India Day 1: Amazing India

Date: 2017-10-26
Start city: Mumbai
End city: Murud
Distance (km): 68
Climbing (m): 300
Route description: ferry to Mandwa, then coastal roads south to Murud.
Road conditions and traffic: a little bit of everything. Dusty, bumpy dirt roads in full sun recently washed out from the monsoon with heavy traffic to quiet newly paved sections through shade trees by the coast. But mostly the road was a pothole filled mess with moderate traffic.
Weather: sunny, hot & humid
Stops: lunch in Kolmandale, a veg thali, coca cola, and chai
Notes:
Wow, wow, wow. What an introduction to cycle touring in India. I don’t think anything can really prepare you for it. I’ve read dozens of blogs, guide books, articles, etc, but being here on the roads is an experience that’s almost indescribable. But I’ll try.

First, the traffic. It’s a good thing we spent several days in Mumbai to get a feeling for it, because it pretty much works the same way away from the city, just on a smaller scale. There are much fewer vehicles on the road here, but many more cows, goats, auto-rickshaws, and other cyclists. There seems to be a standard Indian bicycle that’s used here, usually very old, rusty, and beat up, but they must be built like tanks.

So, once you accept that there are no real rules for traffic, just a few suggestions that can be broken when needed (like which side of the road to ride on), then everything just kind of works. Just go with the flow, honk your horn if you’re overtaking someone and want them to know (or pretty much just honk your horn constantly), and learn how to play chicken. Also, the bigger the vehicle, the more right of way it has.

The traffic was so slow that honestly I never felt unsafe. The potholes slowed most cars down to 15kph, slower than the bicycles and motorcycles sometimes. Bigger trucks went even slower, and we had to pass several of them! Going up a hill, an auto-rickshaw filled with an Indian family of 4 couldn’t even work up the speed to pass me at 6kph.

From outside, it may seem scary and random and crazy, but I promise that if you just relax and go with the flow, it’s actually quite civilized. I mean, there are 2 year old toddlers toddling across the street, cows taking a nap in the middle of the road (never been hit in its long lifetime), grandfathers on rikety bicycles, and it all just works. Most of the time… I guess there are accidents, but I haven’t seen any.

Steve has had to get used to cycling on the left hand side, which I think is mentally challenging, but he hasn’t made any mistakes yet. And honestly in India, people drive on the right side whenever they want anyway.

The ferry ride was really nice. I don’t know why we were so worried about it, but I’m glad we checked out the ticket booth the day before so we had some idea where to go. We showed up at 8:45, and there was a boat ready to go to Mandwa (I guess the schedule doesn’t mean anything because there is no ferry listed at that time.). There’s no ramp, so we had to jump a small gap with our bikes in hand to get on, but hey we made it. 210R for us and 200R for the bikes. There was a cute kid on board that was really interested in our bikes and we smiled and waved. Other than that, no one paid us any attention.

Getting off the ferry, however, a group of young adults shyly asked if we would do a selfie. Sure!! Snap, snap, 2 phones and 5 pictures later, they shook our hands and said “welcome to India”. How cool! And that wasn’t the last photo taken of us today. Lots of paparazzi were out on the roads, sneaking photos or outright leaning out the window, SLR or smartphone in hand. A few others asked us to pose with them. I hope they got good ones! If you see us on Instagram, tag us lol!

The roads were incredibly varied. The first 5km gave us a false impression that the ride was going to be beautiful traffic-free roads through shaded coastal roads. But soon the roads got worse, the traffic picked up, and the shade went away as the heat increased. Some sections of road were constant potholes, and it was on one of these that a man on a motorcycle pulled along side of us and asked where we were going. When we said Murud, he said the roads were horrible all the way due to the monsoons. He was partly right, we had some wonderful small sections interspersed with horrible ones, but overall they sucked.

The scenery also varied, from gorgeous coastal cliffs to urban city centers with colorful markets to temples and mosques to jungle-like areas and also a few gritty nondescript spots, junk heaps on the side of the road, etc.

But OMG the people. Whenever I felt a bit frustrated by the roads, the heat, etc, someone appeared to cheer me up. Kids’ faces lit up seeing us and called out Hello or Hi! People in the streets grinned and waved. Many gave thumbs up gestures, and on a particularly tough and sweaty 10% grade just as I was about to feel grumpy, a man passed me and made a pedaling gesture with his hands and a big smile. Many pointed cameras at us, and at lunch someone asked for selfies again. A man sat down next to us at lunch and had a chai and used a few English words to ask us some questions. A truck drove by with a group of colorfully-dressed women in the back, happily beating a drum and singing what must be a familiar song to them. As they passed, they all made a gesture upward with their hands just as I waved, completing the verse, and they laughed and smiled and waved back. It has just been astounding how friendly and welcoming everyone made us feel. Even at our hotel after checking in, a family on vacation from Aurengabad invited us to their room for chai and we had a great talk about America, India, local sights, and our travels.

Finding a hotel was easy. Online, there were only 3 places listed for Murud. We looked for the cheapest one but couldn’t find it. But along the main road there were a dozen places that aren’t online with “rooms available” signs up, so we found one with a restaurant that looked good and they showed us an air conditioned room with a shared patio and ocean view. After some back and forth, they said we could put the bikes up on the balcony, so we said sure!

I wonder how many westerners visit Mumbai or Delhi and feel like they’ve seen India. What we experienced today was so unlike our experience in Mumbai that it’s almost a different country. We are so excited to continue our travels through this interesting and friendly place!