!!!Greatings from our Friend-Cyclist~

Dear all,

Over the last 3 months I've cycled from Georgia through Armenia, Iran and Pakistan and into the heart of Mother India...

I've been blasted by sandstorms and scorched by desert heat in Iran.

The landscape and geography was the most interesting I’d seen with epic green, black, and Mars-like red colours.

A persistence head wind made cycling a taxing experience but the constant noise of the wind served to add to the feeling of being in a bubble flying over the land of a distant planet.
I've dealt with paranoid police escorts and met friendly locals in Pakistan. I guess Pakistan is the intermediary between Iran and India in terms of noise, sensual overflow, dirt, chaotic traffic and increasingly becoming an exotic tourist to the local people.

I had an idealistic image of riding off into the countryside and meeting a family who would take me in and I would get an insight into the lifestyle.

But to be honest, I was already getting the insight by slowly pedaling through. These poor people worked long, long hours in the fields, came home knackered to their large family in the tent next to the cotton mill or mud hut in the village, and lived tough but overall relatively satisfying lives.
India has been a total immersion in a myriad of colourful culture and changing geography. Experiences are so varied and often unique to anything I’ve experienced before.For example, being on a holy mountain, meeting an ascetic smoking opium with his colleagues, giving a packet of pineapple biscuits to Jain pilgrims making a very fast walking pace up the 22km climb to the town of Mount Abu (he actually overtook me at one point), being in wonderful awe of the exotic palm trees and tropical plants and trees, watching the monkeys frolicking by the road side, becoming uttering euphoric at the loneliness and freedom of slowly crawling up the climb, high on caffeine, fresh air, stunning scenery, Richie Hawtin, a tractor with a trailer containing a man in an orange sheet waving at me puffing away at his pipe.Then arriving and realising that the town of Mount Abu contained hotels, Buffalos lying in rubbish, a river so polluted that it looked like treacle, with paint chucked in for good measure.

Reams of wide boy touts asking me if I wanted a room, poorly designed hotels (disgustingly bad yuuuuccckkk - one looked like a miniature office block- I’ve never seen anything look so out of place with gaudy red and big reflective windows). Piles of rubbish, begging children with tangled matted hair asking for shampoo, dirty and wild.

Indian food is addictive. To start with it’s like ‘curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner’ - hmmmm…. But Indian food isn’t really about just eating for the need of it. It’s an experience of taste bud adventure pretty much every meal. In fact the whole Indian experience is a bit like a macrocosm of the eating experience.

The bike has held out well throughout the ride. However, the journey is taking it's toll on some of the expedition kit. I've had to botch repair my tent poles, my sunglasses are scratched from repeatedly cleaning of sand and sweat, and I've had a few more punctures in the heat. My pannier is currently being repaired by a street cobbler for the princely sum of 200 rupees or around 2.50 GBP. It got caught on a rickshaw in a tight spot manoevring chaotic Indian traffic and was clean torn in half.Recently I have received press coverage in a glossy travel magazine in Iran, appeared on national television news, and Bombay newspaper feature 'Midday' in India.I am presently enjoying the fast and energised city of Mumbai and will shortly be taking a break from riding over the Christmas period with my girlfriend.

Luckily I managed to stay out of the news in Pakistan after narrowly avoiding a deadly earthquake in Quetta (by 3 days) and then avoiding the terror attacks in Mumbai in India! The Bombay people of all religions - Muslims, Hindus, Christians - affected in the attacks are continuing with their normal lives in defiance with a mutual call for peace and an end to such violence.In the New Year, I intend to head north to the mountains of Nepal, Tibet, and into China diving headfirst into a tale discovery in deepest Asia.Photos are always available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ride-earth/sets/. Please explore the 'sets' for different countries and albums.Head to my blog for further reading at http://andy.ride-earth.org.uk/, or visit the main website at http://www.ride-earth.org.uk/ for general info.

Thanks for reading, and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!Andy Welch13000km by bicycle18000km total overland travel (no flying)

andy@ride-earth.org.ukhttp://andy.ride-earth.org.uk/