Jaipor to Bundi via Tonk

On the road again, this time getting out of Jaipor and heading for a quieter place by the name of Bundi, planing to stop at Tonk on the first night, just for the name really! Tonk. You've got to really, haven't you?

To get there we followed another national highway but what a difference from the previous ones! No hard shoulder, just one lane either way and suddenly the caste system in force on Indian roads was very much in our faces. Literally. I lost count of the number of heavy vehicles hurtling past me with less than six inches of room. Was forced off the road a couple of times by overtaking vehicles, once coming a cropper in the loose sand that made up the verge. Not nice. The day was made worse as Mark had started with a p******e, and then had another one on the way. Later, just as we'd finished drafting (AKA slip streaming) a tractor and trailer for a few miles (as in the picture below) and started pedaling again Mark's chain snapped. Another halt was needed to effect repairs and to curse at the fact that he'd only just cleaned the damn chain the day before.



We made Tonk as it was getting towards dusk and started looking for somewhere to stay. The guesthouse we'd been directed to was full and we were told of a hotel, which proved to be very pricey (Rs800 for a regular double, Rs500 for a shoebox with shared bathroom). Too pricey in fact, so we went in search of another as the sun went down. We were pointed towards the Raj Palace by the bus station. Ah, the Raj Palace. Rs300 for a something that was a "**** hole even for rats" according to Mark, but more to our budget. All in all not the best of days.

Still, only one direction to go the next morning, onwards 110km to Bundi! The day started OK, but the cycling proved to be a drag as Mark wasn't feeling too great, meaning we had to make a few stops on the way. By the end I was starting to feel weak as well but we ploughed on, mostly fuelled by sugary drinks.

Worth it when we made it to Bundi though, which is a beautiful place and quite hassle free. What was going to be a one day stop maximum has turned into three days now. Got a nice hotel down by a water tank with a great view of the palace and castle which soar above and dominate the town. Excuse the poor quality of my night time shot below, really doesn't do it justice.



Had a nice relaxed time in Bundi, even going to a wedding last night but it's time to move on. I'm leaving the bike here for a few days and heading down to Diu in Gujarat for my birthday on Sunday. Unfortunately this means Mark and I are heading different ways now as he has to meet people in Mumbai and can't afford the detour, and I really don't want to spend my birthday on the road, wanting to spend it on the beach instead! To be honest, I'm contemplating sending the bike back soon anyway due to a mixture of time constraints (Helen is flying out in a month) and bad roads for cycling. I've pretty much done what I set out to do, cycle to India, and I'd been half planning to see India by public transport anyway.



I'll leave you with a photo from last nights wedding.

Agra to Jaipor

Ended up in Agra for three days waiting for my stomach to start to improve, which it eventually did with the aid of ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic. That was more than enough time in Agra for me, so I was delighted to get back on the road again.

Next major stop was Jaipor, some 230km away, which should be two days although we made it three. After all, we didn't get on the road until midday when we set off! In the end made it 60km or so to Bharatpor, stopping at ruins at Fatehpur Sikri on the way. Good ruins too, although very hasslesome with touts. Did a whistlestop tour in half an hour because of these touts and just general wanting to get on the road-ness. The picture below was taken there... not the best shot of the ruins but it gives you an idea of the countryside.



Up and away the next day, which was a pure cycling day. We followed National Highway 11, which was fine for cycling. There was a steady of stream of traffic, not too heavy, and a nice hard shoulder all made it pleasant enough. I'd been counting family style motels from about mile twenty onwards and we seemed to be passing them every six miles or so. After 60 miles (getting on for 100km) we decided we'd had a good day and to take the next hotel. Last one had been at 54 miles so we were looking for one soon after. Of course, it was at that point it all went awry... next hotel was to be found at the 72 mile mark, and their cheapest room was 1500 rupees. Our maximum budget was 400... although it was a very nice room AND they had a swimming pool! They dropped the price to 700 in the end but it was still too much. We headed off as the sun was dropping and found a dhaba a couple of miles down the road. 100 rupees a head for a bed, much more like it. No pool though. No bathroom come to that. They did heat a bucket of water up for us to was in though, which was nice. The countryside had changed over the day from flat (reminded me of Norfolk oddly, but maybe more on that another time) to actually having some hills. Nice!



This left 60km to Jaipor, which was a doddle. Cycling in Jaipor proved less easy though with Mark and I both coming to differing levels of grief in our search for a hotel. I had a motorbike bump off of me. It was only a walking pace impact and I remained standing but still worrisome. Mark was actually knocked over by a passing autrickshaw (tuk tuk). He naturally went ballistic and once he picked himself chased after the guy screaming blue murder. Caught up with him as well and had a heated discussion with him. Surprised it didn't end up in fisticufts to be honest.



Jaipor is nice enough though, spent the day sight seeing and soaking it all in. A big hectic place, worth at the least the day I spent here. The photo above is of the Hawa Mahal. Anyway, plan is to head towards Bundi tomorrow.

Cycling India... Delhi to Agra

After spending far too long in Delhi Mark, my new cycling companion, and I were eager to get on the road. First leg was down to Delhi on National Highway 2. National Highway 2. Hmm. Could prove to be interesting but I couldn't see any other way of doing it. We'd planned on an early, 6AM start in order to try and beat the traffic but in the end we didn't hit the road until around 9:30. Ah well, can't say I'm surprised. The navigation went OK, after a quick stop at India Gate we were soon on NH2 and heading south! Woo-hoo! The traffic getting out of Delhi was challenging but not actually hellish, although the city and suburbs we went through extended some 40km. Eventually we got to the country and off we went!



Spent the first night on the road in a dhaba (roadside cafe type place). Now that was a mistake... they didn't have menus so we just ordered some food. Got the bill the next morning. Aside from 150 rupees per person to sleep there (which was outrageous to start with but beat the 1200 rupees for a twin room at the hotel we'd just passed) they'd charged silly prices for food. 275 rupees for a paneer dish. To put it in perspective, that's going on for 4 pounds. In a good roof top restaurant in Delhi you'd pay maybe 80 rupees for the same dish. The total came to 1410 rupees (around 18 quid) including 250 "service charge". We were not best pleased and left after calling them "Ali Babas". Needless to say we did not pay the service charge. So, the moral here is always ask the price first if there's no menu.

Another days cycling with a wonderful headwind soon took us to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. Unfortunately during the course of the day my stomach, which has been a bit dicey for days, took a turn for the worse. Oh, made it to Agra easily enough but I couldn't eat solid food so I was powered on cola (mmm, sugar!). The Taj Mahal really is wonderful (although bloody crowded and expensive for non-Indians).



We were going to be setting off on the road again today but that was a non-starter. My stomach has spent the past 48 hours getting worse and I'm currently self medicating on antibiotics in the hope of clearing it, and my head which feels totally fogged up. Even the smell of food is making me feel sick! See how it goes tomorrow anyway.

Arriving in India

Arriving in Delhi at 5am I was worried I was going to be blown away by the place. As it is, it's big and chaotic, full of surprises and stuff that is out of the ordinary for a European. Having said that, having spent a little time in Africa and South East Asia, and having visited Chennai seems to have inoculated me somewhat, at least to the extent where I'm not running screaming too often (aside from to the loo).



I'm staying in the Pahar Ganj area, pictured above, for a few days. The area is certainly interesting, vibrant and full of "characters" one might say. I'm waiting to team up with another British cyclist who's flying here from Istanbul on the 16th, after which the plan is to head towards Goa. Had been planning to train it up to Amristar and still might, but unfortunately booze and inertia have intervened for now.

More later!

Leaving Iran. Thoughts and reflections

It's been the best part of a week since I left Iran now and I guess some sort of summary is in order. Getting out was quite easy. Due to the lack of Pakistani visa I'd got a flight booked over to Delhi with Gulf Air. Contrary to their stated policy online (bikes are carried for US$30 but must be bagged or boxed before the airport) when I rang them I was told my bike was to be transported as part of my luggage allowance (30kg + 5kg discretionary + hand luggage, after that US$7 per kg) and would be made ready for travel at the airport. Spent the day before flying ditching or posting back to the UK anything that was surplus weight which meant I posted 5kgs of kit back and did the first proper clean out of my bags in months.

At the airport the bike had to be X-rayed then various passport stamping when on. When it came to the check in bike and bags came to 34.5kgs and carry on luggage to about 8kgs. And I was wearing pretty much all I could as well! Wrapping the bike was a nightmare though, with a man using a clingfilm machine and his mate not rotating the vertically held bike properly. Crunch. I've still not brought myself to unpack it...

Iran is without doubt the most hospitable country I've visited on this trip, although it's hard to know how much of the hospitable character is a genuine old time thing and how much comes from their relative isolation. I think, going from my experiences in Eastern Turkey and Serbia it's made up much more of the former rather than the later. At times it's wonderful, at other times a little annoying and sometimes dangerous, such as the time I ended up flanked by motorbikes in heavy traffic, with four people trying to talk to me at once and both motorbikes slowly moving in to the point where I felt it was all going to end in tears. So the people, with one or two dishonourable mentions were fantastic (yes, there were one or two pricks, but far less than elsewhere).

The government, however, I as less than chuffed with, and talking to people I'm pretty certain the country is going to change. Either the government is going to manage that change and start making limited controlled changes (which would be in their best interests obviously) or the country is liable to explode into bloody violence. The majority of the population is in the 15 to 30 age bracket and when you're that age you think you're immortal. Your friends might die but you won't, and those are the people who will be the cannon fodder. I spoke with one person, well to do in a very senior station who told me about the Sepah (you might know them as the Revolutionary Guards) unofficially sending out videos of how they'd tortured kids after the summers uprising. The one that shook him (and he wanted to share it with me) was of hooded detainees being led to the edge of a third story roof then told to step down the "stairs". The video captured the falling and the landing and was made and released purely to affect the parents of those who might be involved in the next round.

Still, I believe (although I have no particular evidence to base this on bar talking to a self selecting sample) that change will come within the next five or ten years, provided, of course, that the Americans or Israelis don't intervene and cock it all up as usual. And when it does Iran I'm of the opinion that it will become a secular democracy. Democratic because even now Iran is nominally a democracy. And after all, Iran was establishing increasingly more democratic systems in the early twentieth century despite British and Russian interference. Killed off by the American and British coup in 1953 of course (organised out of the US Embassy btw, which goes some way to explain just why the siege of 1979 and 1980 happened). And as to secular well the vast majority of those I spoke (and yes, it was a small sample etc etc) not only despised the government but also increasingly Islam and Arabs. Loathed them with a passion in fact. I'll end with an interesting statistic I came across: 1.4% of Iranians go to the mosque on a Friday. In the UK the figure for church attendance is around 7%.

Couple of Iranian bits I didn't bother posting whilst there

Definitely playing catch up with the blog here, in no small part because the internet is quite restricted by the government in Iran. Speeds are deliberately throttled, a lot of sites blocked and some webmail can be shut down, as my Yahoo based account was last week, during anti-government protests.

This will be kind of a condensed what I've been up to and one or two things I didn't really feel comfortable talking about in Iran: not because the Iranian govt have got a super hot cyber team but just, well, because you know. Sometimes a bit of paranoia can be healthy. The first little thing, which seems laughable now, is not getting fingerprinted when entering the country. I was emphatically told while going through entry formalities that the police would take my dabs (OK, whatever) but somehow managed to wander through three sets of officials without this little formality taking place. Nobody had wanted to take them. OK, fair enough. But then with the long hours on the bike with no one to talk to but myself I began to get a little paranoid. The official who'd told me I needed to be fingerprinted had beem pretty damn insistent about it. What if they were to be carried in the passport as some countries insist you do with things like currency declarations? Could be a problem at police checkpoints or leaving the country and the last thing I wanted was trouble with the authorities in Iran. In the end I spoke to the tourist information chap in Tabriz who just laughed and said yes, they were fingerprinting Brits but don't worry about, it's just low level harassment and the prints were filed in the bin! Well that's alright then.

Second thing that got the rampant high level paranoia going was potentially more serious. I was in a hotel chilling with a pot of tea one evening when a gentleman engaged me in conversation. Usual stuff to start with, where are you from, do you like Iran, what do you think of the government. Then it started getting a little bit too heavy for my tastes. The guy claimed to be an engineer. Hypothetically, he asked, hypothetically, if someone knew the location of a secret nuclear installation and went to the American Embassy in Ankara or Delhi, did I think the American government would help this person and his family get out of Iran and relocate them to the USA? To which my response was "Uh... WHAT?!? I do not want to have this conversation. If we did have this conversation I would say this man is a suicidal fool, the Americans probably know about the site anyway and would mess him around. Now, I think I have to be going." Wouldn't let me get straight away but insisted on inviting me up to a mountain village for a few days or at least dinner at his house. As they say I made my excuses and left. Kids, never discuss nuclear secrets in a paranoid messed up theocracy with the occasional tendency to look foreigners up as Israeli spies. It could be a set up (don't laugh, stuff like that happens), it could be genuine... which is potentially just as bad! Walk away, just walk away.