longhaulers

It’s amazing where you can end up while travelling on spontaneity and last minute decesion making…it’s also amazing how fast the time here is going. it feels like i updated this blog a few days ago, but i think it’s been more like 3 weeks in actuality.  we’ve been busy little bees indeed.

We did a 3-day cycle from Jodhpur to Pushkar in Rajasthan. Pushkar is a backpacker hangout and holy town centered around a small polluted lake - during which all the fish died, presumably from a toxic algal bloom. we spent a week here…i’m not really sure doing what now…a lot of shopping i suppose, although a lightning storm/duststorm was a highlight. We decided to drop some dime and put together a parcel of Indian goods, with the intent of doing a market stall sometime down the road, probably in Tasmania. Pushkar is definately the place to do this, we met a lot of other travellers with a similar plan, and the shopkeepers are familiar with wholesale selling and shipping goods. so, feeling totally shopped out - our heads spinning with shawls, earrings, stones, etc. We decided to bus it to Rishikesh.

We took a bus partly because it is too hot to cycle on the plains this time of year and also there was the chance of crossing paths with some friends from Tassie. I can’t say it’s much fun travelling with bikes in India when you are not riding them. It provides a fine opportunity for bus/tour operators to try and charge us an arm and a leg. But we made it…

Rishikesh the holy city where the sacred Ganges River emerges from the Himalayas. It’s also the yoga capital of the world apparently. Sonja got her yoga on pretty regularly. I tenatively dipped my toe, attending some of the free Hatha yoga classes and the studio next to our room - where else can you do a guided yoga class for $2.50us. It’s been good, but really made me realize how inflexible i really am. I’ve directed my energies elsewhere, as I got into a good groove with my sketchbook. It’s the first time I’ve really gotten back into drawing since I graduated 9 months ago (9 months ago!). It’s feels good though, and the more I do it the easier and more free it becomes. my first drawings were really stiff and forced - and far too clean. but now Indian stimulii is beginning to manifest in the drawings and it’s getting interesting. Unfortunately, it’s been another little bout of illness that’s kept me laid up….but able to sketch. I’m better now, hopefully the sketching groove persists.

Rishi was a really nice relaxing time - still indian crazy, but a respite from the craziness that is the rest of India. Before we knew it two weeks had passed. we met up with our good friends from Tassie and spent our days conversing and eating in cafes, reading, yogaing, walking, and going for our daily abolutions in the icy cold Ganges River (it’s only a little polluted at this point).

We had this plan all worked out to head west on the bikes for a meditation class and some challanging himalayan cycletouring. …but then the night before we would have left, we decided to ditch our bikes and go to Nepal. We rented out a shed for our bikes, bought a rip-off north face backpack, loaded it up and changed our traveller status from ‘cycle tourist’ to ‘backpacker’. Then we proceded to catch a series of night buses to Pokhara, Nepal. We crossed the western border early in the morning at a small crossing approched via horse.

After two days of riding on buses I was dearly missing my bike. The buses here can best be described as ‘pain-traps’. The seats are all very close together so your knees are constantly banging into the seat in front of you - often against a protruding screw or something else sharp. this is compounded by the gnar pot holes that send you airborn off your seat. The woman behind us was vomiting for hours on end. sleeping/standing people, bags, and chickens fill the center aisle while the roof of the bus was packed with about 30 goats! these poor goats made the entire 19 hour bus ride strapped to the top of the bus, the potholes were even worse for them and you’d hear them braying/screaming after hitting a particularily large pothole. then all this goat piss would run down from the roof and drip through your window if you didn’t close it in time. Actully I’m not even sure how the bus was running, they would push-start it every time. So after two night buses, or about 30 sleepless hours on the pain-traps we most relived to arrive in the green, mountain filled valley where i’m writing from.

We’ve met some cycle tourists. One, a Dutch guy who had started in Bejing a year ago and cycled over the Himalyas and all over India, 13,000km I think he said. pretty amazing - he was headed for Iran next and then to south america to tour from chile to the states. Even more inspiring though was a Nepali guy, maybe around 23, who had just cycled across the Terai (from the eastern border to west on the southern plains of Nepal). His bike was the typical junker that looked to be barely operable - in fact the deruiller was broken. he didn’t have any baggage except for a small bag strapped to his rear rack. He was doing this trip before his exams, but he didn’t have any money so he stayed in police stations every night. he said that money didn’t matter to him…it’s better to give freely and have a big heart than to have a lot of money. It was so good to meet someone with such a pure spirit, doing something amazing with so little. He really puts us and our fancy bikes and any worries we have to shame.

So here we are. In Pokhara. Tomorrow we’ll start out on a 7-day trek to Annapurna Sanctuary and base camp. The Annapurna range is massive over this town, and is drawing us towards it. Then I think it’s on to Kathmandu for a 10-day Tibetan Buddhist meditation/philosophy class at the Kopan Monastery, and more treking…..

namaste!

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