Let’s go cycling

India Day 1- Aug 20

Here we go. 4:30am alarm and our van duly turned up at 5 to transport the bikes (and us!) to the airport.
A super quick flight had us landing in Trivandrum (or Thiruvananthapuram for those who want a tongue twister…) after just 35 minutes in the air.

Everything seemed pretty simple getting through immigration, except the guy checking my passport decided to interrogate me over every country I’ve ever visited and all the possible reasons I could have for visiting India. He’d asked what my (previous) occupation was and I inadvertently said tourism which apparently causes alarm bells. Not sure why… but he was keen to know that I wouldn’t be reporting back to any govt authorities anywhere…

Then to put the bikes together, under the watchful gaze of those gathered around the departure gates. Thankfully the taxi ranks are all outside the airport so there was no hustling or jostling while we reassembled the cycles.

We chose a homestay close to the airport to get the feel of the place- right on the beach but you wouldn’t want to try and swim! Quite rough, with a rock wall, and that’s if the piles of rubbish along the perimeter hadn’t already been offputting enough!

Well…they say India is an assault on the senses and it’s certainly been that, with just a few hours in the country! The traffic seems manic yet ok.. so far…but everything moves at a much more hurried and urgent pace than in Sri Lanka. Feeling a tad nervous about hitting the roads for real on our bikes.

A big walk to and through the city proper introduced us to the vivid colours, sounds and smells (especially the smells!!) of this “little” Indian city. The contrasts are already mind blowing- lavish buildings and obvious wealth mingled with solo women desperately to sell us a fish to eke out a living for themselves. A mother with two small children in the middle of the walkway just hoping for some help. We are still trying to figure out the best approach for beggars and money demands. All advice gratefully received but in the meantime we figure buying food to give may be the best approach.

Day 2- Aug 21. A “sort out” day in Trivandrum

Lazy morning then headed up the stairs with great anticipation for breakfast. After two rich curry meals yesterday we were both hankering for something simple- but it seems curry for breakfast might be something we need to get used to here! The hoppers are nice and plain though and filling enough to get us through.

We thought we’d try and open an Indian bank account so that we can use their “UPI” system as it seems the way to do things here (no card payments here, the fees are too high. instead they use a payment method using a phone and QR codes, zero fees.) That wasn’t so easy however and after a couple of hours in the bank we gave up and for the time being have resorted to good ol’ cash.

Another big wander around the city, managed to find a bike shop for a spare innertube and succumbed to a bit of “comfort food” in the guise of KFC… thinking it could be a while before we see anything non curryish for a while!

Day 3…on the road

So far the traffic isn’t as terrifying as we feared.  The towns (oh and there are many!!) are a bit chaotic and there’s certainly plenty of traffic jostling, but on the whole there seems to be some kind of order and we haven’t felt unsafe on the roads (yet!)

A random drink stop led us to a bit of an interesting interaction with a couple who are travelling around producing a youtube series. They were rather fascinated that we were a) travelling India on bicycles (yeah, mad, right!) and b) that we were on a back road where no foreigners generally set foot. So they asked us a heap of questions and took photos, ya never know we might make it into a clip of something somewhere!

Punalur is a very bustling city, took us a while to find accommodation that was even half decent but eventually found a lodge for around $26. We also found a bar (!) so we thought we’d have our first beer in India: it generally seems to be a fairly dry argument around these parts 🙂 . It also turns out that they don’t see too many foreigners around here- we enjoyed our quiet beer in a darkened room with a few others, were fed copious amounts of bar snacks (who’s complaining ??) and the hotel operations manager made a special appearance to chat with us.

India Day 4

A nice ride – with a good mix of chaotic traffic and some leafy green quiet roads. Plenty of places to stop for a chai or a dosa!

A little shorter day today so a bit of time to catch up on things.
Found some accommodation which seemed a fair price and decent, but swapped rooms a little later as it was somewhat ant infested… But other than that pretty nice!
You know how a photograph can make a room/bed look larger…or smaller? Well this is the comparison between last night’s and tonight’s (same price). Our bed last night was literally half the size, just as well we aren’t too huge I guess.

Now off to explore the city and find some food!