India

Bicycle Touring Video – India

May 8, 2018

Ah India, the sights, smells, stares and struggles. India truly does have something for everyone.

Through India, we had some of our most memorable and also most forgettable days on the bike. We have more than a few stories to bring home. India has brought personality traits in us, that we never thought existed.

Initially in Mumbai, stepping out from the airport into the chaotic traffic was unforgettable. Against most advice, we were somehow going to ride our bicycles through all this. With the help of a few trains and amazingly bumpy buses, we pedaled from Mumbai through the incredible cities of Rajasthan, somehow through the industrial cities of Uttar Pradesh and onwards to Nepal.

To travel India by bicycle will change you and certainly did change us. In India, it is the survival of the fittest and a bicycle rider is at the bottom of the food chain. Here is a few clips that might help you understand how India was for us. But to truly know India, you have to feel it, breath it, taste it and at times struggle through it for yourself.

Enjoy!

Cycling from India to Nepal

March 28, 2018

When we first arrived in Mumbai we loved India. We loved the colors, the spices, the mess, the vibrant energetic atmosphere, we loved the food and even the selfie requests. India was such a different experience compared to all the countries we have previously travelled. We dived in head first without holding back and we enjoyed everything, that incredible India has to offer. But our excitement didn’t last long.

After cycling through India for almost two months, we had developed a consistent routine. We would arrive in a small town of 1 million people and search for a hotel room at around 4pm. We then checked in and didn’t leave the hotel room anymore until the morning when we had to cycle on. On certain days, we had dinner and breakfast delivered to our hotel room because we just couldn’t deal with India anymore. How is such a big change in our perception possible?

India has a population of 1.3 billion people and we feel like we met all of them. India is crowded. There are people everywhere. On a bicycle, you are constantly exposed to the locals around you. In other countries, this exposure was one of the main reasons we love travelling by bike so much, but in India it was exhausting. When we cycled through the state of Uttar Pradesh, it got so bad, that we didn’t make any brakes during the day. Whenever we stopped to have a snack, it took 2 minutes and we were surrounded by 20 starring Indian men.

The starring was to be expected but the disrespect and harassment was shocking. It happened twice, that men touched up my thigh whilst I was riding my bicycle. One guy just stuck his hand out as he passed me with his motorcycle and then rode off, Matt was behind me and saw everything happening. The second time I was felt up by a little boy of maybe ten years, he was cycling beside me and then just before he turned off, he stuck his hand in between my legs. I was so shocked that a ten-year-old just did that to me that I didn’t have time to say anything or chase after him. How is it possible that a boy of ten years comes up with the idea to do this? We were and are still shocked.

Another thing that made cycling in India challenging was the 20+ selfie requests per day. Most of them weren’t even requests, but just screams “selfie!”, “selfie!”. People held phones into our faces even when we clearly said no to them. Also men came far too close when I once said yes to a selfie, thank god Matt was always nearby.

On top of that, it was new for us, that no one ever offered us help. In all the 12 other countries we have travelled, we got offered help from locals daily. This kindness of the locals all over the world surprised and was one of the things that made our trip so special. In India, we got offered help twice during our two months here.

All these things added up plus the pollution and plus the insane traffic, made India our most challenging country so far. I would still advise anyone to visit India, just don’t do it bicycle. If you back pack and you can take a bus from one beautiful city where the locals are used to tourists to the next, India must be wonderful. But if you have to cycle through all the small villages in between, you might end up like us and not leave your hotel room once the door is closed behind you. Mostly we think travelling is about the journey and not about the destination, but in India it is clearly about the destination and not about the journey.

We don’t want to say India is an unfriendly or bad country, we have also met some lovely Indians. And also, we have only cycled through 3 of India’s 29 states, so maybe we just got unlucky. But this was our experience and we think it is also important to share not only our good stories on this blog.

To give our body and mind a rest of this exhausting experience, we cycled north to Rishikesh, the world capital of yoga. We intended to spend one week there and ended up staying almost three weeks. Rishikesh is a relaxed little tourist town on India’s holy river Ganges. We enjoyed cappuccinos, got to know other travelers and did yoga every day. Compared to the India we have travelled through before, Rishikesh was heaven.

From Rishikesh we cycled onwards to Banbasa, to cross the Nepalese border. We got the Nepalese 90-days-visa surprisingly easy but also surprisingly expensive for 100 USD directly at the border. At the border we met Prem, a very friendly Nepalese tour guide. He invited us to stay with him in a national Park for tigers and rhinos 150km down our way. Matt was sold.

As we cycled our first few kilometers in Nepal we couldn’t believe how much difference a border, just a line on the map, can make. In the last three days, not once has anyone asked us for a selfie or starred at us until we felt uncomfortable. The difference between Indians and Nepali is very big to us even only after three days in Nepal.

Just after the border, a girl in her school uniform joined us for a bit on her bicycle. We suddenly noticed that she was wearing pants as part of her Nepali school uniform, a big change from our last 4 countries (India, Oman, UAE and Iran): Nepal is the first country where girls wear pants again and are not forced to wear dresses only. Anyway, the girl joined us for a bit and tried her best to talk English with us. She was absolutely lovely and before she left us she said: “Every day I ride my bicycle to school for one hour and then back an hour. Normally this way is very long, but today it seems too short because I met you.”. It took her about three minutes to explain what she wanted to say in her broken English but when she succeeded, it went right into our hearts.

We are again finding the love for bicycle touring here in Nepal. The waves and friendly smiles have returned and our excitement to get back on the bike growing every morning. We can see that these Nepali people are happy to have us, help us and quite simply they respect us as we respect them.

I’m sure you are all thinking that riding a bicycle through Nepal is madness because of the Himalayas. When planning our route, we thought this also. Surprisingly, Nepal is quite navigable by bicycle. The country is comprised of three distinct regions: The flatlands, the middle ranges and the upper Himalaya area. We have been cycling the east west highway in the flatlands, which has been great so far. The hills are coming though, and we are a little nervous, but ready!

We plan to meet up with my best friend Anja and her boyfriend Dimitri in a couple of weeks to do a trekking in the Himalayas. We are very excited to have our friends around and do some exercise that doesn’t involve a bicycle. After the trekking we will box up our bicycles once again in Kathmandu and fly into Myanmar. Exciting times ahead!

Guess where I am in this moment, writing this blog post? Yup, at the house of our new friend Prem whilst Matt and him are out there in the Jungle chasing tigers and rhinos.

Talk to you soon
Jasi (hopefully with Matt)

Looking Back on 8 Months of Bike Touring

March 11, 2018

We have been on the road for eight months now. We started our trip on the 9^th of July at the house of Jasis parents in Wattenwil, Switzerland with the aim to reach Matts parents house in Cobden, Australia by bicycle. The distance we estimated to cycle was around 25,000km and we thought it will take us 18 months (50km per day). We set ourselves a budget of 50 US$ per day per person, we knew that it would probably be too much, but we wanted to be prepared for any case.

So far:

8 months of cycling
7,700 km
13 countries
10,000 US$ for the both of us

To go:

10 months of cycling
10,000 km (We now think we will cover less than 25’000km in total and enjoy more time off the bikes in places we really love. There is no need to rush.)
10 countries

Things we have learnt on the road

Self-belief

Time and time again, we find ourselves in small ‘oh-shit’-situations. Time and time again, we find a way through these moments. We

have developed a real belief between us, and in these moments, we really work together. We now talk back through these moments as some of our most loved memories of the trip and make a point to ourselves very often that we must enjoy ‘oh-shit’-moments more and more.

No matter how long, steep or difficult it seems, you can do it. Step by step, pedal stroke after pedal stroke. Cycling from Switzerland to Australia sounded impossible before we started. Whenever I told someone about our plans I placed a “maybe” and a “we will just see how far we get” into the story. I knew that people would laugh about our plans because they did not really seem realistic.
The way to Australia does still seem long to us, but so does the way from Switzerland to India and we did that, right? Km for km, day for day and then, all of a sudden you get there.
This makes us think that in general in our lives, we were too scared of big projects. I wanted to study photography when I graduated high school, but I was too scared that I wouldn’t be talented enough and would never be able to make money of it. Now I think I would have succeeded if I really wanted.

Patience

Staying patient is perhaps the most important skill to hold tight when meeting people on the road. You may have just been stopped by the 10^th person that day requesting a selfie, or you might find yourself being taught by a hotel manager how to correctly ride your own bike, but the moment you lose your patience is the moment you stop making friends and stop receiving help from others. The selfie could be shown to all his family and friends with a big smile and the hotel manager might just be an Olympic cyclist, you never know. That moment of patience has helped us so many times and has also shown us how lonely the road is when you lose patience.

Don’t believe everything you read

Yet again Iran, has been one of the richest learning experiences on this trip. Entering Iran, we felt nervous and to be honest a little scared. Our newspapers had only ever portrayed Iran as a dangerous and troubled country. After leaving Iran, we were so thankful and our whole world perspective altered from the kindness of these people. The presence of media in so many forms through our daily lives built the fear we once had for the people of Iran. Know the source of what you read or hear and never be afraid to question it!

My god, the possibilities

Before we decided to bicycle tour around the world, I had only once heard about bicycle touring, and when I did hear it, I thought it was crazy. 8 months later, the idea of getting on my bike tomorrow and cycling 60-70 km through the chaos of India dealing with language barriers and chasing monkeys almost seems normal. All of us forget too quickly the brave steps we once took to get where we are. I hope that when we finish this journey, that we remind ourselves of the accomplishment and be brave enough to go try, see, do whatever we dream.

Trust

Have trust in people. Whenever we had a problem on this trip, someone came around the next corner and helped us. At times, the help we received further complicated the situation but most importantly, we were no longer alone. Together with complete strangers we found average solutions building extraordinary memories and friendships. We have built up a strong trust now, that whatever happens, we will find a way through.

But never trust locals with distances

This was a hard one to learn for me, being Swiss it is in my nature to be very exact and correct about numbers. On this trip, it has never happened, that we asked a local how far it was to the next town and they gave us an accurate answer. Whenever someone says 5km, we now know that it could be anything between 10-50km. Still nice to know we were heading in the right direction.

Highlights

Picnic invites from Iranian families.
Downhills! If you are having a shit day, catch a bus with your bike to the top of a hill, enjoy!
Wild camping on a quiet lake in the Georgian mountains.
Friends visiting us in Bulgaria and India. That was awesome guys!
Riding around Dubai downtown in a convertible.
Pomegranate feasts in Iran.
Arriving on the Black Sea after riding through Europe for three months.
Swimming in the holy Ganges in India.
Italy’s food and ice-creams.
Taking the headscarf off after riding through Iran for two months.
Ferry crossing over the black sea.
Everyday freedom.
Holi color festival in India.
Getting to know hospitality on a whole other level than we could have ever imagined.

Difficulties

Going to bed without a shower when we wild camp.
Sometimes we can’t find any hotel when it gets dark and we must keep going until we find one.
The hassle of organizing things when traveling (like post office closed, no police office to extend visa, booking flights over weak wifi).
Constantly having to say goodbye to all the lovely people we meet.
Missing home, our families and friends.
Physical challenge on the hills and the long unspectacular stretches that we sometimes had to cover.

Journey’s Impact on our relationship

Before this trip, we had a long-distance relationship. One of the reasons we wanted to go on this bike journey was, that we can live together, even if it is only in a tent.
When we started, we were excited to finally be together without having to say goodbye after a week or two. Our expectations were high as we have been dreaming about our bicycle trip for over one year before departure. Against our expectations, we had a bit of a tough time in the first four weeks. We were constantly stressed with camping, getting enough kms done for the day, writing good blog posts, looking adventurous on social media and processing all these new things we saw, felt and learnt.
And then, in our fifth week on the bikes in Croatia, we suddenly clicked. We learnt how to work as a team. Matt learnt how to deal with hangry Jasi and Jasi learnt to deal with waiting for Matt to get ready in the mornings. Everything got smooth from then on and we only had very few and little arguments ever since.
We went through the best days and the worst days on the road together. We have cried of happiness and cried of frustration together and it all got us closer together and made our relationship stronger.

Future plans

Our time in India will soon come to an end. We will cross over to Nepal in about a week. In Nepal we are going to meet up with friends for trekking in the Himalayas. I can’t even start to tell you how excited we are. Best friends, trekking, beers, delicious food and adventure, bring it on!
The only problem we have in Nepal is, that we can’t leave the country over land borders once we’ve entered. We can’t enter India again because we wouldn’t get another eVisa and we can’t enter China as it is impossible to get a Chinese visa for bike tourers at the moment. These are the only two countries that border Nepal, so we have to take a flight out of Nepal. We decided to fly from Kathmandu, Nepal to Mandalay, Myanmar and continue our cycle tour there.
From Myanmar we plan to cycle a big loop through Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia before we enter Thailand. Once in Thailand we will cycle southwards. In Malaysia we plan to meet up with friends again to spend one week on an island somewhere in turquoise waters.
From Malaysia, our bike tour will continue to Singapore and then via ferry to Bali. Bali will mark the end of our time in Asia. From there we will take a (hopefully cheap) flight to Broome or Perth on Australia’s West Coast. We both can’t imagine how excited we will be when our plane finally lands in Australia. We will then cycle down the West Coast and maybe take a train through the desert stretch between Perth and Adelaide as it will be summer in Australia and bloody hot.
We hope to arrive at Matts parent’s house in Cobden, Victoria just before Christmas 2018.

Things we plan to do differently in our real life after the trip

Adventure is everywhere

We found little adventures in every country that we have traveled. So we assume, there has to be little adventures waiting for us in Switzerland and Australia too. By adventure we mean little spontaneous things that make us fall out of our comfort zone and daily routine. Here the things we plan to do more often:

Help, like really help a tourist or someone in need, we already owe so many people!
Explore our own cities sights and events. Be a tourist in our own town.
Ride our bikes or walk when needed, the world has too much traffic.
Quality not quantity. Buy quality sustainable goods, the world has too much trash on it.
Recycle and recycle again, be the change, others (like the whole country of India) will follow eventually.
Reduce our meat intake. We have been vegetarians for two months in India as we were too afraid to get sick from the meat and we haven’t missed meat once!
Step out of social comfort zones, start a conversation with that guy you see on the bus every morning.
Leaving time free for doing absolutely nothing, relax the mind.
Brain train, keep learning and trying new things.

Enjoy normal stuff more

On this trip we realized, how valuable dinner nights with our families, drinks out with our friends, good coffees in the morning and clean bed sheets are. We hope we will remember how much we missed these things on the trip and value them more for the rest of our lives.

Follow our aims in life

The one thing we really learnt from all the travelers and locals we met, is: If you want something in life, you have to pursue it. Almost everything is possible once you made the decision and start working towards it. Most people have around 80 years on this earth, right? You can decide what you want to do with these 80 years. Of course, there are boundaries, but we have realized how extremely fortunate we are, that we have been born in Australia and Switzerland. We are well educated and can be pretty confident, that no matter what decisions we make in our lives, we will most likely not end up homeless or starve to death. So, let’s be thankful for all the opportunities we have by just our nationality and bloody take them. After this trip we both want to be brave and start directing our working careers to where we want to take them.

What will happen after the trip?

Will we continue cycling in South America? Will we stay in Australia and search for work? Will we go back to Switzerland? Or maybe move to Dubai for a year? For now, we don’t really know yet.

Talk to you soon
Matt and Jasi

Only in India…

February 13, 2018

In our last post, we left you as our 10-hour train rattled away from Mumbai. We last spoke with our bellies healthy and our confidence growing to taste more and more. We last spoke thinking we were leaving the real chaos of India behind in Mumbai….

Sitting in the train watching Jasi write the previous blog post, a little smile crept over my face. I was smiling because I thought our past 6 months of travel had indeed prepared us for India. Our stomachs were strong, and we had thrived in Mumbai amongst the chaos. We were confident we could endure whatever India served us up. How wrong I was.

That night we disembarked the train to another side of India. We were lost for words. The lights illuminated what looked like fog, but after a few deep breaths I realized it was not fog, but air pollution. People lay sleeping along the platform whilst others burnt rubbish to keep the night chill away. We were in Ahmedabad, an industrial city, home to plastic factories and the very poor. Here, we were no longer stared at or asked for a selfie, here we were just another number.

Our budget hotel was only 1km from the train station. This was the longest 1 km I am sure I have ever walked. Traffic buzzed by from both sides and directions. The footpath had been merged into an overtaking lane. Food stand gas burners highlighted the edge of the road and cows stood oblivious to the traffic, chewing on rubbish that covered the streets. We were yet to see people this poor. We passed men and women barely clothed and with shoes made from scraps of cloth. We wheeled our bikes through this chaos unable to believe our eyes.

To cycle through this traffic is not brave or adventurous, just stupid. We had no option but to take a bus to our next town, Udaipur. We woke early hoping to beat the traffic and ride to the bus depot. The traffic was worse, and the morning light showed us how dirty and desperate this town really was. We again wheeled our bikes through another 1 km of madness to the bus depot, ready to take the first ticket out.

In India, we have learnt that it is always best to first see what you are paying for. We made such a mistake when buying our bus tickets this morning. After a few moments of bartering we had our tickets for 3 USD per person. We purchased a private box that would seat 4 people. We boarded the bus and we were quickly directed to our box. It was lined with a mattress and would fit just two people. As we were 4 people, we then asked the obvious question “And where is the other box?”. A typical Indian head wobbled followed, finished with a little grin. We knew instantly what this meant. This was our box for 4 people for 5 hours. The box measured 1.7m x 1.2m x1m. Us 4 are now very good friends.

There are flashes on this trip that I will vividly remember forever. Perhaps none more than this morning, loading our precious bicycles onto the roof of the bus. The bicycles were thrown to the roof of the bus and I scrambled up the ladder to check that they were being safely secured. To my shock, I found that the men were insisting that the bikes do not need to be tied down with rope. The bus had already started, and the driver was standing outside screaming at me to get down from the roof, so he could start the journey. I wasn’t leaving the roof until the bikes were secure. I screamed back at the driver telling him “I NEED ROPE”. He was furious. He then searched the roadside rubbish until he found some plastic and odd ends of rope. As I was tying the bikes down to the roof of the bus, I looked down to see a sight I will never forget. A brightly painted elephant plodding its way through the traffic unaffected by the honking horns and motorcycles whizzing by. Incredible India I thought.

Finally, we were cycling again. After two attempts of trying to escape the mayhem of city traffic we were relieved and surprised to find that the back roads of India are very quiet. The roads quality varies from perfectly smooth worn roads, to potholes and large bumps to cow shit and mud. But this doesn’t bother us in the slightest. There is only the odd car or motorcycle every 5 minutes and we are passing towns where we could just be the first tourists. We have stumbled across wedding celebrations, town markets and funeral processions. On one occasion we rounded a bend to find 40 men walking the town streets mourning the death of a local. Almost all the men were screaming and crying in anguish. We were quickly informed by a cheery local that there was “one dead, one dead (head wobble)”.

We are indeed a fascination here in the small towns of India. The quiet roads naturally lead to small villages. It is here in these small villages, that upon arriving we are surrounded by tens of people in a matter of seconds. Instantly there are ten hands on my bicycle. Everyone pokes and prods the bicycle to see what it is made from, I have even been poked. Unfortunately we have had some negative experiences here in the small villages. Jasmin’s blue eyes are fantasized by men. Jasi is constantly fending of aggressive motions of men trying to take a selfie with her. On one occasion a 30-year-old man asked me how many rupees it would cost to have sex with Jasmin. It is for this reason, that I must constantly keep sight of Jasi when we enter a small town.

Bike touring can be at times extremely difficult, especially in India, especially for a woman. I don’t tell Jasmin enough times that she is an incredibly brave young lady to be taking on this adventure. She has coped with so many testing situations and has an incredible strength to persist in difficult times. Jasi hates riding in the rain and understandably is frustrated when we go to sleep in the tent without showering. But she continues and overcomes all with an amazing determination. It is truly special sharing this adventure with your best friend and someone who you love. I couldn’t do it without Jasi and am grateful every day to have her by my side.

Moving along… Every now and then, one certainly deserves a treat, yes? We spend our days always searching for the cheapest hotels, or a cheap meal to satisfy our hunger. After 7 months of bicycle touring we have never once treated ourselves to a luxury hotel room. This was the case until we came across Rohat Garh Hotel Palace. Let me first paint the picture.

We were burning under the surprisingly hot Rajasthani winter sun. With every pedal stroke I was managing my diarrhea and we had only a few hours sleep as we were pulling little snakes from the windowsills of our previous hotel. We arrived from a street piled with rubbish and had been minutes ago swarmed by the chatter of a million school children. Then we saw the grand entrance to Rohat Garh palace. Men with neatly tied turbans waited for arriving guests and welcomes us with a quiet “Namaste”. They stood in front of a grand painted arched entrance. Through the entrance we could see an exotic garden dotted with sculpted water fountains. We wheeled our bikes and dirty selves into the courtyard and soaked up the oasis. We had to stay.

We were treated like King and Queen. We lounged in armchairs and sipped sparkling water as we listened to the birds. We swam in the crystal-clear waters of the courtyard pool. We then returned to our bedroom to find a fresh hot water bottle neatly tucked under our blankets. The next morning, we requested a wake up call and ate twice our share at the breakfast buffet. Jasi was in heaven. This was our first and most likely last insight into the contrasting lifestyles here in India.

Our luxurious day was over too fast, and we once again found ourselves in the beating heart or rather ‘the veins’ of India, the train system. We are on a short trip away from the bicycles to explore the desert city of Jaisalmer near to the border of Pakistan. We incorrectly booked our overnight train tickets and found ourselves sharing a seat, shivering ourselves to sleep. I am making mad dashes through the tangle of sleeping bodies to the toilet. I squat over the hole in the ground, clutching the support railing and somehow, I smile to myself. India is simply incredible, the highs, the lows, noise, colours, rubbish, spices and head-wobbles. There is something for everyone…

Matt and Jasi

Welcome to India

January 26, 2018

One week ago close to midnight, Matt and I boarded our flight to Mumbai with an Indian budget airline. Not only did we choose the cheapest airline, we also choose the cheapest time to fly, the time nobody wants to arrive in Mumbai: at 2am. As we walked down the gangway of our little plane, I noticed that we were the only non-Indians on board and everyone was staring at us. Welcome to India, I thought to myself.

For a long time before the flight, we have been worrying that our bikes wouldn’t survive the flight. Our disc brakes and gear changers are very fragile and would break if the bike falls over in the cargo hold. Because of that we wrapped up our bikes and our twelve saddle bags in cardboard boxes, bubble warp and Chinese shopping bags. Nevertheless, we were quite tense as we watched them rolling away on the conveyor belt, not sure if the heart shaped “fragile”-sticker that the man on the counter stuck on them would do any good.

Against our expectations, the airport in Mumbai was the cleanest, most modern and best designed airport we have ever landed at and we safely got back our bike boxes and bags. What a good start!

The 4am taxi ride to our hostel showed us, that not all our expectations of India were wrong. Traffic in India is something else. There are no white lines on three lane sized highways. Trucks, cars, cows, tuc-tucs, motorcycles, people with overloaded wheelbarrows, scooters, bicycles, chicken, pedestrians, window cleaners and chai sellers share the road without any obvious rules and a lot of horns.

The very next day, my Kindergarten friend Irina and her boyfriend Fabian (check out his photography blog: www.fabiankappeler.com) flew to Mumbai from Switzerland to join us cycling India for one month. After travelling for more than half a year and constantly saying hello and goodbye to new people, it was wonderful to fall into the arms of old friends and knowing to have them around for the next month.

All of us were in awe of all the things happening at once on the streets of Mumbai. The whole city is absolutely crowded, there is a density of humans in every corner that I have never seen anywhere before. The scent of freshly baked naan bread in a street changes to the smell of dead rats within seconds. On top of that it is always loud; cars horn, people scream out what they’re selling, bicycles ring their bells, music plays from somewhere, the nearby mosque calls to prayer and the police officer blows into his whistle. Mumbai is intense for all the senses.

Mumbai is home to just over 20 million people. The quickest way to get a direct feel of these numbers is to take a ride to Mumbai city center via the train system. As we waited for the train to roll to a stop we watched in disbelief as men ran alongside the train jumping on through the open door in hope to get a seat for their long journey home.

We boarded, or rather squished our way in through the mass of people. Wanting to be sure we were heading in the right direction, we asked if the train was heading to our suburb and more importantly, if it would be stopping. Their answers raised my heart rate instantly. They replied: “The train will stop at your station, but you won’t be able to get off”. They explained, that the number of people squishing into the train would make it impossible for us to exit.

The train rattled on and we pushed and squeezed our way to the open doorway where men were already hanging outside the train. We needed to be at the very edge of the carriage door when our stop came. Our heart rates soared as our platform approached and we lent into the in flowing crowd just as the train stopped… we did it, we exited the train!

It must also be said, that throughout the chaos in Mumbai, the people are very tolerant of each other. After the chaos of boarding a train, people then apologize when the sway of the moving train bumps their shoulder into mine. After we have settled on a tuc-tuc price which is 20 percent of the original quote, the driver gives his little smile and head wobble and is excited to have us on board. Chaos is part of their life in Mumbai and they have learnt to thrive in it.

Together with Irina and Fabian we explored this buzzing city during the last couple of days. We went to the worlds biggest Laundry slum, sipped chai here and there, got lost a few times, watched the sunset at the crowded beach, got invited to a wedding ceremony in a temple, ate delicious and very hot food, regretted it the next time we had to go to the toilet and took tuc-tuc-rides all over the city. In the evening of our fist day together, Fabian said that Mumbai feels like the stressful end of an open-air music festival where everyone is packing to leave as quick as possible, everything is covered in rubbish and dirt, there is still a lot of noise and everything is a bit chaotic. I would have never thought of this comparison but it is true in a way!

After only one day, we agreed that we can not possibly ride our bicycles out of Mumbai, the traffic is too dangerous. We researched our possibilities and decided to take a train to the hopefully quieter and less crowded Udaipur in the North of India. Today in the morning we got up at six and took two big Uber cars for us four and all our luggage to the central train station. There we had to say goodbye to our bikes again. 40 Minutes before departure, two young boys wheeled them away from us, saying that they will bring them to the luggage carriage.

Now, 8 hours later we are still in the train, hoping our bikes are too. Indian train rides are a unique experience. We booked four tickets for the sleeping carriage and were surprised when we found our booked seats already taken by not four but seven people. After a bit of discussing we finally found a place to sit and watch the show: People everywhere, wind filling the carriages from the open doors and the countless fans at the ceiling, chai sellers walking by every few minutes, followed by samosas, Indian lunch box, fruit and roasted nut sellers always singing out what they have to offer.

In the middle of all this I try to concentrate on writing this blog post, not sure how well that went:). The green landscape dotted with little towns and farms is flashing by the window and I am excited for the next two months in this incredible country.

Talk to you soon and hopefully with our two bikes
Matt and Jasi

India

Bicycle Touring Video – India

Cycling from India to Nepal