Russell McGilton - Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle

Perhaps the new name hadn’t been embraced for political reasons. In 1996, Bombay’s name was changed to Mumbai after pressure on the Indian government from the ultra-right-wing Shivsena party, led by the prickly Bal Thackery. The name change was aimed at repelling legacies of India’s past colonisation and encroaching Westernisation. British names had been written over with Indian ones – street names, places and features of the city that lent reference to the Raj.

The smell of omelette took me from these thoughts and sat me down to breakfast, where I noticed that something was missing. Everything was there – the omelette, tea and toast…

‘Jam?’ I asked the porter, but he simply wobbled his head again and left.

What was with the head-wobble? Was it a ‘yes’, a ‘no’, ‘I don’t know?’ or ‘I’ll just keep you guessing’? It reminded me of those toy dogs you used to see in the back of old Chrysler Valiants, heads jiggling happily.

I bit into my omelette when a distinct sweetness hit my palate. ‘Oooh! They’ve mixed the jam in!’

With my jam-curried omelette hanging off my fork, I unfurled my Nelles map of India and China.

When I first decided to do this trip back in Melbourne, my plan was to start from Mumbai/Bombay, straight through to Nepal then into Tibet, China and eventually Beijing. However, the Chinese government were (and still are) a bit sensitive about independent foreign travellers, let alone cyclists, going through this border crossing (mmm… could it be the wholesale destruction of the Tibetan people and their culture that they don’t want us to see?), thus they were barred from passing. It was only on organised tour groups that this was possible.

So, my plan changed to China via Pakistan.

But this changed again when four months before I was about to leave, I fell in love.

A gorgeous blue-eyed blonde, Rebecca, a recently qualified acupuncturist and eight years my junior had caught me hook line and sinker. She too was going travelling, and as it was her first time, adamant about doing it on her own.

‘Besides,’ she had said, flicking through travel guides at the bookstore. ‘Europe’s more my thing. Not India.’

‘But just imagine Bec, there we are in an Indian palace, making love in the steamy monsoonal heat, while the rain trickled and danced outside and a cool breeze refreshed our hot naked bodies… mmm?’

‘Ooh! Now, there’s a thought!’

Of course, this wasn’t the only reason Bec eventually agreed. She wasn’t that kinda girl. Bec was going because she wanted to meet the people, learn about the history, to understand the cultural milieu and the colonial context in sub-continental India… actually, no, I think she was just going for the sex! Hell, it would be enough for me. ‘You wanna shag over a Indonesian volcano… surrrreee !’

‘Just say anywhere on my itinerary, Bec, and we can meet up there for a month and then you can do your own thing.’

She looked at the map and pointed to an obscure splog.

‘Kathmandu!? But that’s not on the way,’ I protested.

‘Yes, it is darling!’

And because women are always right, I made a ‘slight’ 3000-kilometre detour via Rajasthan (to beat the approaching summer).

This was my final plan:

Yes, I know. It makes Winston Churchill’s hiccup [vi] Also known as Churchill’s Sneeze. In 1921, Winston Churchill, after quite a number of drinks in Cairo, apparently drew an erratic borderline for Jordan and Saudi Arabia look like an epileptic seizure. But would you believe it got far worse?

After breakfast, I set to work on assembling the bike, most of that time spent straightening or ‘truing’, as it’s called, the front wheel (‘Thanks Qantas!’).

Dervla, before her big trip, christened her bike ‘Roz’. Not to be outdone, I called mine ‘bike’.

Once ready, I hauled ‘bike’ over my shoulder, walked downstairs and, with a stiff breath, threw myself into the maelstrom of traffic for my debut ride into Mumbai.

Of course, the first thing you notice about cycling in Mumbai is the traffic. In Melbourne, cyclists go on the far left of the road and cars go on the right. In India, well, it’s pretty much the same except the cows go on the far left and cars on the right.

The reason cows in India have such free rein of the roads, footpaths and in some cases (as I have seen) banks, is because of that well-known fact that they are considered – in India’s largest religion, Hinduism – to be sacred. In its religious texts cows are represented with their famous deities: Lord Rama, The Protector, received a dowry of a thousand cows; a bull was used to transport Lord Shiva, The Destroyer; while the Lord Krishna, The Supreme Being, was a humble cowherd. There are even temples built in honour of them.

Cows are so loved in India, Mahatma Gandhi went so far as to declare, ‘Mother cow is in many ways better than the mother who gave us birth’. Somehow, I don’t think mothers around the world would be impressed with Gandhi’s comparison, i.e. being upstaged by some dozy, garbage-eating ruminant with hairy teats.

Anyway, it is no wonder that it is illegal to eat or harm cows in most states of India.

Now the problem with all this… this overt bovine respect, is that the cows, people, the cows… know this! And let me tell you something – they are the rudest and most arrogant cows (apart from the ones in public office) that I have ever met in my entire life!

They just lurch out in front of you like a second-hand couch falling off a truck without so much as a cursory look. So many times I’ve had to slam on the brakes to narrowly miss their voluminous rumps or have been ‘nosed’ off the pavement for being in their way. I’ve even seen gangs of them plonking down in the middle of traffic like some grazing roundabout. I tried to exact some kind of revenge by going to McDonalds but to my dismay they only sold mutton burgers.

Despite the cows, cycling in Mumbai wasn’t as dangerous as I had thought, even if there didn’t seem to be enough space for anything other than taxis, crammed buses and the occasional gnat. Traffic moved a lot slower due to there being so much of it and drivers showed no sign of agitation as they beeped madly at seemingly everything around them.

It was, however, pollution that caused me the greatest of ills. Most drivers adulterated the fuel of their cars, auto-rickshaws, motorbikes or trucks with kerosene, as kerosene is much cheaper than petrol. Try as I might to block out the foul mess with a folded handkerchief over my face, this only served to scare American Express staff when I went to cash a traveller’s cheque.

I thought I’d go and see the Parsi Towers of Silence situated on Malaba Hill, a lush enclave of Mumbai some 5 kilometres away. For over 2500 years Parsis have been disposing of their dead in dokhmas (towers). In these towers, corpses are laid out naked and arranged according to age and sex, and are later… devoured by vultures.

As I cycled into the thicket of street life along Colaba Causeway, my nose was assaulted by a confluence of smells: the heavy stench from open drains, the odour of stale urine, the relieving aroma of pakoras (fried vegetables) from street vendors, and for contrast, the overpowering perfume from joss sticks placed like guards on the corner of erected tables selling bluish pictures of the Hindu monkey god, Hanuman.