I was involved in a fish eating frenzy in Thailand. Hundreds of small fish kissed my feet and legs while at the same time eating all the dead skin that they could find on me. I sat there for an hour as the fish enjoyed their lunch. I managed to get my revenge, after the fish had finished with me I had fish and rice for my lunch. ( not the same fish that had been eating me.)
Wishing you all a wonderful and happy christmas and all the best for the new year..
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
Calcutta, Benapol, Khulna, Gopalganj, Madaripur (Ferry) Chandpur, Dhaka. Total 13275Kms.
My experience in Bangladesh was the closest I will ever come to rock star status. Whenever I stopped a crowd of people would form around me and just stare in complete amazement. If I stopped for food people would cram into the restaurant to watch me eat and drink, with the restaurant owner shouting from the back of the crowd, probably telling them to leave me alone or to let me eat in peace. I soon realised that once he had everyone out of the place there would be room for his family to come and have a look. If I stopped to ask directions or just pulled off the road to say hello to someone celebrity status was conferred on that person and as I rode off and looked back a crowd would form around them wanting to know what I was doing. This happened every day, not just once but on every occasion that I stopped. I calculated that about 50 people an hour stopped to look at me as I passed. Bangladeshi curiosity is wonderful, the questions always began with my country of origin then moved onto family, job, salary and finally what did I think of Bangladesh. In the town of Khulna in the south of the country a crowd gathered outside the hotel where I was staying to catch a glimpse of the Foreigner. It shows just how far off the tourist radar Bangladesh has become. In the month I was traveling around I saw no other Westerners. When I went to the Thai Embassy in Dhaka I expected to meet a couple of people on the road, there is always someone applying for a visa, not here. I asked the hotel owner how many Westerner had checked into his hotel this year and he said none. The country’s image is one of War, overcrowding, poverty and floods so not exactly the place that would immediately spring to mind when your planning a holiday. As always the country’s image could not be further from the truth. Yes its overcrowded and poor but I didn’t see the sort of poverty and overcrowding that I had experienced in India.
As I traveled through the countryside I got the impression of a last unexplored frontier, a country almost untouched by the modern world and Tourism. I rode through Small farming villages growing rice and very little else. Its a country that is covered in rivers and water, farmers have to use small boats to get them from their homes to the fields for the working day. When the road ended and there was no bridge to cross a small boat would be waiting to ferry passengers across. I did have to make one crossing on a large ferry. The same type of vessel that capsized recently drowning hundreds of people. The ferry was about three decks high and towered above me I also noticed that the thing was ancient and needed more than a lick of paint to get it up to any kind of descent satndard. fortunatley on the morning I was traveling it was quiet only about 10 trucks and a couple of cars had been loaded on. I couldn’t work out on a map what route we would be takinjg but we had to cross the Padma river from Madaripur to Chandpur and from there I could pick up the road to Dhaka. It was a misty morning and about an hour into the journey we got caught on a sandbank. The captain made an announcement that was translated for me by an English speaking medical officer. we would go no further because of the mist. I thought we could go no further because we where stuck on the sandbank. The drivers of the trucks started shouting up to the captain in the wheel house, I gathered that they had goods to be delivered and would now be late. So for three hours we stayed on the bank until the tide turned and the mist lifted. Fortunately for me the medical officer had driven an empty ambulance on to the ferry so I was able to sleep on one of the strechers in the back. Hitting the sandbank and having to wait a few hours was no hardship. I have heard the news and gather that hundreds were drowned when the same type of ferry from the same company and on the same route only in the opposite direction capsized in a storm this weekend. I really am a very lucky boy.
Its one of the most densely populated countries in the world with almost 140 million people and as in all poor nations a good proportion of that population lives in the capital Dhaka.Tthis cityis without doubt the most overcrowded, noisy and polluted city that I had ever been to. It never stops, not for a minute at any time of day or night. Almost a million rickshaws work the crowded streets along with hundreds of red double Decker buses originally owned by London Transport. From my hotel window I had a great views onto a junction where the traffic jams were just phenomenal. The only way to get around the city was on foot. Old Dhaka is a mass of narrow lanes teeming with life. Whole areas of the city are dedicated to one profession and while I was lost wandering through this maze I found the area selling everything to do with plumbing and bathrooms around another corner was a street I named furniture lane, then there was building materials alley and to my amazement a bicycle street selling everything you could possibly need for a bike. What I needed was a box to pack the bike in for the flight to Thailand.
Unfortunately I had to fly across Myanmar, ( Burma ) I had tried twice for a visa in Calcutta and Dhaka, it was easier to get an entry visa into Iran. There is no overland entry point into Myanmar, if I managed to get a visa I would have to fly to Yangon the capital and there is no change of route I would have to fly back out again. Even if it had been possible to change my route and exit the country by land most of the land borders are closed. So I had to fly from Dhaka to Bangkok and that would mean packing the bike in a good box. What better place to find one than on bicycle lane. All bicycles in Bangladesh are imported from China, they arrive as hundreds of parts in small boxes and are then assembled by hand in the workshop. So unless I wanted to strip the bike down to a thousand pieces and then rebuild it I wasn’t going to get a box here. No need to worry this is Dhaka, turn right at the end of the lane I was told and I would come to the carton and packaging market, if I couldn’t find a box then they would build one for me I was assured. Sure enough at the end of bicycle lane was the carton and packaging market, boxes of all shapes and sizes some new many recycled.
Bangladesh is without doubt the recycling nation of the world although the people wouldnt call what they are doing as recycling. Its a poor country and everything has to be used again, nothing is wasted. We would throw out an old phone, hifi system, fridge or piece of an engine, here its taken to a shop to be fixed and if that’s not possible then taken apart and used again. If you buy any type of food item its wrapped in a bag made out of old newspapers. In the time I was here I was never given a plastic bag and its not because the people are thinking about saving the planet, plastic bags are expensive, paper bags are free. Small boys do a paper run each morning collecting newspapers from wherever they can, they then sit for hours fashioning the newspapers into bags for anything that customers might buy. A brilliant system. I was amazed at the amount of heavy material moved by hand. Building material that we would think of as being too heavy or dangerous to move unless it was by vehicle is moved on no more than a bicycle or cart. I would often see guys pushing a cart loaded with heavy steel for construction sites or moving bricks through the streets. The amount of heavy lifting done by the smallest and not most overly fed people on the planet is incredible. I managed to get a box that had originally held a flat screen TV, perfect for the bike and cost $2.00. A carton and packaging market, who would have believed it.
Bangladesh is almost completely dry. Its a Muslim country and so as not to upset that section of society alcohol can be bought but only in shops that are tucked away in narrow lanes and impossible to find, no matter how hard I tried. I was eating dinner one night when a young guy came and sat next to me. He asked me the usual questions and then asked if I would like a drink. Like a drink, did I hear him right. I started to think about a large Gin and Tonic or a cool glass of Chardonnay, even a beer would have been great. He pulled out of his bag a small bottle of cough mixture, whats this I asked, enough Gin for a couple of large ones. No its cough mixture he said, I told him that I didn’t have a cold and that I thought he had said something about a drink, this is it and with that he opened the bottle and drank down the lot followed by a glass of water. Its illegal he said, if the police find you carrying a bottle of cough medicine you can be arrested. What if you have a cold I asked, is there a special test that the police do to see if you have a cold, if you dont show any symptoms and your carrying a bottle of mixture are your arrested. Charged with carrying the mixture while not under the influence of a cold. I declined his offer I could wait until Thailand for a beer. I did have a good laugh that night in bed thinking of how I would like my cough mixture served. Ice and a slice of lemon. Dry, shaken not stirred. Two pints of mixture and a packet of crisps please.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Motihari, Muzaffarpur, Begusari, Bhagalpur, Baharampur, Calcutta, Total 13160Kms.
The North Eastern State of Bihar is the poorest and most lawless State in India. Its a 900Kms ride from the border with Nepal to Calcutta and almost 700Kms of the route will take me right through the middle of the State. The alternative a safer but much longer route would be to ride directly south from Nepal into Uttar Pradesh and then east through Jhakhand and West Bengal. I wanted to finish India as quickly as possible and decided on the route through Bihar. What I didn’t know was the level of poverty and desperation I had seen in the rest of India would be nothing compared to what I would experience in Bihar.
There had at one time been a perfectly descent road all the way from the border with Nepal and then East through the State to Calcutta, over the years its fallen into a bit of a 700Kms potholed mess and anyone I spoke to would only say that politicians promise to do something about the road during election times but after the votes have been cast nothing happens. The upside to the road being in such a state means that nothing can travel at any great speed, so the trucks and buses that usually hurtle past me at speed and with just a few inches of clearance often forcing me off the road have to go as slowly as I do. The downside is that I’m covered in oil and everything else that comes out of their exhausts as all this traffic slowly trundles past me. I’m not so bothered about being filthy every day, I’m just used to it. In my past life the slightest bit of dirt on my shirt and it would go into the wash. In my new life I smile as I see the expressions on the faces of the people who work in the hotel and other guests as I walk up to the reception. The first thing I mention is that I’m on a bike, they can then see that there is a reason for the mess I’m in and that I haven’t just stepped out of a car looking the way I do. There is no point trying to stay clean, within an hour on these roads I’m as filthy as the bike. fortunately Indians don’t seem to expect people to be perfectly clean so there is never a problem getting into a hotel looking as I do.
As with most places I’ve been told to avoid because of presumed danger the reality is very different. It was in Bihar that I met some of the kindest people on my ride through India. People who had little or nothing in their pockets but had hearts that were full. They treated me with a kindness that was beyond measure and as always in a place where hardship reigns supreme there is a corrupt police force making sure everything runs smoothly. When I was stopped by the first police patrol I assumed that they would want to see my passport and visa, it wasn’t that simple. They weren’t interested in my documents only my money. They asked how much cash I had on me, I lied and said very little, I pay for everything by credit card. What he said next was absolutely amazing and I thought he was joking. You are likely to be kidnapped in this State, there are many dangerous bandits here, if you pay us, when you are kidnapped we will use the money to come and help you. I got back on the bike and just rode away with him shouting at me, I guessed or at least hoped he wouldn’t shoot me in the back. On the second occasion I was staying the night with a local Doctor. His son had seen me passing their home and had followed me on his bike begging me to come and stay with them for the night. I turned around and ended up staying with a wonderful family for two nights who treated me as a truly special guest in their home. The police arrived on the second night, news had spread round the village that a foreigner on a bike was staying with the doctors family. Again they weren’t interested in my passport and visa, this patrol had heard that I had been kidnapped and for a fee had come to rescue me. The Doctor and his family were very embarrassed, they didn’t want me to think that all Indians were like this. I heard many stories that night about how poorly paid policemen fall into a life of crime to boost their incomes. I would be stopped on two more occasions on the road and I always acted in the same way, showing them my visa, telling them I was a Tourist legally in the country and then rode off to them shouting at me to come back. The cowards never followed me.
I noticed coming towards me one morning a bike loaded with coal, I guessed it must have weighed about 100Kgs if not more. I thought it was just a one off and watched him push the bike past me heading in the opposite direction. Eventually I was to see these guys on their heavily laden bikes every day. I had heard that there was a coal mine just off the main road, the bikes were loaded with as much coal as that boy or man was capable of carrying and then they would push the bike to the power station, an incredible 70Kms away. Once again it put into perspective what I was doing. I think my bike weighs about 30Kgs and I know there is 20Kgs in the panniers. So I have to manhandle about 60Kgs daily and at the end of it if I’m lucky I check into a hotel, have a meal and a beer then fall asleep in a comfortable bed. These guys are pushing their bikes up and down this road for a living, they have no choice and no hotel at the end of the day, they sleep outside with their bikes just in case someone tries to steal their load. I worked out that their salary was under $50.00 a month. They were truly amazing guys, I would have a hard time moving their loads and I’m fit after a year on the bike. When I would stop for something to eat there would be the usual crowd around me taking photos and falling over my bike to look at it, yet on the road behind us these guys were pushing their incredible loads of coal to the power station ignored by everyone. Fortunately we are following The River Ganges so the road is perfectly flat which makes it a little easier for the coal bikes. Almost everything you can think of is transported by cycle in India. I’ve passed guys loaded down with steel and bricks and all kinds of heavy building materials and I once passed a guy with a motorbike strapped to a trailer on the back of his cycle. Here in India the cycle is the main form of transportation.
I am never alone here. No matter how quiet it is when I stop for a break or how well I choose my hiding place someone always finds me and if a local is seen talking to me its a signal for anyone who might be passing to stop and join in the conversation. Once they find out what I’m doing people who might not have paid me any attention and passed me by have to be flagged down and my story told to them. A bus driver opened his door as he was about to pass me and asked me where I was from, how long I had been in India and what was I doing, I answered him and he then drove away only to wave down a bus coming towards him, the information was passed on to the new bus driver who then slowed down as he passed so his passengers could see me, he then shouted to them, English man, cycle tour round the world, then the news would be relayed by that bus driver to the buses coming towards him and so it would go on. I would arrive in a town and people would shout out English man or Foreigner on cycle tour.
On reaching Calcutta I was surprised at how different the city was to how I imagined it should be. Like most people I had heard about the poverty and squalor, the children begging on the streets and the destitute. Maybe my months in India have hardened me to what was going on around me but it just didn’t seem as bad as many places I had just visited. The towns in Bihar had been so poor and I had seen so much poverty that I suppose nothing else will ever have an impact on me again. In the end it was probably that Calcutta just isn’t that bad. Its a large city with its rich and poor living side by side. Its the first city in India that I had seen that had parks and open spaces and something like a real city center. So it was possible to escape the noise and pollution. Calcutta had been the capital during British rule and the authorities had decided to recreate London with ornate Victorian Buildings and beautiful parks. Another wait for a visa, this time for Bangladesh gave me more than enough time to get to know the city really well.
The Border with Bangladesh is only about 100Kms from Calcutta so a days ride and I would finally finish India. It will come as no surprise that I’m happy to be leaving. I’ve had enough poverty and wretchedness to last me a lifetime, much of what I’ve seen I haven’t written about because it is distressing and I see no point in trying to shock you. I have met many kind hearted wonderful people here but they have an epic battle on their hands. We lucky people who are fortunate enough to live in the West have to give a standing ovation to the people of India, they struggle every single day against tremendous odds to live their lives while their Government sends rockets to the moon in the search for water. There is unimaginable poverty and wretchedness here that would be and should be unacceptable in any Nation calling itself a Democracy, particularly the largest Democracy in the world.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Kathmandu, Daman, Birganj, Raxaul, Total Kms 12000
In the 1970s Katmandu was a hippie community with only a handful of Westerners making the epic journey overland by bus or Land Rover each year. They would have arrived in a very small capital with almost no facilities for visitors. Today its a very different city, hundreds of shops, hotels and restaurants have been built to cater to the thousands of tourist who visit each year. Most arrive in the trekking season usually mid October and after a couple of days spent in the city head off to Everest base camp. A tour operator told me that 75 charter flights carrying 20 people leaves Kathmandu each day at the height of the season heading to Base Camp. A city full of tourists means a city full of touts and its almost impossible to walk along the main street without having someone offering to sell you a good trekking experience, white water rafting or a cheap flight to Base Camp. Hundreds of salesmen walk the streets selling everything from incense sticks to wooden musical instruments. It doesn’t matter how many times you say no and ignore them they still insist on asking you if you want to buy whatever it is they are selling. Its a fine art, they ask you which Country do you come from and are then able to tell you how much cheaper they are than the biggest selling shop in your home country. So I heard the words’ cheaper than Tescos’ every time I passed. The only guys who seemed to be doing very well were those selling pollution face mask. Its one of the most polluted cities I’ve visited, hundreds of motorbikes and cars jam into the small streets each day and by mid morning its almost impossible to breathe the polluted air. Its a very religious city with a small Temple or Shrine, usually decorated with flowers and incense on every street corner. They have bells hanging on the walls outside which the devoted ring as they pass. Some of these Temples are dedicated to Hindu gods of which there are many and others are dedicated to Buddhism. Hindu and Buddhist monks walk the streets of the city daily offering blessings in return for food or a small gift of money.
Once you leave the city and head into the Katmandu valley its a completely different experience. Its stepping back in time to an area untouched by the modern world and Tourism. My route out of Nepal to the border with India would take me through the heart of the valley. Its a 1000Kms ride between Kathmandu and Calcutta. I was told that there were two routes that would take me to the border. The first route was the main road and as this was used by cars and trucks would be very busy and dangerous. This is the route I had taken when I arrived in Nepal, the road had been so busy with the usual mass of fast moving buses and trucks that I had decided it would be much safer to take the bus for the last 100Kms into Katmandu. The second route would be less busy but the road was in very poor condition, this was an understatement, the main road is so busy because there is no second road, its a track that is only fit for motorbikes and the odd 4×4. For the first part of this route I was on a well paved road and the views around me were stunning, everything you imagine Nepal should offer. The Himalayas where a couple of hundred Kms behind me but with clear skies as I climbed out of the valley I had perfect views and could just make out Everest in the distance. As I slowly climbed to about 2000mts the road began to disappear to be replaced by a pot holed track. It was impossible to ride because of loose stones and dust. The only way for me to move forward was to push the bike for most of that day I was covered in the dust that was kicked up by every motorbike or 4×4 that went passed, I didn’t know it then but it was going to take me almost 3 days of pushing the bike uphill to over 3000mts before I would reach the town of Daman and the top of the valley. It would then be a 60Kms downhill ride to the border. At times I couldn’t believe I was on the right track and would often ask the people who had stopped to ask what I was up to if I was going in the right direction. Its always interesting asking for directions, not just in Nepal but everywhere I’ve been. two people will give me different answer even when they are in the same car. I was told,
This is not the road to Daman, his passenger said it was.
This is the road to Daman it is 30, 60, 10Kms from here.
Turn round and go back to Katmandu, there you will pick up the road you need.
There is no town called Daman in Nepal.
Why do you want to go to Daman.
This is the short cut to Daman you will be there in half an hour.
This last answer made me laugh because I had been on the road for two days and knew that Daman had to be at least 50Kms form where I was. I was on the right road but because it was in such a bad state with only the odd vehicle passing me I needed a little reassurance. Surprisingly I did manage to find a small place to stay in for the night. As it got to about 4pm I started to look for somewhere to pitch the tent, I wasn’t looking forward to camping, I was filthy from the days push and only had a litre of water with me. Then I saw a small sigh that said guest house pointing up a narrow lane off the main track. To call it a guest house was optimistic, it hadn’t seen a guest in years and I wasn’t sure which part of the shack you could call a house but it was a place to sleep. I would be safe and warm, the nights get cold up here and there was enough cold water in a bucket at the back of the house so that I could have a wash. The owner spoke no English, I had a few basic words in Nepali that I had picked up from a guide book. Do you have a room for the night and how much is it. There was no food on offer but I had fruit and biscuits with me and I calculated that he wanted $2.00 for the room and nothing for the bike. He was a strange old boy living up there on his own well off the tourist route with a guest house that probably saw no guests. I’m not afraid to say that I was a little scared as I tucked myself into my sleeping bag for the night, no one knew where I was, even I couldn’t pin point it on a map and here I was going to sleep in this house in the middle of nowhere. I fell asleep wondering if my body would ever be found.
That wonderful old man had come into the room in the night, only to put a blanket over me, I had gone to sleep completely exhausted thinking about murder with just a sheet over me and when I woke in the morning I was covered in this thick warm blanket. We had a breakfast of tea and biscuits and I then headed off on my push for the day. About 20Kms along the road from the guest house was a small village called Palun. Like all the other villages I had passed through it was a farming community. Terraces had been leveled by hand into the hills and wheat, rice, carrots and many other vegetables were being grown. It was a poor community with this dusty main track passing through the middle of the village. There was the usual commotion, people staring at me from the safety of their homes and mothers quickly gathering up there children as I passed. The small local school was at the very end of the village and a crowd of smiling children surrounded me and I stopped to say hello. They were a happy group of chattering kids fascinated by the stranger on the bike. It was one of only two teachers in the school who asked me if I would like to help for the day, he would give me a bed for the night if I could speak to the kids through him about my experience on the bike and my life in Britain. I had a gang of happy children climbing on me and the bike so how could I say no. That day in the school taught me an important lesson. I’m always on the right road, all the up hill pushing and dirt, the frustration of the Kms ahead of me, not knowing where I would be staying the night while I was in these hills, it was all worth it for the day that I spent with those children in the middle of Nepal. There was about 100 children in the school with four teachers but only two were working that day, the youngest child was six and the oldest twelve. I spoke to them about the bike ride and life in Britain. During the lunch break I took loads of photos, each child wanted to be photographed individually so that they could see themselves in the digital screen on the camera. Its a day I will never forget and makes everyday that I’m on the bike worth it.
The next day saw me climb to the highest point of the valley and the last 10Kms to Daman. It was on good road but it was still a very steep climb and again I was off the bike finding it easier to push than ride. I stayed overnight in Daman. Its a famous town, high up on the ridge of the valley known for its spectacular views of the morning sunrise over the Himalayas. I was the only solo traveler in the hotel along with a group of ten Germans who recognised the German components on the bike, the tyres and gear system and were not surprised that I had managed to ride from London to Nepal, after all they said its is a German bicycle. The morning sunrise was beautiful and its at times like that I wished that I had brought a bigger and much more powerful camera with me, and not worried about its weight. However the photographs are printed on my heart where they will remain forever. Then the final downhill 50Kms sprint to the border. It wasn’t really a sprint, the road was too steep with to many tight turns and I spent most of the ride with the brakes on but I was very happy to be going downhill, the first time in three days.
I’ve loved Nepal. It was while I was riding through the beautiful Katmandu valley and meeting those wonderful school children that I realised how lucky I am, having the opportunity to ride a bicycle around the World. I’m traveling slowly enough to really appreciate all that is around me. I’ve become a part of the environment and life is literally in my face every single day as it can never be when traveling on a bus or train. It might not be for everyone, but for me there is no better way to see the world.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
I was invited to celebrate Diwali the festival of lights with a family I had met in Kathmandu. Its one of the most important dates in the Hindu calendar. Each night during the festival small candles are placed on the street outside your home or place of work to guide the god of prosperity to the door. Its also the time when sisters place the red mark on the forehead of their brothers, its called a Tika and is thought to bring luck and prosperity throughout the coming year. One of my friends sisters volunteered to place the Tika on my forehead and then she was to weave flowers into my hair but decided just to precariously balance them on top of my head instead.
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
I had over a thousand miles ahead of me to Nepal and I wasn’t looking forward to it. My plans had changed because of the late monsoon, it would have been impossible to ride any further south than Mumbai, the wind and rain would be heading north and I would be trying to ride against it. I had thought about spending a couple of months in the city but what would I do, it would rain everyday and I would be stuck in a hotel room. On the morning that I left I could feel that the rains were not far away, it was a very dark sky that followed me north and I knew that before I got to Nepal I was going to have a few very wet days.
India had started to get me down. Its not the best place in the world to ride a bicycle any distance, your exposed to the poverty, the destitute souls, the suffering, the filth and pollution. The people were always very friendly, someone would always call to me from the side of the road and I would find time to talk with them. In the cities and larger towns however there was always that high number of touts and rip off merchants trying to sell me anything and everything. The filth had become unbearable, the word hygiene is almost unheard of, the streets in every town or village where filthy, if I got off the bike to get water or something to eat I had to walk through piles of rubbish, I was always covered in everything imaginable and it was impossible to stay clean, every truck or car that passed me threw up clouds of dust and I was aware that I was breathing this crap in everyday.
Being tired and fed up meant that I was beginning to make mistakes on the road. I rode 120Kms one day only to find that I had left my credit card in the last hotel when I had checked out. I was going to have to take a taxi back to get it, I couldn’t face riding the bike back. The town I was in when I found out I had left my card had no hotel and no where to store the bike, I had only stopped to use a cash machine. I would have to find transport big enough for the bike and equipment. Its easy trying to find a cab in Europe, all you have to do is call the local cab office explain that you have a bike and a bit of kit and you need a large car. What we call normality in western societies doesn’t exist here, in India the first thing that happens when you stop is that a large crowd gathers around you, this crowd then followed me as I hunted for transport, it then waited outside the office as I made inquires, it then surrounded the pick up truck making it impossible for me and the driver to load the bike, the driver ended up fighting with people in the crowd because they wouldn’t leave me alone. I just stood there with my head down. 120Kms back to the last hotel, luckily my card was waiting for me when I arrived, the same guy who had checked me in the day before handed me the card, he had insisted on taking my phone number the day before when I checked into the hotel, so we can call you in case emergencies he had said, leaving my credit card when I checked out was obviously not an emergency.
I had also stopped looking after the bike, usually I spent a Sunday afternoon cleaning it and just checking it over, I hadn’t done this for the month or so that I had been in India, it was hard to find a quiet spot to do it properly. So the inevitable happened, the gears started to slip, I knew what the problem was, the oil needed changing in the speed hub or the cables needed to be looked at, both fiddly jobs that I could do in a quiet hotel room with my glasses on and a cup of tea by my side, I couldn’t do it at the side of a busy road. The only thing for it was to take a train to Jhansi a town about 100Kms north on the main Agra road, I didn’t want to ride the bike as this would only make the problem worse. The staff at the station informed me that the bike couldn’t travel with me on the passenger train but would have to travel on the next freight train and would arrive in Jhansi at 8.00am the next morning, I would arrive at 6pm that evening, there were no passenger coaches on the freight train and the next passenger train would be the last for the day, I had no choice but to take it.
Almost a week later I located the bike in Lucknow over 300Kms to the west of Jhansi, I had been to the station every day and no one could tell me what had happened to the bike or where it was. I went from one station office to the next and close to tears filled in the same forms. Then one morning I was told to call the station master in Lucknow, he told me that he had a bike arrive at his station in Lucknow that morning and he had never seen a bike like it, lovely machine, disc brakes, same as my car, I was over the moon, he offered to send it on the next train and I think the whole station heard me as I screamed NO down the phone, I will come to you, don’t let anyone move it I will be there this afternoon. I cant tell you what a relief it was to have the bike back, the next day I sorted out the gears and for the third time since I had arrived in India revised my route. I would have to miss the Taj Mahal and Dehli, my new route would take me north to Nepal, it was only a two day ride from Lucknow and to be honest I wanted out of India as quickly as possible.
I’m not sure why my credit cards stopped working in the cash machines, I knew there was sufficient cash in each account, I had called both banks only to be told that they had no record of me even trying to use the cards and that they had not been stopped for any reason, I was told that it must be a computer glitch and that I was to try using them again in the morning, if they didn’t work then I was to call back. I had about $50.00 in my pocket and had tried the machines on three different days with no luck. Every time my cards didn’t work I had to book another day in the same hotel, I had no money to pay the bill so I couldn’t check out, a completely insane situation. The walk to the cash machine every morning was like something out of a nightmare, the feeling of total panic that came over me every time I was refused money was overwhelming. It has happened at home but its never a problem, here in India thousands of miles from home with no money in my pocket I began to feel desperate and to make the situation worse I was afraid to use the card to pay for the hotel room in case it was refused, then they would realise I couldn’t pay my bill, I was eating in the hotel restaurant and adding it to my room bill. I had inquired about having money wired from my account to a local bank, the procedure was so complicated I thought it best to at least keep trying the cash machine, it had to cough up someday, after all I had money in my account. Everything fell to pieces for me that night, I was in the shower when the water went off, it happened all the time and I was used to it, then suddenly the lights went out, I was standing in the dark covered in soap, stuck in a town that I couldn’t leave because of my financial situation and there wasn’t a soul I could talk to I just sat on the bed and cried, outside in the street the usual mayhem was taking place. I felt as if I was in the middle of some insane circus and no one was laughing.
I’m writing this over two months later in a friends apartment in Warsaw, I thought it better to update the site after I had been out of the country for a while because I didn’t want my judgment to be completely clouded by my experiences , I also thought that the longer I was away from India the more I would begin to accept it and understand how it works. I flew back to Europe from Kathmandu less than two weeks after that night. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, or whether I would continue with the ride. I needed to rest in a place where everything worked and I was safe from the noise, the filth and the madness of India. It might have been fate but the bike never left Kathmandu, I payed DHL to ship it back to Europe as cargo, it was much cheaper than carrying it as luggage, when I called to find out what had happened to it I was told that there was a problem as to whether I should have paid for volume or weight, I argued that I had payed for weight, I shouldn’t have to pay for volume as well, so it was left at that and stored in the DHL Warehouse in Kathmandu.
I’ve decided to go back to Nepal and continue with the ride, I don’t want to be the man who went half way around the world or the guy who rode his bike to India, that wasn’t my dream. It was to ride a bike in an almost straight line around the world. I’m almost half way around and have loved it. I made the mistake of letting India get to me and I began to feel as if I had no hope just like the country. So I’m going to give India one more chance, I leave for Nepal on the 29th September. When I was on the bike my original plan had been to leave India for Nepal in October, its at its best at this time of year, the monsoon rains have ended and the light is said to be perfect. I will ride south through the Kathmandu valley and back over the border into India and then East towards Bangladesh from where I will fly to Thailand and then head south to Singapore. I hope you are looking forward to this next chapter as much as I am, thanks for your patience, love and understanding xx
Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments »
Ajmer, Udaipur, Himatnagar, Ahmadabad, Vadodara, Mumbai. Total Kms 10660.
Rajasthan which is split in two by the Great Thar Desert is one of India’s main tourist centers and nobody leaves the country without having come here. My journey south would take me to the main tourist cities of Jaipur, Ajmer and Udaipur. The state has been in the middle of a drought for over twenty years, it does rain but the monsoon rains that used to drench the countryside have long gone, this year had the added problem of the rains being over a month late. As I rode along the main highway I would often smell a cow or camel that had died of thirst, miles in front of me and I would eventually reach the rotting carcass being picked clean by birds. This is one of the poorest states in India and the poverty has not been helped by the drought, its impossible for farmers to make any sort of living from this dry dusty land and it was hard to believe that people lived in some of these remote villages with a few small mud houses and nothing green, not a tree or bush for miles.
May is the worst month to visit Rajasthan with temperatures well up in the high 40s, I had never known heat like it, some afternoons I would leave the comfort of an air conditioned hotel to go outside but only lasted a matter of minutes, it was as if I had been put in a oven, impossible for me to stay outside although no one stopped working in the fields or on building sites, the state is famous for a white marble and I watched from my hotel window as people dug out the marble in the incredible heat. I didn’t enjoy the cities at all, it wasn’t just the heat, like the locals I wrapped my head in a scarf and wore loose cotton clothing to protect myself, it was the constant noise and crowds, just being on the street for a couple of hours exhausted me and I was happy to go back to the comfort of my room. The locals are not bothered by the noise, its a part of life that they have grown up with and it has no effect on them, I would often sit in a coffee shop and notice that no one was bothered by the noise, the average driver uses his horn about thirty times each kilometer, bald tyres and dodgy brakes are not a problem but if your car doesn’t have a good horn then your considered to be an idiot.
Like Iranians the people are very friendly, I was often invited into a house for chai ( tea ) or a drink of water, accepting the water always put me in a difficult position, I had heard many stories of travelers who had become seriously ill because they drank the water, I had probably built up some resistance to disease but I only ever drank bottled water. So far I hadn’t suffered any of the famous Indian illnesses, Delhi belly, the Rangoon runs or a Bombay blockage, I hadn’t been so careful with the food I was eating always much happier to eat outside on the street than in a restaurant and had often seen huge rats scurrying around the vendors carts as I wolfed down a curry or sandwich. To get over the water problem I devised a simple system, if I was ever offered water I didn’t want to say no, I knew these people were offering me something that was very precious to them, all the water in these villages has to be drawn from a fresh water well, usually a good walk from the family home, I would say that I had just had a drink a few Kms down the road and get them to fill up my empty water bottle, when that was full I would offer it to locals who I saw sitting at the side of the road who might not have had anything to drink that day, I hated buying bottled water, I was going round the world with as little impact on the environment as possible but had to find places to get rid of ten empty plastic water bottles everyday, the advice I had been given by a doctor was that even if the locals drink the water it could still make me seriously ill, I was told to boil any water I would drink or buy bottled water, it was impossible for me to boil ten litres of water everyday so I had no option other than to buy the plastic stuff.
The homes I went into were very small with low ceilings and no room at all for me to stand up in, Indians are very curious people and within about five minutes of my arrival a small crowd would have gathered to look in at me through the windows or open door, often no one spoke a word of English and other than a few words I had picked up like hello, thank you and please we would have no conversation, children would always break the ice by climbing on the bike and I would often take the panniers off so that the bike wasn’t so heavy a take them for a ride down the lane. If there was a good wind blowing I would fly a kite for the kids, I had picked up about a dozen small pocket kites in London and had used them to entertain children who had no toys to play with and I would often ride away hearing them laughing like crazy flying a kite for the first time. I had asked people that I had met in developed countries on route to give me small gifts like pens, pencils and note pads that I could give away, hotels often have all this free stuff like soaps and teas that I could give to a family as a thank you for a kind act. It was always difficult stopping to give a kid something if they where alone because within minutes kids would run out from everywhere and my stock would soon run out. Sometimes I would be taken to the next village to meet a member of the family who had traveled to England or who could speak a little English, I would park the bike and forget about it, something I would never have done on a London street. Once as I was being taken to another village on the back of an ox cart I asked the driver why he was beating the ox with a stick, I thought we where going fast enough, he said we beat our animals but don’t eat them, you don’t beat your animals but eat them.
The poverty and filth was beginning to get to me, India maybe the worlds biggest democracy but there is nothing democratic about it, millions of people have no access to basic needs, clean water, food or shelter, I have never been to a country where so many people sleep outside because they have no homes, the cities are the worst with hundreds if not thousands of people sleeping on the pavements every night, in a true democracy the government wouldn’t tolerate this situation. I always wondered how these people voted, they had no homes, incomes or anything to call their own so who was voting in this huge democracy. Politicians often talked about lifting people out of poverty and giving more grants to farmers, I’m sure it was probably happening but it was impossible to go anywhere in the country without being upset by the poverty
Mumbai was a fantastic city, a law had recently been passed banning people from using their car horns unless in an emergency, its a financial and business capital and people need to work in peace. What a difference, a week of quiet nights. The city sits on the Persian gulf and was much cooler than the Punjab or Rajasthan. The monsoon was almost a month late, I had expected to ride into Mumbai with the rains coming towards me, the weather in India like so many parts of the world is changing, when the monsoon is late its bad news for farmers, tourism and the economy, people were on edge waiting for the rains to come, I was the happiest man alive, I enjoyed almost a week in the city without once getting wet. Like London this is a great city to walk in and find yourself lost, locals never knowing where I wanted to go to save face would always send me somewhere, its a city full of Victorian buildings, at times it was hard to believe I wasn’t in the middle of London with the sun shining. With the advantage of being on the ocean, street food was often a curried fish or something just as delicious served on the local beach. However I was going to have to change my route plans, the monsoon can be very dangerous, it disrupts traffic with landslides and road closures, I had intended to travel to the very southern most tip of India and then take a train north to Delhi visiting the Taj Mahal before crossing into Nepal, I would now have to turn around and head north towards Nepal with the monsoon chasing me.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Amritsar, Jagraon, Sangrur, Rohtak, Narnaul, Jaipur. Total Kms 9680.
As I knew that I would I arrived too late to cross the border into India, and ended up staying in what had been a British Military hostel and although the beds had been the same ones left by the British back in 1947 I was happy to have the first descent nights sleep in three days. That morning I was the only person crossing the border on foot, most of the traffic was coming the other way and although I had hoped for a quick crossing it took about two hours of paperwork, passport and bag checks plus the first form I had seen dealing with swine flu. Amritsar the home of the Golden Temple was a dusty 30Kms ride from the border, it felt good to be back on the bike after four days of public transport, its the conventional way to travel around a country but I find it very stressful working out train and bus timetables, not knowing when you might stop for a rest or leg stretch and of course its expensive, my travel costs in a country are nil, its all leg power.
Amritsar was my first taste of an Indian city, busy and noisy as all Indian cities are, the streets were filthy and packed with cars, rickshaws and of course Holy cows who always had the right of way. Two nights here would give me enough time to visit the Golden Temple, the Holiest Shrine of the Sikh religion, buy a good road map and get some new clothes, the temperatures were slowly rising and I would need light cotton clothes to ride in. The noise was constant, it never stopped no matter what time of day or night, they drive on their horns, the first thing the driver will do as they pull away is sound the horn, on a stretch of road in the middle of nowhere I could hear cars ahead and behind me with there horns blowing like crazy, painted on the back of every truck was a sign saying , horn please or ok to honk horn, I’m not sure if it was a safety feature or the law but it meant this constant noise all day and night, European cities are relativity quiet, there isn’t this noise which very soon became one of the most stressful aspects of India that I had to deal with. There are over a billion people living in India and it never stops to catch its breath or sleep.
The Punjab is the country’s richest State and before the 1947 partition it extended across both sides of what is now India and Pakistan. Its mainly agricultural and most of the rice for the rest of the Nation is grown here. Its also the home of Hero bicycles, India and the worlds biggest bicycle manufacturer, they look like old bikes that were designed in the 1930s and every Indian who owns a bike is the proud owner of a Hero, they are very basic machines but do the job perfectly, every time I passed one on The Grand Trunk Road or on any other road I happened to be on I always had the impression I was riding a Ferrari passing an old Ford. The Grand Trunk, one of the busiest roads in India cuts its way through Pakistan and the Punjab as it heads south towards Rajasthan I realised after two days that it was far too busy and dangerous and that I would have to find a route with a lot less traffic and that proved to be almost impossible.
The Punjab is not a State that has a tourist infrastructure, very few towns have hotels or guest houses but just as I had in Iran I soon found out that it was possible to stay in Religious houses or Temples for a small donation. Many people sleep outside every night, shop keepers outside their places of business, truck drivers under their vehicles to stop anyone stealing the diesel and countless homeless people sleep at the side of the roads, in fields or anywhere else that they can find a spot to put up a makeshift bed, so it would be no problem for me to pitch the tent if I had to. Within the first couple of days of riding I knew that I had arrived in India at the wrong time of year, my train ride through Pakistan had put me ahead of myself time wise by about two months, I expected to be here in late August or early September the perfect months for riding, the temperatures would be lower and the monsoon season would be almost at an end but in June with the average temperature at midday as high as 43 degrees it was impossible to ride after about 11.00am the heat was unbearable and probably dangerous. I decided that it would be best to leave the hotels at about 5am, this would give me five or six hours riding in comfortable weather and then as the temperature began to rise I could be settled in an air conditioned hotel with a beer. This system didn’t always work, I often found myself stuck between towns with the distance too great to ride and the heat rising, I had to find shelter under a tree or any shade that I could until about 4pm when it was cooler and safer to ride.
Villages are very close together but are always fairly basic when it comes to hotels or guest houses, rooms were usually small with hardly any facilities and not as clean as we might be used to in Europe or America, I had become used to the squat toilets through Turkey and Iran but I would never get used to the filth, the rooms were never clean, no matter how many stars the hotel had, I began to think more stars means more dirt and on more occasions than I care to remember I found it easier to pitch the inner tent in the room and put my mattress and sleeping bag inside, I then had a comfortable clean personal room to sleep in. I don’t want to give the impression that every hotel I stayed in was dirty, of course they weren’t but more often than not I had to get the staff to come and change the sheets or clean the toilet before I could use the room. Villages being closer together meant that I didn’t need to carry food or water on the bike. No matter what time of day I arrived in a village or town there was always the exotic smell of food being cooked, everything from the hottest vegetable curry I’ve ever tasted to a fried egg sandwich or curried fish can be bought for just a few rupees, its simple street food but the best in the world. Stopping in any of these villages whether it was for food, water or just a rest was very different from stopping in Iran where people would ask me all sorts of personal questions, here no one was interested in me, just the bike, within minutes of stopping a crowd of guys would gather round the bike and just stare at it like it was some sort of god, I know its much more sophisticated than the Hero bikes they were used to but it is just a bike, no one was interested in asking me questions about what I was up to or where I was going, they gathered round the bike talked in Hindi, took photos and watched me as I rode away. Sometimes it was almost impossible to get back on as so many guys had gathered around and I soon started picking quieter places to stop although a small group usually found me. This strange situation with the bike came to a head outside Mumbai one Saturday morning, I was riding along a fairly busy road and slowed down to go round an old man who was lying in my path, as I got closer I could see that the guy was close to death, I got off the bike walked back to him and saw the thinnest man I had ever seen in my life, he hadn’t eaten for months, I tried to give him water, his head had no weight at all it was like holding a deflated football, he was beyond taking water and I guessed had only hours to live, coming towards me were two young guys, I thought they would have an idea what to do, maybe we could move him to a quieter spot where he could die in peace, they completely ignored me and the old guy, looked at the bike, talked in Hindi, I heard the words disc brakes and bike computer in English and they then walked off, over a billion people live here, whats one life when there’s an expensive bike parked at the side of the road to look at.
With the constant noise I found it easier to stay in hotels outside of the major towns, usually colonial buildings that had been turned into hotels stood just off the main road, these were always pleasant places to stay when I could find one, set in large grounds many of them were former palaces from the days of the raj and a room for the night could cost as little as 500 Rupees about six pounds. I got a much better sleep and would often stay in a place like this for a couple of days just to get a bit of rest and prepare myself for the next part of the ride. I wasn’t enjoying India as much as I hoped, the towns and cities were too hot and busy, there was never a quiet spot in a garden or park to sit in and enjoy a little peace and quiet, beggars and touts would hassle for money on a daily basis, they saw me and other tourists as walking cash machines and no matter how rude I was to them they wouldn’t leave me alone, I told one tout after he followed me into a restaurant that if he didn’t leave me alone I would happily put his teeth in his stomach, of course I wouldn’t but he didn’t know this, it just made him worse, I became a challenge to him that he had to break and I only got away from him by jumping into a taxi. I was constantly asked to come into a shop, just have a look you don’t need to buy anything, so whats the point of me coming in then. I’ve been in the country just over two weeks and I’ve had enough, I’m sure that as I go on things will start to improve, India is huge country and very different from any other place that I have experienced so far, its bound to take me a little more time to settle in. I’m about a thousand Kms north of Mumbai where I’m meeting a very close friend and before that I have the cities of Jaipur and Jodhpur in Rajasthan to visit. Things can only get better.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Taftan, Quetta, Lahore. Total Kms 9100.
A bus ride from Yasd to Zanjan and a 20Kms ride in a pick up truck got me to the border with Pakistan. It would have been impossible to ride from Yasd to the border, the bus was stopped at three checkpoints. I had to register my passport details with the local police before the driver of the pickup would agree to take me to the border and we were stopped twice on that short journey. It was about 9.00am when I finally arrived at the border, I felt apprehensive about leaving the relative safety of Iran for Pakistan that looked as if it was about to fall into civil war, I had spoken to as many travelers as I could find in my last days in Iran who had been traveling west from Pakistan, most had said that it had been a great country to visit but a difficult place to travel through with constant road blocks and police check points, remember these were people traveling on public transport from one major city to the next, I would have to stop in countless small towns on my way north to Lahore, the only place you can legally cross the border into India, these towns might have no hotels or tourist facilities, fortunately I don’t have to pedal every last Kilometer and I was happy to take the train, although in hindsight it would have been easier to ride the bike across Pakistan.
Taftan is a small disgusting frontier town from where I would take a bus 800Kms north to Quetta and from here a train would take me north to Lahore. I found the bus very quickly, the only one in a small dusty bus park, $10.00 for me and the bike, it was about 10.30am and as the bike was being strapped to the roof I asked the driver what time do we depart, we leave at 4pm for Quetta but in about 10 minutes I will drive into Taftan and you can relax there until its time to leave. To describe Taftan as hell on earth would be doing the town a favour, the filthiest town I had ever been in, I still find it hard to believe that people actually live here , the town had one hotel, a filthy looking restaurant and a couple of shops selling mobile phones. I booked into the only hotel in town, it was called the Eastern Promise but promised nothing but a filthy room that hadn’t been cleaned in weeks, used soap on the floor of the bathroom and the last occupant or maybe the one before that had dropped a toothbrush in the toilet, no shower, just a dirty bucket that you filled with cold water, usually in a situation like this where there is no other choice of hotels I pitch the inner part of my tent in the room and sleep in that but all my equipment was in the panniers of the bike which was strapped to the roof of the bus so there was no alternative other than to lie perfectly still on the bed so as not to disturb the bed bugs and try to sleep.
The bus would take 13 hours to Quetta and we would arrive at about 6.30am, the manager of the bus company gave me very strict instructions as to what I had to do once we arrived, the bus would make its way to the center of the city and passengers would get off, the bus would then make its way to a secure bus park, I was to stay on the bus until it was light and then ride my bike straight to the railway station , he advised me not to ride to the station in the dark as it was too dangerous, a warm welcome to Pakistan. The interior of the bus was brightly decorated with colorful lights that had been set to flash every time the driver indicated left or right, there was a plastic covering on all the seats so that within half an hour myself and the other 20 passengers were covered in sweat, the driver was also in the habit of sounding his horn every time we passed another bus, this also caused the lights in the bus to flash, it was going to be a fun packed 13 hours. It got dark very quickly as we made our way through the Baluchistan desert and I soon fell asleep, at about 2am the driver woke me up at a very strange passport control, I was the only person to get off the bus, all the other passengers were sleeping I was the only passenger woken up at a very strange passport control, as I stepped off the bus into a very fine white dust and as it was a full moon I noticed this powder had covered the bus, we had stopped in the middle of nowhere I could make out mountains in the distance but not a tree or bush on the landscape, I realised that it would have been a hellish bike ride, I would have been covered in dust for days. The bus driver lead me to a tent where we were met by a guy who wasn’t wearing any type of military of official uniform, I thought this is probably not a good time to be asked to be taken to the nearest police station and handed over my passport, I had to write down my details in a book by torch light, neither the driver or the other guy said a word to me , I noticed that the names on the page were of travelers who had all been heading in the opposite direction towards Iran and only one person going in the same direction as me and he had made the journey a month before me, I never found out whether the checkpoint was official but when a country starts to fall apart all sorts of strange characters come out of the woodwork for a bit of overtime.
The bus arrived in Quetta at about 6am and as the manager suggested I stayed on the bus until daylight before riding to the railway station. Two train a day left for Lahore 8.30am and 9.30am both took 30 hours. I was waiting for the ticket office to open when the 8.30 left, when the office finally opened I was advised that as I had no reservation I would have to travel in economy class on the 9.30 train and that it would be much better if I booked a first class sleeper train for the next morning, I explained that I wanted to get to Lahore as quickly as possible and that I didn’t mind sitting in economy class just as long as I was on the next train. I guessed about a thousand people or more were packed onto the train, each carriage held about a hundred people and they were all full, boxes, crates and cases filled every part of each carriage, I was told by the station master that the roads are too dangerous to travel on with so many road blocks that people were traveling by train.
There was nowhere on the train to get anything to eat or drink but as the train pulled into a station fresh food was being cooked on makeshift stands on the platform, each station was famous for a particular food and you could smell each station as the train got closer to them. So I had no problem eating for the 2 days that I was on the train, the food was always fresh, tasted great and cost pennies. The only problem with getting off the train to eat was that I never heard a whistle or saw a signal when it was time for the train to depart, it just slowly started to pull away from the platform and I soon became expert at fighting my way through crowds back onto my moving carriage. Another time to get off the train was when it stopped at a red signal, I followed the other passengers and jumped out of the open door and onto the embankment below, then it was a mad scramble back onto the train as it slowly began to move again. After about 5 hours I was covered in the dust and filth that had blown into each carriage, it was so hot outside that the train had to travel with its doors and windows wide open, this allowed fresh air, dirt and dust to enter each carriage. The carriages were covered in dust, it was everywhere, on the seats in the luggage racks, when I pulled my bed down for the night I was covered in the stuff and had no way of washing it off, there were toilets at the end of each carriage but I thought it wise not to go near them. The other passengers were incredibly kind, they made sure that I was comfortable, knew where everything was and always looked out for me when I got off the train, news spread very quickly that a British guy was in carriage 4 and although I didn’t speak to everyone on the train during that two day journey many people came up to me and talked about the bike, life in Britain and Pakistan, the problems with the Taliban and so on. For an extra $2.00 I had reserved a bed, it was above my seat and during the day doubled as the luggage rack, it was a very hard uncomfortable bed and the lights in the carriage stayed on but at least I was able to get a little sleep during the night. From the windows Pakistan looked like a very poor, underdeveloped but colorful country, most of the first day was spent heading north through the Baluchistan desert, the middle of the country changed into much more agricultural land, women tended to work the fields wearing very brightly coloured saris and looked as if they were going to a wedding rather than work, it was farming on a very small scale with no large fields and it was hard to tell as the train went passed exactly what was being grown. If the train stopped at signals children came running from every direction to beg for food or money, on the first day of the journey I started to buy fruit at each of the stations to hand to the kids from the carriage windows but I couldn’t stand watching them fight each other for food so I had to stop.
Lahore station was not as busy as I had imagined and it was also much smaller, I rode out of the station and into the chaos of city traffic that I had not had since Tehran, cars, buses, trucks, pedestrians and animals all fighting each other for a small piece of road, Waga the official border crossing with India was about 40Kms away, it was 3pm and the border closed at 4pm, I knew that I wouldn’t make it in time but had been told of an ex British Military hotel on the Pakistan side that was a cheap and clean place to stay and I would be able to cross the border early the next morning.
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
