India part 1
from February 8th 2006 until July 4th 2006

Ears open, eyes shut
A fully loaded, old Tata bus can come right at them at 100 km/hour, they are not interested at all. They don't go out of the way, walk where they want to walk or have a nice and relaxed shit in the middle of the black top .... READ ON >>

Not everybody can be a Jain
But, that's not about to happen. Walking by he dismissively and almost by accident drops the receipt on our table and vanishes unexpectedly fast. Astonished and amused at the same time we see the man disappear. The waiters are angry .... READ ON>>

Elephants, palaces and a flimflam
We brake to have a better look, something seems wrong. Peter gets off his bicycle and walks towards the man. Only from up close he can see the man is in a bad shape: he is unconscious, his face is swollen and bloody. Out of a ditch another man suddenly appears .... READ ON>>

Plumber wanted
In today's lodge the shower doesn't work and the handbasin's drain is leaking. Just like in Africa, India 's sanitation is of an abominable quality and/or badly installed. In the brand new Sri Ganesh Lodge where we stayed yesterday, the flush lever of the toilet has already disappeared .... READ ON>>

Sniffed at by rats
Even before I'm in dreamland again I hear something walking on the side table at Peter's side of the bed and switch on the light. Something big and dark runs to the bathroom, where we find more of our garbage .... READ ON>>

Open Doors and Little Drops
The 250 wrinkled and incontinent oldies, together with the much younger mentally and/of physically disabled (some of which will move to Rehoboth the next day, the new home Marleen built for them as well,) that live here, have a place now where they are taken care of, fed and medically cared for. The level of care is in no way comparable with that of the Netherlands; there is no .... READ ON>>

Sleeping like a baby
With envy and disbelief we cycle, early in the morning or during the afternoon siesta, passing villages, towns and houses, where men, women and children lay snoring comfortably whilst .... READ ON>>

Vatican, Jerusalem, Mecca, Tirumala: the race to salvation
Over golden steps, through silver doors and passing thick golden fences we enter the world's richest shrine. Professional people pushers, just like in Tokyo's underground, push the pilgrims pas the idol. The people are completely in trance now and .... READ ON>>

Pain and press, pilgrims and peppers
Already 45 kilometres before the village dozens of pilgrims walk with banners, alms and a bottle of water to their holy destination. Most of them trudge rather than walk in the burning sun, and they still have a long way to go .... READ ON>>

The accident of the week
Men, women and children cut big stones with a hammer until they’re crumbled into thousands of little fragments, small enough for road construction. Enormously hard and monotonous work we really respect. Our small and bigger inconveniences vanish into thin air in comparison with them .... READ ON>>

The pied-pipers from Holland
To get there we walk through an impoverished quarter, where we hear the sound of many footsteps and soft murmurs behind us. We turn around, and yes: a busload of .... READ ON>>

The hardest hit, the largest room, the worst itch, the dirtiest face, the strangest carnival and the prettiest village of India
A man with great balls for tits and a cardboard box for a bum, someone dressed as a skeleton, three robots with unreadable placates, a man in a large fish-suit, puppets with flat faces, a fake woman carrying a fake baby, a wagon with a tree, a group of men walking on high stakes, a wagon with a mosque and another with.... READ ON>>

Away with the bicycle?
While the train is already moving, Peter jumps through the open door of a second class carriage, hoping that the bicycles and I are safely on the train. The adrenaline shoots through his body at the idea that we may have lost half of our possessions.... READ ON>>

Bombay: white people and Bollywood
After four years of experiencing different cultures we are flabbergasted by it, but still enjoy everything very much: the Dutch slideshow, the national anthem, Heineken beer, real cheese, French fries with mayonnaise, Dutch stew with Hema-sausage, wafers and apple pie.... READ ON>>

The rudest city of the world
You can just go to Delhi for a far better result: being barked at or ignored in shops, being cheated and conned by any salesman, pay three times too much in a rickshaw, get robbed in a temple.... READ ON>>

On our way to the Himalayas
Our pleasure disappears completely when we see the body of a young man in the middle of the road that has been driven to pieces. His head is flattened, one of his legs lies three metres further. Cars and trucks drive over him like he's an old newpaper. Retching.... READ ON>>

In the Himalayas with the Dalai Lama
Over the hot road-surface the lizards shoot from left to right. The shoulders teem with marihuana-plants; if the scent would have a drugging effect we would be high the entire day. We pass the beautiful village of Nogli and make lumpy detours where large stretches of road have disappeared into the ravine. We climb and climb and our legs refuse to cooperate.... READ ON>>

Cycling in the Sutlej and Spiti Valley
The 41 kilometres to Nako are good blacktop, apart from a few stretches where the 33% hill turns out to be too steep to pave and falling rocks form a continuous danger. Via a number of bridges we ride alternately left and right of the river and zigzag upwards the whole time. More and more snowpeaks are visible. We reach 3.000 metres , where it's finally cool and hundreds of kinds of mountain flower display all possible colours.... READ ON>>

Over the Khunjom Pass to Kullu Valley
In fourteen kilometres the road meanders up in big zigzags. Here the road is tarred again, which in many places has become a mess of stones and gravel. The higher the worse the road condition, the more road-workers have to fill the holes by hand and apply patches of tar. Just before the top there recently has been a small landslide caused by heavy rainfall and in the mud we paddle.... READ ON>>

The last week: judgement days
It is dark, thunder and lightning are approaching even more and we are blinded by the water that hits our faces. Anxious we dodge falling stones: boulders and fallen trees lie here and there on the road. The earth perishes, the road is a swirling river of mud and stones and all traffic has come to a standstill while we - manouvering cautiously - try to escape this hell. Is this the monsoon? It looks more like Judgement day.... READ ON>>