Epilogue

I originally wrote this journal as a substitute for having to decide which of my friends/family would want to receive email newsletters from me. But, while I don't really like the idea of putting my life on the internet, I remember searching the web for anyone else's account of cycling the same route and not finding much and I remember how inspiring I found it to read other people's cycle journals. So, on the assumption that somebody else may be contemplating cycling in Sikkim or the West Bengal hills, I feel I should leave this up. If you are considering cycling here, then the first thing you should do is buy Laura Stone's book 'Himalaya by Bike' which will be far more practical use. For the most part I followed her route, with various detours along the way – some I'd highly recommend, some I wouldn't. Most usefully the book will help you avoid the busier roads and has profiles of the routes, which while daunting, at least give you an idea of what to expect.



In total I cycled 1080km, which is really not very much in cycle touring terms, but taking into account the amount of climbing required, it seems vaguely respectable. It's good to know that with a minimum of training (little more than commuting to work and a few weekend mountain bike rides), it's possible to adjust to ascending 2000 metres in a day.

A rather poor map (hopefully to be replaced with something more accurate in future)


I'm glad to have not died... traffic in Sikkim was quite light, but it's hard not to read the local papers and notice just how many fatal road accidents there are – mostly described as 'mishaps' – often which people are 'miffed' about. In the end I barely had any near accidents – at one point my wheel hit a large stone while descending from Gangtok and I only just kept control of the bike; I had an unnerving front wheel skid while taking a mountain bike style route too fast round the back of Darjeeling (it's easy to get carried away without panniers); and in heavy traffic in Siliguri someone bumped into one of my panniers, the traffic was so heavy I'm not even sure if it was a car or a cycle rickshhaw. But aside from that I almost always heard traffic coming and was able to make sure I was safely over to a side of the road in good time. The majority of roads are very quiet - it's really only the road up to Gangtok and around Siliguri that has heavy traffic all the time. Quality of roads is very variable – it's almost pointless to say which roads are good and which are bad, because they're constantly repairing damaged roads and good roads are constantly crumbling away due to bad weather and landslides.




It was necessary to take a totally different approach to cycling – in London you have to be very assertive as a cyclist in order to survive, whereas in India you just have to give way to anything larger than you – meaning that pedestrians and goats were really the only thing that would get out of my way. On the other hand, there's none of the agression you experience cycling in London. No one shouted abuse at me – the worst you get is either people laughing at you (which only happened when they saw me cycling uphill), or just staring in complete bewilderment. There were far more incidents of people shouting encouragement, things that stick in my head were the various shouts of 'best of luck' in one particular area of West Bengal, an elderly monk giving me a thumbs up from the window of a passing jeep, another group of monks taking photos of me out the back window, a group of Nepali men singing an ecouraging song (I think) to me from their jeep, the men who offered me a lift on the way up to Ravangla (which I forced myself to turn down), the teenage Nepali girl who very unexpectedly blew a kiss at me out of a jeep window on one of the worst stretches of the cycle up to Namchi, and a jeep driver shouting 'hello darling' at me (I think this was a mis-translation on his part rather than anything else).



The strikes in Dooars (a disadvantage of travelling in a communist state) cost me the end to my trip I'd been expecting and made for something of an anticlimax. Had I been psychic I wouldn't have dismantled my bike so hastily... or would have spent longer in some of the quiet places in Sikkim (Tashiding in particular), or even could have gone for some sort of trek). For that matter, doing the same trip around October or November might have made for better cycling weather – colder, but less rain and clearer skies. It's a shame I didn't cycle in North Sikkim, though I feel cycling up to the statue in Namchi and the horrendous cycle to Kalimpong in some way atoned for this. It's also a shame that I didn't complete my circular route near Kalimpong, or attempt to go from there directly down to the Dooars nature reserves (a route I only realised was possible when it was too late).



I lost about 6 days to illness – one cold in Gangtok that affected me for less time than I expected and 3 bouts of sickness, presumably caused by food - I was fairly careful with food and water, but there were exceptions. I took antibiotics the first 2 times in order to get myself back on the road fast (Ciproflaxin seems to work very quickly), didn't bother the third time as was somewhere comfortable and I got over it within a couple of days – maybe this would have happened the other times, maybe not. I didn't consider trying to cycle while sick - I think it would have been near impossible on most of the climbs.

Anyway, it's best not to dwell on the negative things I initially though I might not even manage the first day's cycle, so I at least achieved much more than that.



It seems stupid now, but I really hadn't realised just how much cycling would make it impossible to be invisible. In the UK it's too easy to be invisible as a cyclist, but in the hills so few people cycle that everyone noticed me. This wasn't really something I enjoyed, but you learn to cope with it. It did make taking photos harder - I tended to get far better pictures on the days I didn't have the bike with me as it was easier to take my time without people staring at me.



Equipment and stuff

In general I had to do very little maintenance on the bike - maybe I was lucky, or maybe I made good decisions. It was pretty much impossible to keep the bike clean - towards the end I gave up trying and just poured more oil on top of the dirt.



My bike – I built one up from a mixture of new and 2nd hand parts (mainly off ebay). The full, boring list...

On One Inbred frame and rigid forks – steel, would have liked suspension at some points, but on the other hand saved me some weight and possible maintenance problems and didn't really cause me much discomfort.



Avid BB7 disc brakes – a great choice, can't recommend them enough, only used one set of brake pads in the end (just), made the huge descents much easier and worked despite warped rotors and constant fiddling from interested locals.

Wheels – XT hubs, Mavic XM719 Rims, 32/36 spoke – no problems whatsoever. I got the wheels built with non-disc specific rims just in case one of the disc brakes failed, but they didn't.

Tyres – Marathon XRs – Did pretty well, rolled through lots of broken glass and rough ground. Two proper punctures while cycling fully loaded over long sections of sharp rocks. One puncture while bike was being transported on jeep roof rack. Two inner tubes split at valve due to too much movement while inflating with hand pump. After this I built a collar for the valve out a spare bit of inner tube and it didn't happen again. It was a constant struggle to keep tyres inflated enough using only a hand pump which I think contributed to the punctures.

Brooks saddle – bought 2nd hand partially worn in, caused me no discomfort.

Pedals/shoes – Crank Bros Mallets and Mavic shoes – not a common choice for touring, but worked great for me – cleats lasted for whole trip, pedal platforms meant I could ride unclipped when necessary (which on steep hills with heavy traffic and lots of stopping and starting was quite often). Did make a few holes in ankles with spiked edges. Shoes caused no problems – easy enough to walk in (though I also took a pair of normal trainers for when I wasn't cycling).

Gears – TA Specialties crankset (square taper), Shimano LX Shadow derailleur, XT front derailleur, XT shifters – all functioned fine with occasional small adjustments. Did find chainring bolts were very loose when I finally dismantled bike and should have checked these more frequently.



Bike stand – Pletscher – spent a lot of time hating this due to its constantly working loose. I notice they've changed the design now. Heavy as well. On the other hand would have been incredibly hard without it, the ground was frequently too rough, dusty, damp, etc to have made lying the bike down practical.

Racks – Old Man Mountain Sherpa racks, front and rear – great, no problems at all.

Bell - very useful when everyone else on the road uses noise to make themselves known. One of those air pump horns would have been a really good idea.

Mirror - ended up not really using this after a while - due to the constant change of gradient it never seemed at quite the right angle and you tended to hear traffic coming long before you would see it.

Too many spare parts - spare brake disc, 3 sets of brake pads, spare cleats, lots of bolts, replacement cables, even a spare old gear changer (abandoned in Gangtok). None of these turned out to be necessary, but it's better I took them and didn't need them I suppose.

Panniers – AGU Yamaska Front and rear – not a popular choice compared to Ortliebs, but worked well for me, multiple pockets very useful, waterproof covers ended up being left on almost constantly just because they kept the panniers clean and dry and discouraged people from fiddling with the bags.

Ortlieb handlebar bag – ok, never really grew to love having a handlebar bag – I think it was essential in order to have camera and map easily to hand, but a bar bag feels clumsy and stops you hopping over speed bumps at high speed. Don't think any other make would have necessarily been any better, though found it impractical as a bag to use when off bike – flimsy uncomfortable strap, inconvenient opening method and nasty plastic mounting hardware made it unpleasant to carry for long times. Glad I had a good quality camera shoulder bag to use when not cycling (was stored in pannier and used internal padding within handlebar bag when riding).

I had to fly the bike from London-Heathrow to Kolkata on the way out - I was flying with British Airways who still fly bicycles for free, which is great. They do have a 23kg limit for the boxed bike, which I was just over - I'd packed my tools and some other bits and pieces in with it, but they didn't charge me. I got a used cardboard bike box from Brixton cycles and then packed it in with lots of bubblewrap and various cardboard braces through the wheels. The bike survived the flight and a subsequent overnight train trip without any harm.




On the way back it was a struggle to find a suitable box and I was quite limited for packaging materials. I dismantled the bike more thoroughly (removed chainrings and forks), which made it possible to get into a smaller box. I did the best I could using carboard and again it seems to have made it back without harm - on two internal flights in India (Air India Bagdogra-Kolkata and Kolkata-Chennai). They didn't give me any problems over travelling with a large extra box, but did charge me 3700 rupees on top of the flight price. British Airways at Chennai airport couldn't have been more helpful, they even put fragile tags on the box and let me off being 500 grams over the limit.




Other stuff I took (not all of it, just anything that comes to mind at the moment) –

Stupidly heavy camera and lens (Nikon D300 +18-200mm VR lens).

Cheap external flash – Sunpak 383 – 4 AA batteries made this heavy and I didn't really use it enough to justify the weight. On the other hand was fun to play with.

Asus E-PC – older slower model, but very useful for keeping myself sane writing stuff, organising photos, storing travel guides (Lonely Planet sell individual chapters as PDFs now - very useful) and bike repair manuals, etc. Only found useable wireless network in Gangtok, if I was in India longer then a local USB internet plug in stick thing would probably have been worth it.

Haglofs soft shell jacket – best all-round item of clothing I've ever owned.

Old Patagonia rain shadow jacket – quickly discovered my attempts to re-waterproof this before I left hadn't worked very well.

Too much warm clothing – some of it (cheap down jacket) was very nice to have for the brief time I was in N Sikkim, other things I used only once (warm gloves) or not at all (longjohns).

A couple of linen shirts – proved much better for cycling in a variety of weather conditions than anything else I've tried.

2 pairs of cheap dhb cycling undershorts – along with saddle worked great and meant I could wear loose trousers (people stared at me enough anyway, so really wouldn't have wanted to wear lycra).

Earplugs and eyemask – invaluable for sleeping in noisy hotels with varying quality of curtains.

Katdayn waterfilter. I didn't use this the whole time – it was too convenient to buy mineral water a lot of the time, even though I felt guilty at all the waste plastic bottles. But there were times when having the filter was incredibly useful.

Lowepro stealth reporter camera bag and a pair of Nike ACG trainers – I think a lot of cycle tourers would have managed without the extra weight these created as I already had a handlebar bag and cycling shoes that would have done roughly the same job. But they worked so much better that the weight was worth putting up with.

Xanax – great for combating fear of flying, also very handy on long jeep journeys on bad roads next to crumbling cliff edges.

Ciproflaxin - Great general purpose antibiotic.

Sharp knife – very useful for eating mangos (only available in larger places in the hills, but amazing).

Cheapish gel cycle gloves - used these all the time to start with, but they so quickly got soaked in sweat that I eventually found it wasn't really any worse not wearing them.

Helmet - wore it some of the time... a lot less than I should have worn it. Worth having for some of the descents though. Kids enjoyed trying it on.

At least one book at all times - there are good bookshops in Gangtok (the excellent Rachna) and Darjeeling, between those it was pretty hard to get hold of books - I begged a hostel in Pelling to let me swap for one of theirs and had a few points where I needed to limit myself to not too many pages a night so as not to run out.

Timex Explorer Altimeter watch - wildly innacurate, no matter how often I calibrated it. GPS next time hopefully...

Should have brought: lots of photos of home/family/friends - I met some Americans who'd compiled a little photo book for showing to locals who asked about their home country, which was an excellent idea and one that would have been fascinating to people - who tend to be keen to see the pictures on your camera and then are dissapointed to find they're all of prayer flags and mountains and not of your home country.

accomodation
I didn't take a tent - there's little flat ground in Sikkim and lots of cheap (and not so cheap) guesthouses. I stayed in a variety of places - from about 150 rupees a night, up to around a 1000 when I wanted somewhere more comfortable. Mostly I spent around 300-500 a night which would get me a cleanish room with a private bathroom. Rooms with attached bathrooms frequently had twin beds.
One of the cheaper rooms...


It's hard to write any sort of conclusion. Now I'm back in England it's a lot easier to remember the good bits than the bad bits. Some of it was physically tough, but nothing was unbearable. Even the worst of hills are no harder than sitting in front of a computer in an office all day. If anyone's reading this and contemplating cycling in the same area I'd strongly encourage them to do it (and please get in touch with me if you've got any questions).

Darjeeling, Siliguri, Chennai and home

I know I said I liked Darjeeling, but I really hadn't wanted to end up there a 3rd time. It sounded like there was little prospect of the strike ending in time for me to reach the wildlife reserves – in fact from talking to people it seemed likely the strike will continue until the election results are announced – the day after I leave India. So, at Kurseong I'd reached a bit of a dead end – there were few places I could practically get to that I hadn't already been, my bike was far too thoroughly dismantled to make reassembling it seem like a good idea and I really didn't want to spend anymore time in Siliguri than I had to. In the end I concluded that I was best off in Darjeeling which atleast has a wide choice of food, some tourist sites I hadn't yet seen and wider availability of alcohol. So I caught a share jeep back up the hill, unfortunately ending up in the worst possible position for someone with long legs (right next to driver with two people to my left).

I stubbornly refused to get a porter to carry my heavy panniers from the jeep stand up to the cheap hotel I'd booked, so arrived with aching arms and bruised legs. There's a good reason people travel with backpacks... though of course anyone in India that could afford it would get a porter – to me it seems wrong to let a small, wiry, often elderly, man or woman carry my bags for me, but then this is how they earn a living and I'm sure it's more selfish of me not to use one really.



I had a slow start to my bonus day in Darjeeling – there wasn't much choice as it was pouring with rain. When that cleared I spent a lot of time walking around, I'm surprised to that even after all the cycling, I get out of breath walking up the steep hills – I presume this is caused by the altitude – I've spent so much time ascending and descending that I suppose I've probably never really given myself time to adapt properly. I visited an old graveyard, full of graves of British people who'd mostly died between 1850 and 1900, it was surprising how many of them were children.




After that I attempted to visit a tea factory (one of the official lonely planet tourist destinations that I've managed to miss so many of). It turned out I was too late for the factory, but a comically overbearing woman made me go through a tea tasting – I was pleased to find I correctly identified the tea in order of quality (she claimed this was because I was British). She then ordered me to pose for a photo and spent a long time making sure her room decoration was correctly in the frame. After that she demonstrated how to make tea in 5 seconds (it needs to be good quality) and strongly encouraged me to buy some tea.




I walked back up to Chowrasta, the busy square at the top of the town and found that the mountains were visible – a pretty rare event at the moment, so I joined the throng of excited Bengali tourists taking photos.




The next day I went for an early morning stroll, I was surprised to see a touring bicycle by the momo stand I was heading to eat at and quickly found the owner, a German woman who had caught a jeep up to Darjeeling with the bike, but was about to cycle through Bangladesh in the summer heat, next to which I'd greatly prefer cycling up hills.



Dragging my pannier bags back down the hill (bruising my legs further in the process), I was hustled onto a share jeep back to Siliguri. On the way, the boy who operated as ticket tout and baggage handler (sort of – his promise to tie my bags to the roof was never carried through, though I'd never really expected it to be. After several of these journeys I've learnt that gravity does a pretty good job of keeping things in place) quizzed me on my journey. Mostly he wanted to know the same thing many people ask – why I'm travelling on my own and whether I actually have any friends... he told me it was 'so much more delightful' to travel with friends. The journey went on a long time – I suspect I could have cycled down in near half the time – there was an unexplained hold up around Kurseong, a long delay while the driver wandered off to get some lunch and various stops to allow passengers on. During one of these I discovered there was a worse position to be in than the one next to the driver – on the benches at the back, shared with 3 very bulky men and several large sacks.

Reaching Siliguri – unbearably hot after being in the hills, I returned to my previous hotel where I was pleased to find they'd managed to obtain a box that fitted my bike (though considering the extortionate amount of money i'd left them for this favour, they can't have found it that hard). All the staff then attempted to extract further money out of me in return for whichever part they'd played in the box saga (only the manager spoke any English, so was able to explain his part in the long quest in greater detail). I retreated to my room to hide from further demands, at which point I remembered that it's really a good idea to check over rooms more thoroughly before taking them, even if you're tired, hot and have cramped legs. The room loosely resembled the one I'd been in before, but with the addition of a number of cockroaches, a noisily squeaking ceiling fan and a rather sinister pentagram mat outside the bathroom. I attempted to remedy the ceiling fan noise by applying some of my bike oil. This failed to stop the squeaking but did remind me that it's unwise to stand under a large spinning object you've just poured lots of oil into when you start it again. I spent the night being bitten by mosquitos and trying to push my earplugs further in to block the noise of the fan. At least it was a good place to take photos.







Removing a stowaway cockroach from my camera bag as I packed the next morning, I was glad to make my escape from Siliguri – the final straw having been when a fruit seller tried to sell me one average sized mango for 50 rupees – considerably more than the going rate for a kilo (as I'd learnt in the more honest hill towns). I then begun a day of aeroplanes, never my favourite thing at the best of times. The bike proved to be less of a problem than I'd anticipated, though did cost me 3700 rupees in excess charges. I first flew from Bagdogra (near Siliguri) to Kolkata, then waited for 2 hours worrying about whether my luggage was being sucessfully transferred between planes (it was), during which time I was sick – not sure if this was caused by stress, the heat, or my breakfast. I'm glad it wasn't during the flight anyway.

I then flew to Chennai, a long way down India's East coast and a place I visited a year and a bit ago. Chennai is a city of excellent food, heavy traffic and the toughest bargaining auto drivers I've encountered anywhere in India. It's also unbelievably hot at this time of year. Thankfully it's a much friendlier place than Siliguri (though this isn't hard – I really, really didn't like Siliguri). I spent my one day there stupidly trying to walk between places, hiding in an air conditioned shopping mall for a while (where bizarrely I'd just missed Jeffrey Archer doing a book signing) and cheerfully arguing with auto drivers. Most of them would rather drive off than lose face giving a tourist a halfway reasonable rate – as a result it always feels quite a triumph whenever you get one to take you anywhere for close to what the locals pay. I'd then generally undermine things for future tourists by tipping these more honest ones excessively.

I finished up the day by taking a long walk on Marina beach – a large beach that is quite amazingly busy an incredibly easy place to take photos. Along the way I was accosted by various people wanting their pictures taken – several groups of children and one group of police.










The heat in Chennai was unbelievable and I had to spend a lot of time resting. In the evening a massive thunderstorm finally made things a bit more bearable. I caught a taxi to the airport. Somehow the driver (who appeared to be about 16) crammed my bike box into the back seat of an Ambassador taxi, then crammed his friend in alongside (who was coming along for the ride - I suspect because he spoke more English and therefore stood a higher chance of finding a tourist who'd pay for the journey back from the airport). During the scarily fast journey (even through the flooded bits of road - I try not to think about aquaplaning) to the airport we discussed the fines for various motoring misdeeds in the UK vs India - in Chennai riding a motorbike without a helmet gets you a 500 rupee fine, drink driving 2000 rupees. They bemoaned the current situation in Sri Lanka (they were Tamil as are many people in this part of India) and told me how much they enjoyed life as batchelors. My flight was at 5am, and due to leaving rather punctually, I arrived approximately 4 hours early. BA accepted my bike without trouble, which was a relief with the home made packaging and rough adherence to weight limits (after a lot of guesswork and transferring things between bags I ended up half a kilo over the limit for a bike, but they let me off). I had a brief discussion with one of the security guards about whether I'd been to Baker Street (he was a big Sherlock Holmes fan) and then after an uncomfortably long wait in uncomfortable chairs I boarded the plane.



And that's about it... at least until I get round to writing some sort of epilogue.

Darjeeling - Mirik - Siliguri

A lot of the foreign tourists I talked to seemed to dislike Darjeeling – it's busy and noisy compared to most places in the hills, but I've found I rather like it. It's got a great choice of food (I ended up eating Thai most nights as a change from the slightly limited diet I've been following) and some really interesting history. I stored my bike in the lane leading up to the Planter's club, where in the past sherpas used to gather in the hope of being picked for expeditions to Everest. I've just read Tenzing Norgay's son's book about him, so it's all quite interesting. I actually looked at a room in the Planter's club as I liked the idea of staying there, but it was expensive and the carpets looked like they dated back to the time of the Mallory expedition, so I opted for the more comfortable Dekeling hotel next door. This hotel was nice but suffered from a constant cultural clash between Bengali tourists for whom noise isn't an issue; and Western tourists, for whom noise generally is. Thankfully I've got earplugs, so constant slamming of doors and children watching TV at full volume at 5.00am with room doors open isn't so much of a problem. The easy going Indian attitude to disturbance is both admirable and frustrating and probably one of the hardest things for tourists to adapt to. I suppose if you grow up in a society as crowded as India you really can't afford to be bothered by what other people do. I always think back to the hotel in Kolkata where I saw a man fast asleep in a chair, right next to where they were cutting stone steps with a grinder.



I spent a couple of days in Darjeeling, I went on a joyride on the toy train. The toy train is apparently one of only 3 steam railways still operating (I believe the other are in Paraguay and the Isle of Man). The train travels the full distance between Siliguri and Darjeeling over approximately 8 hours, mostly using a diesel engine nowadays. I opted for the rather easier 2 hour trip to Ghoom, only 8km away. It would be very easy to cycle the same route in less time. In fact a lot of the time it would be quicker to get out and walk. But it's a fun experience and provided lots of opportunities for taking photos. I've realised it's actually a lot easier taking photos when not cycling – on the bike it's very hard to go unnoticed as bicycles are so unusual here, whereas on the toy train I was just another tourist.







I'd been talking to a guy running a bike hire place in Darjeeling, who was wavering over whether to invest a large amount of money in decent mountain bikes (he also offered to buy mine off me – the cost of importing good bikes into India has meant that several people have wanted to do this). He'd told me there was a good mountain bike route along the old British road to Kurseong, so I decided to attempt this. The route started in Ghoom, which as usual seemed to be engulfed in thick mist. I spent sometime asking directions from people in Ghoom and cycling in the wrong direction, but eventually I found one older man who knew which way it was. I carried my bike up some steep steps, passed through a nature reserve gate warning of harsh penalties for trespassers and found myself on a deserted road through thick forest. I managed to get 8km downhill, before reaching a junction. With no one around to ask and with the mist cutting visiblity to about 10 foot, I reluctantly turned round and came back, seeing two very surprised deer along the way and taking a badly staged photo of myself. When I reported back to the guy from the bike hire place he told me that the best part was the one I'd failed to get to. Should anyone want to try this route in the future you apparently take the upper fork.



I left Darjeeling early the next day, seen off by a large amount of local taxi drivers, whose stand was outside the hotel and who I frequently found experimenting with changing gears on my bike. I'm now quite used to people fiddling with my bike if I leave it anywhere and have accepted it would be unreasonable to object.



When I'd originally rode to Darjeeling a month or so ago, this had been the day I'd been caught in a thunderstorm and had found it pretty tough going. It was much easier the other way and the weather, while not perfect, was at least dry. I stopped off at the viewpoint over to Nepal – previously this had been freezing cold and covered in hailstones, but this time it was sunny and occupied by several food stalls and a number of entertainingly pushy Nepali women, who battled to out shout each other in offering me noodles, biscuits and Nepali chocolate. I ate a large bowl of noodles while enjoying the view, bought a packet of crisps from the woman I'd felt had made the best effort at shouting and left them harassing a group of Bengali tourists that had just arrived.





The road back to Mirik was now almost all downhill. I reached what I realised to be the last proper climb of my trip and felt torn between disappointment and relief. The rest of the route was then a long freewheel through tea estates.




Mirik is much the same as it was the last time – a pleasant temperature, a lovely hotel garden filled with cats, a particularly good Tibetan restaurant with an incredibly jolly baby and the loudest collection of barking stray dogs I've yet encountered. My earplugs are again proving invaluable. The only other foreigner in town seemed to be a Norwegian cartographer, who was staying there for a long time and as a result had a particularly good knowledge of local footpaths.





There was a small railway museum in Ghoom, which was where I learnt that Mark Twain had stayed in Darjeeling and considered that riding down the toy train track on a wooden platform with only a hand brake for control was I the most exciting day of his life. While not strictly the same thing, the route from Mirik to Siliguri is entirely downhill and through a similar landscape, so I suppose cycling here is about as close as you're likely to get nowadays. Actually with no luggage, full suspension and good timing you could probably cycle down the toy train tracks. Forcing myself to leave the comfort of Mirik, I set off for Siliguri, which comes near the top of my least favourite places in the word. On the way up tis was the route that had taken me a shocking 11 hours. On the way down it took 2 hours and 10 minutes. I can't say it was the most exciting day of my life – the feeling of dread at returning to Siliguri tended to overshadow the fun of 50k or so of downhill. It was very noticeable how much easier it is to cycle on the plains - flat ground feels completely different to anything I've experienced in the last couple of months and as long as you didn't stop, the heat wasn't too unbearable



Siliguri was as charmless as ever. The temperature was somewhere around 38, the traffic ridiculously heavy and my temper grew very short as I embarked on a long quest to obtain a cardboard box to pack my bicycle into. For reasons I didn't fully understand, no one was willing to give, or even sell me an empty box, even if they had a stack of empty bicycle or washing machine boxes outside. When I stomped back to my rather dilapidated 1950s hotel in a very bad mood, their theory was that the shops might 'need them for something'. It was certainly a long way from the helpfulness of Brixton Cycles with the same thing. I accomplished my other tasks – dismantling my bike ready for packing and booking 3 nights in a wildlife reserve, something I've been looking forwards to, as there's a good chance of seeing rhinos. In the evening a massive electrical storm broke out, which was pretty impressive and lowered the temperature a little. Unfortunately I got no photos of this, but I did find an amazingly large spider in my bathroom.







I woke early this morning and prepared myself to catch the 8am train to the wildlife reserve. Knowing that these things are usually more complicated I made sure I was at the station an hour early where I got close to the front of a huge ticket queue in front of a closed window. After about 7.30 a man came to the window and announced something and everyone started to disperse. I stood around feeling confused and thankfully a local schoolteacher came to my rescue and explained that due to a strike the train had been cancelled. As had the buses... and even private taxis. Unfortunately the only other means of transport I had was completely dismantled (not that a 120km cycle on busy roads in intense heat was really something I wanted to do) and would have taken a long time to reassemble. After a great deal of thinking I concluded that I couldn't bear another day in Siliguri, so I caught a crowded share jeep up to Kurseong (1500metres) where it should be more bearable to spend the night. I'm still trying to find if the strike will be finished by tomorrow – if it is then I can probably make it to the wildlife reserve within 6 hours or so... if not then I suppose I should be glad that having a bad time in the last few days should make me appreciate being home a little more.