Bicycle Touring in India

This week’s Travelsonabike2 on this day bicycle touring blog post comes from India on the 17th October 2016. I’d fallen ill while cycling in India with a chest infection. But I was lucky enough to be staying at the Hotel Ganapati Palace in Dhule, where the hotel owners had taken care of me.

Monday, 17th October 2016. In Dhule.

I got invited to go and have breakfast with Deepam and his parents in their apartment this morning, which was really nice. The breakfast was an unusual mixture of English and Indian cuisines. On the one hand, there was porridge, cornflakes, and toast, and on the other hand, there were sweet things like dates and shortbread, fresh fruit, lentils, fried cheese, potatoes, and a dish made from flour.

It was all washed down with black tea with ginger in it. It was all delicious, and so nice of them to invite me.

I’m Famous

No matter where I am, whether in the hotel or outside, everybody seems to know me and knows I’ve not been very well. Whenever they come up and talk to me, people always ask the usual questions like where am I from, where am I going, do I like India and so on. And now they ask how my chest is!

I went to a gentleman’s parlour this afternoon. Which isn’t quite what it sounds like; it was a barber. I’d decided to go and get a shave, more for something to do than anything else. The monotony is starting to get to me a bit now.

That was an okay experience, although I got a bit more than I bargained for. After a shave, the barber proceeded to give me nearly every other treatment he had: face scrub, head massage, upper body massage, and steam bath on my face; he even put some cream on my face to make my skin fairer! Like, I needed that! I came out of there exhausted, but at least it passed an hour or so.

I’m off to the hospital again tonight for a follow-up appointment. Things seem to be getting a lot better now, and I’m thinking of starting to cycle again on Wednesday.

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