Russell McGilton - Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle

Lying there, I realised I couldn’t feel the upper left side of my back nor the fingers on my left hand. I tried to stretch the wretched pain out when my left shoulder shrieked. My tendonitis, an ailment that had been dogging me for two years, was back and it would never leave me alone for the entire trip.

Now this is something that nobody really ever tells you about cycle touring; pain.

They’ll mention everything else – the sights, the beautiful days, the heroic climbs, the traffic, a great café, but they never tell you about how their body ached, how they stopped countless times to adjust the handlebars to take the weight off their bottom, the numbness in the hands, the stiff thighs. No wonder Lance Armstrong has a team of chiropractors on Le Tour de France. Asif did give me a shoulder rub – but somehow it just wasn’t the same.

But there was another thing that wore me down more than the rocky roads in India: the constant attention.

Stop to check the map, adjust the brakes or sit down at a chai stall and you’re soon mobbed. At the beginning of the trip, this level of curiosity was refreshing, but now, almost two weeks on, I felt like I was an infectious disease that was constantly being swamped by white cells.

With the crowds came the inevitable questions, the same questions and almost in the same exact order and often when I had to repair the bike:

‘Hello, sir. Which country?’

‘Australia.’

‘Oh, Australia! Cricket! Shane Warne. Ricky Ponting!’

‘What are you doing in India?’

‘Cycling.’

‘What is your good name?’

‘Russell.’

‘Hello, sir. Which country?’

‘Australia.’

‘Oh, Australia! Cricket! Shane Warne! Ricky Ponting!’

‘What are you doing in India?’

‘ Cycling .’

‘What is your good name?’

‘Russell.’

‘Hello, sir. Which country?’

‘Australia.’

‘Ah! Cricket! Shane Warne! Ricky Ponting!’

‘What is your good name?’

‘Russell.’

‘What are you doing in India?’

‘ Cycling !’

‘Hello, sir. Which country?’

‘AUSTRALIA!’

‘Ah! Cricket! Shane Warne! What are you doing in India?’

‘CYCLING! ’

It was like someone saying ‘Have you left the iron on? Have you left the iron on?’

Cycling away offered no escape and I was often almost killed with kindness: motorists, excited upon seeing me, would drive alongside and unwittingly force me into the hard shoulder of dust, turds or other vehicles while cheerily inviting me for lunch or tea.

Now, I appreciate the fact that seeing me, a Westerner on an expensive bike in their country, was a novelty and indeed a gift in these rural parts. And I appreciate that my Hindi and their English was limited. And I understand that these were poor people. I get all that. I really do. But the constant attention and the same questions were like the relentless commercials on Australian television – you never quite got used to it. [x] Australian commercial television is some of the worst television you’ll ever see in the world

I hate to say it but those ‘naïve Brits’ back in Mumbai were right. It was getting to me.

However, all this would soon be the least of my concerns.

I said goodbye to Asif, thanked him for his help and the chai , and got back, somewhat reluctantly, on the bike.

I struggled through the late afternoon heat and got as far as Burhanpur, another dusty, derelict town like many I had seen so far in India. They were all starting to look the same: a blur of chaotic traffic, noise, tobacco booths, staring crowds and street stalls selling fruit, chai and sweets.

I swung the bike past some gates to a swanky hotel called the Monsoon Palace. It was the cleanest hotel I had been in for some time – the sheets looked as if they had been changed at least once that month. The hotel was so glitzy, in fact, that management nearly didn’t let me put my bike in the room with me. Now, there was a first.

I had a shower, washing away the day’s dust and grime, then took a swig from a chilled bottle of beer, stretched out on the king-size bed. I felt a warm flush over my face, something I had noticed in the evenings of late. ‘No! It can’t be! I’m too young for menopause… wait a second, that’s a lady thing…’

In the morning, I felt like someone had made off with all my remaining energy during the night. My hips ached and my eyes were so sore that I was sure someone had been using them as bulls-eyes on a dartboard.

I struggled to load the bike. Everything felt heavy. I wheeled the bike out, got on and coasted on a rough, patchy road through the town, my shoulder aching.

I hoped to get to Khandwa, some 75 kilometres away, though I wasn’t sure I was even going to get as far as the next kilometre, as every push on the peddle drained me as I climbed a small hill. A TATA truck revved behind me, easily making it, the driver tooting cheerily but I could not muster an acknowledgement. Three boys, aged about eight, herded goats down the road and decided that this was a good moment to yell and make stupid faces at me. I swore which only seemed to encourage them.

Exhausted, I found a shady patch under a eucalyptus tree and climbed off the bike. Looking up at the gum leaves, I felt like I hadn’t left Australia at all. From under the backpack I pulled out the blue tarpaulin, unfolded it and stretched out for a quick nap.

Peace at last. It was a quiet road. And no wonder, with a road like that.

I felt myself caught in that mousetrap of sleep and consciousness, half-dreaming, half-floating, when a motorbike zoomed past. I heard it turn around and stop. It idled.

‘Oh, no,’ I groaned and pushed my head under my sarong, trying to disappear. The engine coughed to a gasp, the kickstand slammed down. Footsteps in the dust – crunch, crunch, crunch – got louder then stopped. Silence.

What were they doing?

I recalled a story of a bikini-clad woman sleeping on a beach in Goa who woke to find four men masturbating over her. I wasn’t wearing a bikini, but… surely they weren’t… these shorts weren’t that exciting… I mean… what could they be…?

I peeked up from the sarong. It was worse than I’d thought.

‘Hello, sir,’ asked a smiling face bright as the sun. ‘Which country?’

Eventually, I flopped into Khandwa.

I found a room at The Motil, a hotel so narrow that you had to squint just to see it. I crossed a narrow plank over road works to get to the foyer and hauled my bike up narrow stairs, continually bumping my head on the low ceiling. As the porter opened the door, a flurry of mosquitoes whizzed around the room while a heady smell of stale urine rose out of the squat toilet in the adjacent bathroom. It was so horrible I just had to have it and soon I was asleep.

However, I was woken shortly after by the sound of pigs fighting somewhere below me while boys played cricket up against the wall – THUDUNK! THUDUNK! A train tooted and thundered as if it was right next door. That’s because it was. I had the good fortune of choosing a hotel right next to the Khandwa Train Station.

Somehow, I went back to sleep but then was woken up through the night by the train announcements that blared through my window, trailing off departure times and arrivals to every unpronounceable town in sub-tropical Asia. Diesel trains thrummed through my ears, letting off baritone shots from their horns.

My body ached deep in my hipbones. My face was on fire. I fought to untangle myself from the mosquito net, which I kept getting caught up in like a fruit bat.