Saturday 4 February 2012

Where I Am And Where I'm Going 03/02/2011

5,500 miles cycled so far.

The route: Darlo-Northallerton-York-Beverley-Hull-ferry-Zeebrugge-Brugges-Antwerp-Maastricht-Verviers-Stadtkyll-Cochem-Rheintal-Bingen-Mainz-Frankfurt-Mains-Tauber-Rothenburg-Altmuhl-Eichstatt-Landshut-Vilshofen-Donau-Passau-Linz-Krems-Vienna-Bratislava-Mosonmagyorovar-Gyor-Komorom-Tatabanya-Budapest-Dunaujvaros-Baja-Backi Breg-Sombor-Novi Sad-Strazilova-Belgrade-Pancevo-Smederovo-Pozerevac-Petrovac-Bor-Pirot-Dimitrovgrad-Sofia-Plovdiv-Edirne-Istanbul-Beykoz-Kayagze-Sile-Karacaköy-Kaynarca-Adapazari-Bolu-Ankara-Cappadocia-Kayseri-Sivas-Zara-Erzincan-Erzurum-Horason-Agri-Dogubayezit-Çaldiran-Van-Ozalp-Khom-Tabriz-Bostan-Abad-Zanjan-[bus]-Esfehan-Yazd-Shiraz-Firuz Abad-Bandar Abbas-Sharjah-Dubai-[aeroplane]-Delhi-Rishikesh-Delhi

So I'm in Delhi for the last time - the last time for six weeks, at least. Jonathan is catching a flight back tonight, and I'm booked into a ratbag hotel for the night. In the morning, I'll be on the road to Jaipur, the fabled pink city.

More importantly, I'll be back cycling, back on my own, and hopefully back in my tent, though this whole region is very populous, making it difficult to camp, and it be Tiger Country between Delhi and Jaipur. I've dealt with Monkey Corner and the Elephant Corridor - how hard can it be?

I also hope to get back to living cheaply. I don't think Jonathan realised how frugally I had been existing, and it wasn't really fair to force Jonathan to live like that for his two week-holiday, so we made a few compromises. Mainly, he paid for stuff. I look forward to trying out the street and roadside eateries - they're everywhere in India.

Being back on my own will be a bit like starting all over again, as I've been in Delhi for two weeks with Jonathan and had a week and a half of drinking in Dubai before that. I felt good on the cycling we have done - in fact, I felt amazingly fit on the hills around Rishikesh - and I'm itching to do more cycling.

Still, I'm glad to be returning to Delhi, as in six weeks my sister comes to visit. Six weeks to ride around Rajasthan, and possibly Gujarat, and I hope to fit in a visit to Varanasi, but that's in completely the opposite direction, even if Uttar Prasand is utterly flat. I'll work it out - India laughs at plans and itineraries, it's much better just to go and see what happens.

street scene in Old Delhi

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