December 2006

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General Remarks:

This was not planned as a cycle tour. The first ten days were spent in Nepal and included a three-day walk in the Anapurna range with our guide, Soum. Prices were low and accommodation very cheap. Standards of hygiene were poor and for a good week of the tour I was ill with bacterial diarrhoea. Main places visited in Nepal were Pokara and Katmandu.

In India I travelled via Bodgaya to Varanassi and then to Orchha and Agra and Amritsar.

The squalor was appalling, the main problem being the disposal of plastic, which in places seemed almost ankle-deep. The animals, covered in mange and sores, rats eating excrement deposited on railway lines at stations were also some of the more disgusting sights - equalling the human misery.

Touts were ubiquitous - a real pest and very hard to shake off, taking you in the opposite direction from the one you wanted to go in to see places you didn’t want to see. No room for compassion. Never go in a shop unless you intend to buy. The Indians have turned fleecing tourists into a consummate art. Carry possessions with you at all times or don’t expect to see them again.

India as a cycling destination:

The roads are overcrowded and dangerous because of the erratic way in which Indians drive and the pot holes in the road - if it still exists. Distances between towns are measured in hundreds of miles. The only possibility is to do a short circuit around one small area. Expect dust everywhere near roads.

Travel:

Bus and train. By road the journey is uncomfortable and bumpy, by train faster and smoother, though third class travel is (well …). Indian orphans give a new meaning to “Railway Children”. They inhabit the trains, wiping out filth from under seats. Difficult to tell whether the children or the rags they use are dirtier.

One anecdote I heard when I was in Varenassi was that about 2000 European tourists “flip out” in India every year and need psychiatric care.

Renowned for its spiritual outlook on life, India seemed to me to be crassly materialistic with everyone out for themselves. The spirituality of India is more a fiction of the European imagination than a reality in India. Of course, it can be bought in Ashrams and meditation centres all over the part of India. I visited.

Would I go again? YES! India is a total challenge the western values which I barely question. If you can keep your sanity, it can be an enriching experience.

Just a thought - India with its population of over 1 billion has one sixth of the world’s genius’s, musicians, mathematicians … etc. The intellectual power there is enormous - if only it could be harnessed. With its radically different outlook on life, maybe India could develop a viable alternative to our decaying western culture.