Cycle India 2010

Wednesday 2 January

A group of twenty-eight intrepid adventurers, including some non-cycling loved ones, left Gatwick on Wednesday morning, bound for Hyderabad via Dubai.

We arrived in Hyderabad at breakfast time the next morning, for the start of two days of travelling within India to get to the starting point of the bike ride.

Thursday 3 January

After a spot of food and a freshen up, we boarded our coach and drove east for most of the day. The coach journey was an eye opener to India’s rules of the road – honk your horn at all times and don’t give a second thought to what might be coming the other way!

We arrived at our destination for Thursday night, quite a decent hotel in the town of Bhadrachalam, two or three hours behind schedule at around 9pm, very ready for bed after losing a night’s sleep travelling. This was where we started to realise the interest in our visit, and found that sleep was not on the agenda for a while yet.

After receiving our first garlands of the trip, we were greeted by a group of tribal dancers and musicians who put on a fantastic show for us in the hotel grounds, followed by a spectacular display by the local karate team involving fire, slates and beds of nails.

There was then a press conference and TV interview for some of the HEAL officials, followed by speeches and then an excellent supper. Did we want a repeat performance by the tribal dancers? Rude not to really, so bed eventually arrived around 12:30.

Friday 4 January

The choices the next morning were to be ready to leave at 6:30 or, if you wanted to do a trip to the nearby temple, be ready at 5:30. At this time, we thought 6:30 was an early start (little did we know) and decided to miss the temple in favour of beauty sleep, only to receive an early call in any event in case we wanted to change our minds about the temple trip!

Having gathered in reception for the off at 6:30, we got our first taste of how long it takes to get such a big group of people together (working against a background of Indian timekeeping) and how many frustrating hours we would spend ‘gathering’, waiting for things to happen.
The wait did, however, give us the opportunity to read our ‘reviews’ in the newspapers. The Hindu Times, under the heading of “They ride bicycles for a noble cause”, wrote “Their smiling face belie the tiredness of their bodies. Criss-crossing the rural hinterland on bicycles and braving the heat and dust of the coastal region can be a daunting task…..”. Language almost from another era, like so much of the India that we experienced.

Our coach finally left at around 8am, familiarly behind schedule. We were never short of things to squeeze into our schedule, and made a brief visit to a school before leaving Bhadrachalam.

Off into the countryside and we soon made an unplanned stop to take photos when we saw a few locals doing some harvesting on the outskirts of their tiny village.

This lead to us being invited into the village to be shown around one of the brick and mud huts with its straw roof and no electricity, and its small shrine with ever burning incense in one corner.

This hospitality and friendliness from people who had so little seemed, at first, incredible, although we were soon to come to realise that this was the attitude we could expect wherever we went.

After a couple of hours, we reached the Godavari River where we boarded the first of two boats that we were to travel on that day. Under a canopy on an otherwise open upper deck, the group were able to mix properly for the first time, taking it in turns to grab a mike and introduce themselves and tell a joke or do a party piece. On the second boat, the magnificent Godavari began to widen and the fantastic scenery opened up.

When another excellent meal was served up on board, it began to strike me that the serving staff looked familiar. I soon learnt that we had brought with us our own Indian chef and eight or nine kitchen staff. These guys travelled with us or ahead of us throughout the trip to ensure that we ate the highest quality freshly prepared and cooked meals, setting up the kitchen and temporary dining areas in the most unlikely of places. The food was always fantastic although, by the end of the trip, after ten days of Indian food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, most of us were ready for a good steak!

A group of young Indian dancers had been brought in to perform on a small stage on the boat during the afternoon. Their extremely upbeat
performance was something to behold and, when they invited/forced us up onto the stage to perform with them, the ice was well and truly broken.

After witnessing an incredible sunset across the Godavari, we disembarked and picked up a fresh coach to take us to our hotel in the busy town of Rajahmundry.

There, we were introduced to our bicycles. What a moment!

A few weeks prior to leaving home, we were told that the bikes would be brand new ones built in India, with no gears. The lack of gears was initially a concern to us, although we were assured that the area was predominantly flat and that it wouldn’t be a problem. Apparently, they just don’t do gears in India and, as the bikes were going to be donated to the HEAL Children’s Village once we’d finished, it seemed churlish to do anything other than get on with it.

Even so, seeing the bikes for the first time was still a shock. They had old-fashioned turned round handlebars, big heavy frames, and a seat the size of an armchair. Having said all that, even though we looked like a fleet of grannies cycling down to the shops in the 1950’s, they performed brilliantly. They were comfortable and reliable and there was only the odd occasion that your legs told you that they wanted an extra gear.
Grub and in bed by 11pm.

Saturday 5 January

Cycle time! The order was to meet in reception for a 5.45am departure because we had a long day and wanted to avoid cycling in the middle of the day if possible. Time keeping was improving – we left at 6.45.

We took our bus to the outskirts of Rajahmundry (stopping to fit in a visit to a British built bridge that had apparently opened up the region many years previously) where we were reintroduced to our bikes which had magically been transported there for the official start of the ride.

Indians are so proud of their nation that, if you get more than five of them together at any one time, they want to sing their National anthem. They duly performed it and also offered some unopposed mild mocking in our direction, suggesting that we might want to mumble our own “like our footballers”!

The UK crowd had been joined by two from America plus a number from India, taking our cycling contingent to around thirty. The group was a real mix of doctors, nurses, teachers, doctors, electricians, double glaziers, printers, doctors, an Indian monk, an insurance claims consultant, and others.

It was also a mixture of all shapes, sizes and ages, although the majority were over 40 and some were a lot nearer 60.

HEAL had initially planned the whole trip with an ‘adventure tour’ company, but took on more and more arrangements themselves as matters progressed to get better value, with HEAL eventually arranging everything but the flights. The decision to take things on themselves was inspired, making the trip a unique and utterly authentic experience for all those taking part.

HEAL was very heavily assisted by a number of staff from the Nagarjuna Hospital, a leading hospital in the region. These people made most of the arrangements in India and were incredible hosts to us. They arranged the route, lead us round it and marshalled it, arranged accommodation and transport, and all of the logistics of always getting us, food, and drink in the right place at (roughly) the right time.

The start of the ride, along a busy road not dissimilar to the M25, wasn’t the most pleasant part of the trip, but we soon dropped down off this road and out into the countryside.

We made a stop and breakfast appeared from nowhere. After that, stops were made about every 15 kilometres, where a van would throw open its rear door and treat us to ice cold water, bunches of short stumpy bananas (Indian bananas – bite size heaven!), oranges and coconuts freshly cut from the tree, plus energy drinks.

I’d only ever drunk two cans of the stuff before and had thought it to be sugary muck, but I’m now hooked – two cans of it in the afternoon and you’re racing along.

As we cycled along, the extent of our entourage slowly became apparent. There was our coach (American style yellow school bus), the lorry carrying our luggage, the bikes when necessary, and kitchen equipment, a fully stocked and staffed ambulance, the refreshments van, another couple of support vehicles for ferrying marshals and the sick around in, motorbikes to help keep us in order, plus the odd cycle mechanic and masseur.

It was odd when it started to dawn on us that the man leading us along, doubling up as a bike mechanic, and generally skivvying for us was a neuro-surgeon, and that the man pointing directions to us when we were lost in a town was the leading gastro-enterologist in the region.

Once off the main road, the scenery was incredible.

The landscape was mostly flat first of all and the narrow roads that we were travelling along had paddy fields of vivid greens on either side for as far as the eye could see, broken up only by lines of coconut trees. Every so often, we would ride through settlements of mud huts strung out along the road. People, especially children, would come to the roadside to wave and cheer. They were probably stunned more than anything by the site of, first of all, a couple of white faces going through their village on bicycles, followed by another thirty or so.

Roads would often run alongside small rivers and this brought the sight of women washing their clothes in the water and bashing them dry on rocks, and men washing their cows and bullocks in the river.

In larger settlements, the first few cyclists going through would be greeted by a few confused people but word would quickly spread and, by the time the last few people passed through, the entire village would be out on the street cheering and waving, with the kids eager for ‘high-fives’.

Our lunch break was by a fish farm, where we could take in the scenery without having to cycle at the same time.

I can’t remember who were our hosts, but they were extremely hospitable, as ever.

We were treated to a cock fighting display, which I think made most of the UK contingent uncomfortable, especially when they attached blades to the feet of the cocks to make it a fight to the death.

We finished the day by hitting the coast for the first time at Perupalem Beach, where we stayed in church buildings in the grounds of the Bishop’s house. The adrenalin of the finish of the first day was overwhelming – cue more garlands (and cold beer!), plus a paddle in the Bay of Bengal.

The accommodation was a very long room, divided into boy and girl’s dormitories by a makeshift curtain. It could have been a very basic forerunner to the Big Brother format! Ablutions were in brick built rows of cubicles with non-flushing loos and a bucket of hot water boiled over an open fire.

Our hospital hosts had arranged a bit of a beach party, with a temporary stage that they were always keen to grab the centre of for a spot of song and dance. We joined in as best we could with poor versions of Grease Lightning and other showstoppers.

More food was served, then bed and lots of snoring.

Sunday 6 January

Up at 5am to grab your hot water, followed by breakfast outside in the dark at 6 and ready to say goodbye to the Bishop at 7, and off on our bikes at 7.30 for our second day of cycling to an immediate realisation that I had grown extra bones in my backside since the previous day, and they all hurt!

A quick 20 km, then an interesting, lazy river crossing in a fleet of small boats. I think it was only about 30-minutes in the boats but, one way or another, it was about two-hours between getting off our bikes and getting back on them again, what with compulsory standing around and getting the bicycles, the motorbikes, and us on and off the boats.

Once across the river, we did another 20 km before taking lunch in a temporary restaurant that our crew had set up in a village en route. Because of the lengthy river crossing, we were cycling through the real heat of the day leading up to lunch, and that was the hardest ‘session’ of the trip for me.

The charity had arranged for a professional video maker to travel with us from the UK, and he was ably supported by a keen amateur. There was also a professional Indian filmmaker who joined us, so there was no shortage of cameras around. These guys got everywhere, mainly on motorbikes, filming absolutely everything. They were never off duty and did much more than just take shots of us, scooting off to film in slum areas and to capture other snapshots of India that we weren’t always seeing.

The idea is for the UK guy to produce a two-minute promotional film for the charity – he should have enough to choose from with over 30-hours of film! The cyclists are all hoping that there will also be a longer version for us to keep as a memento.

Cycling through the occasional town (or villages as they were generally regarded as by the Indians) was an experience to behold. The traffic was usually utter chaos, particularly when witnessed from bike level. Our marshals would be frantically trying to get to the correct corners in time to direct us through the towns.

On the occasional stretch of dual carriageway, there was no telling what you might find coming the wrong way towards you.

Another adrenalin charged end to the second day saw us arrive in a field at Manginapudi Beach, where I was lucky enough to get a work over from one of our travelling masseurs. The accommodation for half the group was in holiday style chalets in this field, but the other half had to go to the village where a hotel had been arranged. Thinking that the village sounded about five-minutes away, we volunteered to jump on the coach.

Unfortunately, the ‘village’ of Challapalli was forty-minutes drive away and was, of course, a bustling, noisy place. By the time we got there, we had twenty minutes to get cleaned up and back on the bus for food and an evening gathering.

Unfortunately, the hotel at Challapalli was dreadful. Terry and I got dealt the last key, which lead us to room 112, which was truly filthy. We agreed that nobody should be stuck with this room and that we would rather sleep on the coach, only to find that others were in the same boat.

Our trip back to Manginapudi Beach was improved by the timely purchase of a few cold beers, and the ‘Village People’ were forming that extra bond brought about by adversity. Fortunately, our hosts intervened during the evening to secure other rooms and all turned out well. It was possibly an indicator of what we might have been faced with if we hadn’t had people looking out for us all the way through. A great evening was had before returning late to the hotel after a good sing song on the coach.

Monday 7 January

Because we had stayed far from the rest of the party in Manginapudi Beach, we had to be up and ready to leave the hotel at 6am to take the coach back there for breakfast. As we couldn’t find the coach driver for some time (asleep on the back seat), we didn’t get away until nearer 7. We joked that Sod’s Law said that, later in the day, we would be cycling back through Challapalli.

Breakfast in the field at Manginapudi was followed by a coach journey to…..Challapalli (!), where we got on the bikes and started cycling again.

That morning, we had a very enjoyable journey through beautiful countryside and along an incredibly long bridge over the Krishna River. We travelled through more settlements strung out along the sides of the road, watching village life going on, seeing teams of people working in the paddy fields, and evading a procession of over-laden cattle-drawn carts going to market.

Something that really struck me about India was the rubbish. It was everywhere! It seemed that, wherever anyone in India is, if they have some rubbish, whether it is a bottle, a can, or a food container, they drop it where they are.

This amazed us at first, but it was explained to us that there is no system of refuse collection, so nobody bothers. This isn’t just in towns, but in villages and absolutely anywhere that anybody has been – rubbish strewn everywhere. I wanted to scream at people not to ruin their
beautiful country and was really disappointed that we weren’t clearing up after our own refreshment stops, leaving bottles and cans by the roadside. It seems it’s not worth it because, if you bag it up, where will you put it, and that bag, wherever you put it, is likely to end up dumped back out in the country.

Why isn’t there a system? That’s a really big question and I can’t give you a good answer. It probably has to be parked for the time being, along with other question on why there aren’t many other things.

Our lunchtime break really lifted everyone, with a stop at a school and deafening cheering from a packed playground. More garlands, plus incense and bindis for the first time.

Unfortunately, Terry started to get sick during the afternoon and was almost going backwards on her bike by the end, but did fantastically well to finish the day. A short coach ride took us to Suryalanka Beach where we were all staying in comfortable holiday chalets smack on the beach. An invigorating swim in big waves at sunset really lifted everybody’s spirits, followed by a cold beer on the beach.

Terry unfortunately continued to go downhill with food poisoning – it just showed that, even with all the care that we were taking on the catering front, you couldn’t be sure of not succumbing to something. The kindly consultant gastro-enterologist really came into his own that evening – you should never travel without one!

Tuesday 8 January

The fourth and last day of cycling and we wanted to arrive at the HEAL Children’s Village as early in the afternoon as possible, so another early start – ready for breakfast at 6 for a 6.30 departure. Good effort, but make that breakfast at 6.30 for a 7.30 departure. Terry was a lot better, but still couldn’t be trusted on a bike without a commode, so had to travel in one of the support vehicles.

There was a real buzz about cycling on the final day and this was heightened when we cycled through the small town of Srinivasa. Here, we were greeted by more than a thousand children lining both sides of the street.

I was quite near the front of the ride when we hit the town and was stunned by the crowds.

As we left the town, we were just saying how fantastic the reception had been as one of the motorbike riders caught us up to say that an impromptu stop had been arranged at one of the town’s schools. We therefore had to turn round and go back. Cue more cheering and waving – I can see what keeps Robbie Williams going!

We actually made a brief stop at each of the three schools in the town and were amazed by the good behaviour and discipline of the children, as well as their incredible enthusiasm towards this strange bunch of people that had arrived before them. Thankfully, Terry had managed to get back on her bike a couple of kilometres before the town and was able to witness all of this. She also stayed in the saddle for the final 20 kilometres to the Children’s Village.

The welcome at the Children’s Village in the afternoon was incredible. Bigger garlands than ever, cheering crowds, a band, the unveiling of a plaque, and a walk around surrounded by hordes of children.

More food, of course, then an afternoon concert put on by the children, including singing, dancing, gymnastics, martial arts, pottery, painting, in fact just about everything. Then we had time to clean up and take a more leisurely look around the Village and the school.

Time to tell you a little about the HEAL charity. In 1992, HEAL’s Founder President, Dr Prasad (one of the older cyclists on the trip!), donated his family home in the town of Guntur to be a home for younger orphaned children. Inspired by Dr Prasad’s donation, his friend, Dr Manga Devi, agreed to educate the children for free at her school. This was the start of HEAL and the Ankita Children’s Home.

HEAL’s Children’s Village, situated 15 kilometres outside Guntur, was opened in 1999, caring for more than 200 orphaned and destitute children, aged from 5 to 18. The village is situated in three acres of beautifully kept grounds, overlooked by mountain scenery. A boy’s dormitory, housing fifty teenage boys, was added in 2005. HEAL also set up a health centre opposite the Village, providing health care for the children and for the local community.

The Village sits opposite the Chetna project, which is a major educational and recreational facility where the children attend school. HEAL also funds a large number of ‘poverty trap’ children to attend the school. These are kids from very poor backgrounds who would otherwise not receive an education and who would almost certainly be in child labour or would be begging.

Arriving in the evening, there was another concert, followed by even more food, and then a coach to the nearby town of Guntur where we were staying in our most comfortable hotel yet, and a first reasonably early night.

What with the final day of cycling, the lunchtime reception, and the welcome and activities at the Children’s Village, the day had been hugely emotional and we were all pretty well drained and ready for our beds.

Wednesday 9 January

Our first leisurely start to a day! Breakfast at 8.30 and ready to get on our coach at 9 to go shopping. Close – the coach arrived at 10.15! There had been a whip round amongst us to buy some presents to give to the children at the Village. Canvassing amongst the children and teachers had given us a wish list of a DVD player, some printers and sports equipment.

The idea was for us to shop for this little lot before we went back to the Village for a relaxed time exploring the grounds and maybe having a game of cricket or football with the kids. The girls also wanted to buy some saris to wear later in the day, so off we all went into the town, accompanied by some teachers from the school to assist the ladies.

On the way to the shops, there was a diversion to take in the house initially donated by Dr Prasad. The house is now home to older children that have finished High School and are continuing with higher education. It was a real pleasure to meet some of the delightful young women that HEAL was ‘producing’ and there was the added bonus of some of us joining in an impromptu game of cricket with some local lads on a nearby piece of wasteland.

What followed in the town was agonising. Fifteen ladies managed to buy saris in about a third of the time that it took fifteen blokes to haggle over the price of printers, DVD players and sports equipment in a succession of shops, with each bloke knowing more about what was the best spec for a DVD, and what was a good price for a printer, than everyone else.

This was the first time that we had been in a town on foot and it meant that we were standing around outside shops and so experienced small children tugging at our clothes and begging at close quarters. We also saw amusing sights such as apparently unclaimed cattle wandering amongst insanely busy traffic, and stood still in parking spaces.

Our dreadful shopping technique, combined with the horrendous traffic in the town (and the task of carrying out a succession of U-turns in a coach with no turning circle), and not knowing what shops were where in relation to the others or to the hotel, meant that we didn’t get to the Village until 3pm, which was when our Valedictory Concert was due to start.

Always time for food though, so we downed another meal on arrival, while the start of the afternoon activities was delayed. There then followed various speeches and then another fantastic show of song and dance from the children.

Unfortunately, all the rushing meant that there was no time for mixing with the kids or for the girls to put their saris on and show them off on the stage. However, they did manage to get them on after the concert and show them off around the Village before we handed over the presents, said our goodbyes, and headed back for our second night at the hotel in Guntur.

The attention we, as a group, had received from everyone at the Children’s Village and the school, and the effort that they had all put in to the shows and the hospitality that they had shown us over the day and a half we had been there, was absolutely overwhelming.

It was a very emotional time and I think most people got a bit choked up at one point or another.

Thursday 10 January

Up at 4.30am for a 5am departure in a small fleet of cars taking us to a nearby small airport for a flight back to Hyderabad.

Always time for another diversion, especially when it involves breakfast! We stopped at the Nagarjuna Hospital, where the doctors who had shown us such fantastic hospitality during the ride worked. At an unearthly hour of the morning, there were nurses and other hospital staff lining the road through the hospital. We had breakfast with our recently found cycling buddies and then returned to the cars, only to find the road still lined with hospital staff. This was all too much!

Off to the airport and a short flight on Kingfisher (yes, the beer!) Airlines back to Hyderabad. On arrival in Hyderabad, we visited a school in the city that HEAL had recently become associated with through making contributions towards running expenses.

The school provides free education to children from a nearby slum area, who would otherwise receive none. It has tiny classrooms separated from each other only by 3-feet high walls, with children packed into them - it is a far cry from the relatively luxurious conditions of the Children’s Village. The school is situated on an expensive piece of land that it currently occupies for a low rent. Even so, the school is clearly in dire financial straights and, as the low rent is soon to end, the school has to reconsider it’s future and HEAL is closely involved in this process.

We were then off to our hotel in Hyderabad for television interviews (!), and then a couple of hours to wind down before our final evening excursion. Dr Prasad had received an invitation from the very wealthy owner of three private hospitals for all of us to attend a reception in the grounds of an exclusive club. That evening, we saw a very different side to India. This involved ridiculously opulent surroundings with very rich Indian people tinkling little bells to get their next gin and tonic.

I couldn’t really work out how this was meant to sit with all we had seen and what we were raising money for, but I am content to take Dr Prasad’s explanation which I think, in simple terms, was that it is better to work with these people than against them.

Whilst at the club, we did get the opportunity to watch ourselves on the equivalent of the Indian News at 10 – another strange experience. By this time, I had unfortunately picked up a bug and was starting to get the shivers and various other symptoms I won’t go in to.

Friday 11 January

The journey home. A lie-in till 6.30! Yours truly not feeling at all well. Suffice to say, an 18-hour journey home with a fever and your head in a sick bag is not much fun!

So, that was it. What will I remember from the trip? Well, it was remarkable on many levels. On a personal level, there was the physical and mental challenge of actually doing the ride, as well as a lot of practice miles beforehand in cold dark winter months. For Terry, there was also the added setback of badly breaking her leg not long before the ride.

Collectively, as a group of thirty or so people that had mostly never met before, the experience was fantastic. In a short time together, the group, of all ages and backgrounds, went through so many new experiences together and mixed and bonded amazingly well.
Emotionally, it was mind blowing. We saw such contrasts between the few ‘haves’ and the many ‘have-nots, and we received an awful lot from people who had next to nothing. It was a humbling experience.

I found India to be a mind-boggling place, a real conundrum. When I was looking for sponsorship ahead of the ride, I could sense a number who were reluctant thinking ‘they have the second fastest growing economy in the world, they’re wealthy, why can’t they sort themselves out and look after their poor?’ I’m not sure I know an answer – it doesn’t make sense does it? How does a country like India get the basis of an infrastructure; who is going to stop child labour? The truth, it seems, is that so much of India’s thriving economy is fuelled by child labour. Who has the incentive, or the ability or power to do anything about all of India’s problems?

So many questions and so few obvious answers. What I did see that made sense though was the Children’s Village and the schools that HEAL is supporting to give children a good education and the moral where withal to maybe make a difference as they grow up. It is working on a very small scale but it is working from the bottom upwards and that has to be a good start.