Today was a test of endurance. Ever since V did his spectacular cross country touring in Coorg and filled me in with umpteen stories about his experiences from the trip, I have been engulfed to get into long distance cycling. Not only is it an amazing getaway from the hustle and bustle of the city, the experience of camping in the middle of nowhere and the sense of accomplishment after having covered a long distance on the cycle is out of the world.

And so today was my first training for long distance cycling. On an average, 60 – 80 kms or more is covered each day and I have always questioned if I have it in me to achieve the target.

It was a gorgeous morning and V, C (V’s enthusiastic cousin) and I headed out at 7 AM. The loop that we set out to complete is Bangalore –> Harohalli (on Kanakapura road) –> Bidadi and back. I have been on an absolute high after I saw our route on the map

Here are the stats from today’s cycling

Total distance covered: 68.7 kms
Total time taken: 04 hours 06 minutes 03 seconds
Calories burnt: 2344 (my fav part
Elevation chart:

Yep, since Bangalore is at a higher altitude, unfortunately the journey on the return was completely up slopes.

A little beyond Harohalli, we had our nice little picnic next to a farm.

The road connecting Harohalli and Bidadi is spectacular and very unique to India. The lush green farms on either sides of the road, the hay laid on the middle of the road for drying, the bullock carts making their way through, the look on the little village children when they see us riding a cycle – priceless!

As we bid good bye to summer, I hope we do more such long distance cycle touring.

Click here to view more pics from the trip

Just as the weekend was fast approaching, it was Friday evening and it dawned on me that V and I had not gone on a crazy adventure in a long time. Even before I realized, in a brief hour or so, we were done with packing, had made a couple of calls to some close friends and cousins and had decided to go on a long drive.

The motto was simple – a road trip for the entire weekend to a destination that had a good approach road. The options were a hands-full, and we picked to head to Pondicherry!

The 3 of us – V’s cousin, V and I started at the wee hours on Saturday morning. The never ending long, wide, spotless road was comparable to any freeway in the west. Proud to see such infrastructure in India, our discussions gradually spanned across everything between life, earth and universe and there was a sudden fall of silence as all of us appreciated the break of dawn by the green country side paddy fields.

The lack of research and preparedness showed when we took a wrong turn and headed towards Salem as against Tiruvannamalai. Felt like we were jinxed when we hit craters on the road bigger than the ones on the moon! But just as the GPS helped to get us on track, we spotted a beautiful, unexplored fort – The Gingee fort.

Awed that the entry ticket costed us only Rs 5, we climbed up the fort and the experience was completely worth the bad stretch of road that led us here. The view from the fort was breathtaking.

After having taken a couple of breaks, we reached Pondicherry a little past noon and I immediately realized how inappropriate I was packed for the conservative religious little beach town.. well, I had a mini Goa in mind!!

The weather was welcoming and we headed towards the beach. Pondicherry has an interesting mix of people, food and beaches and we were able to explore all of them. Here is how..

Food: As we jumped into water and played on the beach, we started to get hungry and headed to a nice little Italian restaurant called Don Giovanni, close to the beach. It is run by a very enterprising Italian who is settled in Pondicherry and the food is authentic Italian! A bite of the pizza took me all the way back to my times in Europe.

The following morning was breakfast at a French breakfast place called baker’s street. Baker’s street is a concept-store hosting a 1001 delicacies : bread, pastries, chocolates, homemade icecreams, cooked dishes, fresh juices…a must visit if you are especially a croissant fan!

Beach: Pondicherry has a nice mix of rocky beaches – where we sat by the rocks and had long mindless talks and sand beaches where we jumped into water and built castles in the sand.

People: The last stop was the Auroville – which is a universal city in the making. From the brief overview we got from a resident there, Auroville is a highly technology oriented place where people from various nationalities live there for a brief time or for a substantial amount of time and work towards building a city. We were quite moved to see the innovations and the quality of life people lead.

Here are the statistics from the trip:

Car: 1
Days: 2
People: 3
Distance Covered: approx 1000 kms
Fun: Unlimited
Mind: Completely recharged!

Click here to view the pictures from the trip

Today was my longest ride on the cycle so far. Had always heard from Vikram how beautiful long bike rides are, but had never really made an attempt fearing my stamina. This morning, we just head out early in the morning on our respective cycles.

We decided to complete the route we had left unfinished a while ago – Padmanabhanagar towards Kanakapura to Bannerghatta and back. Needless to say, the experience was mindblowing! Half the route was along the country side and we  edged the Bannerghatta national park. The serenity of the place was definitely worth my early morning sleep! Here is the snapshot of the route from my Garmin:

My trip to China was one of my most anticipated travel. Having known so little about China and the Chinese, I was very curious to see the dragonland and learn more about the place. I was in Beijing for 4 weeks and was amazed to see the city they have built. It looked like any advanced city of the west.

Other than the magnificent infrastructure that Beijing has put up, there are some unique things I loved about Chinese and their capital.

1) This was my first visit to Chinaland. Beijing is a metropolitan and is up and ahead in fashion. It is one place where I never caught a sun rise while I was there. I made an attempt to keep the alarm as early as 5:30 am, anticipating to view the sunrise, but to my surprise, the dawn had broken already!

2) There are some unique attributes to Beijing. There are electric buses that run in the middle of the city. The buildings have creative architecture, other than the bird’s nest Olympic megastructure.

3) The Beijing metro is the most used to commute and needless to say is the most crowded. But there is something fascinating about it – There is pin drop silence inside the metro. Interestingly, most people dont listen to music, read, nor chit chat while commuting! And No, ipods or music players are not widely seen unlike in Singapore and in the west.

4) Everybody knows Bollywood. Atleast, everyone’s heard about it. A chinese colleague and I were talking about bollywood and I was taken aback when he started singing ‘awara hoon’ – an old rajkapoor’s song of the 1950s!

5) Almost every commercial and residential building is atleast 10 stories high and outside each office, in the corridors you can see people doing yogasanas during office hours! I am told the HR spread the awareness of yoga and it has become a fashion lately. Yoga instructors are in high demand in China

6) The part I enjoyed the most were my long walks, gazing the colorful streets of Beijing. I would try hard to recognize a pattern – to make sense of atleast one Chinese character by observing billboards, but all I could finally figure were the entry and the exit signs . The roads looked terrific, wide, flawless and smooth.  People biking on the pathways, lawns next to the road, people smartly dressed, the huzzling and buzzling city life were all mere accompaniments.

7) Chinese are very warm and humble people. I made some very good friends during the 4 weeks of my stay there. They were all given English names so that its easier to address them, but when you make an attempt to call them with their Chinese names and they really appreciate it. English is rarely spoken and its most important to emphasize on the keywords in a sentence.
Since I am a pure vegetarian, I found it tough to navigate my way through until I learnt the golden phrase ‘ ho chi su’ which means ‘I am vegetarian’ in Chinese. Roasted ducks and Shellfish were amoung the top favorites.

Beijing is in a different league from the rest of China. I hope to see more of China sometime and learn more about rural Chinese. All in all, an awesome experience and a place that must not be missed by any traveler.