There's a time for cycling across the country - and this isn't it

According to that famous bit of Ecclesiastes, there's a time for everything, a time for every activity under the sun.

I'm sure there's a time for cycling from Teesside to Arnside in a day.  Well, yesterday wasn't it.  The wind was crippling, Wensleydale was like a wind tunnel.  I had feet like blocks of ice, and if I'd wrung my trousers out I could have watered a few plants.  I stopped for two hot meals, but I never really warmed up.  I came out of a public toilet after not having dried my hands throughly and the water nearly froze to my hands.

It's not like I didn't wear enough layers.  I had 5 layers on up top.  If I'd worn any more layers, I wouldn't have been able to bend my arms and legs.

It took me 8 hours to do 48 miles.  Only 6 of those were cycling hours, but at the rate I was slowing down I'd still be going now if I hadn't given up.  Greater people than me have turned round before they got where they were going.  That Shackleton guy was a pragmatist in this regard.  I'm nowhere near in his league, but I can relate to his decision to abandon his goal in favour of not killing himself and his men.  I didn't have any men with me, but I'm quite fond of myself.

Anyway, I spent today thinking about having another go at it this week.  Because I don't like to leave goals unaccomplished.  But then I remembered something.  This was supposed to be a practice ride for a ride I'm doing in the summer.  In the summer!  And this is the winter!  Even in the summer it can be windy, and the hilltops can be bleak, but the wind's not likely to freeze my face off, and I shouldn't need to keep stopping to top up on hot tea and sausages, and I'll have about 5 hours more daylight.

So I decided that I will have another go at this ride, but not yet.  The thing about yesterday was.  I was fit enough to do it, I had the legs, I went the right way, I didn't take any wrong turns, I had plenty to eat and drink, but it just wasn't the right time.  And neither is tomorrow.  But my time will come.

This is York Minster - It's not the Italian Job

The last two times I've been to York I haven't enjoyed it.  But it wasn't York's fault.  The first time I was on my way to Birmingham to get the Indian visa and the second time I was being given the runaround by those YHA jokers.  Both times York was only a stopping off point, it wasn't the point itself.

A few weeks ago I went to the Taj Mahal.  I wrote about it here.  Sometimes, when I was trying to get my head round things in India, it helped me to try and think of a parallel situation in England.  When I was at the Taj Mahal, I thought about York Minster quite a bit.  I thought about what York Minster would be like if it was given the Taj Mahal treatment.  Well, there would be a massive fence round it for a start, with metal detectors, and armed police, and you'd have to leave your handbags, packed lunches, sugar cubes and mints outside.  And you wouldn't be offered a guide.  You'd get carjacked by one about a mile outside York.  And he'd tell you 'Trust No-one, speak only to me'.  Well, in the light of the Taj Mahal experience, I went back to York today, specifically to have a look at the Minster.  I've been going there for over 30 years, but after India I had a look it with some fresh eyes today.

I parked in Thornaby, I caught the train to York, and once off the train I headed straight for the Minster.  I took a rucksack with me, but I didn't pack a guidebook for York, as I figure I don't need one.  I didn't pack any lunch either and I'd forgotten it was pancake day, so I nipped into Baileys and had some pancakes with chocolate and cream for the bargain price of £1.95.  All the staff were friendly, and the place had a nice buzz about it.  It's an unpretentious place, and it was full of fairly ordinary English people making small talk and generally talking crap about their recent purchases, and what type of cake they like.

Once I was full of pancakes, I headed for the Minster.  I decided not to go inside.  I've been in loads of times, and I didn't want to pay the entrance fee to see stuff I've seen before.  Unlike the Taj Mahal, where you have to pay to even get near it, with the Minster you can see the outside of it for free.

Mostly I walked round at the Taj Mahal, but I did sit down on part of it at one point, to try and soak up the atmosphere and to get some sun.  After approximately 7 minutes I got whistled at by a stroppy PE teacher type, and told to move on.  I'd read the chart with the 40 things I wasn't allowed to do before I went in, it was on display in the pointless golf cart, but I'd obviously missed the picture of my arse with a line through it.

So I just walked up to York Minster, with a rucksack, past the security that wasn't there and I went up to the entrance and sat down next to it.  I don't know much about architecture, but one thing I noticed when I sat down is that the Minster seems to be made out of rock whereas the Taj Mahal is made of marble.  My arse that I was allowed to sit on could tell the difference.  Marble is smoother.

I sat down with the intention of staying there for at least 8 minutes.  I wanted to beat my Taj record.  After 10 minutes I was still there.  No-one was whistling at me, and I felt quite peaceful, a feeling that was helped by being able to hear schoolchildren playing in the schoolyard nearby.

After 15 minutes some Geordies came out, complaining about the entrance fee.  You should try the Taj Mahal, I didn't say.  I saw some Chinese people taking photographs, and then some people from the Middle East.  And I wondered how far people had travelled to be there.  And I thought of my bike ride here last year.  Today I came on the train, but this is somewhere I can ride my bike to in a day.  And I felt grateful for that.  Much as I did, when I was stood outside here last April with Stephen, Mark, Dick and Ruth.  This is on my doorstep I thought.  It's not a tortuous 5 hour taxi ride away, past men with monkeys on sticks and horrible service stations.  It takes me less time than that to ride here.  Brilliant  And it's in the middle of York, not Agra.  Even better.

20 minutes.  More people coming out.  Lots of people discussing not only the weather but the weather forecasts.  Some guy from Yorkshire coming out laughing about how his wife had nearly put some bloke's eye out with a brolly, some Welsh people going in.  No children approached me trying to sell me miniature York Minsters.  There's a shop over there selling tourist stuff, but the shopkeeper appears to be staying in the shop there.  She's not shoving York Minsters up my nose.

25 minutes.  People keep coming out, mostly very quietly, as if they got something out of it.  Not talking much, zipping up coats and taking a few more photos.  Cyclists going past all the time, some with panniers so big they might be full of semtex, but then again probably not.  The risk must be low.  I just walked up here with a rucksack.  It could have been full of polos.  No-one cared.

30 minutes.  I have a look around.  I'm having trouble finding any rules.  It appears I could have brought a torch or a packed lunch.  It occurs to me, that there aren't many things as English as the term packed lunch.

35 minutes.  I'm feeling pretty numb from the cold.  I take some photographs of my own head next to the Minster.  I've got loads of photos of me and York Minster, but I want some more to compare with the ones from the Taj.  I'm pleased to discover these are still on my camera, so I look at one and then the other.  I want to show someone the pictures of me at the Taj, but I'm not sure anyone would care.

The next thing I see.  A beautiful Indian family wearing duffle coats and woolly hats are stood shivering on the steps while the dad takes some photos.  A mum and dad with a young girl in a pushchair, and two grandparents.  The grandmother has a limp and is walking with some difficulty, but like Indians do she just gets on with it, placidly and without making a fuss  On the way in to the Minster, the mother tells her daughter to be quiet inside, because it's a church.  They don't come straight back out, so I guess they must have paid the entrance fee.  And I remember what I loved about India.  It wasn't the buildings.  It was the people.  As for me, I went to the Taj Mahal, I stood in the sun and took some photos, and now I'm back home sitting next to an Indian family freezing outside York Minster and they're taking photos.  The circle is complete.

40 minutes.  By now I've got an ice cream headache, but no-one has tried to move me on.  Just like yesterday and my aborted bike ride across the country, it's only the bloody English weather that's causing me any problems.

After 45 minutes I figure I've proved my point.  I go and buy hot coffee at Starbucks and look out the window at the Minster some more, and not for the first time since I got back from India, I love England and I love being English.  After a while someone calls me by name.  At first I don't recognise her as she's wearing a hat but then I realise it's Louise Amende, and for half an hour or so we have a very pleasant and unexpected chat, about lots of things including India, China, the church youth hostel weekends and pancake races.  She'd seen me in the window.

After she's gone I go back to a shop I'd seen called One and buy Ruth an ethically sourced purse with hearts on as a late Valentine's present.  I photographed the shopfront earlier.  After being in a country where I couldn't even tell where the shops were, in York you can see them from miles away.  And a lot of them have not only beautiful shopfronts, but beautiful handwritten signs and blackboards telling you what's on offer today.  Shopping has never been easier.

I do another couple of laps of the Minster, and out the side door pops the same Indian family I saw earlier.  The mother opens a bag of sweets and they all take one.  I can't resist.  I cross the road and ask them if they're from India.  Yes, they say, from Chennai in the south.  I tell them I've just been to Delhi, and that I enjoyed it.  They have that wary look of people who can't tell if the person in front of them is a nutter with an agenda or just a benign someone wanting to wish them well.  It's a look I'm familiar with, because I recently wore it myself every day for a couple of weeks.  I tell them I don't want to disturb their day, I just wanted to say hello.  Somehow I feel connected to them, but I'm not sure they feel it too.  The mother thanks me for my good wishes, and I leave them to it.  I don't ask to have my photo taken with them.  The last time I tried that with an Indian family was at the parliament buildings in Delhi, and today was too cold for those kind of protracted negotiations.

So that was my day at York Minster.  It took me an hour each way to get there.  And I can go back whenever I want.  Apart from being a world famous historical building which people from all over the world come to see, it wasn't at all like the Taj Mahal.  It's York Minster, it's not the Italian Job.

On reflection, I'm sure there are good reasons why security is tight at the Taj Mahal.  Or at least, I'm open to the possibility that there might be good reasons.  At the very least I hope that behind all the nonsense there are at least some good intentions at work.  As with all things Indian, I never did really get the hang of the reasons for things.  

And maybe the goings on at the Taj Mahal only look farcical to me because I can walk up to York Minster whenever I want, with a rucksack full of anything, and people can cycle past it with panniers full of anything, and no-one even notices.  There's not a fence round it, I don't need someone to buy a ticket for me and take me for a ride in a golf buggy to get there and no-one searches me on the way in.  When I get there, I can sit down for as long as I want without getting whistled at, and no-one tries to sell me anything.

And today that meant more to me than ever.

I used to be a genius - not any more

When I was younger one of my favourite quotations was from Mark Twain.

it went like this:  'When I was 14 my father was such an idiot that I could barely stand to have the man around, but by the time I was 21 I was amazed at what he'd learned in seven years'.

The height of my own genius was 18.  Probably on the bus on the way back from having 3 months in Germany.  Hey, I'd lived and worked abroad, mastered a new language, and now I'm off to University.  What a genius.

I used to think that courage was a thing you needed to be able to do stuff.  But I realised on that Germany trip that courage is not having the courage to do things, but doing them anyway.  After 25 years I'd forgotten that but I've been remembering it recently, and I think that was what got me on a plane to India.

Another thing that happened to me when I was younger was that I used to play football, and in the long days of the summer holidays I used to play football all day.  And sometimes early in the day I'd feel tired and my legs would feel heavy, but after a while I got beyond tired and I could just run and run.  And sometimes I'd still be out after dark, although playing football at that time of night could be dangerous because you couldn't always see the ball until it smacked you in the face.

The reason I remembered feeling like that, is because that's pretty much how I felt when I was cycling on Thursday.  For the first 30 miles or so I felt pretty weary and didn't think I'd be able to go the distance, but then I got into that magic place that's beyond tired, where your legs feel like they could go on for ever.  And even when I got to the pub at 8.30 at night I felt like I could keep going.

This week I've been feeling pretty down, indecisive about my future and some of the time when I've been alone I've been a bit despondent.  Worrying about what job to get, where to work, how to spend my free time, worrying about my home, and about my eyes.  All the usual crap.  But when I was out on my bike none of it mattered.  It didn't matter where I lived, or whether I had a job, or what I was going to do in the future.  Because I was out on my bike, and it was great.  It was almost Spring, and my winter hibernation was nearly over.  It was still cold, but inside the cold was the promise of better things to come.

And it was the same when I used to run around kicking a ball aged 14. Nothing else mattered.  Not exams, not my crazy stepdad, not the kids who lived in my street who wanted to chase me because I went to a school where I wore a blazer.  None of it.

That's what exercise with a purpose can do for you.  Some people think kicking a football or riding a bike is pointless.  What do they know?

So what happened to me for 25 years?  Since I was a genius.  I think for some of that time I lost my way.  But I'm getting better again.  I don't know as much now as I used to, but that's because I found out about a load of stuff I don't know.  A bit like Donald Rumsfeld, I now know more about the stuff I know I don't know.  I've still not caught up with the stuff I don't know I don't know, but I'm sure that'll come later.

In those 25 years what happened was that I did some stuff.  I succeeded at some things, and I failed at some things, although often it's hard to tell the difference, because it's just a matter of perspective.

Judging by the standards of the outside world, I've been failing at a lot more stuff in the last few years.  Especially getting jobs.  Before 40 I'd hardly ever been turned down for anything.  Now it happens to me almost every week.  But filling in job applications is getting easier.  Because I don't write what I think they want to hear anymore.  I write what I want.  I don't try to pretend I'm something I'm not, because I figure if they don't want me as I am, they probably wouldn't want me trying to be somebody else either.  As John Vernon famously says in the film Airplane.  I don't do impressions.

It's possible to get better at failing I think.  And I think I am.  Now I laugh when I get turned down for stuff, whether it's a job, or whether it's just a bowl of porridge.  It doesn't work to take myself too seriously.  And although I've had a meltdown in the last few months, I did find a couple of things out.

One is that you don't need courage to do things.  You just have to do them.  And the other is that getting out there and exercising, whether it's running around with a pointless football or riding a pointless bicycle, is the best way to help you feel better on the inside.  Of course it helps that it's nearly Spring, although I'm not going to use my new found energy to do myself in, as some depressed people do.  I'm going to get better.

Calling India - Can we have your votes please?

Before I went to India, I described myself as feeling like a contestant on a gameshow.  And things just got more unreal after I arrived there.  It was part gameshow, part videogame, part role play, Candid Camera, Trigger Happy TV, Beadle's About, and the Truman Show all rolled into one.

Anyway, I felt so often that there were little guys hiding in the kitchens, and the hotel receptions, and airports marking my every move, that I decided to award myself marks for my performance while I was there.

In the spirit of a videogame, I've split the game into levels.  Apart from Level One which took me days to complete, each of the other levels took me about 24 hours to get through, give or take.

Level One.  Spending 7 hours filling the online visa form in, going to Birmingham to hand it in, borrowing a bike bag, having some jabs, packing and getting to the airport.  I lost marks for pratting about for days being indecisive about which bike to take.  Other than that I did pretty well.  6 out of 10

Level Two.  Catching the plane to Delhi.  This was pretty easy.  Apart from getting on the plane, this level consisted mostly of necking as much complementary British Airways food and drink as possible, and the only difficulty was not having a pen to fill in the immigration form, but I managed to borrow one off an Indian.  9 out of 10.  .

Level Three -  Found my guide Guruvinder at the airport, found my bike in the mysteriouus OG2 section of the airport.  Changed some currency, got a taxi to the hotel, filled about 4 forms in to check in, went for a walk, and managed to fend off the attentions of an overzealous tuktuk driver who wanted me to believe I wasn't in a safe area.  Found Dean and Elsa.  Had beer on the roof, got a really good meal at the Legend of Connaught and had some cocktails.  9 out of 10.

Level Four - Fended off a Bangladeshi woman trying to get money for orphans who followed me calling me a bastard.  Stood around for an hour while Dean bought an Indian Sim Card.  Managed to hire a very pleasant tuktuk driver who let us take photos with him.  Cried at the Gandhi Museum.   Almost chilled out on the steps of the Jami Masjid mosque but then lost my bottle after we got refused entry by a small boy for refusing to pay an entrance fee.  I got totally freaked out at the prospect of having to kneel in a urinal, and then got taken for a ride (in more ways than one) by an Oscar winning rickshaw driver.  The saving grace of the last part was that despite his mantra of 'You happy, I'm happy' we managed in the spirit of the word compromise to leave everyone disappointed and to leave him looking totally deflated after we refused to stump up what he was asking for.  On the whole, I did pretty well on this level, but had a devastating loss of form after the toilet kneeling down and rickshaw incidents.  Took some quiet time in the hotel for me to bounce back.  6 out of 10.

Level Five - Managed to fend off two students allegedly trying to practise their English but who were selling weed amongst God knows what else.  Also, managed to ignore a small girl begging for food and holding my hand.  This was all good practice for a day spent bouncing tuktuk drivers off us as if it was Gladiators.  Thankfully the really persistent guy eventually got moved on by the army.  Had some tea at a roadside stall, caused an Indian family from Calcutta to descend into utter confusion by offering to take their picture.  Took back a modicum of control toward the end of the day by hiring a Sikh tuktuk driver who was having a nap and looking the other way, much to the dismay of two of his rivals.  Needed a lie down and a cup of coffee made by Dean back in the hotel to help me come round after feeling battered from all the people I'd had to say no to.   6 out of 10.

Level Six - Passed bike building task.  Managed to check out of hotel although I had to do it in instalments.  Managed to negotiate storage of bike bag for 10 days.  Passed cycling in Delhi challenge.  Rode to Pahar Ganj, met Dean, and cycled to Meerut after a few hair raising lane changing incidents on the main highway.  Only downside was failing to notice that the initially inviting Big Bite Food Resort at Meerut was actually a massive pile of shite, expensive and with waiter service that makes Fawlty Towers look like the height of sophistication.  Retained some dignity by giving the less rude of the two waiters a tip, and getting a smile out of the sucker.  Ate something which may or may not have been chicken.  Spoke to Ruth and Stephen back at home, and hopefully managed to convince them that I was capable of leaving the hotel.  8 out of 10.

Level Seven  - Ordered a coffee which took ages, met Sunny the racing cyclist from Meerut, but managed to avoid going back to his house.  We'd a long way to go.  71 miles in the day.  Found a pretty good hotel for half the price of the day before.  Seemed to really please the locals by appreciating the Paneer Butter Massala.  I liked the goofy waiter and his boss who spoke English, and also the guy who was hammering the doorframe while we were ordering.  Gave them a sizeable tip, and started to relax into the bonkersness.  9 out of 10.  

Level Eight - After 40 miles of single carriageway craziness, including going through the elephant corridor, found our way to Rishikesh.  Managed to be quite rude to someone who wanted to clean our ears out on the riverbank.  After an hour of going round in circles we found English Lorna, and 20 minutes of talking to her helped the stress melt away.  After two days of just booking into the first place we could find, our decision to persevere in finding Bhandari Swiss Cottages really paid off.  Cheap rooms, relaxing views, birdsong and monkeys stealing your garbage.  Had a good laugh at India Guy over his Chicken Sizzler meltdown.  9 out of 10.

Level Nine - More fending off tuktuk drivers.  Found an ATM and then went for a late breakfast.  The jedi waiter was at pains to convince us that the breakfasts we were trying to order were not the breakfasts we were looking for.  No porridge.  Buttered toast yes.  Laughing was definitely the right response.  Gave the man a tip.  Tried to go to yoga but were turned back by a Tibetan boy with some Lego.  Ordered the sizzler to see what India Guy was moaning about.  It was good.  8 out of 10.

Level Ten - Instead of following the tourist trail and booking a bungee jump or a day's white water rafting we took our bikes up into the Shivalek mountains and made our own amusement by having bikes and talking about movies.  In the evening met the Greek Stereotype Spiros, Irish Ashley, Australian Audrey, Phoebe Ponsington-Smythe from somewhere posh in England and Mr India, the most nervous, ill at ease Indian I've ever met, sat around the not very warm fire, and generally felt like the two most interesting people there.  After a couple of hours we realised nothing interesting was about to happen, so we went back to our room and laughed a lot.  Well done us.  9 out of 10.

Level Eleven -  Once again, didn't plump for one of the ready made tourist experiences, but went and found a waterfalll that was off the beaten track, and managed to find some of the peace that people spend so much time looking for round here,  Spent some time in the afternoon listening to 'Ready, Steady, Goa' and other Half Man Half Biscuit favourites whilst feeling incongruous and laughing to myself as I watched the miserable purple couple down below drinking orange tea, wearing clothes cut from curtains and never smiling.  Had a slightly better time round the bonfire this night, thanks mostly to Tim from Australia and Teddy from Chicago, who were at least interesting, unlike Spiros the Greek whose idea of a party was to try and charge people for sharing his drink with him.  By the time we went to bed, the infantile looking dreadlocked German, the Tibetan looking dudes and the giant Portuguese Chewbacca lookalike were passing round joints and the ones who'd joined in on Spiros whip-round party were getting merrily hammered on beer and whisky, totally missing the point that it's supposed to be an alcohol free zone.  Nothing screams foreigner quite so much as the blatant disregard of local rules and customs.  Didn't miss much I think.  8 out of 10.

Level Twelve.  Found the bus station, which wasn't easy.  Got our bikes on board the bus, which wasn't easy either.  Barely survived 7 hours of Bollywood Blockbusters, mobile waiters flogging 'Wally wally Wallay', managed to fend off the Fantasy Island waiters in maroon waistcoats at the service station that had nothing but signs, and was supposed to be a respite from the bus.  It was almost worse.  On the approach to Delhi I totally failed to get my point across to the bus driver about where we wanted to be dropped, and ended up 10 miles from the hotel.  Got our own back on him though, by leaving him a bag of sick hanging on the back of the chair in front.  Thanks to Dean's sense of direction, and owing nothing whatsoever to me, who had no clue where we were, we rode through back alleys, under washing lines, nearly ran some children over, nearly got spiked on some metal rods, got wedged in an alley as wide as my head against a man dragging bricks on a trailer coming the other way, but ended with a grand welcome at the Ajanta, as if we were conquering heroes, and finished my cycling in India by soaking up the joyous feeling of being back on Arakashan Road again, which felt like coming home, only 11 days after first arriving there when it felt anything but.  8 out of 10.

Level Thirteen - The Taj Mahal.  Survived 10 hours in a car, fired our tour guide, fended off an overzealous toilet attendant, resisted the pleadings of a guy with the most miserable looking monkey in the universe, avoided buying snowglobes off some street urchins, got my polos confiscated by the army, got to have a look at the Taj Mahal in between being whistled at by some frustrated PE teacher types, and did very well on the whole not to go absolutely berzerk.  It's probably why they don't let you take anything dangerous in, just being in Agra could sent you into the kind of mental spiral that results in going postal.  We did well to survive.  7 out of 10.

Level Fourteen - A totally confusing breakfast experience, the inverse buffet.  Were brought loads of things we didn't want, and nothing we did.  Dean started operating the coffee machine himself, to the dismay of the waiters, who seemed to want to take 20 minutes over each cup, whereas Dean could get his own in 10 seconds.  Despite being full up, we were both brought curry, and nan bread.  After the breakfast challenge, we had to negotiate with three separate Indians not to be thrown out of our room that we'd booked 10 days previously.  I think in the end we did the requisite amount of pleading, and they let us stay.  If being in the hotel was testing, going out wasn't much easier.  Went to Connaught place, and doing some basic tasks like buying stamps and postcards, and topping up on talktime turned into the work of an entire day.  Dean managed to confuse an ear cleaning man, by telling him he was from India.  Even using the toilet in the coffee bar was a challenge.  The first time I went they let me have the light on, the second time I had to make to with a tiny amount of natural light coming from a vent.  Needless to say when I found the toilet I adopted a sitting position to wee, otherwise it could have gone everywhere.  Went to Rajghat, which was a different side of India.  Full of well dressed schoolchildren, and teenagers in Western type clothing.  Seemed a long way from the rags and poverty on show in other part of Delhi.  For once we wanted to hire a tuktuk, but we had trouble hiring one.  At one point we got refused outright.  But I started to feel like I belonged.  I had a vacant stare and I had dusty clothes.  Even Bangladeshi woman didn't try too hard.  7 out of 10.

Level Fifteen - After yesterday's circus we had breakfast in the room.  Got my bike bag back, dismantled the bike, checked out, paid the minibar.  Went for another walk to Connaught Place.  Got refused entry to an ATM, which made me laugh.  Spent most of the afternoon and evening sitting on the roof terrace drinking beer, using the internet and eating curry.  An easy day to finish, or maybe I was just getting the hang of it.  8 out of 10.

Level Sixteen -  As on the way in, the same on the way out.  A pointless customs form to fill in, confirming I'm not carrying ornamental fish or ICBMs, or millions in bullion.  Same as the way in, I had to borrow a pen off an Indian.  I then had to queue up for hours in a funnel with some Germans and Chinese to eventually face a staring man who could make time stand still.  The Germans were freaking out.  They couldn't handle the seeming getting nowhereness of it all. I'd been there two weeks.  It wasn't a big deal.  Eventually after having my boarding pass stamped to pieces I managed to get on board the British Airways flight.  The flight crew weren't as attentive this time, so I didn't get as many drinks as on the way over, and the breakfast wasn't as good, and then we bloody ended up in Glasgow, and not London.  I had some trouble persuading the Spanish guy next to me on the plane, who was dressed in orange robes and seemed to be having an ecstatic religious experience, that he was in fact in Scotland.  Emboldened by the ease of getting through passport control at the Scottish end, and having had a bath in my Holiday Inn room that I decided I didn't need, I took advantage of knowing how things work in the UK, dragged my bike around Glasgow for a bit, and then got the train home.  I took control.  It was a good way to finish.  It reminded me I can do stuff, and having had a brush with India, it made Glasgow seem like a long lost friend.  10 out of 10.

So that was it for me.  Game Over.  Dean carried on.  My credit was all used up.  I only completed the first 16 levels of India the Game.  I'm led to believe that there are infinite number of levels, so I didn't even reach the End of the Beginning.  Anyway, my score.  126 out of a possible 160.  That's 78%.  That's a pass in anyone's language.  In most exams that's enough to get an A.  I'd settle for a B though, and I probably should since I marked my own paper.  Also, that way it leaves room for improvement for when I go back.......

Life is what happens to you while you're filling in a customer satisfaction survey

On reflection I left India about two days after I started to get the hang of it.  I'd learned to laugh at the frustration and the disappointment, and I'd learned to lower my expectations until I was pretty much satisfied with whatever I could get.

By the time I got my ass rubber stamped out of Indira Gandhi I was ready for home, but I hadn't bargained on how being back in England would feel.  I'd expected a culture shock going on the outward journey, but I hadn't anticipated getting another one on the return home. 

For example, even as I was sat in Glasgow Central Station eating a pasty last Sunday, and feeling glad to be back in the UK, there were rumblings of discontent.  There's a big screen in the train station with rolling news on it.  Rolling news from Sky no less.  If there's one thing that could make you throw acid in your own eyes, Sky News is it.  The latest John Terry losing the England captaincy bollocks was on a loop, and apparently Joey Barton, a footballer so stupid and with an even more questionable history than John Terry, had sent some tweets on Twitter, and it was oh so controversial.  And this is what passes for news!  Two contemptible and thoroughly stupid idiots who've only escaped a life in the gutter by being able to kick a pig's bladder around, are doing and saying stuff, and it's being reported as if it's Moses coming down the mountain with the ten commandments.  Bloody hell.

Then I spent the day on Tuesday jumping through hoops for the YHA before being told Thanks but No Thanks.  On Wednesday my brain was still mashed but I tried to do some bike maintenance.  I was so out of it I could barely recollect my own name by this point, and to make things worse the other two guys at Sustrans had one of those terrible radio phone ins on.  People debating whether they should have to sell their homes to go into care, and then someone on advising people how to save money by boiling up potato peelings to make a nutritious gloop, and telling us not to go shopping when we're hungry and that kind of wisdom from on high.  I could barely stand it.

I went to Tesco on Thursday to buy some rice.  I couldn't believe the vast array of goods on display, and what was worse I couldn't take listening to people trying to decide between the various brands on offer.  Then a man at the checkout was discussing the ridiculousness of pricing 240 tea bags at less than the packs of 180.  I started to feel like I was going mental.

All this stuff about choice and degrees of satisfaction seems superfluous to me now.  India reduced my expectations, until I was happy to get something.  Every day I got a meal and a place to stay, and that was enough.  It was hard to find shops, but the joy that can be felt from finding a big jar of porridge or some chocolate milk is beyond description.  Seeing Dean running out into the road after three days in the wilderness and gleefully showing me butter and cheese and Snickers bars, and pointing excitedly to sliced bread in the window.  The average Tesco shopper does not understand such feelings.

On Friday I got a letter from Simon Bailes Peugeot asking me what I thought of the MOT service I got a month ago.  How satisfied was I with about 20 separate aspects of the service I got.  I found this bewildering.  I wanted an MOT, I got an MOT.  Job done.  I was satisfied.  With time in India in the bank, this sort of feedback seemed nuts.  I didn't get a letter from the Hotel Godawari in Roorkee asking me how satisfied I was with the service there.  The young man in the orange hoodie who brought me my dinner and the older guy who spoke English and who talked to us a bit, we had a transaction in that particular time and space, and then we moved on.  I smiled and gave them a tip.  They seemed happy.  It was in the moment.  If I'm honest I found it slightly confusing that I couldn't tell who the staff were because they had no names badges or other corporate wear on, and the sound of a guy hitting a doorframe with a hammer while I was ordering might have normally been a bit off-putting, but this was India.  I took things at face value, and I got a meal and a bed for the night, and that was good enough. And the next morning I moved on. 

The same thing happened with Orange on Friday aswell.  I rang them up to ask them a question about how much it costs to send texts to India.  They answered my question, but then they wanted me to fill a survey in on how they'd answered my question.  What do you mean?  I said.  I asked a question, you answered it.  I didn't know the answer, now I do.  That was the entirety of it.  I don't want to make a sitcom out of it. 

Since I got home, I haven't had the telly on for 5 days, then on Saturday I broke my duck by putting the Six Nations Rugby on.  When I first switched the telly on, I accidentally turned a programme on where some yuppies were wanting to take that fantastic house they've got in the city, and trade it in for an even more fantastic house in the country.  The smug bastards.  Perhaps next week, instead of Escape to the Country we'll see them starring in an episode of Escape to the Underpass, where they get to swap their quarter of a million pad in Central London for a night sleeping under a rickshaw by the underpass at New Delhi railway station, next to a pile of dogs?  What's their budget?  Nil?

The cold weather hasn't helped.  I feel like I'm living in a fridge, which is harder to take, because my sunburn has started to peel.  And every time I fall asleep I dream of Delhi and the road to Rishikesh.  I had a nightmare about having to build a wheel somewhere on NH58 a few nights ago.  The good news is I keep waking up next to Ruth, and I feel like we're laughing more than before I left.  Some of this is because I was so stressed with the packing before I left, and getting myself in a tangle choosing what to take, she told me today if I'd missed my flight she would have sent me in a taxi.  Apparently I was lucky not to have one of the many bikes I was considering taking wrapped round my head I was being so infuriatingly indecisive. 

In case all of this sounds really negative, it's not all bad.  I am loving being back in the beautiful English countryside, I feel lucky to live where I live, to have the people in my life that I have, and to have a nice home.  It's an adjustment that's all.

Then today I put the telly on for the second time, and before I watched the latest Six Nations instalment (another thing which makes me proud to be British) I watched Harry Hill's TV Burp.  And I laughed, and laughed.  And I remembered another reason why it's great to be British.  It's because we're good at laughing at ourselves.  We're good at pointing at our own pomposity and seriousness, and ridiculing the absurdity of it all.

And I realised that's the greatest gift I got from my India trip.  I remembered to laugh at myself.  Because taking myself seriously doesn't work.  All that happens is that I get myself tied up in knots.  And a lot of the things I worry about are laughable, and so I laughed at those things, and at myself.  And this afternoon I wore a buff around my forehead and danced around with Ruth to a song by the Specials called Do Nothing.  We had a laugh and a sing along with the words

'Nothing ever changes, oh no, I'm just living in a life without meaning'. 

And even if that were true, that my life is without meaning, and that nothing ever changes, I'm still grateful for it.  I'm thankful for all the chances I've had, to do things, and to go places, that some can only dream of.  When I think back to being an oddity on the road to Rishikesh, being stared at by people who maybe live their entire lives within a tiny geographical area, I'm glad to have had the opportunity to see my own country and others, both from inside and out. 

And when I reflect on last year, I think I was a lot like India Guy from Rishikesh, having a tantrum because I'd got a Chicken Sizzler when I'd ordered something else.  Being disappointed.  I was like that in Scotland, and in Wales, and on my York to Durham ride, and on some other bikes rides I went on.  I spent so long moaning that I didn't get what I wanted, that I forgot to be grateful for what I got.  

I spent so long reviewing my experiences, as if they were a customer survey, and worrying about degrees of satisfaction, that I forgot to say thank you.  Thank you for my life and everything in it.  For everything I've got, and everything I've had.

And so if I learned nothing else from India, except to remember to laugh at myself and say thank you for things, it was still worth going.

Dealing with rejection - Indian style

I got turned down for a job yesterday.  After spending 5 hours doing role plays and presentations and stuff.  It was in York.  A recruitment day for the YHA.  There were about 25 people there and about 12 jobs, so by pure statistics alone there was a 50/50 chance of being offered a job.

I was pretty disappointed to not be offered anything.  In some ways it would have been easier if they'd said 'We think you're crap, piss off', but instead they said, that I was good enough, but there weren't enough jobs.  This may have been a polite way of saying 'Piss off, you're crap', but they seemed pretty genuine.  What it did mean though, was that there were some people there, who were considered more suitable than me.

Under normal circumstances, I would probably have spent ages agonising over everything I did and said during the course of the day, trying to second guess the interviewers etc.  But I've been to India now.  I don't need a reason for things.  I'm used to not understanding why things happen.  And it wasn't just the Indians I learned this from.  Dean adopts a similar approach.  He described himself as being fatalistic and he was willing to accept things that happened and he didn't waste time and effort reflecting on them too much afterwards, to see whether the outcome could have been different.  Maybe that's why he's got the stamina for the trip he's on, because he's always looking forwards and not back.

One thing I've noticed since I got back is how much time English people spend a) choosing things and b) thinking about things to do with status, ego and self-esteem.  Maybe Indians do too, but I couldn't understand what any of them were saying.  Now I'm back I feel like that little kid in the Sixth Sense, I can hear voices all the time.

My first full day at home was Monday.  I took Ruth out for lunch and for a walk up Clay Bank.  It was cold, foggy, icy and very English.  I wasn't especially paying attention to the women on the next table but once or twice I overheard them, and they spent the entire course of their meal talking about dogs.  One of them was really excited about getting a new miniature Schnauzer.  They spent ages talking about why this is a desirable type of dog, and how affectionate they are etc.  I couldn't help but laugh.

I was laughing because I was thinking about the dog situation in India.  Basically there seem to be a lot of medium sized mongrels.  They don't have really big dogs or really small dogs.  They certainly don't seem to have breeds.  The dogs there are just hang about on the streets, sleeping mostly, occasionally looking for some food.  They don't have to try too hard, because the gutters are full of discarded food containers.  On two occasions I saw someone doing something which approximated walking a dog, although I wasn't sure on either one, whether the dog was just following them.

If India has any places that you can get a dog from, which I doubt, I imagine, the conversation would go something like this.

'Hello, I'd like a dog'. 
'There's one, have that one!'
'Don't you have any miniature Schnauzers?'
'Any what?'
'Miniature Schnauzers'
'I'm sorry, I don't understand the question'.
'Well, what type of dogs do you have?'
'Stray ones'
'Are they good companions?  Are they affectionate?'  Do they like children?'
'They're dogs.  They just do dog stuff, they're not service providers'
'I think I'll leave it'.

Choosing stuff, expressing preferences, it's all a bit of a luxury over there.

Before I went, some people told me India would be a life-changing experience.  I'm not sure it was for me, because when I used to lie awake shivering at Bhandari Swiss Cottages at 4 in the morning (I liked the daytime, because it was always sunny, but the nights were when I thought about home) I thought about the life I have, and I realised that it was already good, and I didn't need to change it.

At home I've got Ruth, and I've got friends and family.  They love me, they accept me, they understand me, and even when I talk absolute rubbish, they still listen to me and love me some more. 

I read in some guide book or other, that Westerners often feel guilty in third world countries.  Guilty for all the stuff they've got.  It didn't affect me that way.  I just felt lucky.  It's an accident of birth that I was born in the UK.  I'm not actively going out and stealing material things away from Indians and Africans.  I was just born that way.

One thing I did notice while I was away was that the few thiings I had with me, my bike, my camera, my phone, and all the other stuff I took, became more important to me, not less.  Whether they were just a mobile part of home I don't know, but I didn't want to give them up.

Even in Rishikesh, where people were off seeking enlightenment and trying to find themselves, I didn't want to let go of my life back home.  I didn't need to find myself, because I knew where I was.

Some of the Westerners I met in Rishikesh seemed to have missed the point somewhat.  It was an area where alcohol is banned, and eating meat is frowned upon, and even eating eggs is normally done in private (I'm not joking).  And what did they spend their time doing?  Buying illicit beer, getting pissed and eating chicken.  They could have done that back home.

Some of my favourite Indians I met were the ones at Rishikesh.  They were always smiling and at times they were definitely laughing in the faces of us Westerners, but not in a negative way, just in the way that you might watch chimps or seals performing at the zoo.  I used to wonder if they went back to their rooms on a night and said things to each other like 'You'll never guess what that English girl asked me for today!' or 'Look at that guy wearing the tea cosy on his head, is that how he thinks Indians dress?' or 'You'll never guess how much that Greek guy is willing to pay for a can of beer!'.

A lot of the emotional knots that I tie myself up in, wondering whether I could have done things differently, or whether I've come across badly in a social situation, or whether this activity or that is making me feel good about myself, are luxuries that only a Westerner needs to worry about.  Dealing with Indians is lot like Luke Skywalker's encounter with Yoda in the Empire Strikes Back.  Over there, thinking doesn't get you anywhere.  It's all about what you do, or don't do.  There is no try. 

Glasgow - A little piece of heaven here on earth

If I thought the 7 hour bus ride from Rishikesh to Delhi and the 10 hour car ride from Delhi to the Taj Mahal were shite, that was only because I've never tried to get out of Indira Gandhi International Airport before.

I shouldn't have been surprised it was such a tortuous procedure.  I mean, I have witnessed the purchasing of a sim card in Delhi, so I should have been ready for the airport experience.

Dean went back to his hotel at 10.30 on Saturday night, and even though that left me 5 hours to get my flight, I thought, this is India, I'll go now.  I went down to the hotel reception to book a taxi.  Unsurprisingly, the price of the taxi had gone up from 600 to 650 rupees since I last asked.  Something to do with it being late at night.  I didn't bother pointing out that I'd told the person who gave me the price what time I'd be leaving.  I've already struggled on this trip with trying to get Indians to understand the concepts of past, present and future.  I think they only understand the present, which may be why they have such trouble with advance bookings.

The guy on reception was the same one who hadn't wanted me to stay another night two days earlier, and now he was offering a place to lie down for a couple of hours, before my flight.  He seemed to think it would only take 3 hours or less to get through the airport.  I wasn't inclined to take his word for it.

Anyway, before long a scrum of people arrived to help me round the corner with my bags.  When we got to the taxi a heated argument developed as someone had decided to sit in it while it was parked there, presumably in the hope of getting a taxi.  They were soon ejected.

Eventually, we got going, and soon I was speeding past the roadside rubble on my way out of Delhi.  After we'd been going about 5 minutes the driver pulled up at the roadside, and turned the lights off.  He said to me 'I am toilet minute', which clearly meant he was going for a pee, but I thought it would have been funny if it was his name.  I didn't bother asking him why he didn't go before we left the hotel.

About half an hour later we arrived at the airport.  He asked me something I didn't understand, I gave him a tip I didn't understand, and off he went.

I had to show my passport to some army guy to even get through the bloody front door of the airport.  I found the British Airways bag drop desk.  It was pretty busy around there as the organisers of the world standing around championships seemed to have had some double booking snafu with the airlines.  I lost count of the number of people stood around in uniforms doing f all.

The bag drop was pretty straightforward, although I did have to go to a completely different part of the airport with a young Indian lad to drop the bike bag off.  Unsurprisingly, there's an immigration form to fill in to leave India, like there is to come in, but as usual they don't give you a pen, so I had to borrow one off this young lad, which after I'd filled it in led to a protracted game of finding him again to give him his pen back.  I daren't try and leave India with it, in case I violated some cross border pen transport treaty.

Easy part over, I then had to join the back of one of the massive queues waiting to get through the 40 or so immigration departure desks.  I probably went down the wrong funnel, but it's much harder than at Tesco, as you can't see what's going on at any of the queue fronts.

The next bit reminded me of Ghostbusters, namely 'not to cross the streams'.  All the queues were moving at a snail's pace, but the one I was in seemed to be especially slow.  And it was full of Germans.  If there is one nation which is confounded by Indian admin above all others, it is the Germans.  I don't know exactly how many people were in the queue ahead of me, but it must have been more than 50.  Each time it was someone's turn to face the inscrutable customs guys, it was like watching a qualifying heat at the world staring championships.  Whatever documents were handed over, it took an absolute age for them to be examined and stamped.

Some people in the queue were getting really restless as they were worried about missing flights.  I was pretty worried and I wasn't flying for 4 hours.  Then the Germans started kicking off at one of the queue masters, and saying things like 'I've been here an hour and the queue is hardly moving, this cannot go on'.  I think you'll find it can, I didn't say.  Eventually the pleading of the Germans led to our funnel getting an extra booth to go to, but no sooner had this extra booth been opened up to us, that one of the guys who was previously looking after our funnel went off for his tea break, so we still only had two inscrutables.

 After about another hour and a half of moving at glacial pace, I was second in the queue.  The girl in front of me, who looked Indian then had to spend about 10 minutes facing Mr Inscrutable.  She had given him about 10 separate documents to start with, but then she had to empty her rucksack out, presumably to find her bronze swimming certificate, or a note from her dentist or something, before she could get through.

When it was my turn I had three things.  My passport, my boarding pass and my immigration form.  Pretty straightforward you would think.  I wanted to say 'Look, I'm a foreigner, I don't belong here, I've got a valid passport and visa, I'm booked on a flight out of here, and I've filled in your immigration form to confirm that I'm not smuggling live chickens or rocket launchers, please let me go'.  It took an absolute eternity for him to stamp my passport and boarding pass, I was thinking of those people in England who think it's ridiculous when it takes longer than 5 minutes queuing to pay for stuff at Wilkos.  Let them give India a try, I thought.

After that guy let me go, I was into the security queue.  Another half an hour to get to the front of that.  By this point, the people who were likely to miss their flights because they'd been snarled up in the queuing system were starting to get fished out by the various airline staff.  It was like a cross between those fishing stalls at the funfair and the end of Titanic seeing people in uniforms desperately trying to pull people out of the snarl up to get them onto their planes.

I had to put my metal items in a box, for which I was given one of a pair of table tennis paddles with a number on and then I had to get patted down by an army guy, while I stood in a doorframe.  I haven't had much direct physical contact with anyone while in India, and I found it ironic that the most touched I've been by anyone has been by beggars or security personnel.  I got an even more thorough all over pat down by this guy than I did at the Taj Mahal.  Thankfully, this time I wasn't carrying any polos.   

For some reason women don't get patted down in the same way.  They have to go off into a double sided changing room, where presumably they have to take their bras off or something.  I'm not really sure.

And then it was over, I'd been in the airport 3 and a half hours, but I was into the departure lounge.  Or so I thought.  Bearing in mind what I'd been through already, I then had another guy check all my documents and search me before I could even get into the departure gate.  He probably wanted to check I hadn't bought any more polos since the last checkpoint.

By the time I handed my boarding pass over, it was virtually unreadable from all the stamps it had on it.  I understood now why although they don't have milk shops at Connaught Place, they have roadside stalls selling rubber stamps.  Stamping shit is a national pastime.

I was really glad I never took that guy's offer of a bed for a couple of hours in the hotel.  I'd never have made the flight.  I was feeling pretty pissed off about the whole trying to get out of India experience, but then I thought about my time spent with Dean, and I thought what would we have done if we were still in it together, and I'm pretty sure we would have both laughed about it, so I decided to laugh too.

After the Kafkaesque check in experience, the flight was pretty uneventful for the most part. Although it was long, tedious and claustrophobic, I hadn't expected anything different.  Then 8 hours into it, when we got near Heathrow, the captain announced that we were going to be delayed landing in London because of snow and fog.  A half an hour delay, not too bad I thought.  Not too bad, until he came back on the air to tell us Heathrow was now completely closed, so we're off to Glasgow to refuel.

It may have been the pressure differences, but as we approached Glasgow I couldn't hear anything.  I couldn't hear anyone talking, but much worse than that, I couldn't hear any engines.  After years of watching Air Crash Investigation, I convinced myself that we were running on vapour and gliding to our deaths a few miles short of Glasgow airport.  I was more scared by this, than anything that had happened to me anywhere in India. 

We did eventually land, and thankfully not in the sea, or in central Glasgow, but on some tarmac, and I felt glad to be alive.  I really wanted to see Ruth and my friends again.  I haven't even worn my 'I can do India me' T-shirt yet.  I didn't want to wear it in the airport in case I got detained for sarcasm.

We spent about two hours on the tarmac in Glasgow, before the captain let us know that we would have to stay over in hotels in Glasgow on Sunday night.  Even if Heathrow had been open, the flight crew weren't allowed to work any longer so we were stuck.

I've only been to Glasgow twice before.  Both times at the start of cycling holidays.  Both times I've felt pretty nervous and intimidated there.  I'm not a fan of starting cycling trips in cities, and mostly Glasgow has been a place I've been very eager to leave.

Being able to get off a plane from Delhi after 12 hours with someone's seatback virtually pressed against my forehead, I felt an enormous sense of relief just to be walking around again.

And then one of the greatest feelings ever.  After two weeks of swimming in the quicksand of Indian bureaucracy, I got to walk past the massive queue of Indian passport holders waiting to enter Britain, and looking for pens to fill their immigration forms in, I showed my Golden Ticket British Passport to a smiley Scottish lady and 10 seconds later I was in.  No admin, no staring, just a wave and a smile and I was home.

Maybe it was the unfathomable two weeks spent pleading with Indians for the tiniest of concessions, maybe it was the thoughts of imminent death I'd had on the plane, but Glasgow airport and its environs felt like heaven on earth.  I got my baggage back, got directed to a hotel, checked into a hotel, asked about taxis and where to get money out, and my every request was met by a cheery smiling Scottish person who I could fully understand, and who could fully understand me.

After two weeks in the sun, I walked out into the grey Scottish day, took my first lungfulls of icy cold air, and even though I wasn't home yet, I felt at home again.

I checked into the Holiday Inn, well ahead of all the Indians on the flight who were still battling through immigration, I had a wonderful bath (my first one in two weeks), drank some tap water, made myself some coffee, charged my phone without having to lean on the plug like I had at Bhandari Swiss Cottages and generally marvelled at the facilities.

At first a night in the Holiday Inn had seemed very welcome.  I hadn't slept on the plane so I thought I would probably just get a meal and sleep off the jet lag.  But after my bath I didn't feel sleepy anymore, so I went back to the airport for a walk and to check out the wonder emporium of available goods at the Tesco Extra.  I bought some Dairy Milk and Coca Cola and sat down for a bit, and enjoyed not being stared at.

It was still only around 2 in the afternoon.  Although I'd been travelling for what seemed like days, I'd gained 5 and a half hours due to the time difference, so it was still pretty early.  And then it dawned on me.  I'm in Scotland now, I know how stuff works.  I got some internet, checked out the train times and realised I could still get home tonight.  The massive snaking queue of British Airways passengers in the airport, the near death experience I'd had on the flight to Glasgow, and the confidence I'd gained from two weeks doing crazy shit in the most bonkers place I've ever been all contributed to a feeling of wanting to take my life back from the airline.  I'm not one of those poor Indians trying to get connecting flights, I'm British, I'm less than 300 miles from home, and I know how this shit works.

So I bought £3 worth of coin operated internet time, I bought myself a ticket on trainline.com, I wrote down the booking reference, I left my very pleasant Holiday Inn room behind, I walked past the still massive snaking British Airways queue, I got the shuttle bus to the train station, I lugged my bike, suitcase and rucksack through the streets of Glasgow for a bit, I collected my tickets, I got on my train to Darlington, I got Ruth to pick me up and I came home.  Ruth made me a pizza, I drank tea from my own cups and I slept in my own bed.

I woke up this morning in my own bed, Ruth was there, she made me some coffee while I looked out of the window at the snow, and I said to her.

'I had the most amazing dream.  I dreamt I went to India to meet Dean and I took my bike with me.  It was the strangest place I'd ever been, it was sunny every day, everyone spoke English but no-one understood it, there was rubble everywhere, no-one ever brought me anything I asked for, I had to fend off beggars, touts and tuktuk drivers in the street, I went to the Taj Mahal and got my polos confiscated, I saw people and dogs sleeping in the street, I couldn't tell what anything was, or what anyone was doing, I got sunburnt in January in Rishikesh, which was full of unsmiling national stereotypes wearing clothes made from old curtains and with tea cosies on their heads, I nearly died in a plane crash and then I went to Glasgow, which was full of magical helpful Scottish people, who helped me find the way home'. 

And then she told me something that completely took me by surprise.

She told me it wasn't a dream. 

The Taj Mahal - Worth seeing but not worth going to see

For reasons too dull to go into, the only way to get to the Taj Mahal before I left for home was to hire a taxi leaving at 7 am this morning to get there.

It's about 150 miles each way, so I thought maybe 3 hours each way.  In the event it took about 10 hours in total.

We passed a few toll booths, and tourist tax booths on the way.  At one someone tried to get me to have my photo taken with a monkey on a stick.  He also had a noose round his neck.  Yeah, sure I didn't shout, I'll pay you to have my photo taken with the saddest looking monkey in the world, right before I blow my own head off.  What I did shout to him through the window was two things.  One.  I've already had my photo taken with loads of monkeys up at Rishikesh, so what you're peddling is hardly original, and Two, why don't you let the monkey go, he looks miserable.

Halfway to Agra we stopped at a service station that was in many ways similar to one of our own.  Totally overpriced food, a load of shite for sale in the doorway, and some overzealous toilet cleaning going on.  Where it differed from our own brand of service station was in the monkey on a string wearing lipstick outside the main entrance.

Indian roads have lost their ability to shock me now.  Nothing I see out the window comes as a surprise.  Overturned lorries, lorries run aground, a man carrying a doorframe on the back of a motorbike, it all just blends into one.

After 5 hours in a car and a visit to a shit service station, meeting our tour guide didn't improve our mood much.  He got into the car on the outskirts of Agra, and he annoyed me from the start by telling me I wasn't allowed to take guidebooks or food into the Taj.  Then he went on to say, as if we were in the middle of a war zone, not to talk to anyone but him once we were out of the car.  Bloody hell, I thought, it's the Taj Mahal, we're not trying to do a bank job.

The area round the Taj Mahal looked just about the least scary place I've been in India.  It was mostly foreign tourists and a few kids selling crap.  Didn't he realise that at six o'clock yesterday I was trapped down an alley about as wide as my head in Delhi between a man towing a trailer full of bricks, a woman doing her washing, a pack of dogs and some kids playing badminton?

For some reason we had to stand around waiting while he went off to buy our tickets, and then he gave us a bottle of water each, and gestured for us to sit on an oversized golf cart.  How far is it? Dean said.  1 kilometre, he said.  Can't we just walk it?  No, it's included in the price.  So we waited about 10 minutes for the golf trolley to take us 400 metres and then we had to walk the other 600 metres anyway.  In the golf trolley was a poster with about 40 things on you're not allowed to do or bring into the Taj Mahal.  Am I allowed to photograph the sign I asked the guide?  He didn't find this funny.

Then we got frisked head to foot by some Indian soldier guys.  I had to empty out every pocket.  Camera, phone, eyedrops okay.  Two thirds of a pack of polo mints not okay.  Dean got six sugar lumps confiscated too.  Bloody hell, did he think we were going to bomb the crap out of the Taj Mahal with a mixture of sugar and sugar free mints?

Then about 100 yards from the entrance we encountered a man selling photos of the Taj Mahal.  Of all the places in India to stand, why did he pick here?  I said to him, I don't need a picture, it's over there, and I also thought about saying 'Haven't you got any with me in?' but I didn't.

The 5 hour car journey, being told to be afraid by the guide, the 400 metre golf trolley ride, the having my polos nicked and then someone trying to sell me photos of something I could see was all putting me in a bad mood.

More or less as soon as we were in the Taj Mahal, and not even in the white bit of it, that everybody knows, just the red outer part, the tour guide started rattling off a load of facts in an incoherent accent.  Then he asked us how many domes were on the top of the entrance?  Dean kept looking the other way, and I was thinking 'What the fuck is this, a quiz?'  As it happened there were loads of domes and I thought, there's no way I'm counting them.  He got quite agitated and asked us again, how many domes?.  Dean said something about just wanting to have a look at the thing, and I said I didn't know there was going to be a quiz.

Seemingly thinking he'd frightened us with his 'Trust no one' speech, he then said words to the effect of 'Look, do you want a tour guide or not?'.  No, not really, we said.  He seemed a bit deflated by this, and we agreed to meet up with him in a couple of hours.  We wouldn't have the benefit of our guide books as we weren't allowed to bring them in, nor would we have the benefit of his incoherent ramblings, so we'd just have to make do with looking at stuff, and remembering stuff we'd read before we were allowed in.  It was a bit like taking an exam in school. 

The white bit of the Taj Mahal was pretty good, but the mood was continually being ruined by some guys with whistles who seemed like hyperactive referees blowing up for any perceived violation of the million and one rules.

We took loads of pictures, and we got as close as we could to the Diana chair but there was a massive scrum of people trying to get near it, so we just got as close as we could and took a picture that wasn't exactly what we wanted, but it was a picture.  That's India for you.

We met the deflated tour guide at 2 pm, his earlier concern for our welfare seemed to have evaporated.  He walked us back to our taxi through a gauntlet of tat selling children.  He probably thought this would worry me, but after a couple of weeks in Delhi this was nothing.

On the way back we stopped again at another bonkers service station.  This time a man with a sword opened the door for us, and this time he had a performing girl instead of a monkey.  I bottled going to the toilet because the attendant was so keen I couldn't even go near him, or the toilets.  There are things in India I can't handle, but picking up my own soap and hand towels is one of the skills I've pretty much mastered without the aid of someone handing them to me for money.

The car journey back to Delhi went on for ages, we laughed about the day, and the driver backed up our decision to go all in the one day by saying that although Agra has nice buildings, it's otherwise a heap of crap that's best to get in and out of as soon as possible.

I felt really grateful today that this two weeks has gone the way it has.  I think if you're a tourist here and you don't cycle, you just go from aeroplane to taxi to hotel to car to bonkers service station to tourist attraction and back, and you're in a cocoon and you don't get to see the bits in between.

Trying to buy cheese and coffee from a tennis ball and tampon shop on the road to Meerut, and cycling through people's back gardens are not on the well trodden tourist trail, but they give you a real sense of real Indians doing real things, and they're not just little snapshots seen from a car window.

Dean quoted Samuel Johnson today, and he said about the Taj Mahal.  Worth seeing but not worth going to see.  I have to agree.  If I'd known what the day was going to be like, I probably wouldn't have gone through with it.  Having said that, I'm glad we've been.  I've got some pictures with me and the Taj Mahal in, and that was pretty much all I wanted from the day.