We woke up this morning to our last ever day of cycling in India (I think I can safely say this is true for pretty much everyone).  We have a mere 70kms left before we reach our self-imposed finish line (which is not, as we hoped, actually at the Taj Mahal).

I can’t help but feel sadness that this is nearly the end – we don’t seem to have cycled nearly enough; although I suppose it’s probably better to stop when you are wanting more than be completely knackered and vowing never to do another cycle ever ever again.

The reservations I had about cycling in India when we booked have been both confirmed and blown out of the water.  The cities were as wild and crazy as I remembered; but we haven’t cycled in the cities where people drive like loons and the roads are gridlocked with cars, trucks, cycle rickshaws, tuk tuks, cows, mopeds, and people.  90% of our cycling has been through countryside and villages which have been an utter delight and not at all what I envisaged when I signed up for the adventure.

Don’t get me wrong; there were still trucks to negotiate on the few occasions we cycled along main roads – it was all about listening for the constant tooting of horns, taking a deep breath and not having a wobble as they speed by within a few inches of you.

Our reception in villages has been one of two things – either energetic waving and shouts of hello (or actually more common were shouts of ‘bye bye’ – somewhat strange to start with to know how to respond – we actually started shouting ‘bye bye’ ourselves for a bit of variety), or stunned unsmiling faces which break out into the biggest grins accompanied by a tentative wave as we raise our arms in the air and call out ‘hello’, ‘namaste’ or ‘bye bye’ as we fly by.

I tried to be careful when cycling past ladies carrying stuff as I really didn’t want to be responsible for making them drop their cargo because, well, that would just have been impolite.  I still couldn’t resist a smile and a nod of the head, and more often than not we still got a little wave – like the one below.

Jackie quite often went for the ‘high five’ approach.  This was the hard-core option; not for the faint hearted.  Small kids in the villages pack a mighty punch and I consider high-fiving at speed an extreme sport.  It was bad enough picking up a chaser and having to pedal like mad to make sure you weren’t caught, without a palm-stinging high-five to match.

It was so so lovely having this kind of reception wherever we cycled. It certainly made the long coach transfers, dodgy tummies, dubious train food, cycling through suspicious water-features, no hot water in hotels, no gin in hotels, pushy salesman at tourist attractions and severely early mornings worth while.

The highlight of the day was Jackie and I squatting behind a wall for a pee and all of a sudden being joined by an Indian lady who was just as surprised to see us there as we were to see her.  She just squatted down next to us and we three just did what had to be done together.  She wasn’t shy a little later either when we thought a group photo (not whilst peeing obviously) would be a good idea.

And then after cycling to Fatehpur Sikri – a beautifully preserved 16th Century village deserted after being occupied for just 16 years when they realised there was no natural water source nearby – the cycle was over.  Until the next time.