India (part 1 )

April 24, 2010

Yes, I am still alive and still pedalling. As you can gather It has taken me some considerable time to gather my thoughts on India. Now several weeks after leaving there, I guess I’m finally in a position to try and make sense of the place, or at least my feelings towards it. I have decided to write this account in two parts, since I really feel that, for me there were two parts to my journey through India, the first month and a half in the North of India. I could not help but to view my experiences through the sensitive eyes of a westerner, ones used to the law and order and politeness of the european world. As a result I found myself constantly ill at ease with frustration and shocked by some of the indignant if not awful spectacles I witnessed, During this time I absolutely loathed the place and on many occasion came close to calling it a day. However, I am so glad that I did not, for in time it gave me the chance to finally understand a little of the place, and to learn to accept some of what was alien to my sensitivities and with a new perspective, finally begin to understand and at times, enjoy all that is special about India.

I arrived at New Delhi airport early in the evening, tired after a cramped flight and a sleepless previous night on the floor of Dubai airport departure lounge. I had been inwardly quite nervous of what to expect on landing in India, Delhi’s reputation had preceded it and I was pleasantly surprised as the arrivals lounge was virtually empty, no problems with my baggage or bike , i looked around the empty arrivals lounge and spotted an Indian equivalent of Starrbucks, next to it was an ATM where i drew money with no problem, then sat and had a leisurely coffee, smugly wondering to myself , why all the fuss about India being chaotic. I had pre booked a cheap hotel and found my way to the pre-paid taxi kiosk where, after a bit of haggling, secured my transport for the trip downtown and was told to find the taxi on the right side after exiting the terminal.

It was like being hit by a tsunami when the airport terminal doors closed behind me. The heat ,the noise,the smell, the bustle. there i was trying to fight my way through a sea of people dragging a trolley with a boxed bike and all my panniers behind me, after a sweaty and aggressive dash I found myself stood in front of a heavily dented shiny green taxi which seemed more at home in a 1950′s film, there were no plastic parts to this beast just lots of chrome and steel. My boxed bike was hastily thrown on top and secured by string ,the panniers dropped in the vast boot and I on the heavily sprung front leather bench seat next to the driver. As is common with all men in India the driver sported a large bushy moustache, though he could not have been more that 19 , the whole of the ensuing 45 minute drive to my hotel was spent bouncing around on the leather seat and rebuffing the drivers attempts to extort more money out of me. I had already paid for the taxi , now the driver, whose only command of the english language seemed to revolve around wealth management, insisted that he wanted extra for having the bike on the top of the car, and that i would have to fork out for the cost of the string securing it ,which was 60 rupees. This was my first experience of the practice of extorting money from the foreigner, a practice which continued incessantly without shame throughout my time in India, and which left me feeling at times utterly dejected and lonely, it often seemed that i was only engaged with and valued as a source of money by the Indians, after my wonderful experiences with the hospitality of the Iranian people it was just such a shock to me and was making me so guarded and aggressive which i hated. I lost count of the number of times I opened myself to people in India mistaking the connivance to con for an open hand of friendship. On one occasion a guy spent hours one morning befriending me whilst we watched some local lads play cricket. I visited his shop the next day and had a drink with him and he told me of the history of the town we were in, and i genuinely took things at face value with him and was grateful for his friendship and hospitality. However eventually his true motive surfaced as he began to tell me that he had some precious stones and that i could make lots of money by buying them off him without paying any duty and then selling them on to a friend that he has in the UK. etc. etc. Politely i told him where he could shove his precious stones and having once again my faith in mankind diminished went on my merry way. there were hundreds and hundreds of attempts at trying to take me for a ride, many of them very petty and minor but the accumulative effect on me was quite awful and I began to find it hard to engage with anyone or be civil, at worst it made me quite aggressive and dismissive of people. In Jaipur I had actually twice had people stop the rickshaw and taxis that i was in and climb in beside me, effectively hijacking the vehicle and trying to sell me their services as guides or make me visit their shop, In Bangalore I had strong words with a number of taxi drivers who instead of dropping me off at my destination, dropped me at relatives shops for a look round first, miles out of my way. But for me the most infuriating were the street touts in Jaipur, it took me some time to become wise to their methods, but the psychology of it is amazing , it starts with some one you pass in the street engaging you jovially with an innocuous question. ” Hi, excuse me , can you help me” to which, being a polite foreigner you of course ask what the problem is.The tout will then ask you ,”Can you tell me why, when i talk to foreigners who visit Jaipur they are always rude to me, when i only just want to talk with them and practice my english” or words to that effect, brilliant , they have you feeling bad about yourself, you are totally disarmed and they can then get you to go for a chat with them over a coffee which is usually in their shop, where the hard sell can take place. In Jaipur I kid you not, if you walk down through the walled city you will be asked this question perhaps 20 times in a bid to lure you in. Initially i just ignored the touts but at times they became quite aggressive and rude, one guy followed me down a street shouting out how rude he thought i was, for not talking to him, and saying that in India people weren’t rude and that I shouldn’t come to India if i wasnt willing to have manners and talk to the locals. I really lost my rag and ended up having a slanging match in the middle of the street with him, I was shouting out “do you know me , ? have we met before? In my country we don’t talk like that to people we don’t know” eventually I ended up grabbing him by the collar and physically threatening him, yes it got that bad, though unfortunately this wasnt the last time in India, where the need for physical force was called upon.

Eventually the taxi arrived and deposited me outside my hotel in New Delhi, I refused the drivers offer to carry my bags into the hotel as I feared a cost implication and thanked him giving him a smaller tip than he obviously expected . On checking in I was informed that the cost of the room had increased, since i had booked (another common con) In my naivety I assented to pay and hurriedly made my way up in the lift and crashed out in the rather modest room which certainly didn’t resemble the one advertised on the internet.

My first morning in India was wonderful, The hotel was situated in the heart of the bustling Grand Bazaar only a couple of hundred yards away from the New Delhi railway station.I felt like Mr Ben as I walked out of the hotel into a dazzlingly sunny morning straight into the narrow bustling street market I was surrounded by a me lay of vibrant colours and exotic smells as the traders shouted and pushed their wares, the street was lined with shops and barrows selling all manner of goods – sunglassess, luggage, shoes, spices,strange fruit, great woks hissed and spat as pakoras and samosas were cooked, and brightly coloured scarves and silks fluttered in the sunny breeze outside the shop fronts. The odd cow could be seen wandering unperturbed between the mass of people , mopeds smoked and buzzed about like bees somehow avoiding legs and cows, and rickshaws were pedaled with skill through narrow gaps in the crowd, the whole spectacle was accompanied by a symphony of sound as traders shouted, mopeds beeped, rickshaw drivers rang bells, crows squawked and the crowd murmured as one. As I walked on one thought kept entering my mind “how the hell am I going to cycle through this lot”. As i neared the end of Grand bazaar street ,directly in front i could see New Delhi train station and the wall either side of the entrance looked like some bizarre re-enactment of the wailing wall in Jerusalem. Suddenly it dawned upon me, it was in fact lined with men urinating against the wall. in the heat of the morning the smell suddenly hit me, that smell of urine stayed with me throughout my time in Delhi it was everywhere and quite common in most of the other towns I visited in india. quite literally the streets were flowing with urine, you could be quite sure that on almost any wall in any town in india there will be seen a stream of urine flowing from it to the roadside gutter next to it , it’s quite simply where indian men go to urinate . I decided to spend a week in Delhi as I felt there would be plenty to see and I would need to acclimatize to the culture shock before venturing out into the surrounding countryside and roads, In reality I could bare no more than 3 days there, the air pollution was making me feel terrible, it really was awful and the pure volume of people in the place was adding its own problems to my sensitivities, everyone I seemed to pass in the street would hold out their hand and demand “rupees”. not just beggars i may add , but schoolchildren and quite plump affluent looking people . The infrastructure in Delhi as with most of India appeared to be crumbling, the paths and roads were a minefield of holes and obstacles, the electricity supply would constantly be failing and by far the biggest problem was the lack of a refuse collection system, which basically meant rubbish was just dumped anywhere, again this is common throughout India. The only system that is apparent with regards to refuse , is that the underclass will sift through it for anything of any value, what they don’t take is left to the cows and pigs to eat not forgetting the packs of wild dogs, nor the rats and crows, then after that what is left is once in a while splashed with petrol and burnt to add to the already choking atmosphere of one of the most polluted cities on earth. I have one word to describe Delhi “filthy”. I could find solace in only one place there, at the Red Fort, where on entry all of the noise and filth of the overcrowded city is replaced by the serenity of great open spaces of lush green lawns overlooked by stunning domed pavilions and immense blue skies, where great birds of prey circle. This is the India I had imagined, of Kippling and the Raj. It was so beautiful there, walking alongside the great ponds and watching the chipmunks dart along the boughs of great Banyan trees and peacocks strutting proudly . On leaving and returning into the horror of downtown Delhi I knew I had to get back on my bike ASAP.

Leaving Delhi by bike wasnt as bad as I had envisioned, yes it was busy and choking but with such volumes of traffic, speeds are generally slow and any knocks and bumps are pretty harmless. The further I went the happier I became. The traffic was thinning and the roads were in pretty good condition, once out of the city and fully on the highway to Agra , I was quite amazed by how good the road was. certainly better than I had expected . In fact I must say that most of the larger highways that I travelled in India were pretty good, with big hard shoulders that could be hurtled along being pretty flat and with even Tarmac. But india being a land of extremes, it would be prudent to mention that some of the minor roads I travelled upon were absolutely terrible and in the end I had to start avoiding them for fear of ending up lost or worse. The highways were great and a joy to cycle down, the only problem was that they had to be shared with other people and for that in India you really had to have your wits about you.

In India there are laws governing driving , however there appears to be no one enforcing them. Take for instance which side of the road to drive on. In India, as in England they drive on the left, however this does not appear to be a hard and fast rule. I have encountered hundreds of vehicles heading towards me along the hard shoulder on the wrong side of the road. To have buses and motorbikes heading at you in the same lane as you are in is quite unnerving, and being at the bottom of the pecking order usually results in we, the cyclist taking the evasive action. At times it was petrifying and very, very annoying. In fact the traffic on the Indian highways was quite amazing . Whatever could be kicked ,dragged, ridden ,driven, wheeled, pushed,pulled,or rolled along a road would be met , and not always travelling on the right side of the road. Some were very comical like the two guys and 4 sheep that passed me on a 50cc moped or the car with a camel somehow carried on its roof rack . Some were downright dangerous, like the jeep taxis with 10s of people clinging onto their roofs for dear life or the herds of goats and occasional cows that meander slowly down the fast lane. Some of the trucks that passed me were so overloaded that they looked ready to topple at any sharp bend, in fact I did pass many daily, lying on their sides their contents spilled on the road. The majority of the vehicles that trundled along the roads looked unroadworthy, most of the oxen pulled carts looked about to lose a wheel, most of the trucks sounded like their engines were gonna blow however their drivers were unaware as they played music at a deafening volume in their cabs and would also cram them full with fee paying local hitchhikers. By far the most uncommon vehicle on the road appeared to be the car, for everyone of which there appeared to exist at least 100 badly maintained trucks 20 herds of livestock be it camels , goats cows or ducks, 50 motorised rickshaws , buses and mopeds, and 100 cycles not forgetting the more obscure traffic such as men rolling concrete pipe sections or dragging bundles of sugarcane. On one occasion I came hurtling around the corner on a dual carriageway alongside a truck only to find that a farmer had commandeered a whole 100 metre stretch of the fast lane to dry his crop of chillies upon.

I did however really love my time in India cycling along these roads, it was a fabulous experience, gliding past the beautiful villages with their colourful inhabitants, the great farming landscapes dotted with women working the plush green fields in vibrantly coloured saris, through deserts, jungles, forests, past exotic plantations of bananas and mangos and old ruined temples, climbing great ghats in the heat of the day and passing scores of adolescents playing cricket on all available pieces of sun parched flat land . My days were only marred by the daily grind of having to enter yet another filthy and crowded town in search of accommodation. These towns were really terrible in the north of India, as they were approached the road would seem to bottleneck with traffic and the smell of traffic fumes and other unsavoury aromas would hit you, along with the noise and the unsightly piles of rubbish being grazed by pigs. Men stood urinating against walls and people shouted “rupees” at you. In the early mornings when departing these holes I was often confronted with the sight and smell of dozens of people defecating on the sides of the roads and though i was only to glad to be leaving the towns, to be fair most of the accommodation in them was welcome and though basic was pretty good and cheap. I only stayed in one nightmare lodge where, when switching the lights on in the middle of the night, to my horror found the floor littered with cockroaches and myself and the bed in bedbugs, they scuttled away with the lights on and I was happy to sleep with the lights on until a power cut an hour later made the rest of the evening a very uncomfortable one. By far the biggest problem with any of the accommodation in the towns was the noise. it is unrelenting ,the beeps of horns at all hours, music blaring from shops and most annoyingly the other guests who seem to think absolutely nothing of standing outside your room shouting and singing or holding loud conversations for hours on end, this seemed to happen in almost everyplace I stayed, if you ever go to India do take earplugs, you’ll need them. One of my biggest concerns about finding suitable accommodation was that my bike would be safe, In most countries I have been happy to leave the bike locked up in the hotel lobby where the desk staff usually keep an eye on it for me. In India this didn’t seem to be the best option as when i tried this I was kept awake all night by the sound of someone ringing my bicycle bell and in the morning i would find all my gears tampered with and on more than one occasion the gear cables stretched, The problem is the Indians just can’t help themselves, they look with their hands, it’s not done with any malice it’s just what they do, even if you are sitting on your bike stopped at traffic lights, someone will start playing with your bell or flicking your gears, it really is infuriating but to them natural. So I had to start convincing hotel staff that i must keep my bike in the room with me, and started inventing strange stories about having already had a bike stolen in Bulgaria , this seemed to be a quite successful rue in allowing for safe storage in my room and happily I believe as a result, still have my bike in one piece.

As for the food in Northern India, it was sublime. I was in vegetarian heaven, I tried everything I could, at lunchtime the roadside snacks of Pakoras and samosas in the evenings great feasts in restaurants of thalis, curries, and all manner of breads, pickles and dahls. it was great though one could not help but think, that one was constantly engaged in a dangerous game of russian roulette as the hygiene standards were absolutely appalling and on a couple of occasions I indeed lost this game, with many sleepless nights of diarrhoea and projectile vomiting . In one restaurant i visited, the waiter put a clean plate in front of me which was still covered in gravy from the last guests meal, he was quite rightly horrified and quickly took it from in front of me, then proceeded to wipe the old gravy off with his bare hand, before placing the plate back in front of me, he then went and collected some cutlery for me and on his return journey had a coughing fit into the hand in which he was holding my utensils. I quietly left . I have sat in restaurants where people sitting near to me have coughed and hacked up and spat on the floor next to me whilst i ate, i have watched a chef leave the kitchen and go for, judging by the time spent a number 2 before returning and nonchalantly drying his hands on the curtain separating the kitchen from the restaurant. In short, no one seems to have the slightest clue about hygiene. Everything is served by bare hands, which are seldom washed and often engaged in highly unsightly activities. Food stalls are set up next to rubbish piles and near where people urinate and on occasion defecate, plates are washed up in bowls of filthy brown water, customers are allowed to prod , squeeze and sniff food then place it back, it is absolutely horrendous, but oh the food! it is so very gorgeous. For me this exemplifies India , it is such a land of extremes and contradictions, great food but appalling hygiene.

I have found some of the sights in Northern India absolutely breathtaking, my first glimpse of the Taj Mahal as I passed through the entrance gates, seeing its great white form bathed in beautiful sunshine will always remain with me. The majesty of the immense Amber fort in Jaipur, the fairytale beauty of the palaces and lakes in Udaipur. I have been in awe of the toil of ancient civilizations as i strolled for hours around the abandoned muslim cities of the north and the carved caves of Ellora which were centuries in the making. I have felt the exhilaration of climbing the ghats through jungles in the heat of the day and on summitting resting my eyes on the beauty of the vast plains below. I have loved watching the children playing cricket, it is played everywhere on every available piece of land and there must be thousands of games played everyday, I have been mesmerised by the hundreds of brightly coloured kites that fill the blue skies above every town as they flutter and dart piloted by children and adults standing high upon the rooftops. But I am also haunted by the North of India, On the road I have seen two fatal accidents as they happened, visions of which will remain with me for the rest of my life. I have seen an angry mob pull a man from his truck and beat him senseless, for which to my shame I could do nothing, I have had to physically grab a pinion rider and threaten him after being followed for 10km by him and his friend on motorbike as they tried to get money from me with menaces, holding out their hands and shouting dollars then making the slitting of throat sign , I finally snapped when the pinion rider tried to grab one of my panniers the ensuing struggle took place at about 20km /h as i tried to kick them and pull them off their bike, eventually they had had enough and sped off . Sad to say most of my negative experiences in the North of India as with this one seemed to involve some of the people. I have to honestly say, and I am filled with a sense of regret that I must say this. I am not racist and have met some wonderful people in India especially in the poorer rural areas, It is however the one country in which I have experienced frustratingly high levels of in consideration, vulgarity, downright rudeness, lack of respect and aggressive attempts at extortion, sad to say that almost every interaction not initiated by myself was an attempt to beg or con some financial gratification from me . This has really bothered me, I couldnt find any genuine friendship , I was desperately lonely and feeling like a target . I was really shocked at the peoples preoccupation with money in this famously spiritual nation. Every question I was asked seemed to be about money, no interest in my name or country but everyone wanted to know how much my bike cost or how much money I earnt, conversations which we would find most vulgar, seemed to be engaged in freely and with reverie by the majority of indian people . I found some of the middle class Indians to be the most obnoxious, whether this is to do with the caste system I do not know, but generally I found they were openly very rude inconsiderate and condescending. As I queued for entrance to the Taj Mahal a number of obviously affluent Indian families boldly tried to push in the queue in front of me, I had been queueing for over an hour and challenged them, they were absolutely astounded at my audacity and their arrogance was unbelievable. My experiences of conversation with some of these middle class people was equally strange, these seemed more like an interrogation than a dialogue. When asked once what my salary was, I replied politely that I considered such a question as rude to which my interrogator firmly replied ” but I want to know”. I had been chided a couple of times by such affluent indians for taking photos of some of the filth and squalor, they apparently thought tourists should only be taking photos of the prettier things and felt no qualms about explaining this to me in a very forthright way, nor did they take too kindly to me cycling through the poorer rural villages, as some would stop their cars to insist that i turn round and take the highway. It seemed a case of the affluent wanting to close their eyes and that of the tourists to the other India, happy in their emerging economy and wealth and at being able to sit hermetically sealed in the local Macdonalds and be truly obnoxious to the counter staff and sit boasting of their investments and stuffing their chubby spoilt little children full of crap , whilst shoeless and hungry children sat begging on the streets outside kept away from the restaurants windows by smartly dressed armed guards. I know this is a bit of a rant , but it really did affect me, the poor people in the rural villages which the obnoxious middle class tried their hardest from preventing me from meeting were some of the most gracious and proud people I met In india, though they had nothing . and it incensed me to think that the majority of the rest of India was aspiring to be like the arrogant emergent middle class that I had the misfortune to meet along the way.

So, as I say for me the North of India has been full of contradictions, every minute seemed to offer a photo opportunity, every day seemed to be crammed with new experiences both good and bad, and for a month and a half it was a real rollercoaster ride of emotions by the end of which I really wanted off. ( to be continued)