Category: Uncategorized
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The Act of Blogging
When my friend David Gedye suggested I keep a blog during my upcoming bike tour of India, I was dubious. “I’ve never been sure of the point of a blog. Who has time to read about someone else’s trip?” I also felt keenly aware that whatever I would write, would be from the perspective of…
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Bike Touring Notes
This Blog posting is a sub-post of the larger India Trip blog. To see the entire range of posts, follow this link. Rhodesriders.com Prior to my trip, I scoured the interwebs in search of intel on bike touring in India. I found very little. Obviously, very few people choose to tour India by bike, and…
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Matt’s Blog: I cast a spell on you.
This has been an unforgettable experience, the spell of India has been cast. Bowled over by the romantic charm. Struck with the spiritual vitality. Bathed in raw energy. I love some of the aged rustic old buildings, leaning, tilting desperate for a lick of paint. I’m drawn to the patina of objects worn, repaired &…
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Epigenetics
In five weeks of travel by bike in India, there was only one place where I felt unsafe and unwelcome. Satna, in Madhya Pradesh, is a fetid little city of 375k souls smashed into 12 square miles/ 34 sq km. The tone of the place felt “off,” and I couldn’t quite place it. One hotel…
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Relentless “Progress”
If you live long enough, you begin to see radical changes in the world you thought you knew. I started working in China in 1997 when there was only one hotel in Shanghai foreigners were allowed to stay in (the Peace Hotel) and it was unheated. Across the Bumd was a rice patty called Pudong. There…
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Erotic and the Transgressive
The Temples at Khajuraho are well known in the West, if infrequently visited, since they lie far off the typical travel routes. This likely helped to save them; they lay untouched, covered by jungle for 700 years before their rediscovery by the British in 1838. The reason for their renown—especially with the rise of the…
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Eternal Flame
At Manikarnika, the main burning Ghat in Varanasi, there is a large pile of coals used to ignite the pyres that has burned continuously for 2500 years. I tried to imagine a tradition anywhere else in the world where such consistency might be possible. I could not. I fed and kept a bread levin for…
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Safety Third
There are many moments during our Indian biking adventure when I thought I’d slipped through the vail and was now at Burning Man: half-finished exotic constructions of indeterminate program, shacks of plastic and rope flapping in the dust, house music (or its Asian cousin) thumping nonsensically at 5:00 AM to no one in particular, Mad…
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Indelibly Charged
Matt took the 28-hour, second-class train back to Ahmedabad on Monday morning after our visit to Khajuraho; his dream of riding into Varanasi postponed by his stay in the sick wards of Mt. Abu. His trip window was also a full week shorter than mine. I was sad to see him go. It was emotional…
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Rhythm Method
There are a billion four hundred million people in India now, and residents will tell you proudly that they exceeded the population of China last year. There are small children everywhere and most seem happy and cared for. Our routes are lined with kids dressed for school, hair brushed and elaborately braided, uniforms mostly pressed,…
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Squaring the Circle
It might be skimming the edge of the hyperbolic to say that one of architecture’s great struggles has been to dome—read circle—the square space it rests on. Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia and Brunelleschi’s dome for the cathedral in Florence are not just milestones in the development of the form, they stand as breakthrough achievements that changed…
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Matt’s Blog Entry
The cycling experience of India: I had high anxiety about going & really questioned the route we had planned, well Richard planned. He had his heart set on central India & keen to see the Uncesco World heritage sites along the way. He has an extensive knowledge on stone carving and hence the sites planned…
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Earning It
Finally making our departure from the sick wards of Mt Abu, we felt a little tentative. Were we actually strong enough to ride? Neither of us really knew. Unable to delay this test any further, we set off at 9:00 AM, cautious, but in high spirits. Approaching the downward grade, we spotted a familiar solo…
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Making the Gods Laugh
It is well known, if only vaguely understood, that the gods are still present in India. The veil is thin here in some inexplicable way. Many people feel it. I notice it most strongly at the most primitive pagan shrines (can we still use that word?) that seem to pop up at every turn. In…
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Shit Happens
Everyone knows that travel in India can be fraught. There are certainly “landmines” that can derail, inconvenience, and challenge one in the most humiliating of ways (more on that in a moment). Travel by bike can expose one further. Most times, it’s “street food” or nothing. But I’m pleased to report that bottled water is…
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Decoding Step-well Architecture
Although I have studied the ancient step-wells of Gujarat, this visit offered my first physical encounter. Matt and I visited five in total, three in Ahmedabad and two on our countryside route. Each has its specific strength and, although they vary enormously in degradation and repair, each offers unique insights into the built solution the…
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The Sacred Feminine
As a sculptor, I am always thinking of what I carve in the context of the symbolic freight the sculpture will carry. In the broadest context, sculpture can be viewed as an energized symbol; its relevance related directly to how strongly the image resonates in the current culture. However, culture is constantly changing, the symbol—no…
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Burn the Boats!
It’s amazing the difference a day makes. If we hadn’t emulated King Agamemnon at Troy and burned the boats on the beach to lock our resolve, we might have considered ending our ride yesterday. After such a rough first day out it was tempting to head to Goa by train to drink beer by the…
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Exit from Ahmedabad
We were only one hour into our first day on the loaded bikes—the dawn light just gaining strength—when we encountered our first dead body in the road. The shattered remains of both driver and motorcycle lay crushed on the pavement. A thin shawl covered the the face and most of the torso of what remained:…
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Coming Together
Arriving by plane yesterday morning at 3:30 AM, my first breaths of the Indian air awakened the involuntary smile that has been in hiding since my last visit to the subcontinent in 2016. What is that strange perfume that stirs my memory? A mix of exotic spice, incense, tropical flora, and yes, human perspiration, hangs…
India Bike Tour 