Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle (9 page)

There I was climbing the Aravalli Range, the trees thin and stark like upright skeletons, when the desert came alive with dark figures appearing from nowhere as if emerging from the dry earth itself. As they neared I saw that they were children, some of them teenagers and all seemingly stuck together with filth. They chased me as I rode.

‘
Namaste
!
Namaste
!’

Eventually I was stopped by a group that blocked me by walking in front, one of them yanking at my pack-rack, jerking me to a sudden, violent stop.

‘ONE PEN! ONE PEN! ONE PEN!’ they demanded.

‘Sorry, no pen. All gone,’ which was true. In Udaipur, I had given them all to Lanarge and Manarge, who were probably now doing James Brown dance spins and twirls on the patio – ‘HEEEYYY!’

‘ONE PEN! ONE PEN! ONE PEN!’ They tugged at my arms, my pack, my shorts, and my handlebars. I tried to move off but they gripped tight to the pack-rack.

‘ONE PEN! ONE PEN!’

I looked around. Dust rose in swirls over shale and broken rocks.

‘What exactly are you going to write on?’

‘ONE PEN! ONE PEN! ONE PEN!”

I managed to prise their little fingers from the bike, slip on the gears, and break from the pack, hearing their voices eventually turn into soft squeaks. But this was not the end, oh, no. Up ahead, more children had gathered and, like a dark storm cloud, descended the slope screaming ‘ONE PEN! ONE PEN! ONE PEN!’

I picked up speed again, my bad knee burning at the sudden pedal work. Thankfully, a downward stretch hastened my escape and again I was free. But, as I slowed to climb the next hill …

‘ONE PEN! ONE PEN! ONE PEN!”

‘Oh, hell!’ I sped up again, my lungs burning, my knee a hot knot of pain and threatening to pop off my thighbone. Over the hill and … silence. Well, almost. Ahead, I saw dark shapes bumping around. They were too small to be children. As I neared, a huge dark shape glided over me and landed in the middle of a water buffalo carcass. It suddenly flew off, squawking, having been chased by the low growl and snaps of three rabid-looking dogs.

Vultures.

I stopped the bike. Across the road there were over 200 of them, hawing and squabbling. They may have been graceful in flight but on the ground they hopped and bounced around like Edward G. Robinson
xi
in a gangster movie. ‘Hey, you guys lay off! This cow is mine,
seeeee
! Yaaah!
Miiiiiiiiine
!’

The dogs were busily ripping the carcass to pieces, finishing off the tiny bits of red meat, blood smearing and matting their snouts. I was more afraid of the dogs than the vultures, and was reminded of the last time I saw a dog so hellish, in Madhya Pradesh. I had passed a water buffalo by the side of the road and presumed it was asleep until I saw a mangy dog ripping the buffalo’s rear end out, pieces of flesh the colour of red wine dripping into the dust. The dog flashed its teeth at me, making every hair on my neck stand up and my legs pedal faster.

I left the vultures and the dogs to their carrion meal, and, upon entering a small dusty town, I too was ready to eat. I sat and had
gobi mutter
(cauliflower and peas) and a dodgy-looking
samosa
sinking in an island of oil. A taxi missing a wheel was slumped by the side of the road. The passenger, a large fat man with a nose like a red mushroom, got out and sat at my table.

‘Tyre. Is broken. I vait for fixing,’ he said in a thick German accent and then looked at my bike as if he wanted to swap places. He yelled at the driver, ‘TAXI FUCKING!’ The driver smiled and continued to smoke his small cigarette.

I left him there, tut-tutting at his swearing, riding the high moral ground not knowing that very shortly I would be in a far worse situation. A few kilometres down the road I felt my lunch taking hold and the awful immediacy that goes with it. I pulled the bike under a shady spot, careful to avoid thistle thorns that have caused many a puncture. I got the loo paper ready, looked around, hoisted my pants down and let gravity do the talking.

Just when I was halfway through this number I heard the unmentionable – ‘ONE PEN! ONE PEN! ONE PEN!’ – and snapped around to see what seemed to be the entire population of Indian children smiling and staring at my groaning, spluttering arsehole.

Dear reader. I wish I was more understanding about the curiosity of these poor children. But I wasn’t. Not with my pants down. I swore, I raged, I hurled unmentionable profanities.

And you know, it didn’t have any effect whatsoever! It encouraged them! They moved in a circle around me, some holding their noses, others laughing.

‘HAVE YOU NO SHAME!’ I screamed at them, trying vainly to shoo them away with the scraggy piece of loo paper.

‘ONE PEN! ONE PEN! ONE PEN!’

‘ARRRGHH!’

Perhaps because of the rage in my voice, the burning mad stare in my eyes and not to mention the diarrhoea that had sparked up in volcanic velocity since, the kids’ expressions blanked into a panic and they ran in the direction from which they came.

‘What the hell would they want a pen for?’ I chewed on these words like the gravel I was now riding over. ‘They’re most likely illiterate anyway.’

Thankfully, I’d calmed down by the time I’d got to Ranakpur which consisted of nothing more than a
chai
stall … oh, and a 15
^th
century marble Jain temple standing out like a monstrous three-storey wedding cake.

It was late in the afternoon and Jain monks were quietly walking the sandy grounds of the temple in their white robes, some brushing away debris in front of them as they walked while some had small rectangular masks over their noses and mouths to avoid breathing in insects. They were following the path of
ahimsa
(non-violence) to the extreme and thus avoiding harm to
jivas
or souls that not only lived in all creatures large and small but also in the four elements – water, air, fire and earth. It is a religion that is older than Buddhism and similarly these ascetic monks have relinquished possessions, attachments, wrong thoughts and most difficult of all, family.

This temple was devoted to the first of the 24
tirthankaras
(enlightened beings), Adinath, and, as I walked through some of the 29 ornate rooms, I found friezes depicting his life, including, to my surprise, erotic carvings. Well, if large-breasted figures and a devotee with a large penis is erotic as such. It must be hard being a monk around this temple!

It was magnificent and, because there were no tourists, sublime. However, before I knew it, the temple was closing up and although I could’ve stayed with the monks in their quarters (on a mat, actually) I chickened out and instead had a wonderful quiet rest at the Hotel Shipli (well, except for the geyser in my bathroom that blew up in the middle of the night like a wet grenade).

I struggled with the idea of seeing the temple again the next morning but it opened at ten o’clock – too late for beating the heat of the day. Regrettably, I left.

By lunch time the next day I realised I wasn’t free of something – Pen People. Arriving in Jodhpur I saw that tourists were being jumped, grabbed and followed by gangs of children demanding you-know-what. Strangely, this made me smile.

I was told later that the kids were not demanding pens for literacy reasons but because they wanted to resell them, and that ‘One pen’ was another way of asking for money.

‘Manarge and Lanarge! You’ve sold me up river!’

I had originally been lured to Jodhpur by the incredible photographs by travel photographer Steve McCurry in his glorious photologue called
Monsoon
. Jodhpur was known as the ‘blue city’, named because, well, it was blue. Well, the old city at least. The walls had been painted blue not for aesthetic reasons but to combat termites and other pests. McCurry had captured the vibrancy of the town by framing proud Rajputs in their red turbans standing in front of the blue walls. However, some years had passed, and as I stood in the Mehrangarh Fort that towered over the city, the iridescent blue had now faded to a soft mauve.

The fortress was the fourth-largest in India and had been built on a high rocky outcrop with thick imposing walls. One intriguing story in its construction was that the founder, the Rajput ruler of Mandore, Rao Jodha, buried a man called Rajiya Bhambi alive in the foundations to ensure its good luck, though not for ol’ Ray. ‘Guys, somehow I don’t know think this in the Occupational Health and Safety Guide –
glop, glop, glop
.’

That night, I enjoyed an exquisite Rajasthani dish of
chakki-ka-sagh
(dumplings in gravy) on the terrace of the Haveli Guest House while the Mehrangarh Fort faded into the background like an enormous black backdrop.

I might have stayed longer in Jodhpur if not for the hordes of touts and tourists pawing off each other, a mutual exchange of gain and disdain. I was starting to gather that I was least happy in touristic areas; local people I met usually had an ulterior motive. This was felt particularly when it came to auto-rickshaw drivers who harangued tourists mercilessly. ‘No,’ seemed to mean, ‘Yes, ask me again if I need a lift.’

However, one night, the tables turned – I actually got to drive a rickshaw! A rickshaw driver, the big smiling Mr King, drove up as I walked and showed me his half completed rickshaw. It was like in the tram in the film
Malcolm
. The front shield was there, welds still fresh, no license plate, while the motor, chassis and crankshaft were exposed and quite naked.

‘India’s first! You come.’ He sat me down on the seat on top of the engine and started it with some rope wrapped around the flywheel.

I grabbed the handlebars and let the clutch out. We lurched into traffic.

‘Shlow … shlow.’ He forced me to ease back on the throttle. We bounced and zipped through the dimly lit narrow streets. I saw two large tourists, one with ‘MONTANA’ emblazoned across his shirt.

‘YOU! YOU!’ I hissed, makes kissing noises at them like I’d seen so many rickshaw drivers do. ‘Rickshaw? Rickshaw? Good price! Good price!’

‘No, thank —’

The American turned around and burst out laughing when he saw me. Later, King dropped me back at the hotel and just when I thought this had all been just a bit of fun he turned around and said, ‘Now, how much you want to pay for the ride?’

Just before I left Jodhpur the following morning, I went to the bank. Now, I’d been warned about how inefficient banks were in India. As I was to discover, it wasn’t that, exactly. After waiting in line then getting a special token from the teller then told to go upstairs and wait, I was finally, after an hour, led into a small office. Files lay this way and that, numerous piles stacked and falling over in lazy lumps. The bank manager, a man with a grey moustache, the ends white as if they’d been dipped in flour, looked at my traveller’s cheque, my passport, then suddenly put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling.

‘Is something wrong?’

‘It is tea break!’ he remonstrated as if I should’ve known and pointed to the clock on the wall. ‘Ten o’clock.’

Shortly thereafter, in came the
chai-wallah
with glasses of
chai
. The manager said something and a piping hot
chai
was placed in my hands.

‘
Dunubud
(Thank you).’

We chatted and at exactly quarter past ten the manager animated back into life and processed my cheque. Now, why can’t all banks be like this? Cup of tea, biscuit, bit of chat and a laugh. Oh, we have lost so much in the West!

I took the back roads on the way to Jaisalmer, known as the Golden Fortress with its sandstone walls and intricate carved
havelis
. It was of particular interest to me as I’d had to prepare a catalogue for it for our college project and it would be wonderful seeing the real thing at last.

It was a hard ride. The roads disappeared into sand drifts and I found myself pushing the bike for hours through the sand and the interminably hot sun.

And so, after eight hours of cycling, I found myself in the tiny town of Shergarh with not one tourist in sight.

Sand swam in the streets, and children played in it and within seconds, I was surrounded by the entire town. Elders, teenagers and small children covered in dirt, all smiling, all very curious about the bike and me.

‘Oh, gear cycle! Gear cycle!’

A young man sashayed through the crowd and introduced himself.

‘I am Rikesh,’ he said, his English impeccable. ‘You are the first foreigner here in a long while. Come, I will take you to the best hotel in Shergarh.’

And it was the best hotel in Shergarh … because it was the
only
hotel in Shergarh! Well, calling it a hotel was a bit generous. It was a storeroom-cum-dorm above the restaurant. I was to share the room with an old Rajput who wore an enormous yellow turban,
dhoti
(wrap around pants) and sported a pointy moustache that belonged more on someone called ‘Brigadier Reginald Dwyer’.

A proud Rajput with fierce eyes owned the restaurant. He sat at a cooking slate on his haunches like a vulture, rolling wads of chapattis in his big bony hands. With his woollen cap and sweater he looked more suited to the sea, at the helm of a fishing boat in a typhoon, than in the dry, calm sands of Shergarh.