Adrian cycling around Sikkim

Epilogue

2009-05-19T16:14:00.012+05:30

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

2009-05-16T19:32:00.002+05:30

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

2009-05-10T17:15:00.002+05:30

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.

Kalimpong - Lava - Kaffir - Lava - Kalimpong - Darjeeling

2009-05-04T17:03:00.004+05:30

By my last day in Kalimpong I was finally feeling back to normal. I had a fairly easy day, I had planned to do some sightseeing, but in the end the main events of the day were sitting in the gardens of Holumba Haven and taking photos of flowers and spiders, purchasing 3 astonishingly good mangos and getting a motorbike repair shop to chop the end of a splitting gear cable housing (which in the end they did with a hammer and chisel and refused to accept any payment, though one of them did want to try my bike).

I set off from Kalimpong with a hand drawn map to 3 small places to the East, a last burst of adventurous cycling I could fit in before returning to Darjeeling (from where I'm retracing my previous routes). Things got off to a bad start when I woke up to a huge thunderstorm and torrential rain, however by 10 or so the skies seemed to be clearing. And at least it wasn't as hot now. My first destination was Lava, a long climb back up to 2300 metres. Thankfully most of the tough climbing was over after the first couple of hours and I kept myself going using my current substitute for energy bars – boxes of randomly chosen Indian sweets. I find this works pretty well.

It was voting day and most people were on holiday, so the roads were strangely deserted, but with occasional election related traffic. I stopped off in a small town called Algarah, where a restaurant apologised for not having any food today, but gave me tea and again refused payment – I'm quite struck by how kind people have been round here. As I continued the route got progressively more misty and ominous looking, with vast fir trees looming over the road.

As I neared the final stretch I bumped into a British couple out birdwatching. As probably the only foreign tourists in the hills this side of Kalimpong we were quite surprised. While birdwatching is a little too technical for my liking I admire their willingness to go to obscure places. They told me that Lava was downhill from the next corner and that there was a wide choice of accommodation there, both of which reassured me. They also told me that the eagles I'd seen in North Sikkim were actually vultures, which seems less majestic somehow.

I found a nice friendly hotel in Lava and spent the rest of the day wandering around town taking photos and imagining what glorious views might be visible behind the thick clouds.

I woke in the morning to even thicker clouds and set off on the next leg of my circular route back to Kalimpong. The road to Kaffir (also known as Lolygoan) turned out to be a mostly terrifying route through forests considerably more ominous and misty than the previous day's, but this time on deserted roads full of potholes and loose stones. It was all fairly nerve wracking. It was also almost all very steep downhill, so turning back would be almost impossible.

I reached Kaffir to find a small village that would no doubt be charming if it was possible to see more than 20 foot ahead. I had some problems finding a nice place to stay – or at least I found a nice place to stay that had all the rooms free, however they couldn't find the keys to any of them. So I settled for a not too terrible hotel with a tv and hot water which seemed a good idea in the present weather conditions. I only noticed the lack of electricity as I prepared to have a shower (using the electric powered boiler). So I was left with no choice but to read my book and enjoy the shrink wrapped wall decorations

The next morning I found the visibility had dropped to about 10 foot and was accompanied by frequent torrential rain showers. I'd consulted a teenager the previous night who'd told me the route I was planning ahead was impossible by bike. Over breakfast I discussed the route with a small Indian guy in a very large coat, who was even more sure the route was impossible and fairly clearly felt I was quite likely to die if I attempted it. We then discussed geography (whether England was close to Thailand mainly) while I concluded that dying for the sake of completing a circular route probably wasn't worth it and resolved to take a bus (or actually a jeep which fulfils the same role) back to Lava, from where I knew the cycle would be bearable, even in bad weather.

Once I was on board the jeep (along with 15 others + whoever could hang onto the back), I decided that risking dying cycling would maybe have been the better option. Particularly as the sun promptly came out once we'd got going. I passed the journey talking to a man from Calcutta who worked in the insurance industry and was very concerned with the lack of infrastructure in this part of India. At this point I was most concerned with whether my unsecured luggage on the roof of the jeep would stay in place over the rough roads.

I was glad to arrive back in Lava. Waking the next morning to clear skies, I took the opportunity to go on a long walk up a nearby hill. I then set off back to Kalimpong – a route that was almost entirely downhill so I could relax and enjoy it. The sun quickly disappeared and during a detour to a giant Hanuman statue a thunderstorm broke out and I was forced to shelter in a nearby tea shack for about an hour until the weather cleared a bit.

I'm now back in Darjeeling, I gave in and took a jeep up here. All these jeeps seem a bit like cheating, but it means I avoided a near impossible climb and some very busy roads. I keep reminding myself I already cycled up to Darjeeling once, so I suppose I can excuse it. I managed to sleep for some of the way up and for the rest of it I talked to a young Nepalese guy who was about to go to Surrey for 5 years to study civil engineering, which seemed quite a brave thing to do.

When my bike was unloaded from the jeep I found it had got another puncture. Darjeeling's incredibly hectic jeep stand is not the place to try and fix a puncture. I fixed it as quickly as possible with a crowd of about 15 people watching and randomly picking up things (and discussing the disc brakes - everyone loves the disc brakes). It promptly went flat again at which point I retreated to a car repair place - I ended up doing most of it myself aside from the actual patching, but it was nice to be away from the crowd.

I'm going to stay here for 2 or 3 days while I attempt to plan a trip to a wildlife reserve for a few days (they have a small population of rhinos which I'd really like to see). I also need to contemplate dismantling my bike and finding a suitable box for it in Siliguri, which I suspect won't be much fun.

Gangtok - Kalimpong

2009-04-29T10:45:00.002+05:30

I had a busy last day in Gangtok. A brief stopover at the place I'd organised my N Sikkim tour led to an assortment of staff riding my bike up and down the hill, I spent an hour or so in a bookshop chatting to the owner about publishing and the difficulty of running a bookshop (foreign tourists only tend to use hostel's book exchanges, domestic tourists don't tend to buy books). I bought a couple of books – they're surprisingly not cheap here – prices are almost exactly the same as they'd be in the UK. I returned to my hotel, who apologised that they'd had to enter my room to remove the underwear I'd left drying in the window. As part of the election build up, Rahul Gandhi had been visiting Gangtok and his route took him directly past the hotel. The presence of underwear in the windows would have got them into trouble. In the evening I went out with my tour group to a slightly strange Sikkimese pizza restaurant, where I ate food that was nice, even if it only vaguely resembled pizza. I don't think the Italians were too impressed.

The next morning I set off for an easy day's cycle to Kalimpong. I had a rather basic hand drawn map from a man in the bookshop, an idea that it was roughly 20km from Rangpo (the border between Sikkim and West Bengal) and the knowledge that at only 1250 metres elevation it couldn't be that much of a climb. Of course I was wrong. The first stretch was all downhill from Gangtok and pretty easy, I was briefly delayed by attempting to get breakfast along the way – after a 20 minute wait I only managed to obtain a cup of tea meanwhile various locals came in and downed large bottles of Hit or several whiskies (this was at approximately 7am on a Sunday). I then acquired my second puncture along the way which held me up for a bit. I crossed the border out of Sikkim, feeling a bit sad to leave – I'm very aware that I'm in the last stages of my trip.

It was incredibly hot after the hills of Sikkim. I suppose it isn't that long before the monsoon's due to hit these areas. The road I was taking to Kalimpong was quiet with beautiful views and passed through various charming small villages. However it was also horrendously steep and never ending and I found it incredibly hard going. This route wasn't one in my cycle guidebook and I think psychologically it's a lot easier if you know someone's cycled it before. There were many times when I wondered if I should give up and try and flag down one of the (rare) passing jeeps. Along the way I asked various people for directions and estimated distances/steepness. Most of these were quite inaccurate and unfortunately the accurate one turned out to be the one with an additional 10km I wasn't counting on. Most accurate of all was a small boy who after enquiring where I was going, told me with a look of horror that Kalimpong was “so up” from our present location. After a long, long time, with some long breaks, some pushing (something I've avoided so far and isn't really any easier than riding, but it provided a change), I eventually reached a small village where I staggered into a roadside shack and managed to get a plate of momos and a bottle of coke. I also got the very welcome advice that I only had a few kilometres to go and after that it was all downhill. Looking back I notice that the only time I bothered to get my camera out during the whole climb was to take pictures here. I set off feeling much better and was even given a helpful push by the owner's friend.

I was very relieved to finally reach Kalimpong, where I'd booked a room in a nice homestay called Holumba Haven. It's mostly little cottages, some dating back to the 1930s, and is arranged around beautiful gardens and their own orchid nursery. Not surprisingly it's also somewhat more expensive than a lot of my recent accommodation. My feeling of elation at having completed the ride lasted right up until around midnight, at which point I started being violently sick. This continued right through the night and has left me feeling quite weak. So I've extended my stay here by a couple of days and have moved up to a nice quiet room away from the road.

I'm now feeling a lot better and plan to move on tomorrow - I'm following another hand drawn map to some small places to the east of here - Lava, Kaffir and Samthar. None of these are covered properly by Lonely Planet or my cycle guidebook, so it's hard to predict how this will turn out, but they sound like nice places.

Boring bike update

My rear gear cable has started to split near the top, which meant on the climb up to Kalimpong I could only stay in the lowest gear (necessary) by holding the lever with my thumb. Which didn't make things any easier. I contemplated trying to fix it by the road, but didn't want to delay myself further. Going to change the cable before I ride again.

I have learnt that when fixing punctures you should (a) not leave your puncture repair kit packed right at the bottom of one of your 4 identical looking panniers and (b) take all the bags off your bike right away so you can turn the bike upside down, rather than trying to put the wheel back in with the bike standing up, even if 3 or 4 random passers-by try to help.

Something is creaking slightly, need to double check this.

Avid BB7 disc brakes are great, even when badly adjusted and with warped rotors that I've given up trying to stop people touching with greasy hands. I haven't even had to change the pads yet.

When seeing a cyclist, it's essential for children to shout 'cycle, cycle' as loudly as possible. It's then best to run alongside you, telling you to go faster, even though you're attempting to cycle up an unfeasibly steep hill with 20 kilos of luggage.

Best technique for dealing with aggressive dogs (thankfully rare here) is to dismount and pick up a stone in a threatening manner, which causes them to run off straight away. Only dogs that belong to houses have been aggressive to me.

Hunger and under inflated tyres provide much the same feeling of sluggishness and are surprisingly hard to distinguish between.

North Sikkim

2009-04-25T15:53:00.003+05:30

In the end I took the (sort of) easy option of a jeep tour to North Sikkim. It was a shame not to cycle up there, but it would have cost 5 times as much and cycling while being followed by a jeep made it seem a bit ridiculous. Hopefully one day India will relax the permit restrictions, because it would be great to do by bike over a week or two.

I joined a pleasant Anglo-Swiss-Dutch-Italian group and all 6 of us crammed into a jeep alongside a guide and driver, confusingly both named Budha. For the first hour I was pleased not to be cycling as the roads were in horrendous condition, however only 15km or so out of Gangtok our jeep broke down, at which point I realised that the independence of cycling has led to me becoming very impatient. There was nothing to do other than take photos of the bemused road crew who we'd stopped next to and wait while 15 or so people fiddled ineffectually under the bonnet. Then luckily one man with a large old fashioned toolbox appeared and within 20 minutes we were off again.

There are road crews at work almost everywhere in Sikkim – due to the roads being carved out of the side of mountains in an area that suffers huge amounts of rain, there are constant landslides and bits of road regularly crumble away. It's a tough job for which the workers receive about 150 rupees a day (about 2 pounds). The impending elections may have a lot to do with the vast amount of improvements going on of course.

The later part of the journey was at night (due to the breakdown holding us up) and in heavy rain, so was pretty nerve wracking. Thankfully our driver (Budha 2) was fairly sensible for a 19 year old and avoided too much overtaking on blind corners, still, I was incredibly relieved when we eventually reached Lachen, a desolate little village in a mountainous valley. After drinking several beers (the only choice being 'Hit', a strong local beer that tastes a little like special brew) and being taught various Swiss card games, I headed to bed, looking forwards to the amazing views that the region offered.

Unsurprisingly I woke up to heavy cloud, but even on a gloomy day like this the area was pretty amazing looking.

After a long wait (cycling has made me a little incompatible with other people as I tend to wake up at 5), we headed North. Unfortunately the proximity to the Chinese border means that foreign tourists aren't allowed to go to Gurodongmar lake – a place very close to Tibet that Indian tourists repeatedly tell me is incredible, so we had to settle for Thangu, a village even more desolate than Lachen.

After that we went a little further – upto nearly 4000 metres, to the Chopta valley. The scenery here changed quite dramatically, with far less vegetation and a windswept plateau inhabited mainly by yaks. Apparently a yak costs about 10,000 rupees (near 150 pounds). I was quite tempted to buy one to carry my luggage while cycling.

From here we walked back to Thangu, so far I hadn't noticed much effect from the altitude, but while climbing uphill I suddenly felt very dizzy and out of breath. Thankfully it didn't get any worse than that. A huge ~~eagle~~ vulture (corrected after consulting some birdwatchers... seems a little less majestic now - they looked impressive anyway) swooped overhead, which was then joined by another one.

For people living up here it must be very hard. Apparently most people leave in the winter, but for those that stay it means being snowed in for several months. Houses tend to be arranged round a stove and you see huge stores of firewood piled everywhere.

It must be even harder for the army. There are lots of army bases up here (none of which it's possible to safely photograph) and soldiers tend to be posted here for 3 year stretches. For Indians from the plains, unused to cold weather, this must be very tough.

Another long drive followed, again it was hard not to reflect that I could travel at much the same speed by bicycle – slower on the uphill, but I've found on bad roads it's generally possible to descend faster than jeeps can. We reached our second overnight stop just before dark, this was in Lachung, a slightly less desolate village in the middle of a huge valley. The weather was terrible, but the guesthouse we were staying at was really nice – up a steep hill from the village and with two very excitable and friendly dogs. We spent the evening playing dice and regretting that we hadn't purchased any alcohol on the way up from the village.

The next morning I'd promised to wake everyone up at dawn if the skies were clear. This proved to be unnecessary... so I drunk lots of tea and played with the dogs for a few hours instead.

We drove up to the Yumthang valley, passing through a rhododendron sanctuary on the way. Usually these would all be in flower at this point, but the strange weather this year has meant many have finished flowering already.

The Yumthang valley was quite alpine in appearance. Again the bad weather meant the views were probably less impressive than they could have been, but on the other hand it was probably more dramatic this way.

Aside from the views, the valley's main tourist attraction seemed to be a hot spring. This was a murky pool of water inside a gloomy hut and was considerably poorer than the hot spring in Borong that I'd visited. However it was sufficiently cold outside to make sitting with your feet in the water for half an hour seem quite appealing.

Upon leaving the hot springs we encountered a particularly excitable group of Bengali tourists. The temperature in Kolkata is currrently 40+ (on one particularly hot evening recently they had a city wide powercut, which must have been unbearable), so the contrast up here must be incredible. The locals here do a very good trade in hot tea and balaclavas. This particular group broke into a spontaneous dance routine for our benefit, accompanied by some rave music from their car stereo. In the bleak mountainous setting this was one of the more surreal sights I've seen in India (and I've seen quite a few). I resisted their invitations to join in and settled for taking photos...

We returned to the guesthouse, this time stopping to purchase beer and Tongba on the way. We spent another evening playing dice and Budhas 1&2 enthusiastically posed for photos.

The next morning we finally got the good weather we'd been hoping for, the views were pretty stunning.

Tibet is only 10km to the East, over these mountains. The guesthouse owner told me Tibetans used to cross over here in around 4 hours, carrying heavy baskets of apples to sell.

Fuelled by 4 cups of tea I set off for a walk up a steep hill high above the guesthouse, accompanied by both dogs. I walked as far as a pile of stones, then realising I was in danger of getting sunburnt I headed back for breakfast and another 4 cups of tea.

After breakfast we headed back to Gangtok. In the daytime the route was even more terrifying as it was possible to actually see just how precarious the roads were. We made various stopovers on the way – at one particularly good waterfall there were some good orchids and I acquired two leech bites while taking photos of them. There are waterfalls all over North Sikkim and it's easy to get a little bored of them, but it was pretty spectacular.

We also stopped at a monastery where it was monks playtime again and I finally managed to get a photo of a monk on a mobile phone. Now I just need to get a photo of a monk blowing bubblegum, which I've manage to miss several times.

It was a relief to get back to Gangtok alive, though this has quickly been replaced by irritation at the constant traffic noise; the hordes of tourists that have arrived in town since I last visited and the lack of friendly dogs to go for walks with,

After a lot of thinking I've decided to escape Gangtok tomorrow and head for Kalimpong. This means leaving Sikkim, which will be a shame, but from Gangtok there doesn't seem too much choice without retracing my steps. There seem to be various roads to Kalimpong, all of which are going to involve quite a bit of climbing. I'll spend a day or two there, then it's back to Darjeeling (possibly by jeep I think), from where I'll need to start to plan my route home.

Namchi - Borong - Ravangla - Gangtok

2009-04-20T15:15:00.003+05:30

Hello,

I set off for Borong the next morning, feeling unenthusiastic due to the route being the same as the one I'd taken the night before, but this time I was doing it with 20+ kilos of bags. Eventually, after a long and tiring climb, I found myself at a junction with a 2km very steep uphill track to the statue of Guru Padmasambhava which Namchi is famous for. After a few minutes of thinking I concluded that I'd probably regret it more if I didn't cycle up to the statue, so I spent another hour or so (it was very steep) on this detour. I was rewarded with the sight of a big statue. Not being a buddhist it wasn't hugely exciting, but I felt It was quite an achievement to have made it up there.

I then returned to my original route, which involved yet more climbing on feintly terrifying, misty roads.

But finally I was rewarded with a long downhill section through a landscape that was indistinguishable from Scotland – huge fir trees, fresh air and clouds. This took me all the way back to Ravangla, where I'd stayed previously. From there I was told it was all downhill to Borong. Of course it wasn't, it was actually half steep uphill on roads made up of rocks and mud, followed by a long downhill section. This would have been great, but at this point the skies darkened and I realised a thunderstorm was imminent. I decided to try and outrun it, hurtling downhill over sharp rocks, with a growing sense of dread that I wasn't 100% sure whether the place I was going definitely existed. It was at this point I had my first puncture... I've so far avoided these due to having very strong kevlar lined tyres, but there's obviously limits to what they can cope with. With rain starting to fall I patched the tube as quickly as I could (attracting a small crowd of onlookers despite being in the middle of nowhere, who spoke no English other than the word 'puncture'). I then continued on and was very relieved when I found the Wildflower Rerteat in Borong, just as the thunderstorm started properly.

The Wildflower retreat was one of those places that was almost perfect – it was in a beautiful location, had pleasantly rustic little huts/cottages and seemed to be pretty unknown to foreign tourists. One of the main drawbacks was none of the staff spoke any English at all. However I was very lucky in that Kumar and his family (including his parents) from Bangalore were the only other guests. They translated on my behalf, explained anything that was confusing me and invited me to have dinner with them. They were Jain, which meant purely vegetarian food, they're almost vegan - no eggs, but milk is ok.

As the resort food was not so good, Kumar's wife and mother had commandeered the kitchen and made some very nice South Indian food – the Indian food up here is generally quite oily and not that good – I've mostly stuck to more Tibetan style dishes lately. Unfortunately they were leaving the next morning, so after they'd shared their breakfast with me and Kumar had very kindly negotiated me a 50% discount on the room price (I'd arrived so tired and flustered that I'd failed to even bargain properly), I was left on my own. I toured the small handmade paper factory next door, then set off for a nearby hot spring, that I understood to be 1-2km away.

It wasn't... I'm not quite sure how I got this so wrong, but I'd estimate in the end I walked about 10 miles up and down a very steep hill, having neglected to take any water with me. However I did have company, one of the resort's dogs followed me and much to my surprise, stayed with me the whole way, pausing only to chase the occasional cat or to have a confrontation with any other dogs we encountered.

The hot spring was a small pool containing water that was quite hot, however by this point hot & undrinkable water was not really the sort I was after. So after a brief rest we set off back up the hill, which really was very steep. The dog had followed me most of the way there, on the way back he was well ahead of me the whole way. Several hours after I'd set off, I stumbled back to my hut, where I then did nothing for the rest of the day. This wasn't hard as there was another huge thunderstorm, which eventually started to clear. I know the endless photos of clouds and mountains are fairly dull, but these really were some of the most spectacular views I'd yet seen.

The resort's two dogs were less interested, my walking companion spent the rest of the day sleeping on the terrace outside the back of my hut, while their other dog guarded the front. This only left the inside of my hut unprotected which was to become a problem later in the night. The electricity had gone off in the morning and remained off for the rest of the day. I read for a while in the evening, but found my torch's batteries were going flat. As I drifted off to sleep I heard a loud rustling that seemed to be from inside the room. I spent the next few hours drifting in and out of sleep, occasionally shining the torch into the corners of the room to try and catch out whatever it was. I eventually found that the rustling had been caused by something that had dragged an empty crisp packet from one side of the room to the other. I knew mice weren't capable of this sort of thing and that didn't leave many other options... I finally fell asleep trying to remember if bubonic plague had been fully eradicated (I'm sure it has).

It was tempting to stay another night as it was such a beautiful place, but the communication problems, lack of good food and the possibility of another sleepless night convinced me I should probably move on. So I set off, a small crowd of staff, the paper factory manager and various bemused onlookers turned out to see me off (and have a quick go on my bike).

On the way back I stopped off at two monasteries, one had interesting murals depicting what I presume to be some sort of buddhist hell, the other was bigger and more inhabited. I was shown round by a monk exiled from Tibet who constantly apologised for his bad English (it was much better than my Tibetan) and I watched the monks rehearsing some sort of formation dance routine. It's quite noticeable that they don't have the level of grace I've come to associate with Shaolin monks – though I suppose this is probably because they devote their time to peaceful meditation and chanting, rather than hitting each other with iron bars. Also many of the younger ones were wearing office shoes at least 5 sizes too big for them, which can't help. Sadly it didn't seem appropriate to take any photos of this.

I stopped off overnight in Ravangla, where Lucas (probably not spelled like that, or if it is, probably not his real name), the small boy from hotel 10zing was pleased to be able to spend more time tormenting me. This reached its peak the next morning as I attempted to do some basic bike maintenance while he repeatedly crept up behind me to slap me on the back of the head, much to the amusement of the crowd of onlookers that had gathered. Luckily I managed to get him back with a particularly spectacular slap after fooling him into looking looking at an inner tube cap, which got an even bigger laugh and allowed me to retain some sort of dignity.

I took a few final photos of the streets of Ravangla, which while being almost devoid of sunlight, was somewhere I'd grown to quite like.

I the set off on the long downhill back to Rangpo. This was almost 40km of downhill and aside from having to be constantly vigilant of not dying (due to jeeps on blind corners or large potholes near cliff edges) was pretty enjoyable. I then spent sometime in hot dusty towns struggling to find a shared jeep to take me to Gangtok. Having cycled up to Gangtok once, I'd decided that the heavy traffic, midday sun and very steep hills were a good enough reason to excuse myself from doing it a 2nd time. While waiting I observe some foreign tourists attempting to present a rotund and obviously fairly senior monk with a selection of crisps and fizzy drinks, which the monk was doing his best to politely turn down. I'm fairly sure most of the monasteries around here are pretty well funded (the buildings are generally kept in pristine condition and most of the monks have mobiles), so it seemed an odd thing to be doing when there were plenty of ragged beggars nearby.

After several hours in a crowded jeep, which I spent mostly thinking about how much safer cycling is (I tend to avoid overtaking large trucks on blind corners while talking on a mobile), I'm back in Gangtok where I'm spending my time eating a lot of food and trying to sort out how to see North Sikkim. Due to its proximity to the Chinese border, there's a complicated permit system and it seems like the only cycling choice is to pay for a very expensive solo trip with a jeep following me, or give in and join a shared jeep tour with other foreign tourists. There's one leaving tomorrow morning and at the moment I think I'm probably going to join that. It feels like a bit of a failure, but on the other hand, the roads are apparently in a very bad way, the weather's not good until you get over 3000 metres and traveling with a jeep following seems a bit artificial anyway. So maybe I'll take a few days break from cycling. I have to decide by tonight.

Pelling - Rinchenpong - Namchi

2009-04-15T17:12:00.003+05:30

Hello,

Back in a place with internet again, so this may be a longer update if the power doesn't cut out again...

I stayed a few nights in Pelling, I enjoyed amazing views of the mountains during several days of unusually good weather. I also enjoyed lots of South Indian breakfasts.

I cycled to the ruins of what was the second capital of Sikkim, where the Indian archeological society had put up a number of signs to encourage tourists to walk the kilometre or so to reach them.

I then took a morning trip to find some replacement sunglasses – I'd tried to find some in Pelling, but the only selection I found was a choice in-between giant 70s driving glasses (which I couldn't bring myself to wear) and a pair of ray-bans with one lens missing. So I set off for Geyzing, the local market town. This was only about 8km away, but unfortunately also about 600 metres downhill. Getting there was easy and I successfully found an optician where I was (probably) overcharged for a pair of 'air force' sunglasses that turn everything slightly blue and no doubt do nothing to keep out UV rays. However they fit so I'm happy with them. I then began the long climb back up, stopping to spend an hour in a dusty office while I got my Sikkim permit extended (due to its closeness to China, foreign tourists are required to have a special permit which can be extended 15 days at a time). I detoured to a monastery up a very steep hill, which forbade photos of any of the interesting bits. Leaving there I encountered some cheerful Gujarati tourists who were part of an 'adventure and trekking' society and were very keen to enquire about my bike, in particular what my top speed was.

Departing Pelling, I took the opportunity to be adventurous (sort of) and ventured away from both my cycle guidebook and the Lonely Planet. I'd met a nice English mother and daughter (Emma and Amber) back in Yuksom, who'd told me that Richenpong was a great place – in particular the upmarket farm homestay they'd were staying at in-between trekking up to the mountains. They were very well travelled, so I decided to trust their judgement - backed up with a quick bit of internet research to confirm there were also cheaper places to stay (on my own it's not really possible to justify spending 50 pounds a night when I've been rarely spending more than 10 a day on everything). So, with the help of a very rough map drawn by a Sikkimese guy in Pelling, I set off. The first 20km were almost all downhill, on what would be an amazing mountain bike route.

Unfortunately having no suspension and about 20 kilos of pannier bags I had to take it rather more gently. Halfway along I reached Dentam, a small market town of the sort I should really take photos of (but haven't, as being well off the tourist circuit, people tend to look at me like I'm an alien, meaning I tend not to want to stand around taking photos). I found a friendly Indian sweet shop and stocked up on a selection of sweets and then two portions of what most people seem to eat round here for every meal – samosas accompanied by a chickpea and potato soup (a little like sambar if you've had that). From there it was about 20km of mostly uphill cycling along a ridge, however it was a very pleasant route, less steep than most I've done recently. Along the way I stopped off to take clichéd photos of a little waterfall across the road.

I was also talked to for a while by an elderly Sikkimese woman. I'm not sure what about as she spoke no English. Possibly she was amused that she'd caught up with me while I was resting, or possibly not. She seemed cheerful anyway.

I reached Richenpong and after a brief pointless detour up a very steep hill, I retraced my steps and found the 'Mandarin village resort' – a place made up of little cottages and with what seems to be a worthwhile aim of giving work to local people who were too poor to go to school. It caters mainly to Bengali tourists who come to stare sadly at the clouds obscuring the view of the Himalayas. The resort has what seems to be a good policy of not having televisions in the rooms - to encourage guests to socialise and enjoy the sounds of nature, which is slightly undermined by their enthusiasm for playing pseduo-Chinese pan pipe style music from about 6.30am onwards. Still, it's a very nice place and they were very kind to me. I just about managed to convince them I don't mind chilli with my food – I had many anxious inquiries as to whether my stomach was ok after the first night's dinner (it was fine). I got to try various local dishes, including 'needle soup' (nettle I think). Having discovered I liked food they then attempte to overfeed me as much as possible – this was meant to be a light meal...

In the evening I was treated to their 'cultural programme' which involved the very hardworking staff taking a break from serving food and cleaning rooms to perform local dances with an accompaniment of sporadically flashing disco lights. One guy also performed a Bollywood style dance.

The heads of the various visiting Bengali families were then called upon to give speeches and with a sinking feeling I realised that left one other person that was likely to be called...

I mumbled something about what a nice area it was and how I hoped more foreigners would choose to visit, thanked everyone and sat down again as quickly as possible.

The staff of the resort told me that I'd just missed a large group of foreign cyclists who'd stayed at one of the places further up the hill. They told me they had a one wheeled bicycle with them and wanted to know how you ride one of those up these hills. I'm completely bewildered myself – it's possible that there's a group of unicyclists touring the hills of Sikkim, but it seems very unlikely. I think most likely a group of cyclists with a support vehicle who had a uncicyle with them, but it's a shame they didn't tell me until the next day, as I'd have walked up to find out. It will remain a mystery.

I stayed an extra day to do some local sightseeing, though this largely consisted of a long walk down an interesting looking forest track, which turned out to lead to nothing more than a building site an a few private looking houses. I then cycled some way down an incredibly steep and rocky road to the posh farmhouse hotel where I was pleased to find Emma and Amber had returned. I spent a while chatting to Emma about lots of things - their trek, publishing, working as a medic in Nepal, and whether you get to a point where you feel you've done enough travelling (the answer seems to be no unfortunately). I would happily have stayed longer, but the sound of an approaching thunderstorm reminded me I had to climb several kilometres over a road made up mostly of boulders, so I departed swiftly. My idea of outrunning the thunderstorm was hopelessly optimistic and I got soaked before returning to sit outside my cottage listening to the rain (and once the power came back on, the sounds of pan pipes and generic ethnic chanting).

I reluctantly left Richenpong, it had been a great place to stay and I'd befriended their pleasantly ineffectual guard dog.

They even gave me a special scarf when I left.

My destination was Namchi, or, if I couldn't face going the whole distance, a town down on the plains called Jorethang. The cycle to Jorethang wasn't too bad, being mostly downhill or flattish, so I had a large lunch there, then set off uphill for Namchi. This turned out to be a much tougher rider than I'd anticipated, maybe it's because I've done some shorter rides lately, or because I didn't leave as early as I should, but the 20km uphill climb was exhausting and I struggled to stay positive – I even had to fight the urge to shout at the large group of small boys who followed me silently on one of the steep sections and would then stand staring at me every time I stopped to rest. Normally you just accept this kind of thing, but when you're really tired you tend to just want to be left alone, which is of course impossible in India. The traffic was also much heavier on this road, which didn't help.

On the way up I encountered a small boy carrying a very heavy (I tried it, at least as heavy as one of my larger panniers bags) basket of nettles (used in cooking here).He was also largely silent, but managed to run alongside me for a considerable distance, making me feel very guilty about my physical suffering being entirely self-indulgent.

The last section of the ride was really hard and I'm not sure I'd have made it if I hadn't distracted myself by listening to a radio play from the Campbell playhouse of 'It Happened One Night'* on my mobile. Finally arriving in Namchi I suffered my 2nd lapse in good humour of the day as a policeman told me I couldn't push my bicycle across the town square in order to see if any of the hotels there had rooms. Eventually I got a room in a hotel away from the main square, where staff seem to outnumber guests at least 6 to 1. I then engaged in an epic struggle to get some hot water that kept me occupied for the next couple of hours (non-working water heater, eventually fixed by hotel staff, followed by a power cut just as the water started to heat up).

Despite it being a little grim after Richenpong, I'm staying here two nights. I planned to cycle up a ridiculously steep hill to look at a giant Buddhist statue that is this rather dusty town's main selling point, however after an initial detour up the wrong road, I made it halfway before concluding that there'd be no way I could cycle the next day if I continued. So I'll just have to enjoy what seems to be the town's other main attraction - a small hexagonal outdoor aquarium in the town central square with loudspeakers that play hiphop.

Tomorrow I'm heading back past Ravangla to a place called Borong, which means doing all of today's hill climb again, fully loaded, which is a depressing thought. but according to my internet research, Borong is a delightful place in the countryside with the possibility of hikes up into the nearby nature reserve. I'm hoping the constant cloud that engulfed Ravangla on my last visit has lifted by now.

* Orson Welles produced a number of radio plays in association with Campbell soups in the 40s (I'm guessing) which I luckily downloaded just before I left the UK – they're easy to find and free to download and I highly recommend them if you ever need distracting while cycling up a hill. The quality of acting is generally great and the soup adverts that punctuate them are amusingly over-enthusiastic.

Yuksom - Khecheopalri - Pelling

2009-04-10T11:38:00.002+05:30

Hello and happy Easter (it is Easter isn't it? I'm losing track).

I spent another day in Yuksom, wandering around the village, visiting a little buddhist place on the hill, sheltering from rain and adjusting bike brakes. I ate at a small restaurant in town, which was better than the hotel restaurant, however they get a stream of tourists demanding bland food, so it was quite hard to persuade them to give me anything with chilli. It took 3 goes and a lot of pointing at the local's food in the end.

Departing from Yuksom meant a long ride on very bad roads, made worse by the recent heavy rain. However as usual the scenery was interesting. Sikkim has an amazing variety of birds and I'd imagine it's great for bird watchers. Not knowing much about birds, I can only say that there are a lot of brightly coloured ones, which are very good at flying off while you attempt to get your camera out. The flowers are easier.

I crossed a slightly terrifying bridge, pausing to fake an action shot of me cycling – I thought I'd picked an empty place to do this, but as usual someone appeared to stare at me . It's amazing just how often someone will appear in even the most remote places, generally when I'm most exhausted and incapable of speech.

My next destination was Khecheopalri lake, inconveniently situated at the top of a steep 9km climb. I've been fairly lucky with weather lately, but this time I got caught in the middle of a heavy shower and had to shelter by the side of the road for a while. While I cowering under some trees, a large party of excitable middle-aged men from Kolkata drove past, then reversed so they could take photos of me, shake my hand and ask how much the bike cost (everyone does this and I now say either $100 or $200 as it's less bewildering than the truth). I eventually reached the lake, ate some momos while sheltering from the rain; missed what would have been a great photo of a hen and chicks sheltering under my bike, then found a cheap guesthouse. This was the Trekker's hut and was a really nice, though basic place.

I stayed up late (e.g. 9) drinking Tongba – a local drink that tastes a little like Sake, it's boiled water poured over fermented millet and you drink it through a metal straw. It's not very strong, but quite warming. I chatted to the one of the staff about Sikkim. If anyone's looking for a career change, becoming a government employed teacher here seems a very good deal – 20k rupees a month (a comfortable amount to live on) and accommodation provided. Bizarrely private school teachers earn much less. He was horrified to hear how much it costs to live in London and unusually was one of the first young people I've talked to who seemed happy to live somewhere quiet – I've got the impression most would prefer to be in a city.

The weather has settled down into what seems to be a fairly consistent pattern – sunshine in the morning, heavy thunderstorms in the late afternoon. As I'm rarely cycling much in the afternoons this is fine and makes for some good views. A lot of the locals I've talked to are convinced the weather is due to climate change – they had an incredibly dry winter and are now having an unusually wet spring.

I stayed an extra day at Khecheopalri and went walking up into the hills above the village. I hadn't quite bargained for how long or tough this walk would be, but the forest on the way up and then the views made it worth it. However it's resulted in a badly sunburnt neck, my first ever leech bite (back of knee - undiscovered until the next morning) and broken sunglasses (not actually connected to the walk, but annoying as replacements are in short supply round here).

I made it back about 6 hours later to discover the hostel now contained 3 French people and one Swiss person, meaning I spent the evening alternately struggling to follow the conversation in French, or feeling guilty when they stopped to translate for me – by which point the rest of them would have moved on to a completely different subject. However they have a much harder time in India as outside of Pondicherry, no one speaks French and most Indians can't understand their accents when they speak English, so I didn't begrudge them the chance.

I moved on the next day and after a slightly uncomfortable (due to sunburn/lack of sunglasses) ride, I'm now in Pelling. This is a town that consists almost entirely of hotels and the odd kiosk selling crisps and mobile phone top-ups. The reason for this is that it has an amazing view of the Himalayas in clear weather. It's a popular holiday destination for Bengalis who come to escape the heat and to stare at the mountains while wearing balaclavas and looking very cold. Currently it's not quite their main holiday season, so the place is relatively quiet and room prices are very negotiable. I'm also back on the more conventional backpacker circuit, so I have the joy of seeing people with silly facial hair and even sillier trousers arguing rudely with the locals for the sake of a few rupees. Though compared to a lot of popular backpacking destinations in India it's pretty mild really.

I'm planning to spend a couple of days here. Despite the constant noise of hotel building/extending (hotels constantly add new floors, obscuring the views of the hotels behind, who then have to add more floors as well); there's a good range of food (I managed to find a South Indian breakfast for the first time since Gangtok), regular internet access and various places I can visit nearby. All the young men working in the place I'm staying are very, very keen to have a go on my bike, which makes me a little stressed. I've let people do this at a few of the places I've stayed and I think they believe it's impossible to get hurt on a bike; so hurtle off downhill leaving me to spend an anxious 15 minutes wondering if they'll return with either a crumpled bike or head. However it's always good to keep hotel staff on your side and I'm glad that people appreciate bicycles up here, so I'll probably let them.

Ravangla - Tashiding - Yuksom

2009-04-06T11:41:00.002+05:30

I ended up spending 3 nights in Ravangla, hoping it would stop raining, or at least that the main street would not be full of clouds – at this altitude there's frequently very little visibility and I didn't like the idea of cycling in it. While in Ravangla I met Ilya, a Russian guy who'd hitched most of the way from Russia to here – another thing that makes a couple of months cycling seem easy. He was now attempting to get round Sikkim and possibly to Kashmir on virtually no money. Like me he was finding the weather difficult as he frequently had to walk long distances. I ended up offering to pay for a shave (he'd turn down my offers of food), as he was concerned his beard was scaring children. I was happy to as long as I could take before and after photos.

On the third day I conceded that the weather wasn't going to improve much. It wasn't actually raining, so I set off through the mist. Once I was going it wasn't too bad – you can always hear cars coming and there weren't many anyway. The first stretch was all steep downhill, though the road conditions varied heavily, so as usual I had to go pretty slowly.

Once I was down to about 1500 metres the weather improved a great deal, though the effects of the bad weather on the roads was obvious – I saw one place where there'd been a recent landslide. After crossing a river I began to climb again, but the countryside was beautiful, the flowers here are incredible. It only became hard going for the last few kilometres when I was exhausted.

I stayed overnight in a little village called Tashiding, finding a nice little guesthouse with a pleasant garden. After some initial confusion over whether I wanted 'lunching' or 'lodging' – the former not being possible, so they'd just shook their heads when I asked and I was half way out the gate before they came after me (I've started asking for 'lodging' because asking for 'a room' in Singtam led to about 15 minutes of bewilderment). I climbed up to the Buddhist Gompa complex above town – 40 minutes steep walk according to lonely planet, 30 according to my cycle guide and about an hour for me once I'd included all the rest stops.

On top of the hill was nice, but a bit deserted – I think the monks must have been having their siesta. The main inhabitants seemed to be an assortment of one eyed dogs.

On the way down I encountered a couple wearing lycra and carrying bike helmets. They were Bob & Chantal, on a daytrip from Yuksom (my next destination). It's still pretty amazing to encounter cyclists here and once I'd persuaded them I was cycling as well (as I'd left my bike at the guesthouse) we discussed our routes – they were going the opposite way round without the benefit of my cycle guidebook, so some of the climbs were more of a surprise to them – I'm not sure if this would have been a good or bad thing – it might be nice not to wake up with the feeling of dread I've had on some of the tougher days.

The next day I reluctantly moved on. This was another pleasant ride – the last two have both been much shorter distances, as where possible I'm splitting journeys when there's anywhere nice to stay enroute. These are much more enjoyable as I feel I can take my time and stop whenever I like, without worrying about what time I'll arrive. There was, as usual plenty of climbing, but mixed in with long downhills. On the way I encountered these kids with their homemade bicycle, which made me feel quite guilty – I tried to think if I had any spare bike part I could give them, but couldn't think of anything. I suspect the recent mountain bike race may have been through these villages as the kids are all very excited to see bicycles.

On the way I bumped into Chantal waiting by the roadside. Bob had lost his GPS somewhere on the way and had been forced to retrace his steps to try and find it. Eventually he reappeared having had to buy it back from some kids who'd found it, which cost him 300 rupees. The kids must have been very pleased with this. I then passed a waterfall which seemed to be inhabited by some slightly terrifying Lord of the Flies style children who shrieked manically at me. I decided to move on before they could climb down to the road as they were a bit frightening.

Reaching the final few kilometers and on a steep climb I was pursued by two small boys. This tends to happen a lot and usually they just want you to stop so they can stare silently at you/the bike. Or, if enough irresponsible tourists have been through the place they'll ask for money (though this is pleasantly rare in the hills). However these two started pushing me, which was one of the kindest things I've experienced here. It actually made it considerably easier to get up the hill (this went on for about a kilometer) and cheered me up greatly. I shared some biscuits with them and let them take turns with me pushing them along on the bike and we all thanked each other profusely – I'm not sure why they were thanking me, it made me feel even more guilty than the homemade bike had.

After a final stretch on roads that were alternately made up of packed stones and thick mud, I reached the little village of Yuksom. This was originally the capital of Sikkim, but this was a long time ago and it's a tiny place now, however it's also where many of the longer treks begin from, so it's over-supplied with hotels. So I treated myself to some luxury (well clean towels and a reliable hot shower anyway) and am staying in the best hotel in town, which I managed to bargain down to below half price (it's not the main tourist season yet). I'm staying here a couple of nights and then I'm not sure whether to move on or stay one more night and explore the local area some more. It's very scenic and had some good views at 6.30 this morning, though it's now clouded over.

Thanks to anyone that's emailed me – I have been reading them and really enjoy hearing from people. I have attempted to reply when I can, but unreliability of connections and electricity mean I don't always manage it – or I get half way and then lose what I've written. Anyway, I really appreciate it.

Singtam - Ravangla

2009-04-02T15:56:00.003+05:30

Two updates in one go this time as I've been lacking internet access. Then, having reached somewhere where it was possible to use the web, the electricity promptly cut out. This is known as 'load shedding' and happens in a lot of smaller places in India. It means the power will consistently go off for an hour or two every day, usually at a set time, though it still seems to take everyone by surprise. Now I'm in one of those smaller places I need to remember to carry a torch in the evenings.

I ended up spending two nights in the grim hotel in Singtam as I spent the first night being violently sick. I knew eating in their fly filled restaurant was a bad idea. As I felt pretty bad all day I did little other than watch rubbish cable tv in my room. I can say that Autotune hasn't benefitted the world of Bollywood pop videos at all; BBC world becomes unbearably repetitive after approximately 30 minutes and that I've now seen Roadhouse with Patrick Swayze, which I managed to miss in the 80s (a wise decision it turns out).

The only redeeming thing I could find about Singtam was the bizarre musical procession down the main street that seemed to occur at approximately 4am every morning. It was a little like the Hare Krishnas, but with women singing nicely in tune and better instruments and much less manic. Both times I very nearly struggled out of bed to see who the performers were and possibly take photos, but I couldn't quite face it. Maybe after more days it would have become annoying, but in such a grim place it seemed quite a pleasant thing. Except when the town's various stray dogs joined in.

I made a start by 5.30 in the morning, dreading the near 2000metre climb ahead of me. It started easily and I was pointed in the right direction by a yoga class walking across a bridge laughing. I've got quite used to people laughing at me (the usual response to seeing anyone cycle up these hills), but in this case it was one of those classes where they do forced laughter as part of their yogic activities. They wished me a good journey which was nice.

As usual there were some good road signs.

There's no point in writing yet more about cycling up steep hills endlessly. It was really tough and redeemed only by the fact the weather was great. As a result there were clear views of the Himalayas from about halfway up, along with lots of amazing birds and flowers, which I failed to take proper photos of and regret now.

The last 5km* was really, really hard. As in Darjeeling I've discovered that altitude starts affecting me at around 2000metres, so for the last stretch I was short of breath as well as tired. It was a great relief when I rolled into Ravangla (also spelt Rabongla and Rabong, not sure why) around lunchtime. I then spent a while looking round various hotels hoping to find one with a view, before giving up and settling for the first one I'd looked at on account of it being run by women – my theory on Indian hotels is that these are almost always less shambolic than ones run by men, which tend to go for quantity of staff over competence.(I can think of many exceptions to this theory, but in general it's not a bad way to choose places).
The room is slightly oddly decorated.

Actually it seems mainly to be staffed by the children of the owner, one of whom is hugely amused by my beard and mocks me (in a friendly way, I think) at any opportunity he can.

Since I got here I've done very little other than eat large bowls of noodle soup and get halfway through checking my emails before the power ran out. I had breakfast while chatting to a young communist doctor from Kolkata, who was travelling round Sikkim studying Buddhism. We discussed Indian politics, what language people speak in Scotland and his outrage over the caste system amongst other things. He had a pretty amazing memory for statistics and would have preferred to have been an archaeologist. I've also spent the morning talking to the Sikkimese women who run the internet place (the internet wasn't working) - about such things as why we have different coloured eyes (not due to English people all wearing contact lenses) and London's merits compared to Sikkim (I'm enjoying the relative peace and quiet here, they're fed up with it - having been here all their lives and not having the luxury of being able to afford to go abroad).

I'm now trying to decide whether to stay an extra day here or not – there are various nature reserve type places nearby and I'm hoping the cloud will clear as the views from this place are stunning. I had a brief glimpse when I arrived yesterday, but by the time I'd got out of the shower the cloud had rolled in. From my time in Gangtok it seems the ratio of clear days to cloudy/rainy ones is approximately 1/3, so I'm not holding my breath.

* it seems strange to be using km when I'm used to using miles at home, but all the distances in my book and on roadsigns are km, so I've switched over completely. A kilometer feels like several miles once your climbing this much anyway – in fact the distances are largely irrelevant compared to the height gained or lost.

Boring bike update

I managed to get the bike into my hotel room in Singtam and took the opportunity to wash it as thoroughly as I could (which when you're using an old pair of socks found in a drawer as a cloth, isn't very). So I now have a cleaner bike and a badly creaking bottom bracket, which caused me a lot of irritation on the way up to Ravangla. Going to see if I can sort this out today. As I'm back in the hills my bike again seems to be drawing the admiration of children and young men (at least once I remove the pannier bags), which means I'll probably be unable to do this without a crowd gathering.

Other than that bike is working well. I've had very little use for anything other than the very top and very bottom few gears.

Gangtok - Rumtek - Singtam

2009-04-02T15:21:00.003+05:30

Hello,

I've found internet again, so this is what i've been doing:

I spent 2 more days being ill in Gangtok and doing very little other than watch rubbish on TV; attempt to ignore the constant sound of traffic and metal grinding from the street below and take occasional pictures out of the window.

The 28th was a pretty depressing day, it rained relentlessly and I've always hated cycling in the rain. I have bought myself a very unstylish rain cloak sort of thing, but I'm dubious both about its practicality while cycling and whether it really is waterproof. Anyway, I went to sleep feeling quite worried about the prospect of getting back on a bike the next day.

I woke on the 29th feeling much better and incredibly confused (I'd fallen asleep at about 9.30, woken up and looked at the uk time on the computer and been convinced I'd only slept for 2 hours, despite it feeling much longer. I gradually realised it was actually 4.30 am, which of course explained why they were noisily loading trucks outside my window).

When I opened my curtains I saw the rain had cleared and been replaced by a pretty amazing view of the mountains – I hurried to the roof and got a few photos – when the mountains are even visible, they're really only visible for an hour or so in the morning before cloud obscures them.

I loaded up my bike and set off for Rumtek. The guy at my guesthouse told me there was now an alternate route to the one in my cycle guide and I could take the Gangtok bypass which would get me to Rumtek without much hill climbing – my original route involved descending 700metres, then climbing about 800metres. I reached the bypass and turned onto it, then a minute later felt guilty at giving myself such an easy day after so much inactivity and turned back onto the original route. I spent sometime feeling this was a mistake, but the roads were quiet and I found frequent places to stop and get food and tea. People are really friendly in this part of Sikkim and were keen to offer me shady places to sit and drink hot water. It's always a relief when I'm offered hot water as it means it's probably safe for me to drink. Probably... I feel ok so far anyway. I stopped at one viewpoint where my bike caused some excitement.

I reached Rumtek early – this was a much shorter ride than many I've done. Rumtek is a village based around a Tibetan monastery. There's some complication over rival factions, so as a result the monastery is heavily guarded by the Indian army and I had to show my papers and have some sort of detector waved over me and my bike before I was allowed in (assuming it was a metal detector, it can't have been much use at determining the safety of my bike). There are several guesthouses within the monastery complex and the nice one I'd been hoping to stay at turned out to be full. I spent sometime walking up and down a steep hill trying to find somewhere that wasn't full, mysteriously closed, or a building site, eventually finding this slightly basic accommodation.

I did like their office.

I'm surprised at how full all the rooms are – while lots of Indian tourists visit, they tend to be on day trips. I think it's mostly rather serious young Europeans who stay a while and study Buddhism. It's funny to contrast them with the young monks, who seem more concerned with mobile phones. In fact when they're not taking part in ceremonial chanting and drum banging (which is quite atmospheric, but isn't about to lead me to discover any sort of spiritual side), in a way it seems more like a public school than a monastery – once the monks are let out for playtime (or whatever their equivalent is), they seem to spend most of their time play-fighting, blowing bubblegum or listening to music on their mobiles. All of which I failed to get photos of, which is a shame.

I ventured out in search of food and found a small restaurant. It was busy with an assortment of young monks and a foreign camera crew who were interviewing monks about their lives. I sat on a corner table and watched. A fed up looking teenage monk in an Adidas hat sat opposite me. He gave me the impression he was annoyed by the camera crew – I wondered if the constant media intrusion got to them. Eventually they finished filming and left and I realised the real reason he was fed up, they'd been waiting to watch tv. So I sat in the restaurant and watched tv with a large group of monks and several dogs – They watched some old war film starring Amitabh Bachan (and horses, and Ak47s, which seem to form the centrepiece of most films in this region), interspersed with cricket (which is even more incomprehensible to me).

In the morning some sort of visit by an important person was taking place and the soldiers donned flak jackets and tried to look tough. This was undermined by their guard dog which was a cheerful and slight overweight labrador, who despite being repeatedly told to sit, tended to wander round wagging his tail a lot. Then two guards in very special outfits turned up. I took a few photos from my guesthouse roof, then hurried down to see if I could take proper photos. The first officer I asked said it was fine, but he was then overruled by an officer with an even bigger moustache, so I reluctantly gave in and put my camera away.

After this I waited for the cloud to clear (it didn't very much), and set off for Singtam. After some quiet, pleasant (but cloudy) roads,

I begun to descend 1000metres over 8km. This is quite steep. I've now reached Singtam, back down to 350metres where it's hotter and dustier and not very peaceful compared to the monastery. I have a slightly grim hotel room – one set of windows gives a view of a brick wall roughly 6 inches away. The ceiling fan appears to only work on one setting, labelled 'storm', so I have a choice between being much too cold or much too hot. Tomorrow I climb back up to a place called Ravangla. I think I may have to climb about 2000metres tomorrow, so I'm a little nervous.

Gangtok

2009-03-27T14:38:00.003+05:30

This will be a slightly boring update as I'm still in Gangtok, having caught a cold. So I'm staying where I am for the moment as the idea of cycling up hills feeling like this isn't very appealing. Hopefully I'll be back on the move on Sunday. It's quite relaxing when they're not cutting stone beneath my window. There are very few places I've been in India where someone isn't cutting stone nearby. With my inferior foreign tolerance for noise this tends to stop me sleeping, whereas it doesn't bother anyone local.

I think I got the cold after my excursion yesterday – I set out for the Gangtok Zoological park, by bicycle. Without my luggage weighing the bike down, it was a pleasure to cycle and even my usual getting lost wasn't dispiriting. Instead of the zoological park I ended up at a Tibetan monastery.

Continuing from there, I ended up carrying my bike up steep steps for about 20 minutes, eventually reaching Ganesh Tok, a viewpoint above the city. However there weren't much in the way of views due to the rapidly increasing clouds. I should have taken these as a warning.

The zoological park is huge and most people travel round it by car. There was a massive bear enclosure which was hard to object to, though the bear seemed unusually keen to come close to the viewing platform – I think this may have been something to do with visitors feeding the animals, which isn't good. Some young monks turned up and gave it some peanuts, which I didn't approve of, but did allow me to get a good photo.

It then poured with rain, thundered and hailed. I stood under a shelter with the monks and waited for it to stop. They were from Bhutan, but studied in Rumtek – a monastery on the other side of the valley from here. It was their day off – they get 2 a week and then 2 months off a year when they go back to visit their families. They spoke good English, apparently they study it alongside Tibetan and Sanskrit. As usual they mostly wanted to inspect my bicycle. Gangtok recently hosted a mountain bike race and that, presumably combined with 'extreme' sports coverage on cable TV means that up here the bike's drawing admiration rather than total bewilderment. Everyone also asks how much it's worth and as usual I have to reduce the amount to what sounds like a saner level. I don't even like to think how much it cost myself.

Continuing round the park I saw big cats (depressing as usual, even though their enclosures weren't bad, it just doesn't ever seem right to see a snow leopard behind a fence). I also encountered a group of schoolboys smoking under one of the frequent rain shelters (which seem in good supply in Sikkim, for understandable reasons). They explained that they were “bunking off”. The rain clouds here were pretty amazing.

By this point I'd had enough of seeing animals in captivity and headed back down the hill (by this point I'd climbed about 9km above Gangtok). It started to pour with rain again and I got soaked, though it was good fun descending down the bumpy roads.

Returning to my hotel I started to feel not that great and today I've woken up with a cold. So all I've done is sit on the roof reading and stagger out to buy a selection of fruit from the market, which I'm hoping will make me better. Either apples here are unfeasibly expensive or I got ripped off, but I didn't feel up to arguing about it.

So my plan is to wait here for a couple more nights, then head over to stay in Rumtek. Luckily I've still got sporadic wireless internet access, so if anyone wants to email me, I'd be glad to hear from you. There's always stuff to watch out the window as well. Every time I worry about the cycling I just have to see the immense loads the locals carry about the steep hills to be reminded that I've not got it that bad.

Darjeeling - Rangpo - Gangtok

2009-03-25T18:27:00.005+05:30

Hello,

I'm now in Gangtok, which seems a very pleasant place so far. It's got a wide pedestrianised main street with no litter. This is a first for me in India (outside of shopping malls) and it's very nice. I'm not sure how they enforce it – I suspect large fines and men with sticks. Sikkim is noticeably quite wealthy, which I believe is partly because the Indian government put lots of money into their economy to lure them away from any loyalty to China.

I even managed to pick up a wireless signal in my room and spent a while catching up on email and reading through the UK news (I think I might try and avoid this in future). I'm sure you're all eagerly awaiting Jade Goody's state funeral.

Anyway, I spent another day in Darjeeling, wandered down to the zoo and Himlayan Mountaneering institute, the zoo was not too horrendous as Indian zoos go. The big cats were depressing, but most other things seemed to have good enclosures, the red pandas seemed particularly comfortable, but then I suspect they're not that demanding as they spend most of their time sleeping. The mountaineering institute was interesting, it had a lot of equipment from the original Everest expeditions and it's amazing how basic it was. Nothing high tech, basic backpacks with thin leather straps, etc.

Later in the day I bumped into two women I'd met in Mirik and we went for a walk round the botanical gardens, then on a whim we decided to go for high tea at one of the posh hotels in town. This was like walking into a different world, beautiful antique furniture, waiters in fancy uniforms and cake stands (though the cakes were rather dry). As we were finishing, with perfect comedy timing, a rat ran out from the side of the room, stopped and looked at me, then ran back again. The waiter looked embarrassed and pretended it hadn't happen. It was very Fawlty Towers and we couldn't stop laughing. It's funny because I've eaten in really cheap places and have never seen a rat in one of those.

Expecting an easy day's cycle the next day, I made a slower start than usual. As I was packing my bag, my guesthouse owner - a rather formidable woman called Mrs Gurung, G.H.A.(I never found out what G.H.A. meant, but it was obviously important as it was on all the signs round the hotel) – told me that the mountains were visible from the roof. This is one of the main attractions of Darjeeling, but so far it had been too cloudy to see anything, so I rushed up there and delayed myself by another half an hour taking photos. I hadn't quite realised just how large they'd look in real life, which I suppose it why people were so keen to see them.

I eventually set off late, stopping for a large breakfast on the way. The first part of the journey was uphill through heavy traffic, which wasn't a lot of fun. Eventually the traffic ground to a halt and I was able to overtake most of it, discovering the reason around the next corner – a jeep collision. It was the first accident I've seen this time and made me a little apprehensive of the busier roads (thankfully I'm mostly avoiding these). The route I took frequently crossed over the tracks that the toy train takes – a fully working steam train that takes people up and down to Darjeeling, which, if I'd been without a bike, I'd have liked to have taken. As it was, the tracks were just an extra hazard to avoid. After a brief pause while I failed to find the turning in Ghoom (my favourite place name so far after Tingling). I've got used to the standard Indian method of finding a place, which is to go back and forwards asking as many people as possible in the hope that you get some sort of consensus. Here I was not helped by the fact some policemen sent me in the wrong direction and it was only one particularly knowledgeable guy who assured me it was back the way I'd just come.

Following this turning, the road instantly became quiet and I now descended around 1300 metres. In some ways this is great after all the hill climbing, but at the same time, you're very aware that you'll have to make this height up again. Also the occasional unmarked speed bumps tends to keep you on your toes. I was also painfully reminded of why you don't touch hot disc brakes (my finger is healing now) Still, it was mostly very pleasant compared to the other day's cycling. Once the ground started to level out it was noticeably much hotter and dustier, though there was a little breeze from the tTeesta river – this is meant to be a popular white water rafting spot, but the water levels were vey low and the people I saw seemed to just be paddling very slowly. At this point I made the mistake of asking someone for the direction to Rangpo and not double checking with someone else. 10Km or so of dusty cycling later I began to realise I was heading back to Siliguri. I doubled back and eventually reached Rangpo much later than I'd hoped and very hot and dusty. Rangpo is on the border to Sikkim and I made the mistake of accidentally cycling through the border without stopping (it was a bit confusing). I'd pulled over next to a hotel when some guy came running up to tell me and I spent the next half hour arranging my Sikkim permit (which is free, but involves form filling and passport photos. It will also need to be renewed every 15 days, which I musn't forget.

Having finally done this I checked into the 1st (and only) hotel I could find. It was the kind of hotel you get in places where no one would deliberately stop. It wasn't too bad and the staff were fairly nice. One of them was very keen to have a go on my bike, another one just wanted to watch me cycle in circles round the courtyard. I enjoyed another solo dinner (I keep having these, it's very hard to tell if restaurants have people in them or not from outside, so you tend to end up with the unnerving experience of eating while outnumbered by staff 5 to 1).

I was up by 5.15 the next day and out the hotel within half an hour. As usual cycling at this time was pleasant, nice temperature, few people around, hardly any traffic. I encountered a Tata truck (these are huge and frightening to cycle near, but generally nicely decorated) which had broken an axle. As a result it had just stopped in the middle of the road and the driver had gone to sleep. It's impossible to imagine this happening in the UK where you'd be expected to put out warning signs and lights and stuff.

I was hungry this point and keen to find somewhere for breakfast. The first place I tried, I instantly realised was a mistake as everyone just stared silently at me. I quickly ordered a cup of tea, drunk it, then left. 10 minutes later I found another place, this time I was helpfully escorted inside, given a short lesson in Nepali food terms (they're almost all identical to Hindi so I knew them already), chatted to pleasantly (though rather basically due to my lack of Nepali) while I ate (chapatis and potatos), I entertained their child by showing him how to work the bell on my bike and was generally made to feel very welcome. I left in a much better mood.

The road started climbing, but the scenery was great and I was able to ignore the increasing amount of traffic. There are flowers, butterflies and interesting birds everywhere in Sikkim (so far I've failed to take many photos of any of these). On top of that there are the road signs. If I had less of an urge to reach my destination quickly I'd stop and photograph every one, but there were some of my favourites.

and my favourite

I am a little dubious about the uselfulness of these signs as most of the traffic is giant Tata trucks, whose drivers I suspect don't read much English. But they kept me entertained.

One thing you're unlikely to see in the rest of India is a Rehab centre. Being drunk doesn't seem to have the same social stigma here as it does elsewhere and as a result you frequently encounter people who are a bit worse for wear.

As usual the road went from steep to excessively steep. I'm learning that any advice people give me on distances or steepness are not that accurate. At one point I was told I only had 6km to go and the road was not steep from now on. In reality it was 11km and became quite ridiculously steep. I think people are eager to please and tell you what you'd like to hear. The same thing applies to directions where it's important not to point one way and ask if that's the correct one as people tend to agree automatically.

The roads became increasingly busy and I frequently had to pull over to let traffic pass. This should be the only really busy stretch of road I have to deal with in the whole trip and it wasn't much fun – by this point it was really hot, so it was hard going. However I was briefly entertained by some Indian tourists from Delhi who were amazed by what I was doing and wanted to take my picture.

Eventually I reached Gangtok by just after 12 – only 6 hours which is a considerable improvement on my first day's ride – so I'm hopefully getting fitter. I've since done very little, there was a big thunderstorm in the afternoon and there are frequent power cuts, but other than that Gangtok seems very easy going. I plan to stop here for a few days, do some local sightseeing. This afternoon I went to the Gangtok flower show, which is a tent filled with very impressive flowers, people taking photos of themselves in front of the flowers and, for no obvious reason, loud rock music. Young Nepali people tend to be very keen on things like Metallica, G'n'R and predictably, Bob Marley. However the people at the flower show were mostly Indian tourists, so it was a bit strange. You can always tell the Indian tourists apart from the locals as they tend to be wrapped up very warm - scarves, balaclavas, etc. I'm finding it quite pleasantly warm after Darjeeling, but I suppose if you live in Kolkata then it must seem freezing up here.

Against my better judgement I also caught a terrifying cable car down to the other end of town. I survived, but I decided it was more sensible to get a share taxi back (which also cost 1/6 of the price).

I'm now sitting on my hotel roof and I've just encountered 2 very tall German guys who have cycled here from Germany – via eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran (which is apparently lovely) and Pakistan (which isn't). so that makes what I've done seem a bit tame in comparison. However they have to carry camping equipment, so reckon they can't cope with seeing much of Sikkim as they've too much weight to get up a lot of the hills. Also they did get a lift up most of the way to Gangtok, so I at least outdid them in that respect.

Boring bike update 2

Turned out the valve on my back inner tube was damaged, so I've replaced that and it's now fine. Also moved some weight to my front panniers, which is making steering a little heavier, but makes the bike feel less sluggish. My bike stand continues to work loose, though having replaced the inner tube padding it seems to take a little longer to do so. Given the lack of places to lean a bike against, the fact the floor's incredibly dusty and the fact that a car would probably roll over it if I did, I will probably stick with it for the moment.

Other than that, everything's working ok, though the drivetrain could really do with a clean. Very pleased I've got my tyres (marathon XRs), which have rolled through broken glass and sharp stones (frequently necessary when cycling in traffic as it's too dangerous to swerve round them) without any problem.

Darjeeling

2009-03-21T14:35:00.001+05:30

Hello,

I've now reached Darjeeling. It's a bit gloomy and polluted after Mirik, but then it's a much bigger place and about 600 metres higher up. It's full of steep, tiny winding streets and I keep getting lost. I think I'm feeling some effect from the altitude now as I find I'm occasionally getting excessively out of breath, but it's nothing serious. For most of my trip I won't be going much higher than this.

I stayed for another night in Mirik after my last update. It was hard to leave, as it was so nice and it was very tempting to spend longer sitting in my hotel garden chatting to random travellers/backpackers/tourists (I never know which term to use, as all of them seem to have bad connotations in one way or another). Being a little off the beaten track, Mirik seemed to attract pretty interesting people, a lot of them planning to cross into Nepal, which is complicated at the moment apparently – there have been transport strikes and robberies on the roads there and the Indian government may or may not have closed the border. This doesn't affect me as I'm heading the other way.

I started the ride to Darjeeling at 6.30 in the morning. I'd been dreading the first part as it was meant to be steep. It was, but it was through pleasant tea estates and the weather was sunny, but not too hot. I found myself really enjoying it, as it was possible to ignore the cycling and look at the scenery. I also got to take frequent breaks to try (and fail) to explain what I was doing to local kids. The number in school in this part of the country is very impressive and so far my rides almost always seem to coincide with their walks to school. This is both a good and bad thing as it means I have the same conversation a lot of time. Explaining where I am going, where I've come from, how my bike has gears, etc. On the other hand, it's a chance to rest.

There had been a big thunderstorm the previous afternoon in Mirik and I was slightly nervous to see my watch (which has a barometer) showing a little rain cloud symbol. I hoped this was as useless as the altimeter (which despite all my efforts at calibration tends to provide no accurate information whatsoever). A young man I talked to on the way also told me, with a worrying degree of certainty, that it was going to rain.

As I reached a climb through a slightly sinister looking area of giant pine trees, I began to hear distant rumbles of thunder. Soon the sky darkened and it began to rain, then hail. I found the only available cover – an earthy hollow in the bank at the side of the road. My waterproof jacket quickly turned out not to be waterproof, but I managed to hook it over a protruding tree root and could hold it above my head to provide some cover. I spent the next hour or so squatting uncomfortably there, making occasional dashes to my bike to grab items of food and warmer clothing. I ran through my options - freewheel back to the army base at the bottom of the hill and see if they'd give me shelter, which would have got me soaked in the process. Or give in and see if I could get a lift to darjeeling in a passing truck. This would have been easier if there had been any – traffic seems to stop in weather like this. So I took the final option of waiting and hoping the rain stopped before it got too late in the day to continue. I spent a lot of time staring at the sky, trying to work out if differently coloured patches were a hint of blue skies in the distance, or just more rain clouds, It's surprisingly hard to tell. Finally I was overjoyed to see the sun gradually break through and within 10 minutes I was back on my bike and heading for the top of the hill. Here there were meant to be views into Nepal and stalls selling momos – Tibetan dumplings (which are great). However they'd clearly packed up as the weather must have been even worse here – hailstones littered the ground and made it look like it had snowed. There were the views to Nepal, though a little hazy.

Thankfully the hills now levelled out a bit and though the road conditions had deteriorated (mud, hail and potholes), it was pretty easy going. I rolled into a small, busy town, which seemed to be some sort of transport junction and was noticeably far more like Nepal than India. I did some quick bike repairs to a stand that had worked loose, then found a small restaurant and had a large bowl of fried noodles and a cup of hot water, which made me feel much better. I entertained the elderly woman in the kitchen by repeatedly banging my head on the low ceiling beams.

The last part of the ride was relatively easy, only a couple more climbs, though the traffic increased as I got closer to Darjeeling and being more used to tourists, people seemed a little less friendly. Though that's relative, people are still generally very friendly compared to the reception a muddy Nepali cyclist might get in a small English town.

I found the alternate route suggested in my book, which took a minor road through small villages rather than the busy main road. This would have been a great mountain biking route, the surface was very rough, however with loaded panniers it was quite hard work. Two small boys with runny noses attempted to race me on foot and then asked if they could sit on my panniers, I had to disappoint them, but there's no way I could have gone any distance with more weight.

I eventually rolled into Darjeeling at 4, spent 30 minutes going the wrong way, then after asking various locals for directions I pushed my bike up some unfeasibly steep alleyways and found my slightly gloomy guesthouse. It's full of notices inviting you to enjoy your 'home away from home', followed by complicated rules as to how buckets of hot water are only allowed between 6-9.30am. However they kindly let me have one anyway. Having popped out to eat some food I got back and got into bed, at which point I realised it was only 7.30.

Today I've been out for a morning walk (as I woke up at 5.30), eaten a large breakfast and sat around writing my journal. Darjeeling has various interesting activities, I'd quite like to go to the botanical gardens. On the other hand I'm quite enjoying doing nothing, so I may save this for tomorrow. The cloud also seems to be coming in, so walking around is less appealing. It's warm when the sun is shining, but pretty cold otherwise.

I plan to stay here for another day and then it's a very easy day's cycle downhill to the border with Sikkim.

(followed of course by a climb back up).

(Have figured out adding photos now and pulled in a few from flickr, but there's far more over there. In an internet cafe with lots of young men playing counter strike and shouting a lot and feeling very tired all of a sudden, so can't face pulling more photos into this blog).

Boring bike update (only for those interested in that kind of thing).

Generally working well. It's filthy after all the mud yesterday and the signs everywhere saying to conserve water suggest I better not wash it here. The bike stand, which was previously something I was very pleased with, has worked loose a second time. This is a massive pain as replacing it involves removing the front derailleur. I'm not sure what to do – it's worked loose with and without inner tube rubber wrapped on the inside, I think i'm going to give it one more journey and if it loosens again I'll have to abandon it – which will save me about a kilo so is vaguely appealing.

Having problems getting my tyres inflated appropriately – it's hard with just a hand pump. My back tyre seems to keep going soft, I need to check if it's a very slow puncture, a leaking valve, or just the effect of bumpy roads and overloaded panniers. Possibly I could shift some of the weight to the front as currently there's more on the back to improve steering.

Other than that it's pretty good, but I need to give it a proper check over tomorrow as I'm sure the bumpy roads yesterday must have worked some things loose.

Photos

2009-03-18T20:23:00.000+05:30

I just managed to upload quite a few photos (in very random order to http://www.flickr.com/photos/adownie/

Kolkata - Siliguri - Mirik

2009-03-18T19:16:00.008+05:30

Hello everyone

Sorry it's taken me over a week to get in touch. This has partly been down to a lack of good internet places (or at least ones it was convenient to go to at the time), but mainly down to not having cycled anywhere until yesterday. I thought it would be too embarrassing if I wrote about it and then failed to complete the first day's riding.

However, I'm now in Mirik - elevation either 1601 or 1767 metres depending on whether I believe my guidebook, or the leaflet the hotel gave me. As I cycled up from Siliguri (approx 100 metres), I'd prefer to believe the higher of the two. Apparently this is higher than Ben Nevis, so I feel like I've done quite well.

Prior to arriving in Mirk I spent several days in Kolkata, I spent some time trying to adjust to sleeping at sensible times (or at all), quite a long time sorting out an Indian SIM card for my mobile (which was to cease functioning several days later due to the paperwork not being in order) and a lot of time going for long walks, where I would promise myself I'd get a taxi back, but then stupidly keep going just a little further until I was exhausted – by which time I'd often spent 30 minutes walking the wrong direction up the street my hotel was on (it was quite easy to miss and the buildings didn't seem to use consecutive numbering – I never figured this out). I also spent an enjoyable afternoon in the main museum, mostly taking photos of bad taxidermy.

Kokata seems quite a sophisticated place, but it's hard not to be shocked by the amount of people sleeping on the streets. Though maybe this is just because they're so much more visible than when they're hidden in slums away from the centre. Either way, it's particularly sad to see whole familes (with babies) sleeping outside.

Departing Kolkata, my hotel took the opportunity to extract large amounts of money from me. Unfortunately travelling with a giant box containing a bike + a large bag as well leaves you in a very poor position when negotiating with taxi drivers, porters, or anyone else really. They know you've not got much choice moving it yourself and are quite willing to wait longer than you. This process continued as I struggled through the vast amount of paperwork required to take my bike in the goods van of the Darjeeling mail train, along with discussing just why someone would be insane enough to take a bike to India, whether my bike was really worth what I claimed it was, why anyone would pay that much for a bike, how actually it couldn't be insured because I didn't have a receipt and how it would almost certainly be crushed on the train. Despite all this, I think someone went to extra effort to ensure it wasn't, as they carefully packed the box at the top of the stack of parcels.

I arrived the next morning in Siliguri and hurried to collect my bike. This of course involved more filling in of forms and more paying extortionate amounts – not to the actual railway officials who seemed scrupulously honest, but to everyone else. Of course when I say extortionate, I'm probably only talking about a couple of pounds, so it seems unfair to complain – but when you're surrounded by a crowd of young men laughing at your inability to negotiate, it's hard not to feel a little upset.

Siliguri is a town whose main features seem to be dust and traffic and the occasional corpse being transported past my hotel in clear display cases. I reached my hotel, which was clean and modern, but at the same time a bit impersonal and while not unfriendly, not friendly either. But then Siliguri's the kind of town people just pass through overnight on the way to the hills, so I don't really blame them. I spent some time sorting out a new SIM card (which is still working and means I can call home for very little – about 5p a minute I think) and quite a bit of time reading, building my bike up (which had survived everything the box had been through – thank you bubble wrap, cardboard braces and unexpectedly gentle baggage handlers) and admiring the view from my balcony - which consisted of a dusty wasteland, a pile of gravel and a very partially built building – and some puppies which the security guard spent a great deal of time looking after, which was cheering.

Unfortunately the day before I was due to begin cycling I started to feel ill. I struggled to sleep, still intending to start at 6am the next day. When my alarm went off at 5 I spent 30 minutes contemplating whether I was up to it, then concluded I definitely wasn't. So I resigned myself to another day in Siliguri and begun taking antibiotics – which quickly worked and within a few hours I felt much better.

So, yesterday I woke up after 5 hours of very restless sleep and was on the road by 6am. The first hour or so was through heavy traffic on fairly bleak roads, during which I got lost briefly. I spent most of this time feeling i'd made a huge mistake and wondering if there was an un-humilating way of returning home.

Then the traffic thinned out, tea plantations begun to appear and I cycled past a giant army base. Many of the soldiers seemed to be out on their morning bike ride and smiled and waved at me, which improved my mood, as did having some proper food and inflating my bike tyres to a sensible amount – a stupid mistake to have made and one of the reasons my bike felt so heavy (the other one is the vast amount of baggage I'm carrying, which I can do less about).

At this point the land was still relatively flat, by 8.30 I felt I was at least a third of the way there (the total distance was approximately 50km). I passed through a friendly village, the people are mainly Nepali in this part of West Bengal and there is a big separatist movement – I saw lots of graffiti referring to villages as part of Ghorkaland. The further I got from Siliguri, the friendlier people became – though the friendliness was often mixed with bewilderment at why anyone would want to cycle these hills.

I should really have stopped properly in this village and had a meal, but I was keen to get on. I begun climbing. For anyone that's cycled up Ditchling Beacon, it's a little like that, but but without an end. The road constantly switched back, revealing another horrendously steep section. Very occasionally there'd be a section that was merely steep, which provided a little respite. I coped by taking long rests in any patch of shade I could find and every now and then there'd be something amazing – a peacock landing in a field (actually that was back before the hill), an interesting butterfly, or a circling bird of prey that would take my mind off it. I'd built up a bike with very low gearing, the kind of gearing you're supposed to never use the lower end of, however I spent virtually the whole climb in the lowest two gears.

To cut a long story short, this went on all day. The map in my cycle guidebook was a little misleading,
*edited for Laura Stone's (the book's author) benefit - the maps are actually completely accurate, but the roads are so winding that it's impossible to depict every twist and turn at the scale of a book*
maybe I'd just wanted to believe I was further than I was. Villages marked on the map turned out to be larger villages I'd reach later and realise I'd not got nearly as far as I thought. Having drunk 4.5 litres of water already I was running out and got a helpful old man to refill my water carrier, then when I was safely round the corner out of view I filtered this water into my water bottles (I'm very glad I brought a water filter as getting mineral water in these villages would be impossible). I hope the filter's working...

On the way I had various dispiriting moments – partly down to my bike computer having stopped working briefly, during which time I convinced myself I'd covered quite a bit of ground – I obviously hadn't. Particularly bad moments include seeing the Mirik 10km sign when I thought I was only about a km away. Then seeing the Mirik 5km sign shortly after a small boy had told me I was 1km away. During this time the hills got steeper and steeper and while these distances don't seem a lot, I was rarely getting to speeds over 5km an hour and with rest stops on top of that.

There were good moments. Later on the areas became more populated and lots of people smiled and said hello. I also discovered saying 'namaskar' (the more respectful version) to most of the usually silent elderly people invariably got a big smile. I was frequently stopped (and any excuse to stop was good) by small boys who, having exhausted their English at 'hello' (and my Nepali's currently non-existent) would then stand staring silently at me until I moved on. Though later on I got a group who spoke decent English and correctly recognised my bike as having gears and therefore made what I was doing seem a little more comprehensible.

I finally rolled into Mirik at 5 – 11 hours after I'd started. Thankfully, Mirik is lovely. It's a small town, popular with Indian tourists, arranged round an artificial lake. I'm in a very nice hotel - as a contrast with the previous places they'd been, they instantly offered me rooms for half the list price – as a result I'm in the honeymoon suite (it has a pink fur fabric bed cover and more usefully, a terrace outside where I could fix some bits on my bike). I felt incredibly pleased to have actually managed the first day's cycling and was asleep by 8.30 – I slept for 12 hours in total. Today I've been getting to know Tibetan food (so far it's very good), going for short strolls and mostly enjoying the relative peace and quiet. There seem to be a vast amount of birds living in the roof next to my room, but compared to the traffic noise of Siliguri, this is great.

Anyway, I'm going to cut this short as I want to walk up to a viewpoint on the hill above town before sunset.

I'm sorry this is a bit long and rambling – I haven't had time to edit it much as I'm already 45 mins beyond the time I planned to go out. I've been keeping a much longer and boring journal and when I've read bits back I tend to discover I've substituted random words in for no reason, so apologies if I've done that. There's a whole bit from Kolkata where I go on about the 'sleeping fan' in my room, I've no idea why (I must have meant ceiling fan), I was pretty exhausted at that point I suppose.

I plan to stay here another day and then head for Darjeeling – which I've been told is an even steeper climb, however interspersed with lots of downhill bits, so shouldn't be nearly as bad.

I will hopefully continue this from there. Hopefully with photos. I had high hopes of being able to upload them all, but having found they have an 112kbps connection here I've abandoned that idea for the moment.