Our last week in India has been somewhat of a blur. We went from having loads of time and lots to do, to having no time and still lots to do. At the top of the list was a bike service…
Week Thirty-Nine: A True Taste of Indian Roads
15th December: the last time we really cycled anywhere. That’s eleven days of being in a sedentary state on a beautiful beach. The pathetic bit of cycling we did do over the last couple of weeks was to merely move beaches. We ended up visiting five Goan beaches, which is impressive when you think Goa is only 100 km long (it’s one of the smallest states in India). We got so lazy, so to say the first ride after Christmas was tough would definitely be an understatement.
Week Thirty-Seven: Unexpected Culture Shock
We started this week with roughly 180km and 2,000m of climbing standing between us and beers on a Goan beach with a friend. Oh and we only had three days to do it in. Now I’ll admit that sounds like plenty of time, but we’d already cycled three hilly days straight and were in desperate need of a day off. If you remember we clocked 481km and 4,080m last week. We were shattered…
Week Thirty-Six: Five Ferries For £2.85
India has done it: she finally broke us. It’s taken five-weeks, but at some point this week, we’ve each exclaimed how we’re over it; it being India. This happens to pretty much every traveller here for various reasons, as travelling around India is difficult. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the overly-curious people, erratic driving, or nonsensical rules that sent us over the edge. It was accommodation…
Week Twenty-Four: An Accidental 4* Hotel
As you know, we’ve had some time off the bikes due to recent scandals and scams. We’ve been slowly easing ourselves back into cycling with some flat, easy rides around Kathmandu Valley. This week, we had our first fully-loaded hill climb in about six weeks – since we were in Europe. Wow. It was tough…
Week Twenty-Three: Eggs. TV. Bourbons. Repeat.
We’ve lived some weird kind of groundhog day this week, as we nursed Dan back to full peddle power. We’d wake up and eat last night’s cold pizza, before going out for a late eggs Benedict breakfast (yes, we were still digging for that bone). We’d then spend the afternoon watching films and gorging on bourbon biscuits. Come dinnertime, we’d head back out for pizza, doggy-bagging the slices we couldn’t fit in our faces, to eat cold the following morning. I kid you not. We did this four days in a row…
Week Seventeen: Bye, Bye, Bikes
This week, we arrived in Saint Petersburg after white-knuckle riding the last bit of the E20, which involved four lanes of traffic and dramatic arm signals. Now I was going to jump straight into the goings on in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, but I just wanted to point out the amount of steps we’ve walked this week…
