Really did that just happen?

At times the last few weeks of riding has felt like a job. On the 1100 mile, nine day ride from Kolkata to Chennai that is exactly what the challenge felt like. I would get up before 6 and then, eat, ride, eat, ride and arrive at a place for the night. I would do nothing else.

One day I pasted a sign that said ‘Military Camp’ and thought yep they probably are. The whole flamboyant man culture is a stark contrast to the mans man approach of Russia and the Stans. Now not to miss out on cultural experiences I tried out the man hand holding thing. After all I can no longer say that I have not been hand washed by another naked man. What a strange night in Russia that was. So a bit of hand holding is nothing compared to that. But more to the point I was put in a situation of not having a choice. I tried it, it’s not for me. I didn’t venture as far as to try the sit down pee or try some glitzy man dancing.

In one of the Indian states I went through they sold beer. That was a complete novelty for me really. Looking for a hangover cure? You tried riding the world? It has been five months now without one, so very effective. Then again the lack of alcohol might also have something to do with that. I can’t be sure.

So a beer got added to the end of the day for the few days I was in that Indian state. Most of the accommodation had TV’s so instead of going out to explore the local town I would sit, have a beer and watch TV. After covering up to 174 miles (280km) a day, walking about a polluted Indian city never really appealed to me.

You have to come to India to properly experience this pollution. It is beyond description. After only a few hours outdoor I would be ready to play the part of the chimney sweep as I would have become completely blacked-up from head to toe. The locals just thought I didn’t wash. Sure enough I did go 23 days in the Stans without a proper wash. But here I couldn’t last more than a few hours. I did give some consideration to taking up smoking. I came to the conclusion that it would probably be healthier for my lungs than the filthy air that I was inhaling. This never happened.

Some Pollution:

I was a vegetarian though. Never thought that would happen in my life. I am a meat eater so becoming a vegetarian for five weeks was a different culinary experience. Now this wasn’t me getting into the Indian hippy thing. I wasn’t going to try ‘finding’ myself or anything like that. After been served some rather nice bright pink chicken on the first day there I decided that meat wasn’t for me in India. The memory of the Cushy Cushys was still quite fresh. I didn’t want a repeat. So meat was off the menu and it really does look like Glasgow is the actual home of the chicken tikka masala.

But back to the daily routine I would rest watching TV in the evening. The EPL was never too hard to find on the TV as was a news channel of sorts to catch up with the world. The night I did catch an SPL game it was only to see my team get beat. One night however I thought I was on for a winner when I found a program called ‘Heavy Petting’. I was thinking maybe a bit a racy for Indian TV but it might be foreign. So I waited to watch it and find out what it was about. You can understand my disappointment when a pet’s vet show came on. Talk about lost in translation.

The language barrier was never a problem through India. One of the rules of the Commonwealth is that English must be a spoken language. So I had many conversations with local people. The only downside was it was the same questions over and over again. Country? Why? Where? Who? Married? One day a scooter boy asked me “What is your purpose?” I thought wow that’s deep man. Should I really be delving into something as complex as this? Should I searching for an answer to who I really am? Oh no wait, “Chennai,” I replied. He only wanted to know where I was going.

With the questions came the photographs. Riding through the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia, I had a night chatting to some English boys about their travels. One of them told how someone had actually wanted to take his picture this one time because he was foreign. I didn’t want to spoil his fine tale by saying people take mine all the time, without asking just because I am on the bike. You got to love the camera phone! I have even had to do the pose with the baby picture, normally reserved for the politician on the election campaign. Why I wondered, why?

But with the new found celebrity status that you have been landed with by riding a bike through India there is a number of problems. I found it difficult to stop. Within moments of pulling up at the side of the road a crowd would gather. That is all they would do. Stand and stare. At times I took it as a game with the task of trying to draw in the biggest crowd I could whilst doing completely nothing. At other times it was just annoying and I wanted some time alone.

In true celebrity style I even picked up a stalker. A boy joined me for a cycle and I gave him my mobile number. I had given it out to loads of guys now. It should be noted I have no idea what the female Indians get up to as I never met any. No idea where the all hide. Anyway none of the locals usually called me. Except this one. He would call, demanding I call him, then recall when I hadn’t and repeat this over and over. He constantly asked “do you know who I am?” As if he didn’t know himself! His “huh huh huhs” made me uneasy. Having a stalker isn’t as cool as you would think.

With the lack of personal space, stalkers, pollution and a poor attitude to the bicycle I was actually quite pleased to leave the sub-Continent. I had had too many near hits from buses and trucks and too many soft hits from autos and motorbikes.

But i am still cant believe i have cycled nearly 9000 miles to the other side of the world. Really has that just happened? ....And to do it with out a puncture!

Desert Diarrhea - 17/09/10 – 21/09/10

Overview
Location: Baykonur to Kyzylorda
Date: 17/09/10 – 21/09/10
Distance covered: 180.79 Miles
Overall distance: 4,129.14 miles

“Screech, Screech, give me the toilet roll.” The noise of Ped shouting awoke me. It was dark and the cold rain still pattered hard against the tent. “Screech, give me the toilet roll,” Ped anxiously repeated from his tent across from mine. Screech gave a some what sleepy reply. “I have been sick just give me the fucking toilet roll,” a final demand from Ped.

This moment during the last trip I made with the cycling for charity team always makes me smile. Not of course at Ped’s misfortune of being sick. But more the point that he was sick in his tent. As in his haste to be sick, instead of opening both mesh doors he only opened the one. This resulted in a rather messy and smelly tent for the rest of the expedition.

Now I have been sick on expedition before. In the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco during the Malaga to Marrakech trip I had a bad case of it. I was up all night squatted out in the cold rain. By morning I was so weak that I could not continue. This would have been a problem had I not had a good team with me. They took care of it and got me to a warm hotel to recover. Now I was asked on quite a few occasions before I left what happens if you become sick? “Then I am sick,” is all I could usually reply.

Up to this point things were going okay as well. I was covering a fair distance considering the road conditions and had just past the Russian owned section of Kazakhstan without any problems. I was a little disappointed that I never seen a rocket soar off into space as I past Baykonur at night. This is the location from where man first went into space. This was the reason for Russia owning this section of the country. On a side note three weeks after I past here, Russia would send there brand new space shuttle into space. Now that would have been something to see.

I had not long past Baykonur when a Belarusian motorcyclist stopped for a chat and told me of a café I could stay at nearby. This is always a better option than the tent. As it is warmer than a cold night out in the desert and usually food is offered. When I arrived at a village where the café should be I asked for direction. Instead of pointing out the way I should go they invited me to stay with them instead. Problem solved I thought, a bed for the night and maybe some food.

Sure enough there was food, loads of food. I was given a large bowl of besbarmak all to myself. This is meat (usually mutton) served on flat pasta with onions. It tasted a little funny but hunger soon put those thoughts to the back of my mind. Anyway the kind host kept saying “cushy, cushy, Sean, cushy, cushy.” Eat, eat, Sean, eat, eat. So I did, though he never did.

Come morning I was keen to go but strangely not hungry. I had 100 miles to do so I thanked my host and left. Something wasn’t right today though. Sure there was a headwind. But this was Kazakhstan it was always windy. It couldn’t be hunger after all the food I had the night before. Maybe just from riding so many days in a row I thought. But my legs and body really were feeling weak.

After 30 miles I would get a clue. The cramping pains hit hard around the bowels forcing me to search out for somewhere to answer the call of nature. This is no easy task in the great plains of Kazakhstan. The urgency of this forced me to a not very well hidden bush clearly visible to the road. Even in this situation the drivers would still beep their horns and wave. I chose not to wave back on this situation. I managed another 30 miles south of Kyzylorda before stopping I just couldn’t do any more.

I had been riding on the new road that they were building which ran directly beside the old one still in use. I set up camp beside the new road. I was hidden behind a large mound of soil with a distance of about 40 meters between me and the in use road. As I set up camp on the hard cracked ground I surveyed the desolate empty landscape before me. There really was nothing around me, nothing at all. Little did I realize that this would be my home the next few days.

It started to get worse during the night. The frequency of the need to go and squat outside the tent increased. I would have to leave the warmth of the tent to do the business. At first I had the strength to walk a good distance from the tent. But this became less and less. During this first day I had ran out of water. I never had any food in the first place. During this period I had some sleepy, daydream hallucinations. I was sure I had a team with me. All I had to do was wait for them to go and get food and water. It was only during one of the trips out of the tent that I noticed no one else was there. It was a little confusing to say the least. But then reality kicked. I would need water soon and would have to solve it myself.

The solution was to go to the road and beg. There really wasn’t any other choice so it wasn’t a tough decision. This however did take all my strength and I would have to take a rest during the 40 meter journey to the road. I held up my empty 5 litre water container and hoped someone would stop. Cars and buses zipped past on the road. I struggled to keep the empty bottle held high. Even though I was only there five minutes I knew I wouldn’t last much longer. Not surprisingly a truck driver stopped.

They had always been the friendliest vehicles on the road. Within half an hour I had five litres of water and four apples. On my return I again had to stop for a rest only for the police to come along and start questioning me. To be fair I was just lying down on the new unused road so quite an unusually sight to come across. They didn’t understand me explaining that I was sick so I Just ignored them and slowly walked away.

The next day it got worse still. I was weaker and now really did not have the strength to walk far from the tent. It got to the point when I could only just crawl a small distance in front of the tent. It got closer and closer until the inevitable happened. Squatting not far from the tent I managed to hit it. The only saving grace was that it was on the outside. I was thankful that my aim wasn’t a little more to the left, the open door of the tent. On the cracked floor of the desert on all fours I now knew how Ped felt. I looked back in disgust but had no energy to do anything about it. I simply crawled back into the tent.

By the morning of the fourth day I was only slightly better. I knew I couldn’t stay any longer. I hadn’t eaten in 48 hours for a start and had lost three days of riding. I tried to ride it out to Shymkent, I really did. But I was so weak and after 5 hours I had only covered 22 miles on the flat road to Shymkent. I knew then I had no choice but to hitch a ride. I had to think of the bigger picture. After all, the border crossing deadline for China was looming.

Again a truck driver came to the rescue. To be honest I wish I was able to cycle. To give an idea of how bad the roads are it took 8 hours to cover 200 miles. If you have ever felt turbulence on a plane then you will have a good idea of what this ride was like. Eight long hours of bumping and rattling, just what I did not need! In the early hours of the morning we arrived in Shymkent. I got a hotel, food, water and was looking forward to a proper day of recovery.