Blog

Just a “quick” update since its been a couple weeks.  The availablility of internet seems to have dropped out from under us.  In this good sized market town of Chanchal in West Bengal, some 500km north of Calcutta, both “internet cafes” infact have been computer stores with one computer connected to the world wide web via dialup modem, and the first place’s computer was still running Windows 98 and I couldn’t get anything done in 30min due to slowness.  I had heard that India’s infrastructure was much less developed than China, but I’m somehow still shocked by the reality.  The last two days’ stressful ride on National Highway 34, which is in a state of disrepair and is only 2 lanes wide on par with a back county road in Minnesota, certainly has added to this shock.  Luckily, we found a small road to break of today which has less traffic and is smoother. 

On the otherhand, contrary to some reports from other cyclists, I’ve found the Indians that I’ve met to be quite friendly and very welcoming.  Today was exceptional, with middle school students who are now on holiday eagerly leading us to their Christian school (Christian schools are considered among India’s best) and giving us a tour, obviously proud.  Additionally, the family running the restaurant where we ate this evening took very good care of us and even gave us free desert afterwards.  Meanwhile, while we were eating, they were taking photos of us (as passersby were stepping in and crowding the entrance to look at us and/or shake our hands) and then asked if they could video us, obvious that they were happy to have us.  Even while I’ve been sitting here typing, people occasionally enter this little room and introduce themselves to me, wanting to shake my hand, humbleing me with their honoring.

After a great week with Brian Heilman (SJU ‘05 who has been living there since last August working with an NGO and school) in a small village named Katna, near Kandi town (250km north of Calcutta) in the state of West Bengal, us boys are heading north towards the Himilayas while Nakia has headed south via train to the state of Tamil to also do some volunteering with an NGO (Drew is riding Nakia’s bike since his was stolen and Nakia is not riding now). 

Nakia is still dealing with her passport and the fact that she has no more visa pages left and all the Bahamian consulate offices in Asia can’t do anything.  They can’t “add” pages like American consulates do, they have to issue a whole new passport.  For awhile it seemed the only solution was for her to fly to the Bahamas in person, which would financially end the trip for her.  Now, there may be a possbility via the UK and mailing, but that may not work out either.  To explore the latter option though, she has to be stationed in one spot, hence our spliting.  Once her passport is sorted in 1, 2, or 3? months we will reunite, God willing, with her training or flying ahead to where we are.  We are still hopeful about Pakistan, and especailly Iran as we have a contact in Iran helping us apply for the visas, though both are still very uncertain.  The final decisions will be made in Dehli in 1.5 months.  The good news is that a very nice Turkish girl whom we met in Calcutta told us about a reasonably priced flight from western India (Rajistan) to Istanbul (the gateway to Europe) and invided us to spend time with her in Istanbul upon arrival, thus solidifying our backup plan.  So things look favorable for FBR to really make this trip an inter-continental expedition.

Jim, Drew, and I, will continue pedaling, though since we want to give Nakia some added time to increase the possibilty of her leaving India with us (2 more months).  So, in a meeting in Calcutta, we’ve agreed to Drew’s suggestion to add a northern side swipe through Nepal, since if we went straight to Dehli we’d arrive in 3 weeks, southern India is entering its hottest time of the year at the end of April, and Katmandu is “almost” on the way to Dehli from Calcutta (check your world map!).  Since we originally decided against going through Tibet due to the difficulty of Himilayan riding, and the beautiful Kharakorum highway of northern Pakistan is also not on our route, our dip into Nepal will be our brush up to the “roof top of the world,” which is so close to where we are, how could we miss the opportunity? 

An Indian town famous among tourists, Darjeeling, will be our first stop and view of the Himilayas, including a view of Mount Everest.  Biking north from Calcutta, the terrain has been very flat rice fields, so once we get to the foothills we may change our minds, but right now we’re looking forward to cooler weather and great views that we’ll have to work for.

We’ll update as we can, though it may be weeks between good internet stops.

As spring is arriving, we hope you’re getting your bicycle dusted off & tuned up, getting ready for a new season of riding, hopefully more than last year!  =)

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 10:46 am and is filed under Pete's Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.