Rubber Stamp

The last tour of the year has finished and the rains have started to pour; 10 days non- stop; with massive damage to paddy fields, crops and numerous deaths. Spent the last four days packing up the cycles and training up the newest members of the team; Sinoj and Chippy. Sinoj aged 17 has ridden out with us about a dozen times whilst Chippy aged 14 was full of enthusiasm before undergoing a full days training doing nothing else but tube patching. A Trek bike is in there hands and I expect a phone call soon for advice on cycle repairing.

Its Tuesday 9 a.m and I have been on the train 48 hours now and have been promised 12 more should see me through to my destination of Gorakpuhr with 12 hours by bus seeing me through to Kathmandu and another Indian visa run. Appear to have overloaded the train with cycling gear this time with enough supplies and spares to last me 3 months of route finding. Almost collapsed carting a giant 36” suitcase containing my cycle and about 20 kg of spares up from my hotel to the railway station and onto the remotest platform 7 accessed only by the a heart attack inducing flight of stairs. Even the beggars recognized my plight offering sympathetic looks and refraining from asking me to dip into my inaccessible pockets for a few rupees. Feels like I have ruptured my biceps and two days on I am still struggling to stretch my arms out.

Anyhow now sat in the usual 2nd class sleeper carriage surrounded by numerous interested parties watching me type away, underneath my feet is a small dirt blackened boy sweeping the floor in return for loose change. A gaggle of aggressive eunuchs has just swept through the train cursing everyone in sight, clapping their hands, demanding money of all the men who seem ready to pay to ensure that their wives are not rendered barren by their magic.

I have spent the majority of the journey in the company of a vet from Kerala who has been supplying me with food that his mother made; 9 full South Indian meals wrapped up in banana leaves and bags of fried banana trips all kept in a bulging plastic bag, by day 3 his breakfast of iddlis had turned mouldy and he was forced to patrol the station platform in search of some fast food made by unclean hands.

The vet appears disillusioned with life with no wife yet despite being in his early 30’s in attempts to find a bride he spends 2 hours daily on the internet looking through the online marriage sites which is not his only source of online entertainment judging by his mobile phone downloads which he seemed eager for me to view, showing something indescribable featuring a horse and another object most possibly a human being. Appears to have an unhealthy interest in animals even for a vet. He is heading back to Lucknow to work in a halal slaughter house where his job is to ensure that the animals are slaughtered in a human way. He informs me that this is not the case as the buffalos are not stunned before having their throats slit (which is banned in India) but he signs the certificate anyway. “ What can I do I am just a rubber stamp.”