Besides the National Assembly and many other national architectural show pieces, it is where the various international embassies are located, including the Indian embassy.

On the down side, Islamabad doesn't have much of a street life or many business services that are not related to government bureaucracy or the military. The clutter of markets and retail strips has been replaced by sterile malls. If you need to shop for regular supplies or do day to day business it is better to return to Rawalpindi, at least at point of its history. It hasn't yet matured into a city with full services.

Rawalpindi, or 'Pindi' as the locals call it, has wide enough streets that aren't as crazy as some Asian cities, like Tehran or Istanbul, though they are filled with 3-wheeled motorized rickshaws, carts, bicycles, buses, trucks and motorcycles as well as taxis and cars. Islamabad has even wider and much emptier streets, lined with trees and with spacious setbacks for many of the buildings. There are also lawns and gardens that use an inappropriate amount of water for this desert environment.

The Indian embassy is easy to find. It looks like any other government building and it belies the fact that India is a poor country. Perhaps that is intentional, to show Pakistan that it has money if it needs it. It has six times the population of Pakistan so it is harder for Pakistan to keep up with India's military spending. We are able to keep our passports until our visas are ready. We fill in our application forms and each pay our US$50 fee.

After that is done, Coen, Vincent and I ride around the streets of Islamabad. They are like a cyclist's playground, even more peaceful and civilized to ride around than in any European city its size. We stop at a couple malls and ride up to the Shah Faisal Mosque, which sits at the base of the mountains to the north. It's a massive mosque and very modern. It was only completed five years ago.

We ride back to Rawalpindi, which takes forty-five minutes, and we team up with Kate and Stephen again for dinner. Kate has been asking around and has learned that there is a Boys and Girls Club here, but in Islamabad, not Rawalpindi. She called there and they have told her they have plenty of room so we have decided to change our residence to there tomorrow morning. I am grateful that I won't need to put my mattress on the floor after tonight.

PHOTO 1: old building on the way to Islamabad
PHOTO 2: donkeys on the street, Rawalpindi
PHOTO 3: the huge, modern Faisal Mosque

20 years ago today - Day 294

2011-12-22T07:30:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Sunday, December 22nd – Rawalpindi, 15,369 km

It was next to impossible to get any sleep last night on the train. The five of us drag our sorry asses off the train at the station in Rawalpindi when it finally arrives at 8 am. After w collect our bikes and load on our bags, we make our way to the train station reservation office to see if they know where the Boys and Girls Club in town is or if there is a tourist information office. They don't know of either. Kate asks where we might find cheap hotels and the agent just waves his hands in a south-easterly direction, towards the centre of town.

The street traffic is a big crazy and we are not in our most conscious state so we decide to wheel our bikes along the sidewalks to look for a hotel. The sidewalk traffic is easily as crazy and congested as the street traffic, just slower - much slower. Vendors try to sell us things as we try to squeeze around them. As in most cities, there are several cheaper hotels within blocks of the train station. It takes a few tries before we find one that can accommodate our bikes though, and that accommodation involved carrying them upstairs to the second floor and keeping them in our rooms. It is crowded, dingy and with questionable cleanliness, but at last we are here and we have beds. Mine sags like a hammock so I lay the mattress on the floor and sleep there for the better part of the morning and afternoon.

When I awake, Vincent, Stephen and I head out and explore the local streets. They are noisy and alive. The major streets are wide and filled with every type of vehicle from bicycles and donkey-drawn carts to full-sized trucks. We find a couple interesting food markets and a few options for prepared food that look clean and safe and return to the hotel room to report our findings to Coen and Kate. Today Kate and Vincent are having more digestive issues than I am so we decide to eat food that we can prepare in the hotel.

Our naps earlier in the day haven't been enough to refresh us for long so we retire fairly early this evening. Tomorrow we will need to find the Indian embassy in Islamabad, Rawalpindi's sister city, and apply for our visitor visas as soon as possible. It may take a week for them to be processed.

PHOTO 1: Rawalpindi Railway Station
PHOTO 2: downtown Rawalpindi
PHOTO 3: street scene with a mosque in the distance
PHOTO 4: pedestrians on our street

20 years ago today - Day 293

2011-12-21T07:42:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Saturday, December 21st - Quetta to Rawalpindi (train)

This being our day to travel, the five of us pack in the morning right after breakfast and leave the Boys and Girls Club by check out time at 10 am. We do last minute grocery shopping for the long train ride and last minute trips to the pharmacy to buy tooth paste and other small items.

By noon we are finished and waiting to board our train at the railway station, which we are allowed to do at 12:30, after we have made sure our bicycles are being loaded carefully onto the baggage car. We find our seats that have been pre-assigned to us yesterday and try to settle in comfortably for the duration of the trip.

That isn’t possible however. The train is way too crowded. Buying a second class ticket in Pakistan does assure one of a seat but there might be someone squeezed in between your knees on the floor and another leaning on your outer thigh, which there are on this trip. It is no different for the others in our group. The aisles fill up too, with over-sized duffel bags and sacks of agricultural products. It seems that many people on this train are moving don’t to the valley for winter, and taking everything with them including goods to sell in the markets to pay their way. Who would deny them? But it still feels a bit like insanity. If I do want to make it to the washroom anytime in the coming few hours, it will requiring actually stepping on many people and climbing over bales of hay, etc. One doesn’t have to travel on bicycle here to have an adventure. You could even say the train is more challenging.

The train is instantly stuffy and filled with a thousand smells, which when I relax and sink into it, not minding the people on the floor leaning and snuggling up against me, I soak and try to be part of. Noise and smells have to be part of a crowded Asian urban experience. The train rattles, shakes and sways as it twists through the mountain passes on its way downhill towards the Indus Valley.

My stomach is rumbling like the train. I hope I am not going to be sick again, like I was on the train from Tabriz to Tehran. There is a chance I won't be. My insides are not sour inside this time, just noisy. Every few minutes I let out a rather pungent fart, which I would normally try to smother in the seat cushion by keeping my legs together, but today I have someone nestled between my legs on the floor in front of me, his head about a foot from my asshole. He doesn't react. Perhaps it's just another of the many smells around him.

The brown, naked hills roll by as we follow the Bolan River south-east. Our first stop is in the town of Mach. It is a brief stop to allow a few more passengers crowd into the already-full train. Another one squeezes onto the floor beside me. We imagine we are a bunch of kittens all cuddled together, those we are beginning to smell like sardines. Thankfully it's not hot out.

The train slides into the small city of Sibbi about an hour out of Quetta. The mountains have given way to rolling hills here. The city is about the size of Dalbandin with lots of mud brick construction. This is still Baluchistan. The station platform is sprinkled with kiosks and roving vendors that sell their wares at the windows of the train. Having the seat by the window, I act as the exchange agent, taking money from those seated on the floor to pay for food that I take from the vendors and pass back to them. One man needs to get out. As the aisles to the door are nearly impossible to reach, he climbs over me to get out the window. He plants his knee into my abdomen, causing another embarrassing expulsion of gas, as the vendors help him through the window. He walks to the end of the train, pulls up his robe and squats to take a shit over the edge of the platform. Then, without wiping himself, he climbs back through the window and over my stomach.

Vincent is sitting behind me and having as much fun as I am. Coen is seated across the way and Kate and Stephen are behind him, on the other side of the people and piles of goods in the aisles. The station platform is on my side so they have enjoyed the entertainment of watching other passengers climb over us. Seeing Stephen and Kate seated together, I am thinking she has perhaps wizened up and knows that Stephen needs to sit beside her for her own protection.

The train continues down through Jacobabad and Shikarpur to the Indus River, and then bends north east towards Lahore once we cross the river. Kate, Stephen and Coen have several turns having passengers climbing over them, and Vincent and I have it happen again and again too. Some the agricultural products are off-loaded as we follow the valley upstream so the aisles are a bit less crowded, bit it is never comfortable.

I expected the Indus Valley to be lush and green but it does not seem well managed. It is warmer down in the valley, bordering on hot in the peak of the day, but there are many empty, untilled fields, baked hard and without vegetation that look like they have not been used for years. As we roll on towards Lahore, the daylight fades and our view of the river is gone.

The trip is gruelingly long. It is late in the evening by the time we reach Lahore. We are almost an hour in the station before the train turns north-west to climb up to Rawalpindi. I need to use the toilet by this time. I climb over the passengers around me, taking great care not to step on them. At points, I need to step on their packages and bundles which are stacked high in the aisles. It takes me ten minutes to reach the washroom in the next car, and when I do I have to climb over the goods stacked in front of it to drop inside to use it. It is a struggle to climb back out again, but it is worth it.

The aisles in the next car are filled with people standing. I am in no hurry to get to rush back to my seat as I have been sitting too long. I stand by an older, distinguished man with a short beard for a bit. He asks me if I am from the United States. I say no, that I am from Canada. 'The same thing,' he comments in an off-handed manner. That's a bit offensive to me so I retort, 'Yes, just like being from India or Pakistan is the same thing.' 'Oh,' he gasps, quite horrified, 'you must never say such a thing!' 'Well then," I respond, 'you must never say that being from Canada or the US is the same thing.' He laughs and apologizes for his mistake.

We go on to talk about other things then fall into silence. I am in a spiritual mood, thinking of Christmas and missing my family. I start softly humming 'Amazing Grace' to myself and he turns to me again, asking me what that beautiful song is. I explain it is a Christian hymn and he seems truly disappointed. I want to tell him I am not a Christian and that the message is for anyone who is spiritually inspired, but he is turned off because I said "Christian" and is no longer listening to me. I remember a funny line from the movie "My Beautiful Launderette", where one Pakistani character says the problem with Pakistan is that it has been sodomized by religion.

I make my way back to my second class seat and coax out the third class passenger who has been warming it for me while I was gone. Coen and the others have their eyes closed. I close mine too and try to get some sleep as the train slowly crawls uphill towards Rawalpindi.

PHOTO 1: Quetta railway station
PHOTO 2: near the town of Mach, leaving the hills
PHOTO 3: outside Sibbi village
PHOTO 4: the Indus River Valley

20 years ago today - Day 292

2011-12-20T07:38:00.000-08:00

Friday, December 20th - Quetta

My money has arrived this morning, on my second visit to the bank in late morning. Banking in this part of the world feels especially bureaucratic, but here it is - $500 cash – which I discreetly tuck away. I exit the bank like a spy, looking around to see if I am being followed. I am not, though I know I will be much more careful from this point onward. According to my mother, who I chat with today to confirm that I have received it, my own monies I have saved for the trip have dried up. Eeek! She says she can cover me until I get home, which is still nine weeks away. Fortunately, India is reputed to be quite inexpensive.

I visit a camera store here and the owner looks inside my camera to see if he can do anything with it. He manages to take part of it apart and put it back together again and it seems to be working. He only has print film so I buy a roll to check it out. It seems to be taking pictures and advancing properly, my second piece of good news today.

The five of us trek down to the railway station to buy our tickets to Rawalpindi. We make sure to get second class tickets where we will be assured seating. At this time of year, we agree that it makes no sense to buy first class for the air conditioning, since first class is double the price. I am disheartened to find out that the journey will take 18 hours. We will leave at 1 pm tomorrow and arrive in Rawalpindi around 7 am the next morning. It promises to be a grueling trip.

Vincent has a new haircut. He has had all of his head shorn like a buzz cut except for a large tuft about his forehead which he is training to stand straight up. It is both modern and comic. Older Pakistani men look at it, shake their heads and laugh. It gets their conversation going. One doesn’t need to speak the local language to know what they are saying, that the barber must have died before he finished or that he has kept it to keep his hat from falling forward. Vincent pays them no mind. He likes that it creates a stir and shows an alternative way of being.

Tonight I get my bags ready and stroll around before sunset to get a couple shots of Quetta. Tomorrow I will see the Indus Valley, one of the oldest cradles of civilization in the world and where Alexander the great had his greatest victory after his army walked all the way here from Macedonia. I feel fortunate to have a bike, and paved roads.

20 years ago today - Day 291

2011-12-19T07:35:00.000-08:00

Thursday, December 19th - Quetta

Coen is up and smiling in his groggy way. As soon as we’ve had our showers we make our way to the cafeteria. He seems more himself today. He says it has been getting better and that the bout of amoebic dysentery was awful to endure. He thought he was going to die at one point. He is quiet at breakfast when the other start chatting, but he is attentive and no longer in a daze.

He hasn’t forgotten that I need his help to get money from his bank. He brings his bank cards and ID and he walks with me to a local bank. We discuss various options with the manager but what Coen is most comfortable with is getting a $500 advance from his father in Luxembourg and then we go to the post office to phone my mother in Toronto with instructions on how to get $500 to Coen’s dad. I wanted to have $1000 in case my Visa card and bank card aren’t waiting for me in Rawalpindi as promised, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable with a wad that large in my money belt. The transactions still need to be completed so the money won’t be available until tomorrow, but it feels like a great relief. All I have left until the money arrives is $19.

We have a stroll out through the city for a few blocks after the banking is done. I find a market that sells gloves and buy a pair. My own have holes in them. I also buy a new money belt. After this, Coen is feeling exhausted. I walk back with him to the Boys and Girls Club and he crawls back into bed while I go off looking for lunch.

I have started taking malaria medicine. I have read a lot about it and know that it is dangerous. It can cause organ damage and hair loss and shouldn’t be taken for prolonged times. Malaria is carried by mosquitoes and the larvae attached themselves to red blood corpuscles and feed on them, which becomes like a blood disease with many side effects, like fevers, etc. They can attach themselves to red blood corpuscles because of their shape. The medicine is so powerful that it causes of the corpuscles to change shape so that the malaria cannot take hold. This takes time. I am supposed to take it for two weeks before being exposed to infected mosquitoes.

I started taking the medicine in Mirjaweh, figuring that there would be mosquitoes in Pakistan but I stopped in Dalbandin because it was obviously too cold for mosquitoes. But we are leaving Quetta in two days, dropping into the Indus Valley and climbing again to Rawalpindi. A week later we will be back in Lahore and preparing to cross into India. That is about two weeks away so I have begun taking the medicine again. The directions say I shouldn’t start and stop and start again, but I have to choose between the lesser of two evils. I haven’t noticed any obvious effects yet.

In anticipation of my money arriving tomorrow, I feel like going out for dinner again with the others. Coen comes with us this time, refreshed from his afternoon nap. He is only having the soup and bread with yogurt but he is happily amongst us again, even making comments and telling stories. I tell the others the story of him eating the hot pepper while waiting for lunch on our way to Polatli in Turkey, commenting on how red his face turned. He says I didn’t let him know it was hot but I had told him.

With the money issues resolved and everyone getting along together again, I can sense a shift, that we are ready to move on. It hasn’t been discussed yet, but the five of us cannot carry on together much longer. Coen and Vincent’s girlfriends are flying in to Delhi on January 8 and they will travel only with them after that. I am certainly not traveling on through India with Kate and Stephen, even if for the moment we are tolerating each other better. I am not worrying about it for the time being. I am willing to travel on alone until I find another cycling partner, but at least I will be beyond the desert, in places with other travelers that will likely be safer than here.

20 years ago today - Day 290

2011-12-18T08:50:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, December 18th - Quetta

Carlos does succeed in leaving town this morning, after another communal breakfast in the Boys and Girls Club with Kate, Stephen and I. He gives me a big hug when he is ready to roll away, being the warm-hearted guy that he is. It has been several weeks, it seems, since I have had that much physical contact with another man, perhaps as long ago as Istanbul. A wave of isolation and loneliness washes through me as he pulls away.

I watch him ride away. He is a handsome man but I have not fantasized about him, as sweet as he is. I sensed from the start that his warmth had nothing to do with a physical attraction to me. I don’t feel attractive or generally sexual at all these days. I haven’t even masturbated since Cappadocia – my long days of travel on train and bus from Kayseri to Esfahan being immediately followed by my sickness and internal bleeding. Since then, I have felt no urge to think about other men, even when I was alone in Zahedan for four days.

I doubt I will see Carlos again. We won’t be visiting Peshawar as far as I know, but then it is so hard to know what is around the next corner. During the first half of my trip, the awe of that unfolding mystery, of seeing things I have never seen before and will likely never see again, kept me going from city to city, country to country. Since the outbreak of the war in Croatia that freaked me out so much, the magic of my journey has faded.

Even though I am still seeing things that are totally new to me and likely never to be repeated, I am now drifting like a leaf on a stream, still able to choose my course if I want to, but having little interest in doing so. I am letting others do that for me, going where they go and having no real interest in the attractions along the way. I don’t know why I am traveling, what I am learning or supposed to learn from this journey. I am physically wasted, now down to about 57 kg (125 lb), emotionally numb, intellectually tired of learning new ideas and of adapting to new places, and spiritually adrift without any sense of purpose or belonging. Many of the words I used to identify myself at home in Canada, including the label “gay”, have become irrelevant to my life now. Only the labels “cyclist” and “Canadian” have stuck, but even those I question the relevance of when I use them. I cannot see how I will even fit in anymore when I return home.

I have learned one thing, and that is to embrace anything that is a source of joy and to celebrate it without analyzing it to death. That is a good thing. Today my source of joy is knowing that Coen and Vincent will arrive on bus from Nushki. The anticipation makes me anxious. It would be easier if I knew when to expect them but I don’t, so I am not waiting for them at the bus terminal. I have not checked the schedule, so they might even be arriving by train. I remember the same feeling when waiting to reconnect with them in Zahedan, and the feelings of betrayal and disappointment that followed when I realized they had been avoiding reconnecting with me. I don’t let my anticipation sweep me away this time.

Vincent and Coen arrive late afternoon by bus. I don’t see them until they check into the Boys and Girls Club. Coen is still looking pale and a bit shaky, but he acknowledges my concern and seems appreciative of it. Vincent says Coen should rest another couple days in Quetta before taking the 18-hour train ride from Quetta to Rawalpindi. They both look relieved to be back with us, though Coen soon retires to his bed in our dorm room. Like I did for two days, he is subsisting on a diet of juice and yogurt.

Kate, Stephen, Vincent and I go out together to a local restaurant five blocks away for dinner. It is a Pakistani restaurant with curries and dhal, potatoes and rice. We are celebrating our reunification and everyone is happy. I am surprised to find that I am enjoying Kate and Stephen’s company too. Perhaps I have become delusional, creating joy where there shouldn’t be any, or perhaps this is the way it always should be. I think I forgive too easily, a fatal flaw that followed me throughout my life.

PHOTO: sunset in Quetta

20 years ago today - Day 289

2011-12-17T16:55:00.001-08:00

Tuesday, December 17th - Quetta

This is the wet season here in Quetta. It certainly doesn’t compare to Vancouver’s wet season, is happening now on the other side of the world. It is raining lightly here and there is a wind. It isn’t enough to stop Carlos and I from going out for a walk after breakfast at the Boys & Girls Club, but it is enough to delay his departure until tomorrow.

Kate and Stephen sat with us during breakfast, only because of Carlos I suppose, to see him off. That was uncharacteristically thoughtful of them. He ran into them yesterday and told them he would leave for NW frontier this morning. Perhaps Coen and Vincent will arrive today and he can say goodbye to them too, although he only spent half a day with them so I suppose that doesn’t matter to him.

So we are walking around the central core looking for things of interest. There are a few mosques, but not of the dazzling character I found in Istanbul, Esfahan or even Kayseri. It doesn’t matter as my camera is still jammed with desert dust. Last night, I took out the roll of slide film I had in it to see if I could clean it somewhat myself. I can get the film to advance but I think there is a problem with my shutter, which sometimes opens. Regardless, there isn’t much to take remarkable pictures of here.

We look around for a camera or electronics shop, but the only repair place I see doesn’t specialize in cameras. I think it would be safer to wait until I am in a bigger city, like Rawalpindi or Lahore. I am also in the lookout for a used bookstore. There are a few of those but the only books they have in English are school textbooks. No thanks. I do browse through them in the store though. They look archaic.

The rain lets up in the afternoon. I have my first falafel as my digestive system in growing stronger. It goes down like an offering from Heaven. I worry a lot about Vincent and Coen and how they are managing. The manager of the Boys and Girls Club agrees to call the manager of their branch in Nushki to ask if Vincent is still staying there. The manager in Nushki returns a call after dinner, saying that he is and that Coen has just left the hospital. They will be checking out tomorrow.

Life is good once again. I am thrilled to know they are coming tomorrow and that Coen is OK, or at least OK enough to travel. It occurs to me this evening that tomorrow will be a week away from Christmas. I had almost forgotten this. In spite of the cold air at night, there is nothing Christmasy about this staunchly Muslim part of the world, other than the desert buses which I haven’t seen here. Mom will be worried about me having a good Christmas, though I rarely do anymore when I am at home in Canada.

PHOTO: shoppers on Quetta

20 years ago today - Day 288

2011-12-16T07:38:00.001-08:00

Monday, December 16th - Quetta

I am definitely feeling better today. I have had a good sleep and a normal bowel movement - almost. I would be feeling even better except for two things. The first is that Carlos has decided to move on. He wants to explore the region north of here, between Quetta and Peshawar in the North West Frontier where the Khyber Pass is. He finds Quetta to be quite boring. Boring can be a good thing. I tell him. I have come to see adventure as a highly over-rated concept. But in spite of his run-in with Iranian forces, he still yearns for it. He plans to roll out of town tomorrow.

The second unpleasant occurrence was running into Kate and Stephen in the cafeteria of the Boys and Girls Club. Stephen asks how I am, and I say I am much better. "Thank you for being concerned," I say, somewhat sarcastically. We both know that neither of them are. "Did you make it to the bank on time on Saturday?" I ask him. Yes, he tells me. "Good, you should be able to pay for your own cigarettes now," I respond, staring Kate in the eye when she glares at me. They don't offer to pay back what they 'borrowed', although I have next to nothing and now they have lots. They don't invite me to sit with them and I don't ask to.

Other than that, it's a pretty quiet day. I walk around the neighbourhood of the Boys and Girls Club a few blocks in each direction looking for interesting distractions and architecture. Although Quetta is cleaner than Zahedan and the sidewalks more complete and even, there is not much to see. It doesn't matter much that my camera generally isn't working because there isn't much to take pictures of. There are several carpet stores and mini-markets that remind me of Chinatown in Vancouver, but I haven't found a bookstore where I might find something in English to read.

There are a couple of travelers, mostly Asians, who have spoken to me in the Boys and Girls Club, but there is no amenity room with a television or other meeting areas other than the cafeteria. I almost ran into Kate and Stephen again this afternoon, but I presume they saw me because they changed direction. I count my blessings.

I am down to $30 cash left.

PHOTO: winter in Quetta

20 years ago today - Day 287

2011-12-15T07:39:00.001-08:00

View Larger Map

Sunday, December 15th - Quetta

My bowels are healing. This morning I still have a little discomfort and a minor bout of diarrhea, but this is much better than when my small intestine was bleeding in Esfahan. It clearly isn't a case of amoebic dysentery, which is what I was really afraid of. It seems strange that only Coen fell ill when most of us were sharing the same water. This bout started the day after he fell ill so I feared the worst, but one doesn't get over amoebic dysentery after a day and a half.

Still, I have to take it easy. There are so many types of bacteria in this part of the world that are foreign to my immune system, so the challenges keep coming. After my first serious illness in Iran, I am sure my immune system is racing in response, over-reacting to the attack. I will stick to yogurt and juice for now so not to acerbate the situation. Besides, I don't have any money to play with. I am down to my last $40. If Coen and Vincent don't make it to Quetta in the coming week, I will run out of money. I am really on thin ice in many ways - financially, medically, and socially. Interesting times!

I meet Carlos for a tea late morning after visiting the post office, where I left a message for Vincent telling him where we are staying. This is three days since Coen fell sick and he might not be ready to travel for another few days, if all goes well. Carlos is restless in a city. He prefers to be riding in open country. While he enjoys my company, he is used to being on his own and prefers to walk around the city alone. For my part, I don't care for walking around much today. I just want to recuperate

I make a trip to a local bank to discuss a way to resolve my lost bank card situation. They took my passport information and forwarded it to Visa with my signed request to replace my card. I paid a fee to them to send it by express post to my Canadian Visa Card office and requesting that they send it to Poste Restante in Rawalpindi, where we will need to go to apply for our Indian visitor visas. To get an advance, I will need to come in with Coen or Vincent, someone with valid bank cards, and discuss options. At least the first step has been made to re-establish my banking abilities, which feels good.

I haven't seen either Kate or Stephen all day, which is a treat. I spend the latter part of the afternoon reading back at the Boys and Girls Club. In the evening Carlos and I go out to look for something to eat. I order some soup and bread, keeping it simple. His falafel looks really good. Maybe I will try it tomorrow if all goes well with my digestion tonight.

PHOTO: Liaqat Bazaar in Quetta

20 years ago today - Day 286

2011-12-14T07:39:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Saturday, December 14th - Shikh Wasil to Quetta, 15,329 km

What a cold morning! I am so weak that is a struggle to crawl out of my sleeping bag. If I was at home I wouldn't be getting out of bed, except to go to a hospital emergency. I feel like Death warmed over. I feel like a sick and abandoned child but I have no choice. Not only do I need to re-pack all my clothes into my panniers and roll up and secure my sleeping bag to my rear rack, but I need to change my bike's leaking rear tire. It is well below freezing and the work must be done with bare hands. I am so weak that it takes several tries and all the effort I can muster to pry the tire off the rim, and once the inner tube is patched (the glue on the patch has either dried or frozen instantly), all my effort to get the tire back on the rim. All of this takes me half an hour.

It is about 8:30 am when I am finished. Several people have passed me on their way to their work. They glance at me with curiosity while I struggled pathetically with the tire. I really doubted that I had enough strength but now that it is done and I have finished pumping up the tire I feel much better - a touch of pride but mostly a sense of relief. I rest for a minute on the frozen ground. At this point I can put my gloves back on.

Carlos appears while I am still resting. He is on his own, wheeling his bike with him. He is full of concern for me and helps me mount my rear wheel into position and load my panniers. Then he guides me as I struggle feebly to roll the loaded bike back to the road. Stephen and Kate have already left for Quetta, he says. They did not want to wait for me, using the excuse that they need to get to the bank in Quetta before it closes. I understand their financial concern. It's their lack of concern for me, knowing that I am seriously sick and spent the night sleeping on frozen ground. They could have dropped by to check on me before heading off but they just don't care about me, even though they have been using my limited cash to buy their cigarettes.

But Carlos promises to stay with me. He tells me that he and the Brits were offered a dry, unheated place to lay their sleeping bags, and then kept up most of the night by the townsfolk who used this as a reason to party all night, insisting that they drink with them. Probably they just wanted an excuse to stare at Kate in her cycling tights. Dumb bitch! I hope she is miserable today.

At first I can barely move my half-frozen legs fast enough to maintain a walking speed on the bike. Carlos stays close to me all the way until my strength improves incrementally. Beyond the town, there is a tea house and he suggests that, even though I cannot stomach food, we stop for a hot tea. The tea house is above the road, which has been rising as we leave the town. From its windows I have a partial view of the town we are leaving.

I am very fragile today. This is my lowest point of my whole trip. I cannot even focus on the seemingly unattainable goal of reaching Quetta by tonight. I am making it through this day minute by minute, hour by hour. I am on survival mode. I cannot remember ever being this low before.

After warming up for half an hour in the tea house, Carlos reminds me we must keep moving to reach Quetta. Unlike Kate, he makes sure I am ready to move on first. I am thinking I must have a guardian angel who introduced Carlos to our group at the last minute to save me from this crisis. I am also thinking that I would have been better to stay with Coen and Vincent in Nushki instead of attempting to cycle with the incredibly uncaring and selfish Brits. When I think about them my blood boils, which is probably a good thing on this cold morning.

So we are moving again. I am starting to feel human again, slowly, but it is still a struggle. I haven't digested any food for a day so I am not surprised. Carlos is still staying fairly close to me but at least I am able to get up to 15 km/hr. And so we continue for the next few hours as we draw closer and closer to Quetta, where I will be able to rest for a week while we wait for Coen and Vincent to arrive.

By late afternoon, we are nearing Quetta. Carlos feels more comfortable with my ability and is now riding 300 m ahead of me. Suddenly, I see two youths, about 15 or 16, chase after him and try to grab his bike. He bolts to get out of their range, barely escaping their grasp. One of the picks up a sizable stone and hurls it at him, narrowly missing his head. He disappears around a bend in the road having safely outrun them. They shrug and laugh and turn to walk back to where they started from. Then they see me.

They each pick up large stones and stand by the road, their faces filled with mischief and excitement as they wait to attack me as I pass. They are right at the side of the road and there is no way to safely get past them. The rocks they have picked up are large enough to knock me unconscious and I have to pass the youths at a very close range. I have no helmet for protection anymore, having given it to the Iranian cyclist in Esfahan. I cannot turn around for there is nowhere for me to return to, and if I don't continue, Carlos may return for me and be attacked again. I see no alternative but to proceed, with the probability of being seriously maimed or worse.

My strength is still seriously compromised but I give it all I can. I crank up my speed to 25 km/hr. They ready themselves to pounce at me as they prepare for the challenge, their broad smiles laced with determination. Ten metres before I reach them, I veer off the road to go behind them. They step back quickly to adjust to my maneuver, only to find that they have stepped right into my path as I am barreling towards them. They leap back out of my way, falling off the road backwards into a steep culvert. I veer back onto the road and keep moving without looking back. They scramble back up the embankment after I have passed. A few seconds later I see the fist-sized stones they held bouncing along the pavement beside me.

I continue around the curve and out of sight. I find Carlos waiting for me rather anxiously half a kilometre further along. I stop and explain how I outwitted my attackers and we share a laugh. The rush of adrenaline from the close encounter is all I need to carry me the rest of the way into Quetta. From this point onwards I can keep up with Carlos. The sign for the city limits appears two kilometres further along. Incredibly, I have made it, just barely, to my destination city at the end of the valley. Since I have not seen the bodies of Kate or Stephen lying by the roadside along the way I assume they have made it too. Now we only have to wait for Coen and Vincent.

Quetta, a city of a million people, is the capital and by far the largest city in Baluchistan. It sprawls endlessly. The streets are wide. Even the core looks like a low-rise suburb, but there are trees and some attempt at urban design in places, making it much more pleasant looking than Zahedan. It is doesn't look anywhere like its actual size, other than that it goes on forever. This place and the Khyber Pass north of here marked the western end of the British Empire in India. The British reached here in 1876. In 1931, a massive quake leveled the city, including all of the multi-storied buildings, killing 40,000 people. I suppose the city has felt safer with low-rise buildings since then.

I see the post office and Carlos watches the bikes while I go in to ask where the Boys and Girls Club is located. They give me the address and directions how to get there. Again, it turns out to be a clean, comfortable looking place. I see on the registry that Stephen Brown and Kate Simpson have already arrived here. I make sure Carlos and I are assigned to a different room. Hopefully, I won't see them again, or at least for a few days. Perhaps by then my anger will have settled down.

I am still weak but I feel the need to eat something. Carlos accompanies me to a local store where we buy groceries to make a couple meals on our own. I buy myself yogurt and juice to ease my bowels back into digesting food. So far my Imodium has settled my stomach since last night. After eating our simple meal, I crawl into my sleeping bag and spend the rest of my evening there. Carlos goes out and I do not hear him when he returns.

20 years ago today - Day 285

2011-12-13T07:26:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Friday, December 13th - Nushki to Shikh Wasil, 15,270 km

It's a reluctant and anxious goodbye I share with Vincent this morning. I am anxious about Coen, of course, but equally anxious about riding alone with Stephen and Kate who have no interest in my needs or well-being.

Carlos and I are ready first but we have to wait two hours for Kate and Stephen to shop for supplies at the market. Kate is wearing just her cycling shorts and jersey again, begging for trouble. I swear, she must be the world's first surviving brain donor. The wait makes me anxious because it will be noon before we get started and I don't want to be riding after dark.

The route to Quetta climbs out of the depression that Nushki sits in with slow, winding twists. Kate tries to stay well ahead of me, and Stephen stays with her, but they are smokers and not in as good shape as I am. Still, I stay a ways beside her so she doesn't have to look at me and we don't have to interact much. I am not feeling well today. I am having some sour burps and my energy is low. The highway passes through a series of low hills and valleys. My sourness and weakness increases. To add to my increasing misfortune, my rear tire has developed a slow leak for the first time since Belgium.

I stop to pump up my tire. I have no time to change it. The others don't wait for me and I don't want to be left behind. I race as fast as can to catch up with them so I can ask for 10 minutes to change the tire. I see them waiting for me half a kilometre ahead, but as soon as they see me they take off again before I am in shouting range. Before I can make up the distance between us I need to stop of pump up my tire again.

This continues for two hours, but by this point the leak has worsened and I have to stop every two kilometres to pump up the tire again. I have had to stop at least ten times. I would have stopped and changed the tire while it was still light, but that was because it was growing dark and I presumed we would stop at the next town, the only one nearby I saw on the map. Apparently, Kate did not like the looks of this town and they continued past it. Now it is too dark to see to change a tire, and even too dark to read my map.

I am getting much sicker too, and feeling much weaker because of it. I have cramps, lots of sourness, queasiness and I think I might have a fever since I have started shaking. I know now that I will be sick soon but I do my best to continue as long as I can. I cannot see anything ahead of me anymore. I have turned on my feeble headlight on this otherwise darkened road, which helps me see the next few metres. Road traffic is almost non-existent. If there was any, I might see the other riders ahead. I use the detachable headlight to see while I pump up my tire again. The temperature is almost down to freezing. I feel the sting of the cold wheel rim as I use the tire pump.

It has been totally dark for two hours now. I haven't seen the others for more than half an hour. The temperature is still dropping, my sickness worsening and the road has been climbing through a low pass. As it crosses the pass, there are hills on either side of me. I hear someone shout at me from a hill top nearby, shouting something in either Baluch or Urdu, the official language of Pakistan. I think he is shouting at me. If I reply, they will want to engage me. I take a gamble and keep riding. If it is a military outpost, they may have night goggles and might shoot at me, or perhaps they are smugglers. Either way, I am hoping they will not be bothered enough to chase after me. Whoever it is, he shouts at me a couple more times, but I keep riding. My gamble pays off.

Another half hour has passed. I am still riding in the pitch black alone. I am shaking from the cold and my fever, and I know I cannot make it much further. The road has been dropping from the pass in a fairly straight line and I begin to see the glow of a settlement in the distance. I think I can make it. As I approach it I see the silhouettes of Stephen, Kate and Carlos waiting at the side of the road for me. I am relieved, but quite pissed off too.

I don't have the strength for making a scene, but I do ask the Brits why they didn't wait for me. They don't really answer, clearly being peeved with me for keeping them waiting. I wouldn't have kept you waiting if you had given me enough time to change my tire, I say, but they aren't listening. They ask what I want to do now. I tell them I am feverish and am going to be sick. I ask Carlos to hold my bike while I struggle across a frozen field to go behind a cinder block tool shed 50 m off the road, where I crouch down on the leeward side and shit my brains out.

I stumble back to the road. Kate has run out of patience for me - not that she ever has any - and announces that they are going into the neighbouring village to ask for a place to stay for the night. I wish them luck. The village has no apparent signage or retail strips - no western amenities - which is fine, but the arrival of foreigner visitors is likely to trigger off a party that will drag into the wee hours. I don't have the strength to wander around with them in the village and I know they won’t wait for me. They don’t have much choice but to go in anyway. I can't go any further, I tell them, and say I will camp on the ground behind the cinder block tool shed, the only nearby shelter from the biting wind I can see. Carlos is the only one showing any compassion for me. Without prompting, he promises to come back for me in the morning.

I watch them start off towards the town. I suddenly feel horribly alone. My insides feel very hollow but I am trembling from weakness and the cold. I retrace my steps back to the tool shed, pushing my bike with its half-flat rear tire over the hard, uneven field. I dread what comes next. I must sleep on the leeward side of the shed, not only for protection from the wind, but so that my bike and I are not immediately visible from the road. I do not want to be attacked and robbed in the night. But earlier, before I considered where I might spend the night, I used this same spot to empty the rancid liquid contents of my bowels. Instead of shitting at one end of the wall, I chose a spot right in the dead centre of the base of the wall. Now I must sleep here.

The tool shed is about four metres long, which leaves me less than two metres on either side of the noxious brown lava flow. My sleeping pad and bag barely fit on one side and there is room for my bike on the other. I unpack all my clothing and stuff it into my sleeping bag for extra insulation, since it is not built for temperatures below zero, and tonight it will likely be at least -8C (about 18F). I tuck myself deep inside it and fold the top over itself, leaving just enough of an air hole that I will get some fresh air.

I am comfortable and on the edge of unconsciousness when it suddenly occurs to me that my bike could be stolen easily during the night by anyone who might have seen me roll it behind the shed, or even in the morning before I wake. With a Herculean effort, I extricate my weakened body from my cozy bag. I carefully stretch the strings at the bottom of the bag over the steaming diarrhea to the front wheel of my bike, being careful not to touch it, so I will be immediately alerted if the bike is moved. Then I hurry back into the comfy zone of my insulated bag and drift into sleep.

PHOTO 1: the road climbing out of Nushki
PHOTO 2: camels silhouetted at sunset

20 years ago today - Day 284

2011-12-12T07:32:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Thursday, December 12th - trading post to Nushki, 15,182 km

This is the day we push on to the city of Nushki. From there it will be a two-day ride to reach the capital of Baluchistan, Quetta. It will be about 65 km, according to our maps. Nushki has about 70,000 people, by far the biggest town we've been in since Zahedan.

There is a bit of a breeze today, more of a tailwind than anything else. The valley is still flat though the road is still following the base of a small mountain range on the south side so at times there are small rises and falls. Kate still is acting like a bitch towards me, as usual, but we get along cycling as a group as long as we are separated. Vincent and I are staying close to Coen today, who seems to be struggling in spite of the relatively easy terrain. His system is fighting something.

We meet two other travelers today, the first being a Slovenian man who has been walking around world for world peace. When I was in Zahedan, I heard him being interviewed on BBC radio. The Iranian government had given him an extended visa, and he had been interviewed several times along his route through the country. He had just entered Pakistan at the time of his interview and was headed for Quetta. I expected to see him somewhere along the way. We come across him an hour or so after leaving the trading post. He is draped in a sandwich board and carrying a placard plastered with messages for world peace in bad English. He stops as the Dutch boys and I ride up to greet him. "Dobra dan!" I salute him, which means 'good day'. He is shocked to be greeted in Slovenian. We have a good chat for several minutes. He tells us that he too has been 'stoned' by Baluch children when entering towns.

We continue on towards Nushki. The valley starts to drop as we get near. Just as it does we meet Carlos, a Spaniard cycling solo. We greet him and chat briefly, and then he joins us for the last half hour into Nushki. We seek out the Boys & Girls Club in Nushki, a sprawling industrial town. Carlos, Vincent, Coen and I share a dorm room. Kate and Stephen take a room as a married couple, even though the management is suspicious.

"I think they are not really married," the manager whispers to me after they have gone to their room. "Why do you say that?" I ask, knowing that they are not. "They are wearing rings."
"That means nothing," he says. "They have different last names."
Perhaps I should have told him the truth, but I doubt that would have caused them to stop cycling with us. Instead, I reflexively try to protect them. I tell the manager, "A woman no longer has to change her last name when she marries in the West. That is becoming more common."

I am excited about meeting Carlos though. He's in his late 20s, like Coen and Vincent. He comes from Salamanca in western Spain. His dark Spanish eyes are full of care and compassion. He listens to me intently when he asks me a question, but I let him do the talking because his story is interesting. He has been cycling alone from Spain and has been in Iran for several weeks. From Mashhad, he cycled south into the vast desert in eastern Iran, Dasht-e Kavir, because he loves deserts and has long wanted to do this. He was nowhere near a major centre when his visitor visa expired.

A couple weeks later, he happened across a secret military establishment in a forbidden zone near the Afghani border. He was arrested and questioned for hours in backrooms as to why he was in a forbidden region without a valid visa, the same questions over and over to break him down. He loves Iran so he kept explaining why he loves Iran and deserts and about the beauty he found there. Iranians are modest people who shun the thought of fishing for compliments, so his answers over time proved to be as torturous to his inquisitors as their questions were to him. They finally threw their hands up, exasperated, and screamed at him for being so stupid. They renewed his visa and pointed in the direction of Mirjaweh, and told him he would be arrested if he didn't show up there within three days.

He made it to the border and through this desert on his own, to the point where we met him. I told him my story too, about my mishaps in Esfahan and our night in the snake pit. We are interrupted by Coen who has just returned from the washrooms with a grey pallour after being sick. Vincent is with him. Being tall, he usually chooses the upper bunks in dorms, but he cannot make it. He staggers and three of us catch him to prevent his falls. He is clearly disoriented and feverish. It is while frightening. Vincent and Stephen take him in a taxi to the local hospital.

Carlos and I sit in our dorm room trying to carry on from where we left off, but we are worried about Coen. We talk more to comfort each other than to entertain. It's strange how I can fall into a comfortable friendship with complete trust almost instantly with Carlos, feeling like I can trust him completely, while as clearly and intensely disliking another like Kate at first sight. I like to think it is intuitive, not just illusions and prejudices.

Vincent and Stephen come back without Coen, bearing bad news. Coen has acquired amoebic dysentery and is very ill with a high fever. The doctor at the clinic says he will be OK but he needs to stay at the clinic for observation for at least a week. Vincent, of course, will not abandon him like he did me when I fell sick in Esfahan. "Well, we can't wait that long," Kate announces, which means Stephen is going with her. "There's no need for anyone else to stay behind," Vincent tells us. Carlos is leaving with them so I reluctantly agree to go with them, though I probably wouldn't have if Carlos was not joining us.

We have 150 km to cover to get to Quetta, our destination. I will wait for the Dutch boys there, regardless of what the others decide to do, if we don't kill each other over the next two days.

PHOTO 1: camels on the way to Nushki
PHOTO 2: Carlos and his bike of many travels
PHOTO 3: two curious boys in Nushki

20 years ago today - Day 283

2011-12-11T08:57:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Wednesday, December 11th - the snake post to trading post, 15,083 km

We all slept well last night, without interruption. Perhaps it was the night air or the ganja. We wake around the same time, shortly after the sun rises at 8 am. Vincent, Stephen and I sit up first. We open our mouths to say good morning and our words catch in our throats. We stare at the ground around us and at each other in utter disbelief. We saw nothing, heard nothing, during the night, but all around us are slither marks made by the snakes. Every hole in and around the dune has radiating swiggle marks left by the snakes on their night crawls, like children’s drawings of the sun. The largest tracks are 20 centimetres (8”) wide and the slithers are more than a metre wide. Some of these snakes must be at least four metres long to make these tracks this size.

They came very close to us too, only a metre away. As we stand up to survey the scene, we see that our little patch of undisturbed ground under the willow is like a lone palm tree island in the Pacific Ocean. The spaghetti scrawl of overlapping snake tracks, like waves of the sea, extend at least 100 m from the dune. This is totally freaky, much more than I expected and certainly more than the others did by far. We are frightened to step off our small “island”, onto the sandy ground beyond, as if their invisible spirits are still lurking there.

I quietly collect up my gear and start packing my sleeping bag. I was right about them being afraid of us. A desert mouse, one of their favourite foods, found my pocketbook in the night and made a meal of it. The bottom edge of the book has a new serrated edge and there is pile of chewed paper on the ground a foot from my head where I set it down. The snakes would have been able to smell it, and hear its chewing no doubt, but not one of them was courageous enough to crawl into our camp to get it.

Kate and Coen sit up and stretch. Kate opens her ever-present mouth and begins to say, “Who’s going to make the…” until Stephen quiets her with a finger to lips, as if the snakes will return if they hear us. As would be my luck, when I pull out my camera to take a picture of the scene it refuses to work. The dust of the desert has clogged its wheels, preventing its moving parts from moving. The film won’t even advance. I will take it apart in Nushki or Quetta, but at the very least I will lose a dozen or more of my most recent pictures.

We all pack silently over the next twenty minutes and, one by one, move our bikes onto the far side of the dune away from the holes and beyond the sea of slithers. Kate is the last one packed. “Wait for me,” she calls to Stephen in a hoarse whisper as she tries to catch up with the remainder of her packing under her arm. She doesn’t want to be left behind with the snakes.

No one makes tea or scrambled eggs this morning. We dig out fruit, bread and goat cheese from our bags for our breakfast. Coen, Vincent and I start grinning at each other and cannot stop, knowing that we survived this craziness and have the memories to show or it. “When we get home, we’ll be able to tell all our friends and family about sleeping in a snake pit,” I say to Kate who, in her panic, has stopped beside me to complete her packing. She looks at me as though I have just said something stupid and repulsive, and I have to suppress a smile.

The realization of their unconscious stupidity about sleeping beside a sea of snake holes seems to have sobered the others up today. They stop for occasional smoke breaks, still more than I wish they would, but they talk less as they think about the snakes, and they keep their heads down and their legs moving with more consistency. They choose not to smoke any ganja cigarettes today too.

The highway continues down the middle of the valley. The railway is north of us, off to our left, sometimes only a quarter kilometre away and sometimes two or three kilometres off. We can see it whenever e climb over a slight rise, which we do as the road bends over to the south side, along the base of a range medium-sized mountains Our average pace is about 14 km per hour when I factor in our breaks, much better than our normal 11 to 12. At this rate, it takes us around six hours to reach the half way point of our route to Nushki. It is only 2:30 pm so we continue on. An hour and a half later, we find a roadside inn and market, a wonderful discovery, and we stop here for the night.

The proprietor says this part of the valley quite safe if we stay near the inn. There are more trees here too, sprinkled over the dry mountains above us. Everyone pitches in to make a dinner of dhal and potatoes with tomatoes and beans. It is delicious, and we have earned it tonight. Kate still doesn’t want to discuss the snake pit but there is lots of other things to talk about. I lie on my bed and read my pocketbook. It’s a stupid Harlequin Romance called “The Soldier’s Girl”, not my usual cup of tea, but it relaxes me and frees me from the urge to fit in with a conversation with the Brits.

PHOTO 1: the road beyond the snake pit
PHOTO 2: local inhabitants
PHOTO 3: the valley near the trading post

20 years ago today - Day 282

2011-12-10T08:17:00.001-08:00

View Larger Map

Tuesday, December 10th - Dalbandin to the snake pit, 14,999 km

I am up early and pack my bike for today’s ride east towards Nushki, The Brits get up and make breakfast a bit late, around 9 am, but we are ready to roll except for the shopping trip to the local market to stock up on two days’ supply of food. Kate insists on doing the shopping dressed only in her form-fitting cycling shorts and cycling jersey, a strange and alluring sight to the men around here. It would be illegal in Iran but, technically, it isn’t illegal here – just dangerous. In 20 minutes, there is a crowd of about 50 local men of all ages following her from stall to stall only three metres away. I swear she is denser than a rainforest and more stubborn than crazy glue.

The Dutch boys finally tell Stephen to lead her away before she gets gang raped, something he hadn’t figured out on his own. I wasn’t going to say anything. She has to learn some sense somehow. In Toronto, women have won the legal right to be topless in public, but they all have enough sense not to do it.

So we fill up our bags and roll out of town without a serious incident around 11 am, an hour later than I would have preferred. The first cigarette break is five minutes later, two kilometres beyond the edge of town. Vincent and Stephen crumble some ganja into their tobacco, roll a cigarette and pass it around. I refuse to partake, legitimately because I hate tobacco, but I see no reason why they should obliterate their already scarce supply of common sense just to ride in the desert stoned. We are still four days from Quetta and I really want to make it that far.

But we make it only another 12 km before they stop for another enhanced cigarette break. It is already afternoon when that break ends with 86 km to the half way point still in front of us. By this point the others clearly don’t care, but hopefully we’ll get at least 50 more behind us by nightfall.

Five kilometres after the last break, Kate spots a sand dune beside the road, the first sand dune we have seen so far. It’s not very big, perhaps five metres tall, a hundred metres long and shaped like a boomerang with one arm parallel to the highway. She squeals with delight, as if someone has just bought her a car for Christmas, and she wheels off the road to see it up close. The others, including myself, follow suit, and they decide to take a third break. Just plain cigarettes this time since they are already stoned enough. I feel like throwing up my hands. I resign myself to covering the distance to Nushki in three days instead, although we only have two days’ supply of food.

Vincent is inspired, a few minutes into the break, to climb to the top of the dune. “Hey! Come look everyone!” he shouts. Stephen and Coen scamper up to join him. Kate and I don’t appreciate sand in our cycling shoes so we wait for their reaction. “Kate, come see this,” Stephen calls to her. Now her curiosity is peaked and she struggles up to the top. She screams with delight. “What is it?” I call up. “It’s a magic tree,” Vincent answers. It is the first tree we have seen in the desert, outside of Dalbandin. “Oh, my God! We must sleep here tonight under the tree,” Kate decides for the rest of us. “Oh Christ!” I groan, as I sink down to sit on the ground.

The others think this is a great idea. I suppose we can return to the market in Dalbandin first thing in the morning to get another day’s supply of food, I calculate, trying to think how we can make this work. The group moves around to the other side, away from the road, to set up camp under the willow. I follow. Like the one in Dalbandin, the tree makes the sound of a babbling brook. It is very soothing.

But I am alarmed by the sight of two or three hundred holes in and around the base of the dune that stretch along most of its length. They are of sizes, the smallest the width of a broom handle and the largest wide enough that any one of us could stick a leg in the hole without touching the sides. The closest ones are four metres from the shade of the tree. My heart sinks to new lows. Completely exasperated by my traveling companions, I wheel my bike to the far end of the dune and collapse in frustration. I am there for about 15 minutes before Vincent comes to question me.

"Ken, did you see those holes around the base of the dune?" he asks.
"Yeah," I nod reluctantly.
"Do you think there is anything living in them?"
"It's a sand dune, Vincent. It shifts constantly so the holes would be filled in a day if they weren't occupied."
“Why aren’t there any marks if something is living there?”
“They are night creatures, like all desert animals. The wind this morning has erased their tracks.”
"What would make those holes? Could they be birds."
"No. Birds wouldn't make holes in the ground. They'd make them on a cliff face for protection from snakes and they would all be the same size."
"Do you think they are gophers?"
"No. I don't think gophers live in this part of the world, and besides, there would be mounds of dirt outside each hole and they’d all be the same size."
"Well, do you think they are snakes?"
"Well, snakes come in all sizes and there's no mounds outside their holes. I can't imagine what else they could be."
"Oh,” he ponders this for a few seconds. “What kind of snakes live in Pakistan? Would they be poisonous?"
"Desert snakes are often poisonous. Maybe they are vipers or adders. Those are deadly poisonous."
"But they would have to be HUGE snakes to make holes that large!" he exclaims.
"No doubt."
He ponders this a bit, then says, rather unexpectedly, "Do you think they'd bother us is we sleep here tonight?"
"No,” I laugh. “That's unlikely. They will smell our scent with their tongues and stay away from us. They won’t attack unless we scare them by approaching them."

I have no idea why I have said this. It is insanity. The truth is, I think I am right, even at the terrible risk that I am possibly wrong. If I am right, what place could possibly be safer in the desert. We are hidden from view of the road, so no one will know we are here. If murderous smugglers have seen us, they aren’t likely to get too close with such large snakes around us. Even scorpions and smaller inhabitants of the desert aren’t likely to approach out of fear of being eaten by the snakes.

Even though I am not stoned, the whole trip has become endless and surreal to me, like a product of my sub-conscious. I am behaving like I would in an interesting dream, trying things out that I would never conceive of doing when I am awake. After cooking another dinner of bread and dhal-a-la-pebbles over Stephen’s stove, we spread out our mats and sleeping bags under the tree, in the open air without tents, and crawl in fully-dressed against the night cold. I read the novel I found in a second-hand stall in Dalbandin until the winter sun drops precipitously out of sight. The last words of the day are my caution to the others not to get up to pee in the middle of the night.

PHOTO: Dalbandin near the market

20 years ago today - Day 281

2011-12-09T07:21:00.001-08:00

View Larger Map

Monday, December 9th - Yekmech to Dalbandin, 14,980 km

We aren't in a major hurry this morning. Stephen comes down to join the Dutch boys and me in setting up our bikes and browsing through the mini-store. Kate like to "luxuriate" in bed a while longer, Stephen tells us. In my mind, I see her spread out in the bed like a swastika.

We are one the road by 10:30, which is fine for our shorter trip today. By then the air has warmed up considerably. We set out together and do a better job of staying together, physically and spiritually. None of us feel any pressure to perform today.

At this point of the valley the mountains on either side are closing in and the floor flattening out so that it looks more like a broad valley. Dalbandin appears in the distance, centered in the lowest point on of the valley ahead. At first, it looks like a possible mirage, a rough spot in the valley's carpet, but soon enough we see more and more green. It is an oasis town, and it looks like something out of a movie about the French Foreign Legion in Morocco with its baked brick buildings glowing in the sun.

We are spotted approaching too, and we are given a traditional Baluch welcome. Children of the town gather by the highway and hurls rocks at us. I suppose, with a lack of malls or television, this substitutes for entertainment. Fortunately, the children in Baluchistan have never played baseball and they have terrible aim. None of the stones find their mark, although there must have over fifty of them thrown.

Dalbandin loses some of its mystic splendour once we enter the town. It deteriorates into clutter and noise, the hubris of human activity. But it is wonderful because we haven't had any of this since Zahedan, and Zahedan has none of Dalbandin's charm. Part of the charm consists of the trees that line the streets in the residential sections, which we also have seen little of for weeks.

Our first goal is to find the Boys and Girls Club of Pakistan, an arm of Boy Scouts and Girls Guides, which runs the cleanest and safest hostels in Pakistan. The hotelier in Yekmech recommended we look for it in Dalbandin. When Lord Baden-Powell created the Scouts movement in Canada it spread around the world. When it reached Pakistan, which loves formality and ceremony, it found its most fertile ground. It has become a major land and property holder in Pakistan, and it is highly respected. The rooms we take are affordable and cleaned with military-styled pride. Lovely!

We change and walk around the town to check it out. The one thing that grabs us more than anything else is a willow we have never seen before. It doesn't appear unusual or extraordinary in any way, except that when the wind passes through it, it makes the sound of running water. It's that familiar and compelling sound that grabs our attention and gets us looking for a stream nearby that doesn't exist. When we realize it is coming from the tree, we stand like apes before the monolith in "2001, A Space Odyssey" trying to understand how it does this. Of course, it just is, so we just stand in its shade to wallow in the comfort of that soothing. Kate dubs it the "magic tree".

Since Nok Kundi, when the guard offered us free drugs that we refused, Stephen and Vincent have been hankering for some local ganja, or hashish paste. They don't tell me until after dinner that they have made contact with a dealer and they have an address they need to visit this evening to make the purchase. This is making me very anxious. I have nothing against buying or using hash or pot at home, but in a dangerous environment, where the police could be involved with the scam and where white Europeans are perceived as rich targets, anything could happen. I offer to go with them and wait outside the house while they make the purchase, in case something terrible happens.

The location is a few blocks away. I can see they love the excitement of the deal as we walk the distance, like this is some kind of game. I wait patiently a short distance away so I am not noticed by the dealers when Stephen and Vincent are invited in. Nothing happens for some time, which is creepy, like a film noir. There are no gun shots or screams, but then perhaps their throats were slit quickly. But I know, even though it is a small purchase, nothing happens here without offering tea and mother's homemade treats or perhaps a pipe full of ganja. Eventually they emerge with a rather large square of ganja for five US$. I am relieved, except that I don't think we should be at the disadvantage of being stoned while traveling through this part of the world. They wouldn't listen to me anyway so I don't offer them advice. Perhaps I worry too much.

We return to the Boys and Girls Club. Vincent entertains with the story of how the deal went down. It sounds pretty tame compared to my imagined concerns. Having the dope in hand, I can see they are anxious to use it when riding tomorrow. It will be a two day ride to the city of Nushki, a total of 200 km. We will pick up supplies at the market before we head off.

PHOTO 1: the mountains are closing in
PHOTO 2: shortly before Dalbandin
PHOTO 3: main street of Dalbandin

20 years ago today - Day 280

2011-12-08T06:59:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Sunday, December 8th - Nok Kundi to Yekmech, 14,923 km

It's another early start this morning. After our morning tea, fruit and cereal we are set to roll by 9 am. We have a paved road all the way this time. I am feeling well fed today and with my renewed health and a paved surface to ride on I feel energized. The morning cold, which was just below freezing, warms quickly in the sunshine. Good fortune has given us a tailwind. By noon, it is quite hot in the direct sun. Stephen and Kate stop on schedule for their smoke breaks, never waiting until there is shade or a decent place to rest while waiting 20 minutes every hour for them to finish. If we didn't get these early starts it wouldn't be possible for them to cover more than 70 to 80 km per day.

There is more traffic today; trucks, buses and pickups mostly. Still, there is only one vehicle every 10 to 15 minutes. One pickup passes us with several men in the back holding machine guns - smugglers. I am riding with Coen and Vincent who are leading the pack half a kilometre ahead of the Brits. Given my two options, I prefer to be riding with them. It's just like old times when we were cycling together in Turkey with the Brits out of sight. That is, until Stephen cycles up to join us.

I like Stephen, though his choice of Kate as a partner is a strike against him. Still, he is showing an incredible lack of judgment here. "Where is Kate?" I ask him with a concerned voice. "She's about half a mile back," he answers. "Stephen, you need to stay with her. This area isn't safe, especially for women." "She can take care of herself," he shrugs. "Against a truck load of armed men with machine guns?" I question him. "Women are no more than property here. With a man they are much safer, but alone they are open game." I convince the other guys to stop and wait for her to catch up and I encourage us to stay together. "If anything happens to any one of us, we will all be affected. We need to look out for each other," I advise them. I am thinking about the four of them abandoning me in Esfahan right after I had been robbed and was bleeding internally two weeks ago.

Kate isn't too impressed that we are waiting for her. She thinks she could go it alone if she had too. I don't want her to find out otherwise.

The rest of the day rolls on without incident. I don't think Kate and Stephen appreciate my interference or that I make them uncomfortable as they keep me waiting during their smoke breaks. Kate gets a certain degree of mean pleasure out of making me wait but I know she wishes I wasn't here. I say nothing since I too wish she and Stephen would go their own way.

Yekmech is not a town. It's a speck of dirt on the map that someone forgot to wipe off, but it has a small hotel with a small general store on the main floor. There isn't much in the store but it has all that we need, warmth and safety. We are advised that there are bad people around at night and that we should not go out again until morning. There isn't anywhere to go anyway, but we thank them for the warning.

It seems we are all short of money since none of us can take money out of banks in Iran or so far in Pakistan. Kate and Stephen "borrow" part of my last meager worldly possessions - US$70 - to buy a couple more packs of cigarettes. I am afraid to worsen our relationship by denying them, though giving them money certainly doesn't improve their treatment of me. Kate cooks us dhal (lentils) she bought in Nok Kundi. They were dirt cheap because they have dirt in them - small rocks, actually. I am sure they are clean after being boiled but I almost chip my teeth on them more than once. Ah - the indignity of cheap travel.....

We all feel good to have made it this far safely. Things seem to be getting better. Tomorrow we only have a 55 km ride to Dalbandin, the first real town on our route to Quetta.

PHOTO 1: the road ahead
PHOTO 2: one of those pretty trucks

20 years ago today - Day 279

2011-12-07T07:07:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Saturday, December 7th - on to Nok Kundi, 14,810 km

The cold air and hard ground has us up early this morning, which is wonderful because we have a lot of ground to cover in this shortened winter day. Stephen boils water and Coen provides the tea. Coen and Vincent also have some powdered eggs, though only a small amount for each of us. We have very little portable food that needs no preparation, such as fruit or granola bars. There is a little bit of bread but far less food than we would normally consume in a day. There will be no chance to buy food in Nok Kundi, and if there is nothing there, we are truly fucked.

We leave the shepherd’s cabin the way we found it, except for the broken lock on the window where we gained access. Then it’s back to the dirt path that impersonates a national highway. My wheels are still sinking in but I try to grin and bear it. A least we have a system now. Stephen and Kate cycle ahead, like yesterday, and take long leisurely breaks while we catch up.

But the desert is changing, becoming a “hamada,” which means more crushed rock and less sand. It is a rougher ride but I sink in less and can maintain a better average speed. I wasn’t sure what to expect before we got here. It doesn’t quite meet my experience of deserts that I have been in before. We are surrounded by low rolling hills of crushed rock, barren of vegetation. The road weaves a bit between them. The mountains that form the sides of the valley are far away on either side to the north and south. They seem to have sunken into the earth and are peeking up from behind the horizons. The strangest thing though is that I keep setting my sites on the top of the hill a kilometre or more in front of me, but when I get there I still see the top of the hill a similar distance ahead of me. This goes on for half the day. It is surreal, like a scene out of a sci-fi mystery movie or perhaps “The Time Bandits”. To add to this weird effect, the Dutch boys, who are both hanging back to ride with me today, start singing the Talking Heads song “We’re On The Way To Nowhere.”

Kate and Stephen still want to squander time on their extended cigarette breaks. At one point I suggest that at the speed we are going we will need to cycle a couple hours in the cold dark. It is true, but they glower at me (especially Kate) like I have just pissed in their punch.

About 50 km before Nok Kundi, we are pleasantly surprised by finding the road is suddenly paved. Well, partially paved would be more accurate. There is only one lane four metres wide, that must be used by vehicles in both directions. They must each go half off the road when they pass going opposite ways, but it is wide enough to accommodate three bikes cycling side by side. We only see a vehicle every twenty minutes or so, so if I ignore the danger factor and lack of food and water, this is an excellent cycling route. There is a sign in English recognizing the United Nations for paying for this humble excuse for pavement, like they do for children’s vaccinations. Most of the nation’s GNP is apparently swallowed up by the military and the rich.

The pavement saves us as I can go much faster. We travel together now, stopping together for cigarette breaks. Now I only wait for them. About ten minutes along on the paved surface two trucks pass in front of us. They pass on the left. The Dutch boys and I turn in unison on the Brits and ask, “Do they drive on the left in Pakistan?!,” as if they should know. They don’t know but we assume they do drive on the left like Britain does.

The light is the sky is just about to start to fade as we roll into Nok Kundi. It looks as temporary as an outpost in an American western. We see a small military compound and decide it is best to ask where it would be best to spend the night. The officer speaks quite fluent English, which I hope is the norm in Pakistan. He woggles his head and says there are no hotels, and it is far too dangerous to pitch our tents in the open. He strongly advises we pitch them in the yard of the police compound, which we gladly do before the light is gone.

The compound is the size of a large house and there is a chain link fence around it four metres high with rolls of barbed wire at the top. I pinch myself, thinking for a moment that I am in the Bronx. The officer comes out to chat with us. He tells us the whole area is controlled by Baluch smugglers, except for this compound. A warehouse behind the office contains a wide variety of smuggled goods they have confiscated. “This week it seems to be plastic lawn chairs,” he says, “but before that is was hashish and pot.” He says prohibitions in Taliban controlled Afghanistan and Iran make good business for the Baluch who have relatives and friends across both borders.

“Would you like some pot?” he asks suddenly, as though he has been rude by forgetting to offer us any. Stephen and Vincent’s eyes light up, but they are quick to refuse it, fearing that after we have it we will be arrested and held for ransom from our respective families. I am relieved that they have a little bit of sense. Vincent asks instead if there is a grocery market in town as we are out of food. “They usually close around this time but they will still be there. I will phone them and tell them you are coming,” he says with another woggle of pleasure for having done something for us.

We all hurry over and buy up as much as we can carry, then carry it back to our campsite in the compound. The officer even provides us with a little gas for Stephen’s camp stove so we don’t run out, since the store does not sell this. We are so hungry that we pig out tonight and after that we are very tired. It is dark already and we have no reading lights but I checked the Guide at one of the cigarette breaks. It is 170 km to Dalbandin, the first sizable town from here, but the officer says there is a hotel in Yekmech, a outpost about 110 km from here. It will be another long day tomorrow.

PHOTO 1: panorama of the desert in front of us
PHOTO 2: always the top of the hill ahead
PHOTO 3: road block ???
PHOTO 4: local inhabitants
PHOTO 5: the metropolis of Nok Kundi

20 years ago today - Day 278

2011-12-06T07:35:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Friday, December 6th - Mirjaweh to east of Taftan, Pakistan, 14,712 km

After last night’s decision to cross the border two days before the train comes, I asked to borrow Vincent’s Lonely Planet Guide to Western Asia, our travel Bible for this part of the world, to read about the Pakistani side. Like early explorers who thought the world was flat, I have been fearing, at every border crossing since Europe, that I would fall off the edge of the civilized world. Bulgaria, Turkey and Iran were all better than northern Greece and (dare I say) better than many parts of Canada. But finally, I am convinced, I have reached that point at the border of Pakistan.

The Guide gives a description of Taftan as a smugglers’ den, devoid of children, women, schools and the attributes of normal towns its size. It is comprised of smoldering heaps of half-burnt garbage and millions of flies, which is what greets us within a kilometre of crossing the border. Beyond that, the town has a haphazard layout, lacking of any formal planning, and has the overall appearance of a massive junkyard. There is no pavement – only dirt roads.

The Guide also says we might see smugglers with machine guns over their shoulders fading in from the vast desert beyond. We didn’t see them but we did see a huddle of activity around the bus depot. It is mostly an open air affair, with winter cold and dust storms being the only need for a terminal. Regardless, they don’t have one.

Pakistani buses are the most exotic thing one can see in this desert. They look like a tube with ends, with rounded sides which, beyond the filthy windows that don’t open, are covered with ornately shaped silver frames, each of which defines a vibrant painting, often in psychedelic colours. There are dozens of them on each bus. Their wheels have heavy tread to handle the desert sand, and on top there is a shallow-sided rack to carry luggage or cargo. Some are transporting iron scraps or agricultural products, and one in town today is carrying plastic lawn chairs. They are known to turn off the highway to deliver their cargo at rendezvous with smugglers in the desert.

The Guide tells us, as we see for ourselves later, they are decorated with Christmas lights and have hot pink, yellow and green (the colours young school kids wear) antennae thrusting skyward from their front bumpers to bring in radio stations, which they blare from loudspeakers as they plough through the desert nights like prehistoric glow-in-the-dark caterpillars. The safety of luggage placed on the top rack cannot be vouched for so it is best to be kept with you – on top of you on your seat because the buses are always full. The aisles may be filled with crops and contraband when there is too much to fit on top of the bus. They have no air condition, and (get this) no suspension. The trip to Quetta is ten hours long. There are no washrooms. Getting in and out at stops along the way might be a serious challenge and if you don’t have all you luggage with you it might not be there when you return. But the buses are amazing to look at.

I suppose it doesn’t matter what any of us thought about taking a bus once Kate decided she wouldn’t get on one, but no one disputed her decision. We all had serious concerns when we saw how the bus driver threw luggage onto the roof like bails of hay. Our bikes could not fit inside and would likely be broken with that treatment. They might not even be there when we arrive in Quetta if they are tossed off unceremoniously at one of the stops.

It is still two days until the weekly train comes so we discuss staying in Taftan for two nights. The Guide, which always lists places to stay, contains only one word – Don’t!

That leaves only one option – cycling off into the desert. They can’t seriously be considering this, I think to myself. There is no town for 130 km (and it doesn’t look like much of one on the map) and we have not stocked up on food and water.

There are no stores in “town” where we can buy supplies. 75% of Alexander the Great’s army died of thirst in this desert, and they stocked up beforehand. The only “highway” to the east is an unpaved sand trail, and bicycles and sand are a bad combination, especially mine which has narrower tires. Then adding to this, the Guide says no one should enter this region without armed police escort because it is controlled by smugglers, not the Pakistani authorities.

But that is what the group decides to do, though I would have chosen to return to Mirjaweh for two more days. At least we could stock up. Coen, in his goofy, friendly way, engages the curious smugglers in a broken conversation and they offer to cook us a meal of fried potatoes, which tastes delicious. I gush my thanks upon them so they will be less apt to attack us later.

And then off we go. I get at least 300 m before my tires begin to sink into the sand, and from that point they sink in every five to ten metres. I try going faster but I almost go flying over the handlebars when I hit a deep pocket of sand. At best, I can average about five kilometres per hour, and that pace is exhausting. The others manage better with their wide tires, but their frequent stops for cigarette breaks allows me to catch up. Coen stays with me so I won’t be cycling alone.

At about 11 km we reach a military outpost, a small building with about a dozen soldiers. They have a well. Kate is leery of it, thinking she might get amoebic dysentery. No one can become immune to amoebic dysentery, I tell her, and since the soldiers are drinking it it is safe for us too. It has taken us two hours to make it this far and we have used up all the water we have so, we take time to fill up every water container. Now at least we will only die of starvation, not thirst.

We continue on for another three hours. By this time it is 5 pm and the sun has already set. There is no sign of habitation as far as the eye can see, but there is a cinder-block shepherd’s hut 50 m off the road. Vincent says we should break into it and Stephen concurs. I agree that we will freeze to death if we don’t as the temperature is dropping rapidly now that the sun is gone. The wind is picking up too and it will be well below freezing soon.

Vincent manages to break the lock on the only window and, being the slightest and most agile of us, he climbs in through the window and opens the door for us. We wheel our bikes inside where we can guard them and spread our gear out on the dirt floor. Kate and Stephen make tea for us. Their small gas camping stove throws a tiny light which helps us see inside but is probably to faint be seen from the road. Half an hour after dinner, they turn it off to save fuel so we are talking in the dark. Kate is telling us that she won’t wear the cover when she’s off the bike anymore. In fact, she intends to tear in up into strips and use it as ass wipe between here and Quetta.

Against the odds, we have ventured thirty kilometres into the desert and have found fresh water and a safe place for the night. The others are happy to be here, as I am, but none of them have expressed any concern for the serious risk we have put ourselves in. “Netsimukelut (piece of cake),” Vincent shouted as we set off into the desert. There is still a hundred kilometres to go to get to Nok Kundi and we are running out of food. We have eaten almost all of what we were carrying for tonight’s meal. Vincent will be begging for the piece of cake before we get there. All I know is that I, for one, don’t need to be on a diet.

PHOTO 1: coming into Taftan
PHOTO 2: main street, Taftan
PHOTO 3: Taftan's bus depot
PHOTO 4: a painted lorry in Taftan
PHOTO 5: detail on the side of a lorry
PHOTO 6: a friendly smuggler and his scooter
PHOTO 7: boy and boy love, friends in Taftan
PHOTO 8: unsurfaced road into the desert
PHOTO 9: the endless desert
PHOTO 10: our route to Quetta

20 years ago today - Day 277

2011-12-05T07:25:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Thursday, December 5th - Zahedan to Mirjaweh, 14, 677 km

I am elated to be leaving Zahedan today. Iran has not been my best country. This evening I will be three kilometres from the border of Pakistan and that will be a relief. I check myself out in the mirror and I put on my skin tight cycling shorts and cycling jersey. My body has wasted away to stick, 178 cm tall (5’10”) but only 57 kg (125 lb). But it is still a machine, capable of moving from town to town, from country to country, and I am proud of it. I layer on my sweater and tights because it is still cold in the mornings.

Coen, Vincent, Stephen and Kate are waiting for me at our agreed-upon rendezvous in front of the Jameh mosque. They all greet me, except Kate, and we set off towards the highway. Our route is dead flat with a cross breeze from the north that whips up some dust from time to time. The only scenery are the telephone poles, the brown earth and brown grasses by the road. There are no crops here, just desert, and the low mountains are distant. We keep a steady pace, Coen and Vincent in the lead, me in the middle and Kate and Stephen behind.

Kate is wearing a black linen wrap over top of her cycling shorts that goes down to her knees. She hates it. The Iranian police had stopped her at some point and asked her to wear something over her forming-fitting cycling shorts. She argued with them, saying that is impossible to cycle safely with a long dress on. They could have arrested her, but instead tried to explain that she should wear something over the short for her own safety and out of respect for the culture of the people of Iran, but respect for others is not Kate’s forte.

One other thing I must get used to when cycling with the Brits is that they are smokers and need smoke breaks regularly, at least once per hour, and the breaks are about 20 minutes each which really slows down our average time. Coen and Vincent are smokers too, but they don’t need to stop so often or for as long. I realize today that one thing they bond over with the Brits is the fact that they are all smokers, as well as being straight. I guess I was born to be an outsider. I will never take up smoking just to fit in.

The wind picks up in the afternoon, blowing lots of sand and dust across our path. It makes standing in the open waiting for the Brits harder to take. Fortunately, it is a short day. We arrive in Mirjaweh around 4 pm.

Mirjaweh is not much of a town. Mostly it is a government outpost because it is the only border crossing between Iran and Pakistan. The are a couple general stores, hotels, a restaurant or two and some souvenir shops. It lots less ethnic looking than Zahedan because of its official nature. We take two rooms in a cheaper hotel. Kate does the negotiating, for in spite of her disrespect for the Iranians and their traditions, she knows the most Farsi. With five men present, the hotelier is astonished that she takes charge. I appreciate her for the first time. We all wash up and have our smoke breaks (except me) before going to dinner so we can’t taste the food.

Coen, Vincent and I have three days remaining on our Iranian visitor visas. The train from Taftan, the border town on the Pakistani side, leaves on Sunday. It would take us safely through this long valley to Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, the south-west province of Pakistan. So the three of us would like to stay in Mirjaweh until Sunday, but the Brits wait until we are at dinner tonight to tell us that their visas expire tomorrow so we must all cross tomorrow.

When they make this announcement, I am thankful because I think the Dutch boys will tell them we have to part ways here and they can take a bus to Quetta instead. But, no. They agree to cross with them without deferring to me, and with my new outsider status and my dependency on being with the Dutch boys for banking purposes in Quetta, I obviously need to cross with them. Besides, the last thing I need to do is to travel alone in this part of the world, by bus, train or otherwise.

On the way back to our hotel, Kate is stopped once more and chastised by a police officer for not covering up the lower parts of her legs. This is all I have she tells them in Farsi. When they persist, she tries the argument that skirts don’t work with cycling. You are not cycling now, they state the obvious. I am going back to my hotel room and tomorrow we are leaving your country so I will be no concern to you anymore. Women’s Libbers would cheer her on, but they have not heard the screams coming out of back rooms of police stations and don’t appreciate the risks one is taking to stand up to the police or military in this country. Yes, she is gutsy, but I can’t help thinking she is stupid too.

PHOTO 1: near Zahedan
PHOTO 2: Coen and Vincent catching up to me
PHOTO 3: the open desert near Mirjaweh

20 years ago today - Day 276

2011-12-04T08:22:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, December 4th - Zahedan, 14,579 km

Glories of glories, there is a message from Vincent waiting for me in Poste Restante in the post office this morning, just when I was on the verge of giving up on them! He says very little in his note, just that he and Coen have made it here safely and that they will meet me here 5 pm this afternoon, but it feels like a HUGE amount. It is the best news I have had in many weeks.

I am ecstatic all day. I feel like dancing in the streets, become an even-weirder anomaly in this brown desert town. 5 pm feels like an age away and I fidget away the hours waiting impatiently for them to pass. I take down my note in the bookstore and organize my bags that have become scattered into disarray in the past three days. This takes far too little time.

My mind is full of questions that I will find out soon enough. Are the two Brits still with them? What held them up? Are they sick, injured or have they had mechanical problems or a run-in with the police? Where are they staying? Obviously they have just arrived or I would have probably seen them walking around.

I ride around a bit looking for other hang-outs other than the chai house I know. I watch for them everywhere. Why did they say they would only meet me at 5 pm instead of noon? Surely they could expect me to check first thing in the morning, especially with them being this late.

4 pm arrives and I am waiting for them in case they show up early. Anxious, me? I see them crossing the wide, dusty street. I want to run and hug them but I play it cool and keep eye contact as they approach. We are each smiling uncontrollably. They don’t resist when I hug them tightly in turn. (Coen is so tall I am just hugging his chest.)

I am full of questions, the first being when did they arrive. I am shocked to here that they have been here three days, since noon on Sunday. My jaw drops in amazement. Why did you wait three days to contact me after promising to reconnect on the weekend, I want to ask. I feel a wave of anger for what I have been going through, but I just ask Vincent politely why he didn’t leave me a note before this morning. He just brushes off my question, saying they have been busy and that they are staying here kilometres from the post office and didn’t get around to it. The Brits are still with them, and after chatting for a couple minutes they say they have made arrangements to meet them for dinner a few blocks away.

I suppose I should feel honoured to finally share a meal with them. I settle with feeling relieved. This is a necessary arrangement, I tell myself as I listen to the four of them relate their adventures from Yazd to Bam. They met a fellow in his late 20s in Bam who insisted that they stay with him, but he turned out to be a total control freak who would not let them leave or go sight-seeing on their own. They finally lied to him that they needed to visit the post office on urgent business Sunday morning and caught a bus to Zahedan instead.

Kate loves to talk but she never speaks to me and none of them ask how I have been other than to ask if I can eat solid food yet. Questions that require one word answers. I now understand that Vincent and Coen held off contacting me until they are ready to leave Zahedan because Kate didn’t want them to, though there is no way to prove this decisively. They do want to leave for Mirjaweh tomorrow morning though and ask me to meet them in front of the Jameh Mosque at 9 am. I suppose they held off meeting me until the evening so that I would not change hotels to stay with them. What is the purpose of this if we will need to stay every night together after today? We will be together at least until we reach Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan at the end of the Valley of Death, which might be 10 days away.

So I spend another boring evening in Zahedan alone, shunted aside. I wonder if Coen and Vincent were hoping I would not answer their note, and if they’d prefer me not to travel with them anymore. I don’t care. I will travel with them and make the best of it because I must. I will try to strengthen my friendships with them and even with Stephen and Kate. She is giving me plenty of reasons to dislike her, more than I have given her, but I can ignore them. Traveling with a bitch isn’t the worst I have been through.