8253 km Arambol (Goa)

Yet another week has passed.... We enjoyed a good last night in Mumbay with Dan and Ben, two crazy British guys. We hang out in Leopolds the local pub and they have introduced us to the game "dice" A very easy and quite addictive game played with 6 dice only, perfect for cyclists since it's hardly any weight on the bikes ;) We had some good fun and even got a set of dice from them (we are "worthy") Now we have something to do while waiting for our dinners :)

After a very short night we picked up the bikes in Mumbai and headed off to do some cycling again. We decided to cheat just a little bit and take the ferry from the peninsula of Colaba (Mumbai) to the shore. It's only a few kilometer by ferry, but it saved us from about 40-50 km of cycling around the bay in the very busy Bombay area. We did a similar thing back in Istanbul and that worked out well, so why not do it again?

When we arrived it was immediately clear that it was a lot quieter then Mumbai. To be honest we expected quite an easy route down south, but we could not have been much further from the truth. It's very hilly in Maharashtra (the province we are cycling in) and the percentages up are a bit crazy every now and then. The roads are as expected not in a very good condition so it's been a few hard days. Downhill is especially fun, since we have no clue what the condition of the road will be like around the corner. If you have some bad luck, you could even bump into a cow in the middle of the road. They wander around freely everywhere, just as you would expect in India. But in the end of the day we are usually rewarded with a very good meal and some very nice beaches, so by no means any need to feel sorry for us :)

The first few days we followed, or tried to follow, the shoreline as much as possible. Unfortunately our map is not very detailed and more often and not we got stuck in front of a bay or a river without a bridge. That usually triggers a whole bartering process, where we try to pay as less as possible to cross the water using the ferry or a local fisher boat. We usually manage to get them down to about 20 rps so that's not so bad.

After about 200 km we noticed there was hardly any accommodation to be expected on the shoreline anymore. No worries, we thought; "we'll just go camping somewhere outside". It sounded like a very good plan until the locals informed us that camping can be a "bit" dangerous. Why? Because the leopards can attack at night...! We would love to see some leopards at some point, but frankly We'd prefer to have a fence in between ;) So, in the end we followed the advice of the locals and headed for the main road expecting the worst, traffic wise. It all turned out real well in the end, because the main road was not nearly as busy as we expected it to be. So we stuck with that road and have been following it until we arrived in Goa. Now it's time to "chill" for a bit and relax on the beach. We arrived in Arambol early yesterday morning and decided this was a good place to stay for a few days. We've been drinking some beers, lassies, eating nice food like tiger prawns, red snappers and have been reading a bit. Many people are hanging around here for much longer (months) but I don't think we can stand to do nothing for that long :)

We are not sure yet where we will be heading next. Our visa expires in less then 2 months and it seems it's impossible to extend it :( So we need to make some choices. We could head east to Hampi, where there are some real nice temples to see. In the north there are the Elora and Ajanta caves and of course there is Rajastan to be seen as well as Varanasi. Looking on the map it seems impossible to do it all....

We've heard from many people here, that Agra and the Rajastan /Utar Pradesh area are extremely hectic and we actually like cycling here in the semi-jungle a lot. Everything around us is green and there is a lot of wildlife to be seen. We have seen lots of monkeys in the trees etc... Well, two months is still quite far away. We'll just start of and do some more cycling here, if we're short of time we could always catch a train or bus at some point

Time will tell,

Well that's it for now, there is a nice sunny beachhouse and some banana lassies and whiskey cola's waiting for us down the street, so it's not a good day for writing blogs ;)

Hugs
Erik and Tjeerd

p.s. pictures to be followed later