Outside the 7/11 a number of market stalls are selling hot and spicy street food, sarongs, car tools, and random paraphernalia. One aging vendor is sitting behind a table on which is a rather impressive display of knives, swords, and switchblades. I used to have a sword collection, so I stroll over for a closer look. One of the elaborately costumed gang members also sashays over to the stand with his best I’m a badass cowboy swagger. He’s dressed in a skin-tight black tank top, tasseled leather trousers decorated with a large silver buckle and chains, and a giant silver and turquoise medallion around his neck. His long, multibraided hair is partially covered by a faux-aged leather cowboy hat. He evidently feels that dressing up as his anime-themed alter ego is cool, and subsequently so do I. The manga cowboy picks up two of the Japanese katanas and begins dancing with them, whirling the swords in coordinated movements, slashing the air closer and closer to where I’m standing. He’s showing off. He knows it; I know it.
“Gang mak!” I say with a thumbs-up, and receive the shy smile of a schoolboy getting some much-desired approval from his teacher. Not such a tough guy after all. “Photo?” I ask, holding up my phone.
He grabs it from my hand eagerly, passes it to the old man behind the stand, says something in Thai, and receives a nod in reply. A sword still in each hand, he breaks into a range of practiced poses next to me until his friends whistle that they’re ready to leave.
“You. Very cool,” he tells me.
“You very cool too,” I say.
He seems pleased to hear it and gives my hand a vigorous shake. His friends are already in the convertible, revving the engine ostentatiously, and he jumps into the backseat without opening the door. The four of them salute me with fists raised in the air, shouting “Cool bike, phalang,” as they roar away, leaving me much gratified by the validation.
I continue another thirty-five miles down the road. At around midday, the hottest time of day, I decide to find somewhere to break for lunch. Bangkok is now no more than forty miles away, and I’ve booked a flight to India for the following morning, so I can afford to rest for an hour or two. A jeep has pulled off the road, and I stop to ask how far it is to the nearest village. The family of three sisters and one brother, ranging in age from twenty to fifty, don’t speak much English, so I signal by raising my fingers to my mouth.
“Gin ahaan,” I say. Eat food.
“Aaaaahhh,” the sisters say simultaneously, then chatter together for a minute.
“You eat shrimp?” the youngest finally asks. She is clearly the designated translator, having learned some basic English in school.
“Dai ka!” Of course I do.
“Koon gin kap rea.” You eat with us. “Eat shrimp, okay?”
“Okay.”
She signals for me to follow them. They pile back into the jeep and crawl down the road for a couple of miles while I follow behind as fast as I can. After ten minutes they pull up next to a makeshift structure with bamboo and straw thatching that serves as an open-air restaurant. Rustic tables and benches are scattered around on the uneven bare earth. Three massive plastic tubs are off to one side of the seating area, filled with water and giant tiger prawns. Customers get up and scoop out bucketfuls of live shrimp—as much as they want to eat—and hand them to the cook to roast or fry.
For the next hour, we eat fried shrimp and drink Singha beer till we can eat and drink no more. Through a combination of my limited Thai, their limited English, and a whole lot of sign language and sound effects, they hear all about my adventures, and I learn all about their lives and jobs. They’re a close family of independent women, all either working or studying, all now single, with one a single mother and one divorced.
“No men,” they say with two thumbs down. “Men mai ben.” No good. The brother, who is the oldest of the four siblings and married, just smiles and shrugs. How can you fight a family of feisty women?
We part knowing we’ll never see each other again but glad we met for lunch. It’s one of those unplanned moments that you sometimes get on a journey, when a memory you will never forget is created like a photograph or a postcard. They were on a family day out together, yet for an hour they invited me, a complete stranger, into their world.
Revolving day by day within our tiny individual worlds, it’s easy to get an inflated sense of self and see the world from an egocentric perspective. Being the outsider in other people’s worlds makes me realize what an insignificant cog I am in this larger machine called humanity. The more you travel, the smaller the world becomes, while at the same time you and the things you thought were important shrink, too.
I continue pedaling toward Bangkok, belly bloated and gurgling with too much half-digested shrimp, head woozy from too many beers, but it’s worth it.
Bangkok is a daunting metropolis that is a nightmare for cyclists. It takes as long to cross the city and reach the airport as it took to cycle the previous thirty miles. The most harrowing part of the whole ordeal is the final airport approach. I cannot find any small back roads, so I’m left with no choice but to pedal along the highway. Cars honk as they speed by at sixty miles per hour. I hug the curb of the overpass, as close as I can get to the metal barrier. It’s terrifying and seems to go on for ever. When I finally ride into the airport complex, tense and shaken, stomach churning, I could kiss the tarmac.
INDIAN NIGHTMARES
OCTOBER 24, 2012
My first day cycling in India starts with a bang. Trying to get out of Kolkata, I weave through the seething, living chaos of trucks, buses, rickshaws, and bikes laden with pots, animals, and merchandise; of pedestrians, motorists, other cyclists, dogs, cows, goats, and piles of garbage, and everywhere there is an interminable stench of rotting rubbish, feces, and sickly sweet incense.
A truck approaches on my right, and I’m already hugging the curb when a man darts out into the street, directly in my path. He sees me two feet away and freezes. There’s nowhere to swerve to avoid him, and it’s far too late to brake. “Move! Move! Move!” I shout, milliseconds before impact. The collision sends Pegasus and me sprawling across the pavement.
“Are you crazy?” I yell at no one. The guy has already scampered away. I pick myself up and realign the bike chain. “People with a death wish . . .” I mutter testily, ignoring the blood dripping down my shin and shakily remounting Pegasus. I just want to get onto the open road, but it takes over two hours to maneuver my way out of the city.
Twenty-five miles down the highway, my stomach reminds me I haven’t eaten breakfast. At a little roadside truck stop restaurant, I pull over for chai and biscuits. While I eat, a small crowd gathers around Pegasus, pinching and prodding the tires as if they were testing fruit for ripeness. “Expensive?” they ask in the international sign language for money, rubbing thumb and first two fingers together.
“No, noooo,” I lie, vigorously shaking my head.
Pegasus is a two-wheel rock star around here. Each time I stop along the road from Kolkata to Bhubaneshwar, a new crowd swoops in. At first this makes me nervous and claustrophobic, but gradually I begin to understand that most of the attention is focused on the bicycle. People gather just to touch the tires; they have never seen any so thin. Even covered in dust and filth, compared to the rusty single-gear contraptions they all ride, Pegasus sticks out like a Ferrari next to tractors. One more reason not to let my bike out of my sight. I squeeze into the toilet cubicles with him, and he is always within arm’s reach wherever I stop to eat.
After eighty miles I’m getting desperately hungry and thirsty and feeling the effects of the sun. I ride into Kharagpur, where throngs of men with orange powder smeared down the centers of their foreheads are blocking the road and waving three-foot-long sabers to the rhythm of drums. It’s the national Hindu festival of Dussehra, which celebrates the Lord Rama’s victory over the demon king Ramaha—the age-old triumph of good over evil.
I had no idea before flying into India that I would be arriving on a public holiday. Everything is closed, apart f
rom a few filthy roadside stalls cooking food next to piles of rubbish that are pecked by crows and sniffed by cadaverous street dogs. Everything—rubbish, food, and scavengers—is covered with flies. Having lived in Mumbai as a child, I know better than to eat food from street stalls. You should only ever drink bottled water and eat packaged food or fresh food that is cooked in front of you. I remember that we soaked all the vegetables and fruit from the market in salt water for at least an hour. My stomach may be tougher than most, but nobody passes through India unscathed. I can only hope I developed some kind of immunity to the worst of the bacteria during childhood.
When I finally find a restaurant that seems to be open, they tell me they won’t be serving food until the evening.
“Please,” I beg, “I’m so hungry, I’ll eat anything you’ve got.”
I must look especially pathetic, because they take pity on me and offer some leftover biryani. I figure as long as they heat the food over a fire, it should be all right. There is no real alternative. I scarf down the fragrant yellow rice while the owner, cook, and waiter sit on a row of plastic chairs to watch me. The waiter keeps trying to persuade me to take him to “my country” so he can get a visa. I try to explain that there is no “my country,” but eventually give up in favor of stuffing my face.
Fed and watered, I ask for the toilet and am escorted into a dark, cavernous room full of rubbish and dirty pots. From the industrial stove in the center, I deduce that this is also the kitchen. The waiter points to an open drain in the corner: “There.”
I realize with mounting horror that they must have cooked the food I have just eaten in here.
“Never mind,” I say, smiling weakly, and briefly consider retching up my lunch.
Meanwhile the owner has mounted Pegasus and is taking a wobbly spin around the little cement courtyard. I let out a nervous yelp when he nearly crashes into a wall. It’s definitely time to go.
“Uh, thank you for the food,” I say. “I must be leaving now.” With one possessive hand on Pegasus’s handlebars, I pay for lunch, wondering what the fate of my stomach will be and knowing from experience that an internal war against the sudden germ invasion has already begun.
Cycling out of town toward the highway, I am pursued by a couple of young men on a motorbike. They are dressed like Bollywood sidekicks: collared shirts buttoned low, rolled up at the sleeves, and tucked into tight jeans; hair extravagantly gelled; aviator sunglasses. “Madam, stop a moment!” they holler at me.
I refuse to stop, but they follow persistently for a few miles.
“Please, madam, we just want to take photos with you.”
When it becomes clear that they aren’t going to leave me alone, I pull over. A second motorbike with two more guys on board putters alongside. The four of them jump off their bikes and take turns posing next to me, with the enthusiastic photographer of the group commenting between snaps, “Oh, yes, very sexy.” Yeah, right. That is exactly how I would describe myself right now.
Eventually I get rid of them and am back on the road. The sun starts setting at four, and by five it is almost dark. I decide to turn off at the little town of Belda. I am not about to cycle alone at night in India. There is only one hotel—on the second floor of a crumbling building with peeling pink paint—where a vociferous argument is taking place between the manager and a cross-eyed old woman. They are too absorbed in the heated exchange to notice me enter. A huddle of mustachioed men are sitting on the single lobby sofa, listening, laughing, and commenting on the uproar. I wait a good twenty minutes until it becomes clear that acquiring fresh clientele is less of a priority than winning the debate. Eventually I plant myself impatiently in front of the manager’s desk, so it’s impossible for him to ignore me. He stares up with a distinctly hostile look that says I have no business standing there.
“Hello, I need a room.”
“How many in your party?” Apparently I have an invisible entourage.
“Just me.”
“You are alone?” He looks at me incredulously, uncertain how to proceed.
One of the guys from the peanut gallery says something in Hindi, with a single discernible word—“cycle.” The manager glances from me to Pegasus, then back to me, and starts laughing as though this is the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. Shaking his head and mumbling something under his breath, he puts me through the laborious registration formalities, and I’m finally led to a room with yellowing walls, a bare straw mattress, a clothesline slung from wall to wall, and no toilet paper or soap. I plod back wearily to the front desk and act out the motions of putting a sheet on the bed. The manager rolls his eyes and calls the assistant, who reluctantly drags himself over.
Meanwhile the cross-eyed woman has dashed to the linen cupboard, pulled out some bedding, and rushed into my room. Leaping nimbly onto the bed, she throws out the sheet like a fisherman casting a net. The assistant, roused by the activity, follows a few seconds behind and tears off the freshly laid sheet with a single violent movement. This sets off a volley of unintelligible expletives from the woman, which the assistant fires back just as rapidly, before chasing her from the room with one hand raised threateningly. She continues her screeching tirade in the hall, while he slowly and methodically makes up the bed again. Although I cannot understand a word, the whole drama is incredibly entertaining.
When they finally leave me alone, I turn to lock the door and discover there is no key. So it is back to the front desk again. The manager pretends not to understand. I mime a key being turned in a lock. He shrugs and waves a hand as if to say Don’t worry about it. I’m plenty worried about it, of course, and insist that I must have a key and cannot sleep the night with an unlocked door. He reluctantly pulls open a drawer and hands one over.
Returning to my room, I nearly collide with the old woman, who is waiting for me with one hand outstretched and the other pointing to her open palm. I ignore her and close and lock the door, vaguely wondering what will await me when I open it in the morning.
OCTOBER 25, 2012
At six a.m. I am awakened by the sound of the doorknob slowly turning. When whoever is on the other side finds it locked, they start pounding their fists against it instead. I unlock the door and pull it open with some displeasure, to find the persistent old woman standing there, still pointing to her palm. I imagine the argument of the previous night probably had something to do with her disturbing the clientele with her entrepreneurial tip-seeking.
It is an inauspicious start to my second day in India, which soon takes a flying nosedive. The biryani of the day before has already taken effect. I awoke in the middle of the night, my stomach an internal tsunami, and spent most of the next few hours on the toilet. I know I risk severe dehydration by cycling in the Indian heat without food in my stomach, but I am not prepared to stay another day in this hotel of horrors, so I pack up my gear and aim to reach Balasore, sixty miles away. They prove to be the longest sixty miles I have ever cycled. My head is pounding and my stomach is close to imploding—or exploding—before I have even left Belda.
Antonio calls around ten-thirty. “Everything okay?”
“No. I don’t know if I can go on. I have to go to the toilet so badly I can hardly pedal.”
“So just stop somewhere.”
The sound that comes gurgling out of me is somewhere between a cry of pain and a hysterical laugh. “Just stop—where? I’m on a highway in the middle of nowhere.”
“Listen, I’ll book into a hotel in Balasore and see if they can come and get you.”
I keep on pedaling, dizzy from the heat and from the unbearable pain in my gut.
Antonio calls again. “Ju, you’re booked into a clean hotel. Just try to reach Balasore, and then you can rest.”
I wonder what planet he’s on. A lot of sarcastic replies come to mind, but “’Kay” is all I can manage to say before hanging up.
I have to stop every few miles, with one leg wrapped tightly around the other like a licorice stick while my st
omach rumbles and shakes with the early stirrings of yet another intestinal eruption. By the time I enter Balasore, there is no more holding it. Right in the middle of the street, it explodes, and I run with crossed legs into the first hotel I see. “Help!” I shout desperately. “Please! The toilet!”
The old white-bearded man in a turban at the reception desk points wordlessly to a door at the end of the hall. The next half hour is pretty gross and grim. Fortunately there is a shower in the bathroom, and I use it to wash myself, my clothes, and lastly the room itself. As I rinse out my soiled shorts, I start laughing. It is one of those scenarios you hear about but never imagine could happen to you. I have crapped myself like a baby at thirty-one years of age. I think I may have hit my lowest point yet. Veritable rock bottom. It can’t get any worse than this, can it? Putting my wet clothes back on, I emerge from the bathroom feeling sheepish.
“Thank you,” I mumble to the man behind the desk.
“Ten rupees.” With that, he declares the extent of his indifference. I fish out the cost of my shame and slink out, all pride completely pulverized.
The hotel Antonio has booked me into is six miles farther up the road. The luxury of a clean bed has never been more appreciated, and I stay in it for the remainder of the day. I hope the rest will allow me to start pedaling again tomorrow morning.
OCTOBER 26, 2012
Keeping down some yogurt and boiled eggs for breakfast is all the encouragement I need to get going. Antonio calls and advises me to rest an extra day, but I’m up and back on the road by seven-thirty. Over 125 miles later, I reach the city of Bhubaneshwar, running a high fever.
OCTOBER 27, 2012
One day my stubbornness will be the death of me. This morning I cannot get out of bed. As much as it kills me to admit it, if I don’t stop and rest now, I risk being laid up for days with something serious. The obvious solution is a course of antibiotics and lots of sleep.
This Road I Ride Page 13