Staying still
Mumbai, 3rd December - 8th January
I spent a stationary month in Mumbai, taking a break from cycling, seeing the city, and planning out the next stage of my trip - including a big change of plans. I hadn’t been planning to stay for such a long period, but I had a great time in Mumbai - without a doubt, it’s my favourite Indian city. I made friends, celebrated the New Year, and got a lot of errands done (including catching up on writing this blog). Some down time was also quite welcome after three months of travel.
The headline bike-trip news is that I’ll be leaving India, rather than continuing down the coast southwards. I’ve been missing camping and being alone in nature, and I’m at a good stopping point here. I had been hoping that the south of India would bring me a bit more calm, but I don’t think that it’s realistically going to be a drastic enough change to give me what I’m looking for. It would be calmer than the north, for sure, but there would still be loads of people and I doubt I’d get many decent opportunities for camping in solitude.
So instead, I’m going to New Zealand. It’ll be a hell of a lot less populated than India, for sure, and I expect to do a lot of camping there. January is peak summer there so I’m hoping for good weather, although I’ll certainly have more rain than the reliably dry days in India. A colleague of mine visiting Mumbai has very kindly brought my camping gear from London, saving me an expensive trip back or buying a new tent in India.
I’ll be arriving in Auckland on January 11th, following a long flight with a couple of layovers. My bike is ready to fly, in great condition again with a new cassette and chainset - I really can’t recommend Know Your Own Bike enough as a Mumbai bike shop. The owner really knows what he’s doing, and very kindly sourced a bike box for me as soon as I mentioned I was going to fly out.
It’s bizarre to think that I’ll soon be in such a different place, in such a different mode of travel. Over the past four months, I’ve grown completely accustomed to being in India - the heat, the languages, the omnipresent helpful strangers. Mumbai, too, now feels like home after a month here. Delicious food constantly available through an app, the packed local trains, and black kites circling overhead. I’m going to miss this place.
I also miss camping, though, and cycling New Zealand is going to be a special adventure of its own. I am sure it’s going to be beautiful, and a fitting end to my year of bike travel. That’s the other news: I’ve decided that I’m going to go home in March. It’ll be a neat one year away, and then I’ll return to some kind of ‘normal’ life at home again. I’ve still got a lot of ideas on my bike-trip wish list, but life at home is an important and worthwhile pursuit too. Cycling through Iraqi Kurdistan and Anatolia can wait.
For now, on to New Zealand.