Wedding season hotel bingo!

Braving the perilous Bundi-Kota highway with the usual dodging overtaking juggernauts shennanigans and attendant elevation of blood pressure, I survived to rejoin the national and soon had the four-lane highway to myself once again. As I entered the state of Madhya Pradesh I accelerated, lest the border police stop me for interrogation regarding the N.Z. cricket team. Population was sparse but having this highway all to myself was surreal. Some time later I passed a shrouded body lying on the inside lane by the median, not a living soul to be seen anywhere, and briefly pondered my own mortality and everything that can possibly go wrong in a solo cycle journey in a strange land. I find it pays not to dwell on this!

An uneventful night-stop in Shivpuri and I was soon crossing from Madhya Pradesh into Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state and home to 180 million. I had been advised to stay in Jhansi but in spite of my early afternoon arrival, I found each hotel I tried was already full up owing to one or more weddings. This is a trap for young players, and I'd recommend having a booking, alternative prospects or a great deal of charisma when travelling during the wedding season (the Indian winter), particularly in scenic areas.

I decided to make for the next settlement having a hotel, but the sunset came too soon. Looking in earnest for wild camping sites, I pulled off the highway onto a relatively quiet road. The field alongside looked promising but no sooner had I traversed the deep perimeter ditch and started scouting than a man following a path through the field happened upon my bicycle and I had to return to the road so as not to betray my intentions. Even after dark however there were many pedestrians and cyclists using the road and I had to lie low in the ditch for several hours before the road quietened enough to let me climb out without being seen. Around 11 p.m. I put up the tent beside a track between crops and set an alarm to be sure I'd be awake well before sunrise. It was a relief to see the tent still worked after two months of neglect, and so good to be home again!

As I re-packed my tent in the heavy morning mist I turned to see a man observing me intently. We greeted one another and he went back to practising some kind of ritual under a nearby tree. In a flat, deforested and highly-populated land such as this there are few places where one can hope for privacy, or the perceived security of obscurity in some hidden nook that is the bread and butter of the wild-camping squatter. Some fairly heinous crimes go down in the countryside sometimes, so putting one's charm to work and finding hospitable villagers with whom to camp or stay is probably the safest bet for solo travellers.

For a third day running I put over 160 km (or one 'Beaumont', my tongue-in-cheek reference to Mark Beaumont's daily quota when he circumnavigated the globe by bicycle.) behind me. The sun had set as I entered Kanpur via its busy roads, and I was riding seat of the pants blind and hoping for the best with the potholes and speed bumps. Caught out by weddings again, I was led by several touts around a dozen hotels without vacancies. One hotel did have a room for what I thought was a steep 500 rupees, but I was sure it was a 'tourist price' and that I could do better...

A backstreet hotel was more promising, with the friendly receptionist offering a room for 280 Rs. However, whilst I was upstairs inspecting the room with a friendly Nepali assistant I left my cycle leaned on the wide staircase in front of the hotel, where a large crowd soon gathered. On descending to the reception I found a Jekyll and Hyde transformation had taken place as I was rudely told by the now enraged receptionist that I must leave immediately (presumably owing to the fuss created at the entrance by my cycle). As I stood on the stair outside with the Nepali man explaining me the way to another hotel, the receptionist shoved me from behind and I nearly fell. For a moment I was too stunned to respond in kind, luckily, and decided to let it go as I already had enough to deal with this night.

A cycling tout took me on a merry chase around a few more hotels, but it was fruitless. A kind Sikh man did his best to help out and translate between me and the tout, but the options dwindled to the luxury hotels that I was reluctant to use. I told the annoyingly persistent tout to go away for the umpteenth time and finally he left me alone. It was late by now and I was thoroughly frustrated, a little nervous and contemplating staying awake or a long ride out of the city into the dark unknown to camp wild again, but eventually decided that the risks simply weren't worth the money saving. And so I spent a short night in the cheapest room of a very expensive hotel, at a discount price of only 1000 Rs!

Something these uncertain moments of cycle touring have taught me is that when there seems to be nowhere to sleep, the desire for a safe sleeping place is a powerful motivator. It might mean staying awake and alert half the night before snatching a few hours in a car park, pleading for sanctuary in a police station, hiding in a ditch or even, yes, loosening the pursestrings occasionally and just accepting it. Daylight always comes, the next day looks better and the story goes on (no blank pages in my life story so far!). Nonetheless, I hope my readers don't miss the lesson in my folly (a bird in the hand and all that!), and if you see a lone cycle tourist in your town please do help them out!