one man, one bike, one world discovering the world on a bicycle

Munnar, Kerala, that is where the tea comes from. To get there it was a tough day of cycling. A climb of 2000 meter, and still no tea plantations in sight, I was exhausted and just looking for a bed and some food. Then I passed a curve and what I saw was breathtaking. A valley of a thousand shades of green. Tee trees everywhere and I stopped every few meters to take a picture.

The city of Munnar itself lies on 1500 meter, and not only the surrounding hills and tea plantations make it a famous tourist destination, also the cool climate. The rest is not so different from another indian town. Noisy, dusty, full of hotels and tourist shops and travel agencies, and after searching for almost one hour I found the cheapest and smallest hotel room in town.

Next day I cycled through this amazing landscape up to the so called “Top Station” and back to Munnar. On the way I met some people harvesting the tea.

When you now think the local people must been drinking the best tea selection ever, you are wrong. What you get at the small tea stalls in town, is actually very bad quality. They use the tea leaves which fall down on the ground while harvesting, or so called tea dust.
The best quality, ready processed and packed , is only for export, the local people can´t afford it.
I bought some good coffee and chocolate, which is also produced around Munnar and continued my journey to Tamil Nadu.

Please click the pictures for full size:

Gods own country

That is the slogan of the Kerala Tourism Department. Kerala is the southest state of India at the west coast; 30 million people are living here on an area 10 times smaller than Germany. Kerala has the highest literacy rate in India (90 %) and the highest alcohol consumption per head.

So I couldn´t wait to reach the sea after all the time I traveled through landscapes full of deserts and mountains. I asked around for a nice beach and the people said: “Ettikulam beach. Fantastic! 15 Kilometer only.That way.” They didn´t tell me that there was a huge mountain in between and when I reached Ettikulam, a small fisher village, it was already dark.

I went to the beach, saw the stars twinkling trough the palm trees, felt the sand under my feet and heard the sound of the sea.

I put up my tent, but like the night in the desert, I wasn´t able to sleep much.I watched the sea coming nearer and nearer, listened to the sound of the waves when they broke and the  fizzling sound when they flodded the sand. I saw small crabs running left and right, try to catch some food out of the water without getting pulled inside the sea. It was a magical night.

 

Next morning the sun rose up and it became fast too hot to stay in the tent. I woke up, jumped out of my tent and ran into the sea. Some old fishermen watched me with curiosity.

Under the palm trees some guys were playing domino, and they invited me for the evening. I had almost forgotten that it was New Year’s Eve, and they planned to make a small party at the beach. One of the guys whispered to me, what I would prefer to drink, whiskey or brandy?

They were all Muslims in that village, but the young people assured me, only to drink on special occasions. Sadly, many of the old guys do not so. Everywhere in Kerala where I went to the beach and I looked in the eyes of the people, mostly fishermen, they were red and glassy, and I could smell the alcohol.

Sometimes in the villages there was a huge crowd of people in front of a store: Than it was the liquid store, where people buy cheap boost, or a store where poor people wait to get their part of rice and flour from the government.

Though Kerala belongs to the richer states in India, many people are poor here. It took a while for me to realize, because I haven´t seen so many beggars or people sleeping on the streets, in fact many people have their own small house, build out of stones or concrete, but that doesn´t mean they are not poor. There is no possibility of a job, no income, no way to make some money to feed the family, and sadly many men invest the small money they get somehow in alcohol.

The families which are better situated send their children to private schools and colleges, and then off to dubai or oman to work there. The money they send back home, is an important economic factor in kerala.

Another factor is the Tourism. Not only foreigners, also many Indian people come to Kerala, to see the beaches, the backwaters, hillstations and tea plantations in the mountains, and of course important religious pilgrim sites.

Have a look at the pictures and enjoy!

For full size please click on the pictures:

 

India, Rajastan, December 2012. I´m on my way to the thar desert. Not on a camel or a jeep, no, of course on my bicycle.

I think this video works well without words, enjoy it.

To watch the video in High Quality please watch it at the Vimeo website:

I´m on the road for almost ten month now, so it is time for a small review:

For HD-Quality please watch the video on the Vimeo-Website.

The border-crossing to India is quite straightforward. I passed the gate, where the day before the border closing ceremony took place, took a last picture with a Pakistani soldier and his bomb-sniffing dog, crossed the line and there I was – in India. But from the gate to the Indian Customs building it is two kilometer trough an area full of barbed wire and watchtowers. The border is far away from being busy. I was the only person who wants to cross and the formalities were done fast. “Wait” said the bored woman behind the counter, when I started to leave. “We have to check your bags.”

Wow, that was something new for me. At the entire borders I crossed, they never checked my bags. Sometimes they asked what’s inside, and at the borders to Irak, Iran, and also Pakistan I always pointed on my water bottles and said “Whiskey”. Then the soldiers laughed, and it was ok.
So this was the first time and they were serious about it. I put my bags into the Scanner, and prepared myself for unpacking everything. All my tools and Spare parts for the bike, the petrol-cooker, it must look like a bomb or something. But the guy behind the monitor had only eyes for his mobile.

So, “Welcome to India” I said to myself, and started cycling. In the first city, Amritsar, I saw the differences to Pakistan. The traffic is doubled, the noise also, and what I recognized the most were the women. Women without scarfs, groups of schoolgirls in their uniforms, the long black hairs plaited to pigtails, women driving scooters and cars, women with sunglasses and tight jeans. After almost five month in muslim countries, this was an unfamiliar but joyful sight for me.

Amritsar is famous for the golden Temple. It is the holiest shrine of the Sikhs, and many pilgrims come here from all over the country. The Temple itself is built in a pool of water, it is said that his roof is made of 750 kg pure gold.
I saw women kissing the floor, people bathing in the water of the holy pool around the temple, and people praying with a smile on their face. All over this scenery, loudspeaker broadcast the continuous chanting from priests inside the temple. This was really something different from all the Mosques I saw in the last time.

I watched all this with curiosity and made my way around the temple. In that moment I couldn´t imagine, that just two days later I will do the same like all the Worshippers, but in a smaller temple: I would cover my head, wash my feet, touch the doorframe of the temple, and knee down in front of the guru…

That day I got surprised by the dark, no hotel in town, hungry and tired, and an old guy gave me the advice to go to the “gurduwala”, that’s how the Sikhs call their temples. Because the Sikhs believe in Equality of all beings, they offer everyone food and a place to sleep.

Indian Punjab

The next days I crossed Indian Punjab, and of course me and my bicycle attracted a lot of attention, but one thing is different from the countries before: The people here are only interested in my bicycle. So when I stopped, a lot of people gathered around my bike, but I was able enjoy my cup of tea and watched people watching my bicycle. Nearly no one asked me questions; they just stared at my bike, rang the bell and touched everything.

Finally I reached Jaisalmer, one of the touristic hotspots in Rajasthan. A big sandstone Fort is the main attraction, surrounded by hotels and guesthouses with “roof top restaurant”, and travel agencies which want you to sell a camel- or jeeptrip to the near Thar-dessert. Inside the fort are a lot of handicraft and souvenir-shops, nearly every shop sells also toilet paper and imported cigarettes for the many western tourists. This touristic thing was new for me, even on my first day in India, in Amritsar, I saw more tourists than in the last 3 months before.

So I wandered around the narrow lanes of the Fort, together with other tourists (Indians and Foreign), residents and some cows, watched at all the shops which nice stuff, clothes, bed sheets, leatherwork and antiques without the desire to buy anything. Also the food offer is big: Chinese, Italian, Tibetian, and of course Indian Food from all over the country are available, but prices are doubled or tripled if you compare it to the simple restaurants on the road, where I was used to eat the last days. Juices and Milkshakes everywhere, I still can´t say if I should like it or not – it was just different for me at that moment, a new experience.

I decided that I want to go to the Thar-dessert. But not on a camel or a jeep, which can be organized by almost everyone in Jaislamer. I want to go there on my bicycle of course.

 

Please click the pictures for full size:

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The last things from Pakistan I want to show you is a short video from a bikeride in Islambad. I met some other cyclists from the Critical Mass, a worldwide cyclist movement, they have it also in Pakistan.

For HD-Quality please watch the Video on the Vimeo-Website.

The second thing is an article about me, which was published in the blog section of a pakistani newspaper. I was really surprised when a friend from Pakistan send me that link, because I didn´t know about that…

The man who cycled pakistan because his heart told him to do so

So next time I will tell you about India.

So, finally I can present you the Video from Pakistan. You have the chance to peek into a country, which is avoided by most cyclists and also many other tourists. It is only in the news when once again a terrorist-attack or a corruption scandal happened,but Pakistan is a lot more.
I missed it to collect some music from pakistan, and the only one I have is from the 60s or 70s, hope you like it.

To watch the video in HD-Quality, please watch it directly on Vimeo:

Discovering the world on a bicycle – Pakistan from Florian Schmale on Vimeo.