04-23.02.2017
It is absolutely understandable, that from big cities, such as Mumbai, people sometimes want to leave for some fresh air, to see the mountains, the nature or just to stay quiet. Despite Lonavala wasn’t for any of these, Indians were still traveling there.
The town was packed with expensive hotels and residencies and it took hours for us to find a cheap room. Some of the hotels had pool and slide, but otherwise we couldn’t figure out why people go there. Hills were not visible as it was a plateau and the main road was as noisy as anywhere else.
However, the cheapness of our room had a price: the bed was very hard; when someone was taking shower in the common bathroom, a small brook flew through our room and under the bed; dozens of mosquitoes stopped us from sleeping. At dawn, sleepy and frustrated, we started pedalling toward the maze to Mumbai.
The road to the metropolis was chaotic without any traffic signs. The road sometimes split up, then it joined again, but no sign showed which way we should take. It was a typical Indian chaos.
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| The Western Ghats |
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Although the stories we wrote about India (1, 2, 3)seem to present our trip as a diverse, interesting journey, but in reality we didn’t tell one important thing: we were irritated by the traffic and the culture. Cycling in India is not fun. When you want to go, people will push you off, park in front of you and they honk continuously and aggressively, which distress you. The cultural difference is enormous and after 6 weeks we still can’t handle it. Most of the people are dirty, uneducated and this is visible on their faces. They stared at us all the time, they asked about everything and they didn’t leave a tiny bit of personal space for us. Oddly, they had very low needs: they sat or lied down on the ground anywhere to rest or to fall asleep, and they urinated everywhere along the roads and in cities. 
When we were in bad mood they still approached us to start a conversation in their language and they didn’t understand if we hesitated to answer. And what about English, the only common language between us and Indians? Well, people here did learn English but not the context and the manner when using English. They usually started the conversations with their broken and rude English like: “What country?” “From where?” “What do you want?” “What happened?”. Although, it was nice to meet good and helpful people (mostly cyclists) almost every day, but it wasn’t sufficient to make a positive overall impression. Our last hope was Mumbai, perhaps we would like that city. If not, we have to find a shortcut out of the country.
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During our time in the city we stayed at three different places: first at Mady in Navi Mumbai, then nearby in a lodge for two nights, which was paid by an unknown cyclists, then very close to the downtown, Aditiya was our host.
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| Sugarcane juice for everyone! |
Navi Mumbai is a sort of a liveable suburb of Mumbai. Not too noisy, not too crowded. There are many restaurants, the downtown is only one hour by train, and if you’d like to walk, you can go around a lake if you can stand the smell of vapid garbage. This reminds you that you are still in India. Women put on jeans and t-shirt instead of saree, which gave us a feeling that we are back in the present time.
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| Back on the tree |
The downtown, surprisingly, wasn’t as chaotic as we got used to it, but the moral of the drivers weren’t better. Cars still wanted to hit us and honk at us and people, instead of crossing the street when the traffic light turns green, they crossed when the number of them reached the critical mass. At some intersections, the pedestrian lights didn’t even work and the police officers couldn’t care less about the traffic and more about taking money from drivers. Cheap street food was sold at food stands at the bottom of skyscrapers, homeless people were sleeping in their tent on the pavement, their naked kids were running around to beg for some money.
These irritated Linh at such high level, that her suffer turned into physical symptoms. Thus, we decided to take a train to Varanasi and cycle to Nepal to get some rest. Our original plan was to visit Myanmar, but due to the complicated political situation and the continuously blocked border, we went for Nepal.
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| Lying, sitting, waiting at the train station |
After 28 hours of pleasant train ride, we arrived to India’s most spiritual city on our travel. Our hosts were the Hungarian Bálint and his Dutch girlfriend Nienke who cycled from Netherland to India. In Varanasi they were arranging a library for kids from the “untouchable” cast in their primary school. What a noble project!
Varanasi is famous for the Hindu’s saint river: the Ganges. There, life has been unchanged for millenniums: at sunrise and sunset, rituals are performed by priests (brahmins) in order to ensure the harmony of the universe; somewhere Hindus take a bath in the water, at other parts garments are washed, near some crematories dead people are cremated and their ashes are set free into the river. No Hindu can ask for more after his farewell from this life!
After some days of cycling, we arrived to Bihar, one of the most overpopulated and poorest state of India. We found it interesting that it became harder and harder to find proper food along the way. Everywhere was the same: deep fried in reused oil, unhealthy snacks were sold, which were covered by the dust of the road. However, in Ballia, we found a good restaurant where two journalists discovered us! Later, the restaurant manager hosted us in his flat, because he hasn’t seen anyone on such a noble journey as us.
In Chapra, the traffic was so heavy and loud that even in our little dark room in the lodge we had to keep the earplugs in, otherwise, our health was in danger, we literally could’ve gotten mad! It was simply unbearable! On the day when we reached the Nepalese border, first we got lost on small roads, then the road disappeared under the wheels. The rocky, bumpy dirt road was shaking us so hard that we could move very slowly and only reaching the main road was on our minds. Well, by the time we got there it was almost dark and we were pretty tired. Then another surprise came: the national road is not a single bit better! We had to cycle along big trucks on the unlit, dusty, rocky road consisted only potholes, until we got to the last town. As we were exhausted we took the first room in the first lodge and we passed out. This was damn hard! So long India, see you soon!
Péter
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