UK to India 2009-2010

Installment VI of the Iran saga - playing in the sand* in the Lut Desert, enjoying the peace and quiet of the desert night (if only...), meeting children & taking the road to Bam.

Installment VII - and final - of the Iran saga. My last few days in the country - relaxing and gathering my thoughts in Bam, meeting other bikers, throwing very un-Alex-like tantrums over Sistan-Va-Baluchistan's police conduct and (yes, it came to this!) FINALLY getting out of the country while (silently) using language that would make a sailor blush.Approaching Bam was a scary experience - long gone was the superb engineering of Iranian roads and the trouble-free road connections between major cities...

Leaving Iran behind, I find myself traveling with a group of 3 other bikers into the whizzing, mystic land that is Pakistan. This is what happened from the moment we set foot in the Taftan border till we reached Lahore, one long week later.Entering Pakistan was a strong experience. Immediately there was something different in the air... facilities were more basic, people (especially officials) were more friendly, everything had a to-be-figured-out feel about it. We went through customs and immigration with no problems whatsoever - quite the contrary, we enjoyed preferential treatment (i.e.

Traveling without police escorts - a welcome change. Being taken in by a lovely family in Islamabad, getting some time to relax, my first tyre puncture, a splendid wedding with good people, checking out Lahore and, just like that, getting out of the country. Next stop, India.Leaving Lahore, the next day we pushed on to Islamabad. It would be our first day in Pakistan without a police escort. Independence, finally! Islamabad wasn't very far away - less than 350K - so we got cocky with the whole "nah, piece of cake for us" and left late.

Out of Pakistan and into India. A sea of people, some of them too willing to jump on the bike, others polite and courteous, crowd control at the border with the local propaganda minister shouting at the hooligans to shout against the evil enemy even louder and then some more chaos in the Sikh pilgrimage city of Amritsar.

This is INDIAAAAA!One thing led to another and I'm now in the ridiculous position of having to catch up on a whole month of events in India... how am I ever going to do that?

Surviving Delhi, receiving the good doctor and traveling south through Rajasthan.I woke up in Amritsar all too eager to leave. This was too wild, too blindly religious, too crowded, too noisy, too chaotic for me. So I took the road to Delhi... (you at the back sniggering, I know who you are!)

Gujarat, where the Indian leg of the trip started looking up... finally breaking the "tourist" treatment by meeting Gujaratis and accepting their endless hospitality.

India - the Gandhinagar days. Gandhinagar is the administrative capital of the state of Gujarat, a city designed and built in the 60's. It's also where the home of Chaitanya, Anjana, Mahavir, Alok and many other people that made this leg of the trip worthwhile is. I take the time to recuperate and spend some quality time with them before taking the road south.The day after Ping-Yi left, the day after the accident.

Leaving the warmth of Gandhinagar behind, I travel for two days to reach India's largest city, fighting with the cultural and survival challenges India throws at me all along.Leaving Gandhinagar for the south was frustrating. To begin with, I had not ridden in a few days and my face-your-death-around-every-corner skills were a bit rusty. I was too wound up and could not relax for a single moment on the bike. I was also not allowed to use the expressway that leaves Ahmedabad for Mumbai, being stopped at the toll booths and told "no two wheelers".

A typical day in Mumbai, trying to arrange the shipment of the bike back to Europe. This blog entry was written on the day of the events and is published at a later date just to keep blog entries in chronological order.This is the gripe post.

Let me try to describe the frustration of dealing with customs clearing agents in Mumbai. This post chronicles the events of a single day.

The final stop of my trip. Mumbai, largest city in India, huge port to the West. The city where I thought I'd have the best chances of painlessly arranging for the transport of the bike back to Europe. Oh, but how wrong I was...Getting into Mumbai was not a shock at all. It was pretty much like any other Indian city of any decent size: Dirty, chaotic, noisy and dangerous to be on the road.

An open invitation to everyone subscribed to the UK2India blog for the next trip!Dear all

We are starting a 6-month bicycle tour around Chile. Would you like to follow the new blog?

If so, please send me a short message and I'll subscribe you.

Thanks

Alex