First Day of Riding

This was a nice short ride for the first day… getting used to the idea of riding on the left side of the road isn’t as difficult as I thought… although it would probably be harder in a car than a bike. The trick is to look to the traffic from the right before making a left turn… I’ll let you think on that a minute. J

One of the most interesting things I saw today were these mud-like huts – and how decoratively they are embellished. In many of the villages, these round discs the size of hub caps were laying out in the sun to dry. As I soon learned, these were cow dung patties that they dry and use for burning both for cooking over and for heat. From what I surmised after passing miles of patties, there were different stages of drying – 1) fresh pile sunny side up 2) flipped over to dry underside and 3) lean them up on one another on their sides for the final dry. These discs are then put inside these mud/straw huts for protection against the elements and are used during the monsoons. Here’s a hut and a pile of discs… that’s a lot of work for, well… you know!

We passed our first camels today – they were pretty cool! Some of them have elaborate necklaces, some with bells, some with beads. Some have shaven designs on the sides and legs… never thought of shaving a camel before - I wouldn't want to try it!

It was a caravan of three:

As the landscape transitions from city to country, the signs of the city power lines behind a small farmhouse seem so unnatural.

We stopped in a small village for a coke… the town surrounded us and we were finally asked to leave by an armed (rifle) policeman. I was happy to – Jan liked the attention, but I was very uncomfortable with so many strangers surrounding me. They were mostly curious, but the size of the crowd was making the officer nervous too.

He escorted us out of town, where we came upon a group of our riders sitting alongside the road at a table sipping chai tea and chowing down on crackers. I ordered & then drank my chai tea from a metal cup – they were actually like a tin can except without the sharp edges from opening it… but I could tell they were made to be cups.

It’s funny what you see at any given time on the roads here… one of the kids that rode beside us was telling us that this truck had burned up a few days earlier. We asked why they didn’t clean it up and he said that they have to leave It on the road for 2 days at least. Hmmmm???? There is SO much of this here:

We made it to our hotel in Bharatpur early enough for me to visit an animal and bird sanctuary just a few blocks away. The local paper took a picture of those of us going to the sanctuary and are going to do a story on us in the morning paper tomorrow. They said they would bring us a copy and that would’ve been a fun thing to put in a scrapbook, but we leave at dawn. It will be along ride tomorrow. 148 Kilometers. At the sanctuary, I saw spotted deer, thousands of birds (to be identified when I get back), wild pigs, jackals, etc. My favorite today is the spotted deer: