Greetings to all from India. I'm currently in Goa, the small tourist state on the west coast known for its beaches, palm trees, and permanent tourists (hippies), among other things. Weather is beautiful, countryside is beautiful, people are beautiful. Now that the pleasantries are over, lets get down to it!
I left Bombay by ferry, crossing the little bay to Rewas in order to start heading south. My first impression of rural India therefore, came with a little concrete jetty stuck out in the mangrove swamps in the middle of nowhere, literally! I've included a pic of it - behind is nothing but fields for miles. Nothing but palm and mango trees, rice paddies, buffalo, and field workers in sari's (the women) and short skirts (the men). For the first 10 miles all I could think was "wow, I'm actually in the sticks in India!". I passed women drying thousands of tiny shrimp on the side of the road (and I mean ON the road), sweeping them up with little brush brooms, along with about 20% extra road dust and leaves. Think I'll pass on the seafood for a while. Cows are everywhere - they are, of course, sacred here. Hence the expression "sacred cow" (meaning road block you can't help move on with a little physical encouragement). I think the sacred cow idea originated around the time litter was first invented, as a method of battling the accumulation of it in the streets. These guys (sorry, I mean ladies - bulls aren't sacred but are harnessed for work here) are natural trash collectors - 'course, they leave behind their own recycled litter for everyone to dodge. This has led to, among other things, the use of liquified cow crap as a method of keeping down the dust on rural patios. No, this is not a joke - when it dries, it makes a pretty smooth mat of (digested) grass over the dirt and dust. Pretty neat, actually, and a whole lot less dusty. Not sure about the hygiene aspect of it, though...
I stopped in Alibag, as per the recommendation of a travelling businessman, for my first night and found a wonderful clean little hotel, with cable tv and my own errand boy, for $5. Beat that, Motel 6! (I've paid as low as $2 - see the pics for the quality...) I ended up staying there 3 days, as I started hanging out with the 28yr old owner, Manoj, and his friend and having a great time. They considered me their guest and took me on tours of the whole area, including their families, cattle, farmland and wells, houses, local sights, etc. We exchanged loads of details about each other's cultures during that time: both got married before love (and fully expected to fall in love with their wives through time together, rather than before they made the decision - Manoj's friend had never actually spoken to his wife before he decided to ask for her hand in marriage). Neither wedding was "arranged", however. But both had to receive the permission of the fathers involved.
Neither of them could conceive of doing a trip like mine alone, but would require the company of friends or family to do it - in fact, this detail provided a great deal of enlightenment for me. Up until then I had been getting very frustrated at times by the apparent lack of privacy shown by strangers. Stopping in a little village for lunch, I could draw a semi-permanent crowd of 20 or more in about 5 minutes. People would come up and stare, chat about nothing, fiddle with parts of the bike, even practically take books out of my hands to check the titles. After talking to Manoj, I realized that, besides the obvious novelty factor, this curiosity was also an attempt to make me feel less lonely and left-out (in their eyes) than it was an insensitive invasion. To them, a solitary person is just someone who is waiting to feel included by the locals. This was also shown by Manoj having a hard time understanding me wanting to take a break from his hospitality and spend a little time by myself. To him he'd promised to host me, and fully intended to do so EVERY minute of that day. Very interesting - so different from what we grow up with.
The countryside here reminds me of what I think eastern Africa must look like - red earth, hot and sunny and dusty, lots of foliage, crappy roads, and tiny villages every few miles. The country is divided into 26 states (according to one local), each of which is divided into regions, which are then divided into districts or somesuch. And each district must have its own schedule and methods of road maintenance, cause no section of road lasts for more than 500 meters without changing completely. In a 1 mile stretch of asphalt, you can go from practically unrideable to smooth as glass and back again multiple times, with varying stages of degeneration in between. Sometimes it was 25 kph of easy rolling, other times I stayed on the dirt shoulder just for comfort. I crossed channels and little rivers using both 4 lane bridges and outrigger canoes - the latter causing me to chain the bike discreetly to the boat, in the event we tipped over! I figured if the boat floated after tipping, I'd save my stuff. If not, my bike sure as hell wasn't gonna float by itself... And the country roads mast have been designed with bullock carts (ie, non-human locomotion) in mind: if there were 20 hills in view, you could bet the road climbed almost to the top of every one of 'em.
The towns range from large (by Indian standards) metropolitan areas that look and feel fairly western to 200-people villages with both open sewers and open mouths at the sight of me passing by ("Cykel, cykel!!", is the usual cry from the kids). And there's nothing like seeing a little 'un crapping on the beach to make you watch your step! It feels strange to be touring a country that ranks second in the world in software production, has nuclear weapons capabilities, and has designed its own supersonic jet, but that lacks (according to the government itself) proper water treatment and waste management facilities in so many areas. A recent survey of middle class Indians found that these are their top two concerns, ahead of even food production or the current conflict with Pakistan.
The local wildlife, while pretty rare, is a damn sight more dangerous than those yogi bears and little pussycats roaming the woods in Montana. I've almost been run over by BIG monkeys scampering across the road (scaring the hell out of me in the process), and the snakes I've heard about here rank among the most deadly in the world. The villagers in many areas don't enter the rice paddies at night, as a result. The last time I took a hike in New Mexico with my brother, we came out with a picture of us holding up two little rattlesnakes we'd found and caught. No such thing here - this place has more poisonous critters available than a Texas rattlesnake roundup. And some of 'em make a habit of hunting you down: I read in the newspaper recently that 7 farmworkers were killed in a 10 day period by man-eating tiger(s) in West Bengal. Locals in the woods have taken to wearing masks on the backs of their heads, in the belief that a tiger only attacks when it thinks it's unseen. I'm considering painting eyes on the back of my helmet and wrapping the back of my bike in barbed wire.
The food is great, provided you're the type of person who enjoys jalapenos washed down with hot bloody mary's for breakfast. Most places are kind enough (thank God) to adjust the spice level down for this pepper-wimp, but I still get the occasional surprise even now that my tolerance has grown considerably. Tons of rice, tons of bread, tons of veggies (usually processed and stewed, almost never whole), chicken and seafood aplenty, but not much beef or pork (its the Hindu and Moslem thing). And enough sugar to make me wanna hold a festival in their honor. Sweet drinks, sweet desserts, sweet fruit, loads of candy, even some of the spicy snacks are sweet. But I still enjoy finding a western-style restaurant once in a while, just for a break. I'm sure they'd feel the same after a week of only Burger King, Taco Bell, and Denny's.
Anyway, its loads of fun, if a little frustrating at times, and I haven't even been arrested yet. Yesterday was the official half-way point, as near as I can figure - I bet the last half goes quicker than the first!
Mark
Me on the road, happy to be here!