This is the gate to the town that I came through. Its hard to hold the camera level while riding, so I've straightened and cropped where I can.
The town itself is pretty uninteresting. Not too terribly poverty-stricken. Narrow cross strets and a single main street with small shops lining it. And a goat.
This was my first view up the hill to the fort, via a side street. Kids never fail to take a keen interest in the bicycle.
They could care less about the motorcycles that make up about 50% of all traffic, but the crazy-looking folding bike is a hit with everyone, especially kids.
As I pulled into the center of town, I saw a crowd and what turned out to be a small stage set up to promote a local cricket team. They were out drumming up support for a team playing in the national professional league in this tiny little town. One thing is abundantly clear - Indians take their cricket very seriously. Way more seriously than the brits. And cricket players here are public personalities, many of whom are flashy and extravagant in their behaviour much the way NBA stars are in the US - or at least the indian equivalent. All of the news channels were running a story on the day of my arrival about one popular pro who had been banned for a number of years that day for some kind of unsanctioned behaviour. I never figured out what, exactly.
It took about 10 seconds for my presence to be noticed, and I was quickly swarmed by smiling friendly faces. Had I pointed my camera down a little, it would have revealed about 10 kids at waist level touching and futzing with the bike. I discovered later that both my headlight and taillight were on after this stop. It took me 10 minutes to figure out how to turn either one of them on when I first purchased them, but the indian kids had them sussed in about 10 seconds.
Of course, the guy running the promo had to retain his audience, so I was called up on stage. This is the guy who was watching my bike for me. Yeah, it made me a little nervous, but I needn't have worried. One advantage of the bike's popularity is that any thief would have to do his work in full view of at least 15 curious bystanders. An act that would be nearly impossible, I think.
I was asked to judge a cricket trivia contest. I was also asked about my favourite cricketer, and I was actually able to dredge up a name from my years in England who was sufficiently famous that there would be no doubt that they'd recognize the name (Ian Botham, if you must know).
The quiz was conducted entirely in Telugu so I couldn't even tell when questions were being asked, let alone who got them correct. If it weren't for the kids down in the front pointing out who got each one correct, I'd have had no chance. As it was, my scores were far from accurate. I bailed out as quickly as I could and got back on my way to the fort.
You'll find lots of pictures of kids here because one of the things I've already taken away from this place is the magic of how facile kids are at finding happiness in even the most abject of circumstances. These kids probably aren't too terribly poor by rural indian standards, but I've seen kids with bright, shining smiles playing with each other in those godawful piles of rubbish that qualify as roadside shanties here. It really puts things in perspective for a westerner. It also makes you want to give all your money away.
I rarely pass up an opportunity to photograph a fellow bicyclist - usually because they are often one of the aforementioned smiling kids. I don't know why they so rarely smile for the actual photo.
This one was thrilled to be allowed to climb aboard (I didn't really have a say in the matter, truthfully). Everyone wants to ride it, including the staff at the hotel. So far I haven't allowed it, though the hotel staff have an appointment for Monday morning.
Just around the corner from the cricket promotion, I finally found the entrance to the fort.
This map of the fort does no justice to the elevation change that occurs from the gate to the top. It must be 1000 feet or more and steep, too
Here's a pretty good view of the hill.
I didn't get 5 feet into the fort before running into my photo friends from the Tombs. This guy insisted I take a photo of him by himself instead of with the group.
Different parts of the fort quite clearly date from different eras.
OK, time for some snapshots. I had no guide materials, so I have no idea what I was shooting. But it was architecturally interesting.
If I had a rock band, I'd want to come here and cover the setlist from Pink Floyd's Live at Pompeii at this place. They've already got a laser and light show in the evenings, so it seems like it could probably be arranged.
It was somewhere on my climb up the hill that I encountered a group of guys in their late teens/early 20s who were determined to hang out with me. They didn't speak a word of english, but that didn't stop them from constantly trying to communicate. I was tired and a bit dehydrated and really just wanted to listen to my ipod and hike on my own. My bike was locked up down by the gate and I have no reason to think these guys were even aware of its presence, so it was, apparently, just my white skin that was making me popular. One of the things I like least about India is being a constant center of attention. I don't mind it when I'm riding - mostly cause I'm sort of asking for it by behaving so strangely - but when I'm walking the streets, I'd really just like to be left alone. This is completely impossible here and it makes me want to just hide inside when I'm not out riding. I'm quite the introvert, naturally. I find crowds draining and solitude or small social groups revitalizing, and India is pretty much the opposite of that. I eventually had to resort to just being rude to the 3 young men. And even that didn't really work for quite some time. I finally just stopped hiking until they got bored and moved on.
The view back toward Hyderabad from the highest point I reached on the hill. After doing so much climbing on the bicycle in the earlier part of the day, making my way up the foot high crumbling stairs was just too much for my legs. It was about 1000 degrees with unmitigated exposure to the sun all the way up the hill. I still had several hundred vertical feet to go at this point, but there was a nice shady spot in which to sit for a while and rest.
This shows the kind of 'staircase' we were climbing to get to the top. Hard work, especially wearing metal pedal cleats on the bottom of my shoes. Mountain bike shoes work great on dirt, but India appears to have an abundance of hard rock, so they seem to pave everything in stone, and a steel cleat has basically no traction on that. I had a couple of near falls on my way up and had to be very careful on my way down.
I finally remembered that I could remove my bicycle helmet and look at least a little bit more normal. I had a bystander shoot this.
And because my mom likes it when I smile for photos
There's the stage for my imagined Pink Floyd cover show. You can see the seats set up for the laser show. They're the blue smudge in the middle.
Upon my return to the bike, the usual enthusiastic crowd had gathered.
I figured I should probably get at least one promotional shot for the company that makes the bike. This is the kind of thing they make folding bikes for, though the model I'm using is more of a performance bike and not truly cut out for touring on rough terrain. The 14 spoke front wheel is feeling the pain of this ride. It has so much wobble that the rim uses the entire space between both brake pads as it wobbles to and fro. I can't true it without replacement rim tape because the spoke nipples are, somewhat stupidly, hidden deep inside the rim. I thought hard about buying a spare wheel for this trip, but figured that the 20" rim would give me enough strength. Oops. The front hub has an axle that is mounted on elastomers that give it about 14mm of travel up and back. I figured it would be totally useless but have to admit that it is incredibly effective at absorbing road vibration. I can only imagine that the jolt that has knocked the wheel out of true would have destroyed the rim without it.
The whole crowd wanted in on a picture, too. I must say, I'm glad the security guard made me park my bike. I had tried to carry it in with me, and he allowed it, but then called me back and made me park it. I'm reasonably certain he did it for my own good. Lugging it up the hill would have been brutal and I doubt I'd have gone far. The disadvantage of a bike without a standard triangular frame is that it is pretty awkward to carry.
With the fort tour completed, it was time for my tired legs to carry me back into Hyderabad. There was very little climbing on the way back, thankfully. As I got closer to town, traffic started to get bad and I started to pick up a posse of motorcycles who were definitely escorting me. These 3 stayed with me for at least 5km and we had a long conversation, much of which I couldn't understand. The guy in front is Bangladeshi, middle is from Addis Addaba, and the guy in back is a Hyderabad native. That's about all I retained from the conversation. They were on some kind of low displacement auto-transmission cycle/scooter.
Here's more of my posse. You can see the trio from above a couple of bikes up. Also, note the small child sandwiched between the couple on the right. That is absolutely normal around here (as is 3 or 4 adults on a single bike). Strangely, I also see riders in helmets while their kids have no protection of any kind. I suppose that's economics at work.
This is, by far, my favourite road sign anywhere in the world. If you click on it to see the larger version, you'll see that it is just in front of a very busy intersection. I don't actually think it is intended for the traffic, but it certainly has that effect. Te intersection is also the exit of a military area in town, and I suspect it is the motto of a fighting group stationed nearby. Still, the local drivers have clearly taken it to heart.
My muslim friends just before our paths split.
It turns out that the last 2 miles of my ride back to the guest house are pretty steeply uphill, which is not the happiest way to end a long ride. But I made it home, safe and sound, hopped in the shower, and climbed into bed. Finally, at long last, I managed to get a full night's sleep in one contiguous interval. Unfortunately, it was from 7pm until 2am. But after a week of existing on 3 or 4 hours per night, I'll take what I can get.
Oh, and if you're wondering what I ate that day, the answer is nothing. I had a no-cheese omelette for breakfast and didn't eat until I stopped at a pizza place about a mile from home. Pizza here is interesting. In what is, undeniably, the grossest misuse of ketchup on the planet, Indians seem to universally drown their pizza in ketchup. Some of my coworkers ordered up a pizza hut pizza on friday and they would empty an oversize sachet of ketchup onto each and every slice of a perfectly good vegetarian pizza. Yikes!
Mine was pretty much identical to what I'd get at home, and absolutely hit the spot after a long and hot day in the saddle.
1 comment:
sam, this is so awesome to read about, you should totally put the picture of you and the crowd and your bike on ridazz
Post a Comment