bangalore to goa, bicycle

The conductor handed me back 250 bucks and a receipt that said 178 rupees for one article, three pieces of luggage. I looked at the receipt and then at him, he’d kept a 72 rupee tip for himself and I was in no mood to argue so I let it be. Thanks, I said. Keep the receipt safe, he replied, walking away. The cycle was safe in the hold of the bus, underneath the seats. We were pulling out of Panjim and I’d be back in Bangalore tomorrow morning.

leaving home.
day1. 1:05 am. 0 k

I left home at one in the morning. After much thought I’d figured this was a good time to leave since I would avoid any late evening traffic leaving the city and yet be able to ride a good six to seven hours before it started to get really hot. The beginning of summer is not the best time of the year to go riding and I’d been warned that the highway to Tumkur was the busiest one leaving Bangalore and so I wanted to make the most of the early hours. The day had been spent taking the cycle over to the mechanic for one last look, printing out the altitudinal profile of the route in roughly 100k sections and collecting all the equipment and some food. I had two saddle bags, one was my jhola tied to the side which carried a compact sleeping bag, two t-shirts, boxers, two underwears, odomos, volini, tooth-paste, tooth-brush etc; on the other side was my small trail pack with a compact pump, spare tube, basic set of wrenches, puncture-repair kit, swiss-knife, thread, torch, headlamp, phone charger, wallet etc. And the handle-bag had my hydration pack and some packets of juice. I carried, along with the one liter hydration pack, two liter-bottles of water. The cycle seemed rather heavy with all this on. It’s a rather heavy cycle to begin with actually, but I love it all the same. It is a Hero Hawk, the cheapest hybrid bike I know of which I’ve fitted with Fomas brake handles, a Rockrider seat and B-twin handle bar tape.

altitudinal profile of the route

So it was all done and set by six in the evening and I intended to get some sleep before I left, but I gave up lying in bed with the lights out for I was far too nervous to sleep. I got a short nap in after dinner though and then I was off. It’s taking the plunge that’s important, Kullu had said. Once you’re off you’ll get there somehow!

 The way out was pretty straightforward, get onto the Tumkur highway at Yeshvantpur and stick to it. After the initial bit that has metro construction crap, the highway is broad and smooth and characteristically undulating (characteristic of roads around Bangalore). I stopped outside a big flood-lit petrol pump and took a breather. It was 3:15am and I guessed form how far Tumkur was and from matching the uphill that I’d been climbing to the altitudinal profile that I had that I’d come about 40 k. The base of my nape, around the left trapezius, close to the vertebrae was beginning to throb with a dull ache. This ache, a constant companion through the next four days of riding, starting mildly at 40 k into the ride I thought wasn’t all that bad.

This had first come up on the Nandi hill ride that I did four days back, a test ride to see if I and the bike - after being serviced - were in any shape to ride long distance. The Nandi hill ride is roughly 50k, 41 undulating ks to the base and than a 9k unrelenting uphill. I managed the up in 3:45 and then was back home in good time with just a tiny puncture that I could just pump up and ride before replacing the tube in the shade of a parking lot back home. But the afternoon heat had scared me on that ride and then the pain had started on the last stretch. For that one afternoon, the prospects for the Goa ride had seemed dim, but that was only until I was rested and bathed and then I figured that it just had to be done.Think of how you'd feel having done this, Divya had said.

The only other preparation for the ride was a 4k run the week before and a ride to Bannergatta. Sounds foolhardy I guess, but then I workout regularly and that involves a lot of cardio too so I kind of convinced myself that I’d be ok. And I’ve done long rides before; though this was my first solo long ride; after the solo Nandi ride that is. Fact is, I’d always wanted to do a long ride over a few days and now suddenly the plan of a family holiday in Goa was the perfect excuse/ incentive to ride there. So the ride plan caught me unawares about 10 days before the day I actually left and I didn’t really have much time at hand. I like cycling. I’m going to Goa. Why not ride to Goa? On the long rides I’d often had the feeling that I could go on like this forever, pedaling away on my beloved bicycle. Well, now was the time to test that notion. 

So I stretched a bit, shook my arms and legs and sat down for a bit. The slightly tangy real mixed fruit juice tasted really nice. I consulted the alt profile and it was more or less downhill from here all the way to Gubbi, another 40k away. The highway is quite well lit right up to the Tumkur bypass where you get off NH 48, skirt around the town and join NH 73. This is where you get off the golden quadrangle. I had the headlamp on throughout and now it came in real handy. On the bypass there was very little traffic and though the road wasn’t as good as the highway, it wasn’t bad. But then at one point I completely missed a narrow groove in the road and took a hard bump with the chain coming off. Being paranoid I quickly checked to make sure the tires were ok, but the hero hawk is a sturdy bike and gave me very little trouble over the four days.

refueling stop. the best cold packed subway sandwich ever. near gubbi.
day1. 5:10am. 80 k

Then I was on NH 73, unlit still, but broader and smoother than the bypass. It was smooth riding and when I got hungry I decided to stop at the first suitable place I saw. This was the cemented base of a large peepal tree next to a hand-pump, outside a temple that had a light. The handpump didn’t work but I had enough water for now. For an early morning snack I had paid Subway a visit the previous evening, and now I had the best cold packed roasted chicken sub ever. I did feel a momentary pang of guilt for the desecration of the temple, but then as I said - momentary.

It was 5:10am when I stopped and I’d come about 80k. the passing vehicles were slowing down to check me out but I felt strangely safe throughout the trip, though people, both back home and those that I met on the road, often warned me to be careful since I was travelling alone. It felt slightly cold after the break, but steady pedaling soon warmed me up. After Gubbi was a nice steady uphill that I climbed to a quickly brightening sky. At the end of the long up I stopped and was pleasantly surprised to see the sun coming up behind me. A few ks and another shorter uphill later it was already hot and I was sweating away. So out came the sun-glasses and a custom made head-band cut out from an old t-shirt. These were invaluable accessories whose value I’d realized from other long hot rides. Nothing tires you like squinting in the hot afternoon sun and constantly wiping the sweat off your brows to keep it from running into your eyes. Your brows keep the sweat out of your eyes initially, but after hours of riding with the head tilted slightly forward, the sweat begins to drip from the sides straight into your eyes and it’s a pain to keep wiping it out.

random break to see the sunrise and recover from tiring uphill.
day1. 6:30am. 100 k

Soon I was hungry again and began looking for a suitable place to stop. Almost every small village in Karnataka has at least one small shop selling chai, idli-vada-sambar, sometimes even afternoon meals and we cyclists rely on these for our nourishment. So in the next village I stopped at the place and asked if he had food or snacks/ breakfast, oota-tindi sikta? It was 8:30am and I’d come about 135k. He said he had idlis and surprised me with tatthe idlis, which are flattened disc shaped. Doused in sambar and chutney and washed down with two cups of sweet chaia, they make for an excellent meal. And it all came to 18 bucks.

There were the usual guys sipping chai and reading the papers, chatting to the owner who was making the steaming hot idlis. It’s obvious that they are intrigued by the stranger but they’re slow to start asking the questions. But once they start, they come fast and quick. I’m going to Goa. Coming from Bangalore. Yes, on the cycle. Yes, cycling all the way. No, I’m actually from Punjab. Yes, I’m Indian. Yes, I know of Yuvraj Singh. Yes I speak a bit of Kannada (this often surprises me, for this question always comes much later in these shaky conversations and the interrogators often seem to overlook the fact that we’ve been talking in Kannada – though broken, on my side - so far). No, the cycle’s not very expensive. I started really early this morning. No! Touch madalla. Don’t touch that please. Then someone new would arrive, ask similar questions of the people already there before turning to me and we’d go through it all over again. The owner was nice and smiling. I refilled the water, said my goodbyes, and was on my way again. 

The original plan had been to get beyond Arsikere, 160k from Bangalore, before I stopped for the night. That’s because I wanted to get to Sagara (340k) by the second night and crash with Suji, a good friend. I’d visited Suji before in Sagara and having at least one stop pre-planned was a source of great comfort.   But since I’d been riding well and the cycle had been behaving so well, the plan at this point was to get to Arsikere before it got unbearably hot and then take a short break, sit the afternoon out, and ride as far as I could in the evening.

arsikere, 160k

Some more undulating riding and then it was a nice downhill to Arsikere and I sped by this lovely bus-stop in the thick shade of a massive raintree. The bus-stops are all small covered stone/brick and cement structures, three walls and open in front with a pillar in the middle and low parapets on the side and built in benches along the inside of the walls. They’re usually pained a dull red-brown and are worn smooth. This one looked enticingly cool, but then I thought there must be other such bus-stops on other other side of Arsikere as well and I should ride for some more time, at least until 11. And I’d already sped past it on a downhill. Soon I saw a large lake and bling! the tubelight came on, kere is lake in Kannada, aaaa, so Arsikere must be a lake-town. I passed Arsikere at 10:30am, stopping to buy some batteries for the headlamp and unsuccessfully asking around for real mixed fruit juice.

uprooted trees and no place to sit, beyond arsikere

After I’d passed Arsikere, which is a largish town, I decided to stop at the first shaded cool bus-stop that I came across. But as luck would have it, the highway beyond Arsikere was being widened. Not only had they uprooted all the road-side trees but also covered the sides with loose mud, so that in places where some old figs a little off the road stretched out to offer me some shade, there was no place to actually sit. So on and on I went until I just had to stop at a little culvert under a small raintree. This was the first of many stops that I would make that afternoon. But it wasn’t very cool there and so once I had my breath back, I just decided to go on and try my luck further up the road.

one of the many stops in the afternoon when it got really hot. 

this is an early one at a culvert/ bus-stop near this 

place called shettyhalli. day1. 11:30am. 170 k

The next stop was at a culvert under a large raintree that doubled as a bus-stop. There were some cows grazing around and at this old woman who wanted them to move in a particular direction, but I couldn’t really figure out which. Then she gave up and started chatting to some other folks sitting under a tree in the field nearby. An ox-cart passed me by here with a pair of sturdy-looking oxen pulling in front while 3 people sat in the back with some bundled up stuff. Since they were moving so slowly, I got nice long stares before being asked to take photos of them. No camera, I lied. They moved on. Then I figured I best just keep moving on slowly since I couldn’t really take a nap anyway. So I just poured water over my head and moved on myself.     

At 11:30 I stopped at another culvert-under-a-raintree bus-stop. This one was near this place called Shettyhalli and was more used. There were people waiting for buses. So I lay down at one end and after the initial lull while I finished an appy, the questions started. There was a nice guy from nearby who got dropped off by a motorbike. He answered my questions in turn. He was going to town. He lived in shettyhalli, about 2k from there. He was indeed waiting for a bus (one asks obvious questions to make small-talk). Then this grumpy old guy came with a younger man. No, I’m not on a tour of the country. I’ve been cycling for two days (they didn’t believe me anymore if I said I’d come from Bangalore in a day) No, I don’t have coupons to eat at hotels. No, the government doesn’t pay me for every k I cycle. I’m just doing this because… Well, time to move on.

So I just kept pouring water over my head and slowly pedalling on. Soon I needed to refill the bottles and luckily I saw this large nursery kind of place with women with their heads covered by hats and cloths over their napes watering saplings in pots. As I stopped and walked the cycle to the gate they looked extremely wary and this young guy shouted back a no almost before I could finish my neer sikta? Can I get some water? But then they registered what I was saying and said yes. I passed by this little shed that had a few bottles kept under coconut fronds, but I obviously didn’t want to eat into their cache. The young guy unscrewed the shower head off his hose and I filled out my bottles. Kudiyuve neeru? Drinking water? I asked half-heartedly and believed him when he said yes. Then I quickly left as they looked skeptical still. By now I’d had a lot of water and my stomach felt full, but I needed to eat something so I asked someone where I could get something to eat and found a little chai place again. This was tiny, a little hole in the wall. The fellow seemed sly from the outset. Told me he could make food, dosas, when all he had were omlettes. And not even bread, just omlettes. One double omlettes for 8 he said and then charged me 18 for two of them. Some people are kind in whatever capacity they can be, and some are just cunning, as mean as they can possibly be.

There were women sitting around with lots of light-weight colourful plastic pots. I asked them where the water was going to arrive from and they said they were waiting for electricity. The villages have one or more large cylindrical tanks painted with pictures of goddesses, often by the roadside, about 8ft high and I’ve often seen people filling water at these. They were waiting beside one of these now. There were guys at the chai stall and the usual barrage of questions followed. There were some new ones as well. No, it’s not solar powered. Yes, you have to pedal it all the way.

I managed to ask if there was a place to stay somewhere around, trying to gauge how difficult or easy it would be to find a place later in the evening, and they said I should try the big towns, Kadur, or Tarikere. And so on I went. Then there were lots of people selling grapes by the roadside and I bought half a kilo from this woman for 20 bucks. They were grown in the vineyard behind her, but no, she wasn’t the owner, she was just selling them. I asked her to wash them for me as part of the bargain but then I realized that I still had more water on me that she had in her bottle so I just washed them myself, and keeping them in the handle bag kept popping a few as I cycled on.

Next I stopped at this school. There were some kids playing carom in the verandah so I figured it must be a school. So I went in and asked this guy who turned out to be a teacher if I could just sit there and rest a while. There were four or five teachers there and they were most gracious. I wanted to just sit in the verandah but they insisted I sit on a chair inside and they even asked me if I’d like some lunch but I declined saying I’d just eaten. I offered them grapes in return and they were quite surprised to be offered grapes by the traveler, taking only one each. We talked for some time, in English, which most of them could speak, and answered each others’ questions. But it’s only so long you can keep chatting and again I couldn’t really take a nap there so I decided to go on. I offered the kids playing carom grapes before I left and they were really shy and burst out laughing, only to be curtly told by the woman watching over them to behave like humans in front of the stranger. For some reason I’d thought this bit would be all industrial towns all the way to Shimoga but I was pleasantly surprised to find small towns and villages dotting the largely agricultural landscape. A few ks down the road I finally found a nice bus-stop, deserted but dusty, you can’t have everything now can you? It was 2:30pm by now and incredibly hot. I pulled the cycle in with me and lay down to take a short nap.

..................................................................................................................................

I woke up at 3:30pm, dusty and sweaty, and started out again. I could just about see my shadow clinging to the rear wheel to the right. The sun was like a large bouncing ball that goes up fast and seems to come to a standstill at the zenith before beginning it’s incredibly speedy descent. It reminded me of the question in the physics exams about why basketball players seem to freeze at the top of the jump. Well the sun was right now stuck to the top, not frozen, but stuck because it had caused the fabric of the sky to melt and gone and gotten stuck. I find that I can ride really well if I can see my shadow beside me, maybe it’s because being vain I find inspiration in my own shadow riding well, or maybe it’s because you can only see the shadow when the sun is lower. And while I was melting in the midst of such musings I saw kids playing under the blazing sun in a courtyard. So I figured if they could do it, so could I.

I found a building under construction, tanked up on water and poured some all over myself form a hose. The next five minutes felt really good, arms and legs cooled off as I rode on, but the micro-climate management doesn’t last and I was drying up in no time. I passed that ox cart somewhere on the way with an exchange of hand-waving and quick questions.

Eventually the sun began to relent as I approached Tarikere. It was too big a town to sleep in. I had the vision of a small house, or a school, on the outskirts of a village, surrounded by fields, where I could put up for the night. As I entered the town, weaving through the main road traffic, the dull ache in the nape that had been pestering me on and off gave a sharp twang and almost in the same instant I saw a fresh juice shop and coasted to a stop in front of it. It was the best chickoo milkshake ever; thick, chilled, not too sweet; two for 40 bucks; totally worth it. It was 5:30pm and I had come about 240k. Bhadravati was another 20k, I could maybe cross Bhadravati and find a place to sleep. I checked the bike once and all seemed well.

And as the milestones told me I was approaching Bhadravati, I started looking around at places that I thought looked promising. I passed by some really good looking stuff, there were isolated houses amongst green fields and this perfect looking little post office with a verandah. But I got greedy and didn’t stop. The more distance I cover today, the less I’ll have to ride tomorrow and then the ghat road from Shimoga to Sagara was something I was very wary of. This would prove to be a big mistake and I would soon discover that I could long for a post office that I saw but for a split second.

Soon I saw the turn off for Bhadravati dam and wildlife sanctuaruy. For some reason I assumed it would get greener and better from here on but was quite disappointed when the sign said welcome to the industrial town of Bhadravati. The road turns left here and you don’t really enter the town, just skirt through the egdes and on towards Shimoga. There were signs for paper mills and what not and the roads were lined with dumps and waste instead of the fields and forests I’d been hoping to see. By now the sun had set and I figured I best start asking around.

First up was Don Bosco Institute or Technical College or something. It was an impressive building complete with a big gate that was open. There were a group of boys about 16 - 18 years old playing football and I asked one of them where the main office was. The office’s there but the headmaster’s standing there by the field, you can go talk to him, he said. The headmaster was a young fellow of about 30 maybe, standing with, I assumed, another teacher. All the boys gathered up around us as I approached him to see what the strange cyclist wanted.  I felt a pang of nostalgia at his stern, go have your bath boys, and I thought of how cool it would be to stay here. But it was not to be. Today’s Thursday, he said, and Father’s at the church. He won’t be back for another half an hour and I don’t have the authority to let you stay, maybe you can wait and talk to him. Maybe I could’ve stayed and convinced the Father, but it was getting late and I didn’t want to take any chances, so I decided to try my luck elsewhere. Soon as I told the headmaster that he relaxed and started asking me questions about my trip, but I had to cut him short and move on.

The only other person who’d done something like this was a friend who’d cycled form Bombay to Goa and stayed with people. He’d even kept in touch with some of them and he’d told me how kind they’d been. His strategy had been to catch them working or sitting outdoors as he cycled past in the evening, while it was still light, get talking and get them to ask him to stay. Or at least that’s what I remembered. That’s how I’d thought it’d work for me. It didn’t, of course.

I asked at two more places. Homes, this time. At the first place they were sitting outdoors, the man, his wife moving some hay, the kids playing, some other guy working by the wall. I was very discreet and indirect, dropping hints. Is there a place to stay somewhere here? Just sleep, actually, since I have my own stuff. No, no, not a hotel, a school maybe? A post-office? There’s a hotel 2k down the road, he said, or try the town you just left behind. I asked directly at the next place, using the single largest Kannada sentence I knew, nanage illi ondu ratri irrakolakke jaaga kodake aggatta? will it be possible to give me a place to stay here for one night? Not caring for even the effort I’d taken to memories and say that, he said a prompt no.     

I almost stopped at one of those cheap looking over-priced restaurant/hotels on the way, but then thought better of it. I was tramping after all, right? I couldn’t possibly pay to sleep. The world is supposed to be full of places where you can sleep, I mean all you need is that much clean space to spread out your sleeping bag, right? Right. Until it gets dark. Then you can’t see much beyond the lights close to the road and most lights off the road could be potential places but you don’t feel very inclined to check them out. Oh how I longed for that post-office.

So then I stopped at a small dhaba. Oota sikta? Food available? Yes, he says. He looks like a decent chap and by now I’m quite relaxed since I have nothing to lose and so I casually ask him if he can give me a place to sleep as well. He points to the bench along the wall and asks if I’d like to sleep there, sure, I say, anything. Cool then, sleep there later. How much? I ask him, best to get these things sorted right at the beginning. No money, just sleep if you want to. It’s 7:15pm, I’ve come 260k and I have a place to sleep. Excellent.

I’ll eat in some time I tell him and he says I can wash up outside where there’s a woman washing utensils from a large drum of water. Then a couple of guys turn up and the inevitable questions begin. Now these guys are drinking and the owner comes up to me and says something about a watchman which I don’t entirely understand but he lets it be. Eventually this guys shows up who speaks hindi and I get the whole story. He is Mohammed Iliaz, a thinly-built balding man of about 40, the watchman that the owner had been referring to. He explains to me over coffee that since the dhaba’s not a very safe place with all sorts of characters coming, the owner has suggested I go sleep at the watchman’s place just down the road, it’s the one with the big light, he points. Cool, awesome, I’ll come over after dinner I tell him as he pays for the coffee. The dinner is sambar-anna with some gram and pickle. It’s a lot of food. That and two sweet buns that I pick up for the next morning come to 20 bucks. I thank the owner and head for the light down the road.

mohammed iliaz, the watchman. very kind man. outside bhadravati.
day1. 7:15pm. 260 k. / day2. 4:05 am. 260k (0 k)

It is a truck depot and Mohammed Iliaz is the watchman. He watches over trucks that are parked by the roadside and in the yard behind the main office. The main office is a narrow two-storeyed building and Ilu (that’s what his wife calls him, he tells me later when we’re talking. He has two school-going kids.) is sitting outside with the manager and another young friend who works there. The manager, an open-shirted man who speaks little hindi asks the usual questions and tells me he’s waiting for one last truck to turn up before he shuts shop and leaves.

I’d asked Iliaz if there was a place to bathe and he’d said there’s water flowing nearby and I could bathe there, so now I asked him to show me the place so I could bathe in the meanwhile. About 20 metres down the road we turned in and went past an abandoned house (I could sleep here, I’m thinking in my head) and some abandoned fields. There were no lights and we used torches on the narrow path between the fields to reach the little canal that was flowing parallel to the road. It must’ve been about 10 ft wide, maybe 12, with cemented sides and there were steps in the sloping bank just where we’d come out. I went back to fetch my clothes, asked him to watch my cycle, which wasn’t necessary, and though I trusted him, brought my wallet with me anyway. It didn’t have much money, but the cards would be a pain to replace. I watch the trucks, I’ll watch the bike, he told me, don’t you worry.

The water was cold and fast-flowing. It couldn’t have been very clean, but there wasn’t anything floating in it, it smelled ok, and I could see the first three steps quite clearly so I figured it was ok, switched off the torch and went skinny-dipping. I could feel the weariness getting washed away as I just sat there in the dark. Moments from the day flashed past my shut eyes and made me smile. I’d come a long way, I was amongst strangers, far away from anyone or anything I knew, day 1 of being footloose and fancy-free. Only reason I eventually left was I didn’t want to fall ill.

The manager was packing up as I got back, the truck hadn’t turned up yet but he had to get home. That truck came later and I half-remember hearing Iliaz telling them about me half-asleep. It was 10 by the time I opened up my sleeping bag and put it on the wooden bench outside since Iliaz suggested the breeze was good there and there were some people watching tv behind a partition in the main office. But then after an hour and a half of mosquito-buzzed disturbed sleep I got out some odomos and moved to the floor inside the office. The next thing I remember is Iliaz waking me up at 3:45 the next morning like I’d asked him to.

I’d rinsed my cycling shorts, shorts and t-shirt the previous night and put them on the barb-wire fence around the compound. I changed behind one of the parked trucks, washed my face and was ready to leave. I took a picture of Iliaz with the bike and was shaking his hand, saying goodbye when he says, paisa, money? Well, I asked, how much? slightly disappointed. Whatever you feel like, he says, as a remembrance. He did treat me to coffee last night, so I shouldn’t be so grumpy I figured, but still. I gave him a 50. It was hardly anything, but he was fine with that.

It was 4:05am when I left. I didn’t feel very rested and my legs didn’t feel all that solid. My toe-tips hurt and my butt was still sore from all the riding yesterday. Maybe if the place to stay had been more comfortable, I’d have contemplated staying back another day, but given the situation, I was more than happy to leave and get to Sagara.

Getting through Shimoga in the dark was a bit of a pain but there were people at almost all the major intersections and I went asking for Sagara. The road had been bad in patches near most major towns and it was worse leaving Shimoga. And there were uphills in store to boot. I stopped outside the flood-lit gates of a big educational institute after about an hour of riding because the nape was killing me. I refilled water from the large can in the watchman’s cabin where there were two guys sitting while a sweeper swept the entrance. I stretched a bit, trying to relax the muscles in my neck and back. No one goes in 100 percent fit, Matt Damon says to Nelson Mandela in Invictus. I thank whatever gods may be
for my unconquerable soul.

So then I go on. the road is good and the edge is marked with a white strip. This was really good because the headlights form the oncoming vehicles can be blinding, so I would focus my headlamp on the white strip and ride when they came. The trucks would sometimes even give me a dipper, lower their lights for an instant and that really helped. The climb was tiring, but I’d been expecting it so it was ok. That way the altitudinal profile was very helpful. Soon it started becoming light and I found myself riding a smooth, broadly undulating road. I passed Ayanur in this early morning light before the sun was up and stopped in my tracks as I spotted a large owl sitting on a peepal right above the middle of the road. I could barely make out it’s silhouette and it flew away as I looked up and saw its eye-shine. There were nice forest patches between the villages now and I passed by some patches that looked like erstwhile teak plantations.

The terrain was not as bad as I feared. The uphills, though steep, were mostly short (there were the long ones, of course, but interspersed with these short ones) and then the downhills were nice and smooth. The first day I’d been switching between gears four and five on the overall down undulating roads and between three and four on the overall up undulating roads. Now I went between three and five, zipping from one downhill to halfway up the next uphill, very much like the flyovers near Mekri in Bangalore. Then when the sun came up I got the sunglasses and headband on and kept the sweet bun in the handle bag to take a bite or two of when I could. And I kept sipping form the hydration pack. This is an excellent accessory because before I got it, every long ride would end with the lining of my mouth, the palate and tongue peeled dry, making eating and even drinking really painful. This part of the ride felt excellent, it was like cycling heaven: broad smooth creamy roads, lots of downhills (and uphills, well) and green fields or green forests on the sides.

And oh! this is where those painful rumble strips were. One thing I absolutely hate in life are speed-breakers. When I’m in an auto or a car, I end up hitting my head against the roof or a metal bar or something or the other and it’s insanely irritating. On the cycle, many of them you can just speed over and feel like a boss, but then they come with innovative designs like the little narrow steep ones that you can’t even bunny-hop over that they’ve put up all over IISc, or the rumble strip, a series of little bumps. Usually they’re 3 – 5 of them, but here they’d gone overboard and put up like 10 – 12 in a row and that too at the bottom of the downhill. The first one I completely missed, went onto the pedals just in time, lost my footing as I went over it and was thrown back down onto the seat with a painful thud. Painful. I was much more careful next time onwards.

Then I crossed Chordi, a lovely little village, all cleanly swept and the houses all with washed verandahs, and bought some biscuits at a bakery which I again kept in the handle bag and kept popping now and then. I passed some forest department signs too and felt elated that I didn’t have to deal with them, I was just whizzing past them.

I had stopped at a culvert for a breather when this guy on a bike pulled up and started talking to me. After the usual questions he surprised me by saying, you are our state guest, please feel at home, and have a nice time. That felt really good. He lived nearby he said and was going into town for some work. The name of the villages in these parts are written on big concrete boards in kannada which I can read a bit of, though now it’s hard to remember any of the names and they don’t show up on google maps.

outside suji's place, sagara. and that's it for the day!
day2. 9:35am. 345 k (85 k)

I passed people walking to the nearest bus-stops and kids on their way to school. I was making good time and when I stopped at Anantpuram at 8:30am, I’d cycled 65k and realized that i'd be in Sagara rather early. From there on it was a milestone countdown to Sagara. That’s something I’d been doing from the previous day, focusing on the next town that was within 30k and counting down the kilometers as I approached and then crossed it, and then picking another nearby town. The larger numbers on the milestones seem too abstract to comprehend.        

Well, I reached Sagara, asked for the bus-stop and then coasted to a stop outside Suji’s place at 9:35am, having finished the 85k planned for the day. I’d told him I’d be there by afternoon but I’d arrived early, so I gave him a call to wake him up.

breakfast with suji-always-busy. sagara

All I did that day was eat and sleep. I bathed and we went for breakfast after which I took a short nap. He woke me up for a nice leisurely lunch after which I came back and slept until late in the evening. Then I accompanied him on a few errands for he is quite the man about town, an entrepreneur actually with an amazing start-up of his own. (If you want to make arrangements for a wedding, construct a house, spend a quiet weekend out of town, or just want groceries delivered to your door-step, he’s your man in Sagara). Then in the evening he asked if I’d like to accompany him to a friend’s place about 20k out of town to see jaggery being made the traditional way. Sure, I said, why not? But we must come back in time for an early dinner so I get a good night’s sleep before I leave at four tomorrow. Sure thing, said Suji.

the sugarcane

It was eight by the time we left for this place, Hakkere, on two motorbikes, Suji and me on one and two of his friends/colleagues on the other. It was the last village connected by the road, a dead-end with forests beyond. The motorbike felt really fast after cycling and the breeze was rather chilly. The road was pitch dark, weaving around the ghats and then we saw lights on the hillside below us. We shouted hellos and they shouted back directions for the way down. There were a lot of people gathered, all friends. The owner of the place, the field hands (some of them asleep under a shed) and a couple with a kid whom I’d met on previous visits, who’d also come to see the jaggery being made. So there was a happy exchange of greetings and they were thrilled that I’d come cycling and was on my way to Goa.

from juice to jaggery

The owner, who spoke hindi, gave me a large glass full of sugarcane juice which was cool and refreshing and promptly refilled my glass when I finished it. It was a really large glass and I struggled through the second one and had to actually hide the glass away for he was threatening to refill it again. Then he showed me the whole setup, all of it right there in the open field. First there were the bundles of sugarcane, all completely organically grown, and I was asked if the sugarcane in Punjab is similar, it did seem to the be the same smooth green supple kind, unlike the bleached white ones that are used in the cane-fresh shops in Bangalore. The grinding for the juice was done on this mill that was turned by a pair of oxen going in circles, who were now sitting in the background. The juice went through a pipe from the mill to a large pot placed in the next field which was a step lower. Then it was boiled for a long time over a large earthen oven and cooled in boxes placed in dug out pits in the earth. He insisted I taste some of the jaggery that was cooling, it was still warm, thick and viscous and tasted so good. This is the way it’s been done for generations, I was told, right in the fields where the cane is grown. There were already about ten big plastic boxes of jaggery placed along the edge. All to be distributed amongst family and friends, none of it sold in the market. I asked the owner where he lived and he began to insist that I come visit his home, which was just up the hill we were standing on. But we had to be getting back and so we took our leave and I promised to visit the next time I was there.

It was 11:00pm by the time we finished dinner. All of that day Suji did not let me spend a paisa on food every time we went out to eat. And there was no point arguing, you can pay when I come to Bangalore, he’d say. Back at his place I packed up for the next day, I’d bought some juice and cake and everything seemed set by the time I went to sleep at 11:30pm. But the next morning was far from smooth.

..................................................................................................................................

I’d put two alarms one for 3:30am and another for 3:45. But when I put off the first one, for some reason, the second one went off as well. I was in the middle of a dream when the realization that I ought to be cycling woke me up with a jolt, and scrambling for my phone I was aghast to see that it was 5:30am. I’d overslept. I stumbled to the loo, luckily remembered to pick up my cycling shorts that were drying on the wire outside and shoved them into the jhola, and was good to go in five minutes flat. Then I woke Suji up to say goodbye, it’s just a little late, don’t worry and go easy, he said. It was nice to have someone there to say that to me.

But I got onto my bike and at the first pedal, the chain came off. Someone had fiddled with the gear-shifter while the bike had been parked there. Oh god, not this, not now, I thought, and quickly put the chain back on. I cycled away from there and as I hit the first uphill and shifted to a lower gear, the chain came off again. This happened thrice more in the next one kilometer, but then the cycle found it’s rhythm, the gears seemed to ease into the place and I realized how I could never have made it so far without the bike behaving as well as it had. I changed into the cycling shorts (beneath my shorts) at one of the wayside bus-stops and tried to tell myself that it wasn’t all that late. It did actually work to my advantage because the highway leading out of Sagara isn’t marked on the sides with white lines and it was really painful every time something came charging from the opposite side, headlights blazing. So it was with a sigh of relief that I saw the sky brightening up soon after.

The highway heads to Honavar on the coast, going along the Jog valley, but I’d decided to head straight for Kumta which is further north along the coast from Honavar. For one it was slightly shorter, and second and more importantly, it meant that I’d be off the highway and riding through the interiors for some time. So then I asked around a bit and turned right for Siddapura at an unmarked fork, left the highway behind, and wasn’t surprised when the road wasn’t as good as the highway anymore. The forest until you hit Siddapura is more or less deciduous, interspersed by fields and acacia plantations which are the forest department’s helf-witted attempts at reforestation. But as you leave Siddapura behind, the forest begins to gradually change and before long I was riding through tall thick trees of an evergreen rainforest.

between siddapura and bilgi. left sagara at 5:45am.
day3. 8:00am. 390 k (45k)

There were villages all along the route, sometimes announced by no more than a trail leading off from the main road.  I stopped at a really pretty village tank to stretch a bit and have a juice. It was 7:45am and I’d come about 40k, which wasn’t bad.

I forget her name now. I’ve never been very good at remembering names, but I rarely feel bad about forgetting them. There were a few kids cycling to school, in twos and threes, all on the standard working man’s Hero bicycle for guys. One of the boys tried to keep up with me for a few ups and downs but it was tough with a single-gear bike. With kids, and people in general actually, it was always tough to predict how they’d react to you. Like I was making eye-contact with at least a three-digit-number of people everyday, some smiled back, some didn’t, some waved me on, while some gave me blank stares. (Worst, of course, were the small number always in groups who would shout or whistle or call out just to attract my attention and then snigger about it, quite irritating.)  

the forest goes evergreen

So it was with some apprehension that I pulled alongside this girl who was cycling alone and slowed down to her pace (which in fact wasn’t very slow). She was wearing a uniform and lots of jewellery that looked like gold, earrings and chain and stuff. Namaskara, i smiled, and to my great relief she responded in kind.  Yellige hogtira? Where you going? She named the next village, about 8k away, who’s name too I forget, and which is too small to show up on Google maps. To school. We cycled alongside for a bit and she told me she was in class 8, while I told her about my trip. It is half-forgotten encounters like these that I cherish most from the trip.
 

descending a parallel valley north of the jog valley. 

siddapur-kumta road. day3. 9:30am. 410 k (65k)

I was making good time, staying steady on the uphills, when suddenly on one of the descents the hair-pin bends began. This was the long descent that I’d been looking forward to, and keeping my fingers crossed about the condition of the road. This is a valley parallel to the Jog valley and north of it, and you go from about 545m to 50m in a little more than 5 ks. I stopped every few minutes to take pictures for I know these descents end far too soon and I also had to rest my hands from all the braking. Initially I passed a few trucks but then half-way down the road was being repaired, they were putting in drains to allow water flow/ seepage and for some reason, cementing the road. So I rode for some time on a cemented road covered over by wet straw and then just as suddenly as it had started the descent ended.

level ground again.
~day3. 9:30am. 410 k (65k)

the descent, road under construction, so only two-wheeler traffic.
~day3. 9:30am. 410 k (65k)

one of the afternoon stops. very hot and a rather bad road.
day3. 11:00am. 430k (85k)

 I stopped for a breather at 9:50am and by then the road was quite bad. I didn’t know it then but it would only get worse until I reached the coast at Kumta and joined the highway again. For now, I was in the land of the whitewashed milestones. They were all blank, painted over and very irritating because by now I’d come to rely on them a lot. I cycled along a river for some time here but couldn’t really see it, just knew that it was there because of the strip of greener trees. This was slightly disappointing but then I left it behind and passed lots of villages. The road was narrow with lots of potholes and repair patches and so the going was slow. The only consolation was that there were the occasional shade trees which were as much a relief to cycle under as they were to take a break beneath. There really is nothing quite like the shade of a tree; and you need to take a walk on a summer afternoon to realize that.  

I was supposed to bypass Kumta and head straight for Mirjan, which was the next town, but I guess I missed that turn at some point. I tried asking people but they weren’t very sure of where it was so then I just stuck to the road I was on. To my immense relief, about 15k from Kumta the road condition improved, I was on smooth black tar once again. My first sight of the coast was from a bridge over a river that turned and met the sea in the distance. I stood in the middle of the bridge in brain-boiling heat and took a picture. I crossed over and asked at a stall, oota sikta? and they stared back as if I had spoken a foreign tongue, though i was well within the borders of Karataka. And then it sank in, Kannada won't work anymore. They spoke Konkani, a dialect closer to Marathi, spoken all along the coast.

 

where the river meets the sea. near kumta.
day3. 1:00 pm. 450 k (105 k)

At Kumta I turned onto the coastal highway and for a brief moment actually missed the quiet ride on the bad roads, but then the roads made up for it. And then I saw the sea, or started seeing bits of it and that kept me going for some time, in spite of the heat. The altitudinal profile had warned me that this highway is super-undulating and it lived up to its reputation. Lunch was at a road-side shack at about 1:15, and I’d come about 115k since morning. It was extremely hot by now, the sun right overhead, with no shade on the highway. I put the cycle up against the wall of the shack, in the thin strip of shade under the thatch that extended out a bit. There were some kids half-heartedly selling mogra flowers to a couple of other customers.

The guy, who tuned out to be the cook, was a bit disappointed when I chose sambar-anna over chicken or fish. But he was pleasant enough, the sort who move from one tourist hotspot to another depending on the season; he’d been at Gokarna last, he said. The owner arrived later and he too was nice, but by now the general impression I made was that of a freak, or at least that’s what it seemed like to me. Until I was in the ghats the people had been kinder, on an average more pleasantly intrigued by my trip. Now the intrigue was giving way to skepticism and a strange wariness. The questions too taking on the tone of, why would you want to do such a thing?    

riding beside a river.
~day3. 3:30pm. 465 k (120k)

After food, I sat around a bit longer, lingering over a local lemon cold-drink called cheers, but then finally decided to move on at 2:30. Food got costlier as I approached Goa and my lunch was about 85 bucks I think. From there on, the altitudinal profile showed a more or less a regular pattern of spikes, about one every 5k, joined by the regular undulations. They were proper uphills, forcing me to go to second gear, and of course I made the most of the downhills. For some time I was actually riding next to a river and couldn’t resist going down for a quick wash to cool down. The smell of the sea was strong, right form the time I’d reached Kumta, and would stay with me through the rest of the ride.

another random afternoon break. this time to cool down 

by the river. ~day3. 3:30pm. 465 k (120k)

The next town was Ankola and I could try getting a place to sleep there, I thought. So I rode easy for some time, stopping often to take in the scenery. From the tops of most of the uphills, you get a good view of the sea, mostly mongroove and the water coming in in a network of broad interconnected channels. The traffic on the highway wasn’t too bad, the trucks were far better behaved than I’d expected. In fact loaded trucks and tractors moved at about the same speed as me, especially on the uphills. The worst are the buses, speeding and overtaking like insane. It’s really bad in parts where the highway is not four-laned, then the vehicles coming from the opposite side push you off the road in their bid to overtake. And buses take forever to overtake, driving alongside whatever they’re overtaking, taking up the whole road. Initially I’d just stay on as long as a I could and then quickly get off the road, making loud what-the-fuck gestures at the bus with my hand. This is until I saw this one bus driver actually looking at me gesturing with his chin for me to get off the road while he maneuvered the steering with both his hands. The problem with me is that more often than not I start to see the other person’s point of view, like the bus driver must’ve been having a tough time overtaking on the uphill or something of that sort, and then it’s hard to stay angry. Anyway, the realisation that I could directly talk to the drivers brought about a change of tactics. By the third day I was gesturing wildly to any potentially hazardous overtakers to stay in their lane. Big hand waves, before pulling off the road sometimes, as they came at me anyway; but in some of the cases it did work.

And the head-winds. As any bicyclist will tell you, if you’re riding, and it’s windy, it’s got to be a headwind. Mostly it’s hitting you straight head-on, if not then from 11 or 1 o’clock. I’m yet to experience wind that assists your ride. So every day in the afternoon, as if the heat wasn’t enough, the wind would pick up and I’d have to struggle against it.

At one point I stopped at a culvert over a little dry canal or drain or something, under a gulmohar. I was lying there with my eyes shut for about five minutes before I realized that the smell was suddenly much stronger, more rotten carcass than fishy. I sat up to see the skeleton of a goat, shrink-wrapped in discoloured hide staring back at me with hollow eyes. I lay down again and decided to just ignore the smell. The trip showed me some lovely sights, but then the world is quite unbiased when it comes to throwing sights at you. When you set out to see the world, you get to see the good, the bad and the ugly in the correct proportion. I passed a lot of road-kills, dogs mostly, some birds, some rats and disproportionately more snakes in goa. And somewhere on the first day I cycled past this horrible scene that I couldn’t make much sense of. There were dead chicken all over the place, dead and decaying, feathers and all. Must’ve been an accident involving a truck carrying chickens, but then there were dead chickens hanging from trees and bushes. And feathers everywhere. It looked like a truck carrying chickens had exploded.

But then as I got up to leave from the culvert, there were these two girls fetching water. Or were they carrying school bags? I forget. One must’ve been about 14 and the other 8. They didn’t come close but asked questions from afar, smiling broadly at my responses. And when I finally got on the bike to leave they blew me flying kisses. I was smiling for the next few kilometers.  

i watched with great satisfaction, a bus struggling uphill

Five of the spikes later I was passing by the outskirts of Ankola. The highway doesn’t pass through the town, which I guess must be right on the coast, instead heads north touching just the outskirts. So all I saw of Ankola was the slums and the garbage and this was a rather hard blow to the image of the nice coastal town I had in my head. I left the town behind and stopped at a chai-kade, roadside tea stall, to refill water and get some biscuits. I also asked if there was a place to stay and he said no. it was 5:10pm and Karwar was about 35k away. I was hoping to find a place somewhere before Karwar, before the sun set.

the sea from the highway

After an especially long and tiring uphill I came upon a little temple right on top. Temples are good places to put up since they generally have water and walls. This one had neither. While I was chewing on a bun, contemplating staying there anyway since it did have a good view and clean stone slabs, I saw this man get off his scooter and watch the sun set. He’d not stopped to pee or something, actually just watch the sun set over the town sprawling in an arc below us, hugging the sea. I promptly went over and struck up a conversation. As I’d expected, he lived in the town that we were looking down upon (literally for now, but soon, metaphorically as well) and was just heading home. So far so good. Now if I could only get an invitation out of him. Are there places to stay there? Like maybe schools or post-offices, I asked him, what’s the beach like? No no, he said, this is not a good place, it’s a fishing town with all sorts of people, not safe at all; you better head for Karwar. And that was that.

the sun setting upon the town we looked down upon

It was 6:10pm and Karwar was now about 18k away. Once I made up my mind to get there, I didn’t have to look around for places to stay on the way and so I cycled fast at a nice steady cadence, covering the last 18k in under an hour. As it got dark, I was looking forward to seeing the twinkling lights of Karwar from atop the last big uphill, nestled like the previous town had been in a hollow by the sea. But that was not to be.

A few kilometers before Karwar there is extensive Navy presence and there was this big barbwire-topped wall along the road starting well before the beginning of the last big uphill, that cut off the view of the sea completely. I cycles past what looked like a ship-building/ repair dock, past some brightly coloured boats on a beach and then into the town. I pulled up sharp opposite this building which the board said was the fisheries research institute. Institutes I thought were good places to try and get a bed, people would be more willing to accommodate you since they’re not personal property. But the guy there refused to let me stay and suggested I try the municipality offices, I asked for the way to the beach instead.

karwar beach. done for the day.
day3. 7:10pm. 525 k (180k)

So there I stood at Karwar beach at 7:10pm, having cycled 180k that day about 525 in all, with no place to sleep yet. There was an immense sense of achievement as the waves washed over my feet and the wheels of the bicycle. I had managed to make it all the way to the coast. My bicycle had touched the sea.

Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end:

Methinks it is no journey.

It’s from an old poem called tom a bedlam, that I’d come across on a bicycle touring blog. The last para goes:

With an host of furious fancies

Whereof I am commander,

With a burning spear and a horse of air,

To the wilderness I wander.

By a knight of ghosts and shadows

I summoned am to a tourney

Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end:

Methinks it is no journey.

The Rabindranath Tagore Beach in Karwar is a nice place. At 7:30 it was dark, lit by only a few large flood lights. There were lots of families sitting around, kids playing in the sand, couples walking, people generally going about their own business. I wondered if I could get someone to ask me to stay at their place. But it’s always more difficult when it’s you approaching the person; it’s the same principles of animal behaviour that apply to befriending dogs, or kids. So I tried to strike up a conversation by asking some people to take a pic of me with my cycle, but it didn’t work. They took the pic and left, no one seemed to be curious enough to ask me what I was doing there with my bicycle. So then I asked people tangentially about places to stay and plainly got told the names of a few hotels. In short, I wasn’t having much luck. So I decided to spend the night on the beach; but I had to go get dinner first.

I ate at a roadside stall and asked the rajasthani owner for cheap hotels. I figured I should give these a look over once in case I needed to locate them later in the night. The first one I went to was 400 bucks for the room and hot water, the second one that I didn’t go to (because the reception was up a flight of steps in a crowded street and I didn’t want my cycle to disappear) I was told would be 200. Then I headed back to the beach which was still crowded at 8:30. I found a nice spot in the soft dry sand and lay down just above the waterline with my head-band beneath my head. I put the cycle right next to me and held onto the wheel with one hand as I dozed off.

I half expected to be evicted in some time, or at least be woken up and asked what I was doing there, by policemen at best and drunken louts at the worst. But when I woke up an hour later because of the mosquitoes, the beach was deserted. The only others around were the people sleeping on the concrete below the flood-lights. Now that was a very sensible thing to do because by now I had sand all over me and in my clothes and it wasn’t the most comfortable I’ve been. No one, however, seemed to have a problem with me sleeping there, so I applied odomos against the mosquitoes, grainy with sand particles, and went back to sleep, hand gripping the wheel.

..................................................................................................................................

When I woke up at 2:30am it was because of the cold. I felt really foolish because I had a sleeping bag in the jhola but I couldn’t use it because I was all sandy. I guess I could’ve used it, but I was afraid once in, I’d never be able to get the sand out of it again. So I tossed and turned a bit but when that didn’t help, the only thing to do was to move on. I cycled a few kilometers out of town and the pedaling warmed me up a bit. I came to a bridge and took a short nap on the pavement, holding onto the cycle again. The whole bridge would shake when a big truck passed over it and the sea below looked beautiful, a dark expanse only reflecting the distant streetlights. I must’ve slept there for about half an hour but it was still cold. And the most frustrating bit was that in a few hours it would be too hot to cycle! Such is nature and such the tolerance of man. I stopped one or two more times but figured it wasn’t worth it and that I’d best go on.

on the highway between karwar and canacona.
day4. 5:10am. 545 k (20k)

At about 4:15am I stopped at what turned out to be a sales-tax check-post. I finally washed the sand off my face, neck and limbs and refilled the drinking water. My left foot had started to hurt during the last hour of riding the previous day and it was still bad. The tendons around the back of the ankle and the heel seemed stiff. The only thing I could do was wear my canvas shoes that had ankle support and tie them up tight, that seemed to help a bit. The nape was already bad, and now I had the ankle to worry about as well. But then pain like that, after all, is subjective. It’s just something you have to overcome I guess.

on the highway between karwar and canacona.
day4. 6:00am. 555 k (30k)

I crossed into Goa before dawn that day. Riding in the dark was not too painful because there wasn’t too much traffic and more importantly, the highway in this part is marked on the sides by reflectors. On one of the long, slow uphills I had the road all to myself. It was pitch dark and all I could see were the reflectors shining in the light of my headlamp, snaking their way up into nothingness. As a kid I’d read the story of the pandavs and draupadi climbing up to the heavens, accompanied by a dog. This is what I imagined the road would’ve been like; though there were no cliffs for me to fall off here.

outside canacona. planning over chai and 

biscuits. day4. 6:55am. 565 k (40k)

Soon it was light and in a few more stops to catch my breath I was near Canacona. The uphills today had been steeper and longer but up ahead lay the biggest uphill of the trip; it was a 5k long uphill that went from near sea-level to about 175m at the top. So it was time for some nice sweet chai along with some nice, well, biscuits, since that was all they had at 6:55 in the morning.

cow

This is nothing compared to Nandi hill I kept telling myself as I pushed up that one, sweating away. And then there was the lovely downhill to look forward to. There are two kinds of people in the world, those who fear downhills, thinking that every downhill will be punished with an uphill, and those who relish uphills, thinking that every uphill is rewarded by a downhill. I fall in the latter category. Another big uphill and then the highway starts going through small goan towns with walled, narrow roads and houses on both sides. These towns are interspersed with green open fields and coconut groves. After one of the long downhills, I had to tighten the brakes on the front wheel that had come loose a bit. This was the only repair the cycle needed in the four days of riding. The freewheel on the rear wheel, I think, kind of started to creak towards the end too, but that was almost near Panjim and I managed to ride it alright to Candolim and back to the bus-stop five days later.  

margaon.
day4. 9:50am. 595 k (70k)

I stopped in Margaon at 9:50am just to take pictures of the lovely old Portuguese buildings and then cycled on. There were two short steep sweaty and incredibly hot uphills more before Panjim, but then I eventually got there at 12:10. I saw people riding single gear bicycles on the uphills and I wondered how they managed it. And people with large clumsy loads tied to their bicycles. If any of them took it into their heads, they could easily be cycling across India.  

tiswadi, near panjim.
day4. 11:00 am. 610 k (85k)

My final destination was Candolim, another 10k away, so I thought I might as well go there and have lunch. The ride to Candolim was through a narrow road with houses on both sides. I rested a bit outside an old abandoned house, obviously thinking of how I could’ve spent the night there. But today I would meet up with my mother and my sister who were coming down from Punjab and I’d get a comfortable bed to sleep in, so I didn’t have to worry about that. I’m glad I have rich relatives.

At a fork, I asked a woman selling aluminium utensils which way Candolim was. It always surprises me how people like her make a living since she had just about 5 pots with her to sell. How does the newspaper stall pay for itself? What about the guy with like a small basket of oranges on the bicycle? Maybe I should ask the newspaper guy the next time I pass him by.

and finally, candolim beach.
day4. 1:00pm. 635 k (110k)

In candolim, I cycled first to the apartments, where mum would arrive later in the evening, where I would come eventually to surprise her, and left a little birthday note (it was her birthday) and then headed for the beach. I could feel my brain boiling in its fluid by the time I found a way to the beach. But I still had to drag my cycle across the sand, now that we’d come this far, it had to see the sea as well. It is hard work dragging a cycle in the sand but I got it there and headed for one of the shacks. Putting the stand on one of my chappals in the shade, I stood staring at the sea, taking it all in, for a long moment before finally settling down into a chair and ordering a large lunch. I’d left home with a little less than 500 bucks, and now, four days later (and much thanks to Suji) I had about 250 bucks left in my wallet. It was more than enough for lunch.

It was 1:00 in the afternoon, and I’d come 110k that day. It was done. I’d come from Bangalore to Goa by cycle. Bicycle. 635k in four days. I lazed around a bit in the chair and then asked the guy to look after my cycle while I went to the sea for a dip. They had lounge beds laid out under large umbrellas and I went and slept in one of these until it was time for mum’s flight.