Cycle India 2010

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!