Emulating lance Armstrong

Well, not really. But I did rent a bike for a day with an Australian and a Swede that I met in Bundi. It was loads of fun, we went for a ride out to a nearby lake, saw the place where Rudyard Kipling wrote "Kim."

All along the trip people were constantly saying "hi," running along beside us, waving, and so forth. My guess is that they didn't see westerners on bicycles all that often and so thought it very funny.

One of the more alarming things was the traffic jam we caused. About 5 km out of town the road narrows to a one-lane each way thing, on which heavily laden buses, motorcycles and truck travel with frequency. We had stopped to look at the map and get our bearings, when a giant tanker truck pulls up next to us and tries to talk to us. Since the truck fills the road way, two buses following close behind also stopped. One tried going around, but couldn't and so was stuck, which then stopped the flow of motocycles going the other way. The truck drivers were very content to ignore than angry honking, and just stayed put. This prompted people to get off the bus to see what the fuss was about.

Before we knew it, there was a traffic jam in both directions, and 30 or 40 Indians milling about us. Likely as many more in the buses an other vehicles. Confused and overwhelmed we pulled out bikes off the road and away from the truck to get it to move on, which it eventually did. After a little more honking the jam subsided and we went on our way.