Traveling by bike

Maybe writing this is redundant, but after a few bus trips in India, I have come to appreciate how great traveling by bike truly is. Don't get me wrong it has its own unique set of problems, but if nothing else it removes you from the tourist conveyor belt passing through the country. People just don't know what to do with you, most of the time there are just long curious stares and a few off the cuff comments. Avoiding the bus and train stations greatly decreases the chances of running into touts or anybody else that will pester the hell out of you until you give them something. Really these are just thoughts you have when you are on an overcrowded bus unsure if your bike is going to make it intact to the next destination. Although we could avoid this by actually riding our bikes, so in the end its a self-inflicted wound.

Watch out they spit

I guess no trip through Rajasthan is complete without a camel safari, or least that's what everybody kept telling us. To sweeten the deal we actually had a nice ride to get to the starting point for our epic one night safari into the sand dunes around Khuri. It was amazing, prolonged stretches of riding with complete silence, punctuated by an occasional splash of orange from turbaned goat herders walking down the road. The deeper into the desert you venture the quieter it gets.

Our first night in Khuri we were treated to extravagant accomodations, at least by our miserly standards, of three soft beds and traditional Rajasthani music and dancing. Plus we got to head out to the dunes and catch the sunset before the evening festivities began. The next day our safari began.

Turns out riding a camel and riding bike have one thing in common, your crotch hurts a lot the first time you ride one. Other than that the trip was pretty sweet, for one whole day we heard not a single car horn, the solitude was complete, with the exception of random noises that camels seem to make when they have a gangly white guy riding on their back. We enjoyed a pretty epic sunset in the dunes and than sat down to a desert feast concocted by our friendly camel drivers, and finished up by laying out under the stars. Although this was somewhat lost on me, because after the contacts come out its all a blur.

The next morning we finished up back in Khuri after a brief ride from our campsite. We really didn't have to venture far from town to have the illusion of complete isolation in the desert. Most of the morning was passed making jokes about my six-legged camel due to my gangly legs hanging off the side. All in all time very well spent.

Desert riding continued

Due to some time constraints we have taken to slightly more mechanized travel. After a couple of days of sight seeing in Bikaner, the fort was badass, we took a 5:30am bus to Jaisalmer. Its a little eerie riding through an empty market in the morning, nothing looks the same without throngs of people and car horns blasting in your ears. As with our trip from Dharamshala, I realized that buses are not the optimal transportation for me. I think most of it has to do with trying to fold my legs up behind the seat, or having them stepped on out in the aisle, the joy of being 6'5".

Fortunately the bus ride was only six hours, and the most eventful part was a sudden stop to avoid taking out a goat, which led to 10 gallons of milk spilling on the floor of the bus. If you're not comfortable traveling on a bus, just let a little warm buffalo milk mixed with dirt wash over your feet...tasty. Of course navigating the throngs of touts at the bus station was the other fun part of the ride. They really want you to stay at their hotel and they don't take it well when you ignore them, one guy resorted to calling me stupid. After he said that I was just itching to stay at his quality establishment. Besides that Jaisalmer is beautiful, it has a really cool fort, and the whole town outside of the bus station is pretty low key. Tomorrow we head out to Khuri for a few days of desert solitude and a camel safari.

The bike route including our "ride" to Jaisalmer

View Rajasthan bike route in a larger map

Desert riding

Riding through the Rajasthani desert has been amazing, wide open spaces with about half the traffic and people as Uttar Pradesh. We've even have had a few moments of complete isolation on the road as the only traffic. Add that to the perfect 70 degree weather and Rajasthan is awesome, its even been possible to find the odd hotel in the middle of the desert between major cities. We rolled into Bikaner this afternoon for some sightseeing before moving west.

I'm conspicuous

People always talk about how chaotic and seemingly hazardous the traffic is in India. As it turns out, it's not Indian drivers you need to worry about,but oblivious foreign tourists on bicycles. I put a pretty good chunk of my handle bar into the back of some poor lady walking down the street and sent her sprawling to the pavement. That was right up at the top of the list for situations I didn't want to deal with in a foreign country. Luckily after I apologised profusely for my complete douchebaggery and obliviousness, which may have been lost on her since she didn't understand english, she sent me on my way before to large of a crowd gathered around and things got anymore interesting.

The rest of the ride to Sikar was pretty low key, no accidents, no bike problems, and we hammered out 110km in pretty good time. By pulling out the handy Hindi phrase book in Sikar a nice young man at the Hindi temple was able to direct us to a nearby hotel and at his insistence act as our guide for the night. We didn't see much of Sikar, but we did meet his family, catch part of wedding procession at the temple, and get to watch Adam manhandle a couple of kids in arm wrestling matches. All of the kids were looking longingly at Adam by the end of the night, I think a few had developed man-crushes on Adam's biceps.

Although we didn't see any tourist sites in Sikar, our guide Ashok did give us a tour of his school the following morning. I continue to be amazed at the status and attention we are given simply as a function of our skin color. We met the principle and then were taken to every class room to stand up in front of a room full of kids for a few moments before moving on. A little awkward, it brought back a flood of memories from middle school and high school. Amidst all of this we also got our first motorcycle lessons, and I can safely say I am much better off riding a bicycle than a motorcycle, and we'll leave it at that.

Sketchy people

Turns out the guys we met in Bharatpur were a little sketchy. After hanging out with us off and on for two weeks they told us that they needed a loan to help cover the purchase of a tractor. This was followed by a long awkward silence, while we stared at the ground and thought about how quickly we could leave the room. Finally we told them in many different ways that there was no way we were going to loan them any money, and jetted the hell out of there. Meeting them wasn't all bad though, despite their sketchiness they did introduce us to some people that were genuinely awesome and left us with some amazing memories of India. It's all part of the adventure I guess.

Jaipur

After 180 km in two days we rolled into Jaipur, and nothing says fun like getting lost in the afternoon traffic of a major Indian city. Inevitably when we arrive in a city I take us on the most circutious route possible to the hotel, often passing within a few hundred meters of it long before we actually find it. My sense of direction is amazing.

But there is no better way to recover from two long days of riding than to sit on a rooftop drinking beer and taking in the local kite festival. From dawn till dusk the skyline was swarming with colorful diamond shaped kites darting everywhich way, usually in attempt to cut the line of a nearby kite. Every time a flier claimed an opponents kite a loud shout would ring out in Hindi saying "you're done!", and you could watch the maimed kite float aimlessly to the ground, filling the streets, trees and powerlines with a graveyard of unworthy fighters. Highly entertaining.

Turns out flying kites is harder than it looks, at least for me. My attempts to fly the kites usually resulted with them taking a nosedive into a nearby roof. After a while I just gave up because I felt bad sacrificing kites to random roof tops. Now that I think about it the alcohol may have played a role. Good times in Jaipur, now we have a few days to kill before we head west out into the deserts of Rajasthan.

Our bike route

View Rajasthan bike route in a larger map