On the road in "Incredible India!"

Outside of its wonderful temples, wildlife, beaches and diverse landscapes we found that India can be a hot, filthy, noisy place with distressing social and environmental problems and some terrible roads - what has made cycling in India such a fantastic, eye-opening and at times frustrating experience has been the antics of the Indians themselves. Some of the amazing things we have seen as we cycled 1800 miles from Amritsar in the north to Kerala in the south:

• A man sleeping amongst a rat warren where people put food out for the rats.


• Sikhs drinking water from the lake around the Golden Temple - the same water that people were bathing in.


• A man stood in a lake washing his arse with his hands after having crapped - pointing his glistening buttocks straight at the road (and me) so I could see his balls as well.


• At railway crossings vehicles line up on both sides of the road on both sides of the crossing. When the barriers come up there is an almighty scrum of vehicles and pedestrians that takes 10 minutes to disentangle itself into a semblance of order. This happens at every crossing.


• Jeeps and carts piled so high that they either fall off the road, wheels fall off or the axle breaks.


• Cows are undoubtedly stars of the show. They are sacred to the Hindus of the north. Male cows roam the streets eating the rubbish and crapping everywhere and are allowed to do whatever they want. We saw cows sneakily stealing food from veg stalls, cows grazing on fish put out to dry, cows eating plastic bags, cows sunbathing on the beach, a cow bumping a child and stealing its ice-cream, a cow charging tourists who were shaking their sarong on the beach unaware of their matador-like actions.



• Women in full regalia - bangles all the way up their arms, brightly coloured saris, jewellery on hands, legs and faces - working on road construction sites, digging holes and carrying rubble on their heads. They were often assisted by their children and get paid about 1 pound 50p a day.



• Goats with bags tied over their udders to stop people stealing their milk.


• Tracey getting caught up in a herd of buffalo while cycling and being herded off the road with them.


• A man carrying 3 sheep on his motorbike.


• Barbers cutting hair and shaving clients in the dust and dirt by the side of busy roads.


• Buses, motorbikes, autorickshaws all driving at night on unlit roads without any headlights.


• We went to catch a train to Jaipur from Jodphur and were told it was running 7 hours late.


• 2,000 people leave the cinema during intermission to find 1 bloke serving drinks.


• Watching appalled as an old man opened his 2nd floor window, hacked up a huge greeny and spat it out into the street below and onto my parked bicycle.


• Despairing hand labour - everything in India seems to be built by hand by gangs of workers in bare feet toiling away in the dirt in the heat of the day. We saw work gangs building roads by hand and even a gang of men trying to reduce blocks of pink granite with hammers and chisels.


• Village women standing under a tree to cut a big branch which then nearly fell on them.


• A circus girl performing by the road, balancing on a bicycle wheel on a tightrope 2m above the ground with silver jugs on her head and no safety net - and the crowd was more interested in us.


• A mouse crawling up the inside of my trouser leg and then making its home in Tracey's pannier bag.


• A temple to worship rats. There are so many rats that many are dead, diseased or deformed. Worshippers must enter the temple barefoot and walk over the rat shit and have rats run over their feet and then eat food that rats have been on.



• A stray dog meandering up to a female tourist sunbathing on the beach and cocking its leg on her.


• On the Konkan Coast at dawn every day there is a line of fishermen on the shore seemingly crouching in prayer to the sea, but on closer inspection all doing a dump on the beach.



• Shoes have to be left outside temple complexes and many shops. Emerging from an internet cafe I discovered that my expensive Haviana flip-flops had gone and that I had been left a pair of cheap Indian ones several sizes too big. Half-an hour later the owner of the shop returned puzzled at the commotion I was causing when I noticed he was wearing my flip-flops.


• Monkeys attacking tourists to rob them of their food and drink.


• People going to sleep by the side of busy roads in the middle of the day with their heads inches from the tarmac.


• Bare-faced lying. Indians will tell you anything even when you can both blatantly see that what is being said is not true.


• A man storing his rupee coins in his ears.


• A free hair in every meal and if you are really lucky a bit of insect as well.


• Women wearing black bhurqas and veils in 40 degree heat. Black sheep in 40 degree heat.


• Farmers washing their cows and buffaloes by hand.



• A truck full of seemingly precariously balanced coconuts bouncing along a bumpy road with a man asleep on top of them.


• Dogs eating roadkill dogs.


• A group of women trying out combs by brushing their hair with them and then putting the combs back on the shelf.


• The sound of India is the sickening "KKHHHRRRRRUUUUKKKK, KKHHHRRRRRUUUUKKKK, HYACKKK" of men and women clearing their throats and spitting phlegm. At any time you are no more than 10 metres from someone performing this act.
  
• A camel cart travelling along the road while the "driver" was asleep in the cart.


• Goats painted pink grazing in a field.


• Naked holy men wearing only peacock feather fans.


• School walls with cartoon-like pictures to educate people, that include pictures of people squatting and doing a dump.


• Dodgy fireworks that only ascend 20m into the sky before exploding and showering the onlookers with flares, one of which knocked a man over a wall. (Nick does this sound familiar!!).


• Public affection between men and women is frowned upon so you will never see couples kissing or even holding hands in public. On the other hand it is totally acceptable and common to see male friends holding hands or arms around one-another - army men in uniform do good impressions of Village People!


• India's National Highways are not for the fainthearted. We read an article in the Goa Herald from 10th Feb entitled "Mandur resident injured in mishap:villagers stone bus" which seemed to better capture the madness of Indian Highways than we could ever describe: "A 35 year old man from Mandur was seriously injured in a mishap involving a van and a bus on the Pamjim Highway on Monday morning. According to witnesses a bus was overtaking another bus when it hit the van. The bus driver and conductor fled the scene. Angered by the accident, the agitated crowd stoned the bus which was parked along the road. Old Goa Police who rushed to the site were helpless to remove the damaged vehicles as they had no crane and had to wait for one to arrive from Panjim. A case of rash and negligent driving has been booked against the bus driver and the conductor."


• Street children playing with a dead rat as a toy.


• School children rummaging around in the litter on their way to school and playing with a hypodermic needle they found.
• The vagaries of Indian bureacracy that meant I had to hide behind a wall while a total stranger bought kerosene for our stove, even though it was completely obvious that it was for me.