Asia

About turn…

Posted by on 7, Mar 2024 in 2024 - An Indian Winter, Asia, India, Tilly the Tandem | 4 comments

About turn…

After an excellent 4 night stop in Madurai we left at 6.20am to get through the city before the madness begins and try to avoid the heat of the day which begins around 11am. It’s not so much the heat that drains you but the sun. Once that is on full power then you’re basically f@#!*d. Hence the dawn starts.  We weren’t looking forward to the next few days cycling. It’s very flat and a bit dull and being inland extremely hot. We also had to zig zag from hotel to hotel as there was very little accommodation. But once clear of Madurai and off the main road we had a...

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Ablutions …

Posted by on 4, Mar 2024 in 2024 - An Indian Winter, Asia, India, Tilly the Tandem | 2 comments

Ablutions …

Toilet roll! Much of the world doesn’t smudge and flush© like us westerners, but use soap and water in the loo with a jet powered hose strong enough to send your piles back to where they came from. So, you often don’t get loo roll.  Which at first we couldn’t understand, but then when they do give you some, it’s a small roll and it has a dreadful smell!  No wonder they squirt and scrub©! We’ve seen internet debates about this many times, but you have to think it’s us westerners who are doing it wrong here. As Coproal Jones might say about us...

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Monkeying around

Posted by on 25, Feb 2024 in 2024 - An Indian Winter, Asia, India, Tilly the Tandem | 2 comments

Monkeying around

Moving on from Thanjavur we decided to take the main road as the small roads added too much distance between available hotels. The advantage of this is that it’s short, the roads are generally excellent with fabulously smooth well kept tarmac and there’s lots happening along the road. As it was a Sunday (we think) there were loads of restaurants and stalls and even houses with enormous festival size speakers blaring out highly distorted Hindi music to bop along to on the way.  As you’d pass them you’d have to cringe as they were ear splitting loud. ...

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Happy People

Posted by on 17, Feb 2024 in 2024 - An Indian Winter, Asia, India, Tilly the Tandem | 2 comments

Happy People

Sacred Pond Sacred Pond Temple entrance Cerimonial Chariot in Kumbakonam Another Cerimonial Chariot.. Our day off in Kumbakonam saw us visiting more temples and the grand pond.  This either enormous pond or small lake is the centre piece of a 12 yearly festival where 12000 people bathe in it at once. It’s a very impressive lake and is surrounded by steps for easy access, but fenced off for most of the time so you can’t get into the holy waters easily.  Although some thinner than us folks squeezed through the fencing for a dip. We have had a fair amount of Indian food so...

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Live long and prosper..

Posted by on 13, Feb 2024 in 2024 - An Indian Winter, Asia, India, Tilly the Tandem | 4 comments

Live long and prosper..

Leaving Pondicherry on a bicycle at rush hour is an activity only Klingons will truly appreciate. Before jumping on to their Bicycle, Worf would no doubt shout “Today is a good day to die”. It’s certainly the best attitude to have when cycling here. Once you accept there’s no way you’ll survive this madness you can relax and enjoy it. To be fair to the local drivers, they all miss each other and although it looks utter chaos to us rule abiding westerners I think they generally know what they’re up to and if you behave like they expect you to – throw...

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Outshining the Prime Minister….

Posted by on 9, Feb 2024 in 2024 - An Indian Winter, Asia, India, Tilly the Tandem | 3 comments

Outshining the Prime Minister….

Leaving behind the oasis of our beach hotel we headed south on the main road. There’s no choice here unless you want to divert inland a considerable distance. So we hogged the edge of the road and let the cars, trucks, busses and Tuk Tuks do their thing. We saw a mexican standoff, where a bus busily ignoring the oncoming traffic tried to overtake a truck and the car coming the other way had to stop in the road. They were both nose to nose and neither would move whilst the rest of the traffic squeezed past on the outside hooting even more than normal. And then a bus that didn’t...

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