Russell McGilton - Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle

I flitted from cave to cave taking photographs, dodging postcard sellers and more tourists. Parched by the heat, I grabbed a Sprite and got talking to a rock seller who had a large grey beard and a woven topi .

‘These Indians. They know nothing,’ he said, sweeping his hand derisively towards the stallholders, who were now packing up for the day.

‘Er… aren’t you Indian?’ I asked.

‘No! I am Muslim. They are Hindu.’

But before I could say, ‘But that still makes you Indian, doesn’t it? And oh, what do you mean by “they know nothing?”’, he was waving his next thought at the growing shadows around the valley.

‘You should go with your bicycle and cycle around here while it is getting cool. It is very wonderful to cycle now. You can see many things: monkeys, birds, tigers—’

‘Tigers? Here?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘You’re saying that I should cycle, with tigers about?’

‘Do not worry, my friend. They only eat monkeys and goats.’

The bespectacled manager of my hotel had a different take on the matter.

‘No! Do not walk here at night. There are tigers. It is not safe,’ he warned like some Agatha Christie stooge before bolting like buggery for the crowded Jeep.

I was surprised that there were any tigers in this area, as there was hardly a bush or tree for them to hide under. A hundred years ago, there were at least 40 000 tigers on the Indian subcontinent. But now, following decades of tiger hunting under the British Raj, human encroachment and poaching, the tiger numbers in India have reduced to less than 2000. [viii] The 2010 National Tiger Assessment estimated the total population of tigers in India as 1706

The caves were shutting down and tourists were told to step on it by the baggage man with the big stick. Stalls packed up, samosa shops closed their dusty shutters, and the hawkers, 20 at a time, jumped onto and hung off Jeeps. In less than an hour, the once-busy entrance was quiet. In fact, it was so quiet that I would have one of the most peaceful sleeps in India on my entire trip.

To beat the heat, I got up at five a.m. When I went to the bathroom I pushed the door open to see a small Asian woman shaving her head. She was a Korean monk and told me that she had been here for a week to meditate by the caves. Early mornings were best, before the hordes of tourists arrived.

With the bike now loaded, I felt the rush of cool air, quiet and fresh on my face. I heard a growl somewhere in the darkness.

Tiger?

I turned to see three dogs racing towards me. I jumped off, putting the bike between their gnashing teeth and me.

I reached for the sugar cane stick strapped under the bags. An old woman had cut it for me the day before for me to eat, sitting sidesaddle on a motorbike while her son slowed so he could chat with me as I rode in the afternoon heat.

The leading dog lunged and I swung the cane, causing the dog to recoil and bark more ferociously. The other two, obviously inspired, had a go too, so I started swinging blindly at all of them.

‘Good luck!’ A voice called out from the top floor of the hotel. It was the Korean monk. She beamed a bright smile to me.

‘Thanks!’ I yelled back before taking another swing at the dogs, which were now chorusing a hellish din. ‘GO AWAY!’

‘Much good fortune for you!’

‘Right!’ I jumped back quickly as a jaw made a lunge for my leg.

‘Bye, bye!’ she shouted, waving.

‘Yep! See ya,’ then at the dogs, ‘Would you just PISS OFF!’

I backed the bike down the road, swinging the cane at the dogs as they followed, but then they all stopped as if contained by an invisible force field. I had been evicted; one by one they wagged their tails and went back and curled up under a truck.

I lurched into the darkness; every crackle, leaf turn and ant step had me switching around and twitching with fear.

‘What was that? JUST WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?’

But no tiger was out that morning, and I cycled back over the Ajanta Range. I moved out onto the main road to see farm workers getting ready for the day brushing their teeth with neem [ix] From the neem tree – azadirachta indica – used for medicinal purposes sticks by antiquated pumps. Women in beautiful purple and red saris balanced tin jugs of water on their heads, children played in the dust with sticks, water buffalo moved aimlessly down the quiet road, dogs eyed me suspiciously as they twigged to the faint cackle of my chain, and men combed their hair as they huddled around a smoky fire fuelled by dried cow manure.

I cycled through the cool morning and had the wonderful experience of cycling through a forest somewhere past the town of Pahur.

I was pleased with my run: I had cycled 60 kilometres in about two hours. This had much to do with a truck, stacked with sugar cane, driving in front of me at 40 clicks and acting as a windbreak.

‘Wow! This is faaantastic!’ I yelled to myself, marvelling at the speed until I realised I had missed a turn-off some 15 kilometres back.

I had been quite lucky with the road. Most of Maharashtra state was well sealed, even on the smaller roads, which meant that I (as a cyclist) could go a lot faster. That was until I neared the border of Madhya Pradesh, where the road disintegrated into bitumen scabs.

The bike shook and my teeth rattled as I slowed from a smooth 30 kilometres per hour to a bumpy ten. It frustrated the hell out of me and forced me to dodge pothole after pothole. I threw the bike into the rough, hard shoulder but this proved to be no better, with fist-sized boulders waiting to catch my wheels, jarring my shoulders horribly.

I soldiered on until about an hour later I felt something mushy under the back wheel, like I had substituted the tyre for a sponge cloth. I looked behind. The tyre was almost completely flat.

Conveniently, the tyre blew when I was under a huge tree that shaded a chai stall but inconveniently, no puncture repair wallah was about.

Setting to work, I threw off the panniers and bags. A crowd gathered; some played with my tools as I reached for them, while others fetched me water and helped me pull the bike apart. A truck stopped and the driver got out, squatted beside me, and from what I could gather from his excited finger and thumb gesticulations, was telling me to put my bike on his truck and go to a whore house.

‘Yes,’ I raised an eyebrow, ‘but that’s not the kind of hole I want to fill right now!’

I took out the tube, stuck on a patch, and stuffed it back in.

A man with slightly greying hair and stained and broken teeth came over.

‘I am Asif.’

‘As if what?’ I joked. But he didn’t get me.

‘I am the mayor of this town.’

I looked around at the dusty shacks. ‘Town? What town?’

He wobbled his head.

‘Here, I pump you.’

‘Excuse me?’

He grabbed the bicycle pump and began thrusting the handle back and forth.

‘You must have many wives.’

‘Why’s that?’ I asked. He leered and continued pumping.

‘I have four wives. Ten children.’

I didn’t understand what he was saying. He pumped the tyre harder, making noises and grinning.

‘You been talking to that truck driver?’

‘Many wives! Strong man. You. How many wives?’

‘I’m not even married!’

‘No. You must have many!’ he said and began pumping so vigorously that I had to stop him in case he burst the tube.

He gave me a cup of chai and I lay down on some rubber straps criss-crossed over a bed frame. These beds are a common feature in rural India, and I often found truck drivers and their jockeys on these beds, limbs asunder, unconscious once the speedy effects of chewing betel nut had failed to keep them awake.