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Published: March 1st 2009
Things are crazy! last night we sat in a village as the sun was setting wondering where we was going to camp.....This morning we woke up having breakfast with father something or other in his vicarage at an all boys orphanage. This is just a little bit of how random this trip is becoming! The riding stays ok, tiring and hot, the last few days since chitoor has seen some beautifull mountains and up and down hills, the roads are deterioting and right now as we speak we are in desert country, nothing around except industrial chimenys and broken slabs on the road.... and a dead guy today actually, thrown out his truck after smashing into another. We saw this looking back from the hold of a tractor we hitched 30 km with. At first we were clinging on the sides (we grab a tractor whenever we are too tired), but then he offered us a lift to the next town and feeling exhausted we took it.
Erik is fantastic comapany i feel so lucky to have found someone to share this ride with, hes mellow, doesnt ever get stressed and we have a good laugh and some rivetin games of chess haha! I cant stop thinking while im riding, about so many things, my freinds and my family and sometimes i go into breif 10 minuite lapses of hyper depression, but then just as soon i come back to now....its just if you live in the imaginary future with all your desires for freinds family and more, and it isnt there, you start to forget what your doing in the now! stupid i guess.
There are so many interesting stories to tell from this trip, for example, just after chitoor where i wrote the last entry we were pulled over by some reporter, interviewed and thought nothing more of it. the next day we were in some random village and were surrounded by indians as usual this time waving our picture about on the newspaper! for the next 70 km it seemed everyone knew who we were as we passed through! the first 10k this was funny and erik loved being a star, but after this..... it drove me a bit crazy.
You are always surrounded by indians here, i dont mean, surrounded as in they are all around..... i mean, if you take a coffee or a juice or a rest in some grass you are surrounded by 20 to thirty sometimes more...... its really hard to get your privacy! Im trying my hardest to be happy and polite and nice with the questions i have been asked 60 times a day....... i need to remember maybe i meet sixty indians a day who want to know about my life....... but for most of them, i am the first european they saw in their whole life.
This isnt an exageration either!
the other night we were looking for a place to sleep and some boys offered us to stay in their all boys school, we thought it would be worth a try and i have never had such an expereine in all my life. Not one of the people including the head master had ever seen a white person. We were surrounded by 420 boys for the next hour after we arived, a huge circle around us and our bikes, laughing shaking hands, so excited!! We got given a classroom and some mats and given dinner....... The students study until 10.30 pm and then start again at 4.30 am! I was told by a guy called vicky that we are definitley not sleeping after they have finished studying, they all want to meet us properly.
We spent the next couple of hours drinking hot drinks with the english teacher in his hut, they all live there, all year an earn around 4000 rupees a month! we discussed everything to do with india and europe and the differences, we discussed marriage and religion and all sorts of things and of course on every dialouge we had differences. He asked us to sort him a visa to come to europe, we told him we couldnt! He asked us if a european girl would want to marry him, could his family buy her with a dowry, and so on and so on..... until the kids had finished their studies and surrounded us once more......we saw the dorms and the campus and shook a hundred hands! I was overwhelemed completley, i have never had such an expereince. I was so thirsty through emotional exhaustion.....and it was hard to sleep because through the bars of our windows would be little indian kids standing on tip toes trying to see us........if we were talking and not sleeping one would pass and say your not sleeping, why? and want to come in!
It was a great releif to leave the next morning, but at the same time an exhilirating expereince.
Im slowly learning its easy to find somewhere to sleep and the evenings have no worries about them, camped some beautifull spots in the mountains and peoples generosity is never ending. One night we were out in a feild beautifull mountains all around us and then as it got dark we saw flashlights coming towards us. I reacted as i always react, with too much caution and hid our knife underneath my jumper. Erik got his pepper spray ready and we waited for the three or four torches to arrive. They arrived, sticks in hands, glaring down at us and we explained our position, they walked off uninterested. 10 minuites later they came back again, with another man, the land owner. Once again no problem, they warned us of snakes and rather than beating us off their land they offered us their house.
We didnt want it though as it happens, we wanted chess, and to drink alcohol which i hardly ever do at the moment, we had two bottles of lovely indian whisky to get through! They left and i did a quick flash of the torch to check for snakes........still none.
20 minuites later a scooter comes towards us, they are back again, this time with bannnanas,bread,some sweets and some cool water! Amazing!
We stayed up late this night just happy to be alone and be treated so well looking at the stars and talking about everything under a neat hook moon!
So now i am in a town 50 km away from gooty and then another 100km away from our destination hampi, im really ready to get there and relax in a tourist area and take in everything that has happened! from there maybe we will ride another few hundered km before meeting my lovely mother!
Ill write more soon, im sure there will be more to tell! keep in touch
sam xxxxx
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Catherine
non-member comment
11 days and counting
Hi Sam, 11 days then you won't be rid of me for almost 2 weeks! haha Can't wait, I want to see snakes, and monkeys too! Keep cycling, have fun xxx did you find rex?