longhaulers

We feel lucky to have escaped Gorkana…it feels as if we were sucked into a timeless vortex of sand, waves, palms, food and the best little hut in India. after a week passed we reluctantly forced ourselves to leave….but the moment we turned our backs on that crescent of sand and started pedaling the excitment of new things ahead was strong. we had two great days of cycling north into the capital of Goa, Panaji - there was huge thunderstorms everyday in the evenings which kept everything cool, well relatively cool -  88F and humid as.

Once in Panaji, we checked the train schedule for the next leg of our journey and realized that our train would leave the next day from Margao - 36 km south of where we had just come, at 10:30am.

So our trip in south India came to an abrupt end when the next day we got up early and cycled south to battle with indian bueraucracy for tickets for us and the cycles. we ended up with two unconfirmed tickets…which don’t actually reserve you a seat. imagine the train arriving, still pulling into the station while a pushing throng of people attempt to funnel into the general class coach to get a seat. we did get seats to ourselves, which was good as others might have only gotten one cheek on a bench seat with 6 other people. a few people just layed out on the floor. so we settled in for the 30 hr train ride on our hard wooden seats, all the way across India for the costly sum of $20usd and sore asses. but here we are! in Rajasthan!

We are in Jodhpur now, just about recovered from the train ride, and ready to do some more cycling. It’s hotter here, but it’s the desert which means it’s cool at night and most importantly a dry heat! Jodhpur is amazing, there is a massive, ancient sandstone fort perched above the town. The town itself is painted a bright blue. Things are a different, more edgier. the traffic is faster, the streets dirtier, the people more eccentric. there’s camels, the cows are bigger, and the goats look funny - like i want to head-butt them. basically it’s really fun and interesting. also, the best lassi (sweet yogurt drink) in all of India can be found here…a beverage which influenced our decision to choose Jodhpur as our destination.

we’ve been planning out the next 4 months of our trip. which is looking at meeting friends from Tasmania in Rishikesh, doing the 3-week Annapurna circuit trek in Nepal, and cycling the rugged and remote Spiti Valley in the Indian Himalya. Maybe tomorrow we cycle to Pushkar. things are vauge. but that’s how we like it.

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 7:38 am and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.