Rolling along

It has begun, and so far so good. We started the trip by taking a private cab about 45 km southwest of Delhi to Gurgaon, because we really didn't want to spend the entire first day of the trip lost in New Delhi, which given our combined sense of direction was the most likely outcome of such an endeavor. Leaving from Gurgaon gave us a straight shot south through Harayana into Rajasthan.

Miraculously riding through the cities and on the highways hasn't been all that bad, the chaos actually adds to the entertainment valuwe. The cars and trucks pass with plenty of room to spare because Indian drivers are not shy about jumping into oncoming traffic to get around obstacles. People along the roads look at us like a four wheel rolling zoo. Anytime we stop a crowd of thirty to forty people quickly assembles around us to gawk and make the odd comment to us in Hindi, while we communicate as best we can. As a result stopping in the markets isn't such a great idea because inevitably the crowd around us grows to the point where they block the street and start backing up traffic, which I'm sure the locals love. It amounts to loads of good times.

We managed about 47km the first day to the town of Nuh. By sheer luck and with the help from some very friendly people in town we ended up staying at the palacial government resthouse free of charge, which was fortuitous because the only other hotel in town was closed. The Deputy Commissioner in town was even nice enough to send over some cooks to set us up with dinner for the night, also free of charge. When we tried to pay they recoiled in horror at the affront. We even had a chance to work on our Hindi wih one of the local university women who spoke english, a huge help seeing as neither of us speak a bit of Hindi.

In retrospect taking off on a bike trip through rural India with no idea how to speak the language was maybe not the best idea. The high point came when I had to show somebody the phrase from our Hindi book, "I know very little Hindi" because I couldn't actually say it in Hindi, what can I say I'm pretty brilliant.

Day two we rode another 37 km south to the town of Firozepur Jhirka, and were again lucky enough to score some cheap lodging at a government resthouse. People don't seem to know what to make of us and have generally gone out of their way to send us in the right directionand help us out, a nice change from Delhi and Agra. All in all we have had great luck so far, super friendly people and beautiful scenery.