Barbara Savage - Miles From Nowhere

MILES FROM NOWHERE

MILES FROM NOWHERE

A ROUND-THE-WORLD

BICYCLE ADVENTURE

BARBARA SAVAGE

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1983 by Barbara Savage

All rights reserved

First cloth edition: October 1983

First paper edition: December 1984, second printing 1985, third printing 1985, fourth printing 1986, fifth printing 1987, sixth printing 1988, seventh printing 1990, eighth printing 1992, ninth printing 1995, tenth printing 1998, eleventh printing 2001, twelfth printing 2004, thirteenth printing 2006, fourteenth printing 2007, fifteenth printing 2010.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in New Zealand by Hutchinson Group (N.Z,) Ltd. 32-34 View Road, P.O. Box 40-086, Glenfield, Auckland, 10.

Book design by Elizabeth Watson

Cover design by Jennifer Shontz

Cover: Barbara Savage at the entrance to the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. Photo by Larry Savage.

Edited by Diane Hammond

Photographs by Barbara and Larry Savage

Map by Larry Savage

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Savage, Barbara.

Miles from nowhere.

1. Bicycle touring. I. Title.

GV1044.S28 1983 796.6 83-13484

ISBN (paperback): 978-0-89886-109-9

ISBN (ebook): 978-1-59485-394-4

To my husband, Larry

BEWARE

NEW DELHI (AP)An American woman cyclist was eaten alive yesterday some 200 miles southeast of this Indian capital city by a giant, wild ape.

NEWS OF MY DEATH WOULD surely make the headlines in all the big newspapers back home in the U.S. of A. Larry, I hoped, would tell the story right, giving it a sensational and tragic ring, conjuring up a horrifying death race between an innocent woman bicycler and an ape with jaws large enough to inhale an entire human being. If he told it right, there Id be, pedaling through the starving masses of a primitive country filled with cobras, tigers, and bands of cutthroat thieves, when suddenly a wild, semi-erect primate lunges from its treetop sanctuary and chases me down, killing me with the brutal force of its jaws and limbs.

As I watched the ape swing toward me, I prayed that Larry would tell a good story; that he would be kind enough not to tell the truth about the way I was to die.

In late November of 1979, there were three of us bicycling through India together. Larry and I had met Geoff Thorpe, a blond-haired, blue-eyed New Zealander in his early twenties, at the campground in New Delhi a few days after we arrived in India. Geoff too was headed toward Nepal, and we agreed to travel as a threesome. We were all a bit nervous about bicycling through such a strange and exotic country.

The day we set out from New Delhi I suggested that we take back roads so that we could visit the small Indian villages and farms and avoid the heavy truck traffic on the highways. It took us five days to meander our way to the town of Mainpuri, one hundred eighty-three miles southeast of New Delhi, and everywhere during that time crowds gathered to stare at us. In Mainpuri we drew more crowds than anywhere else, probably because we were farther away from the main highways.

When we rolled into town, it became immediately evident that Mainpuri was not like the other Indian towns we had stayed in. Its streets were so narrow that only one car could pass through at a time; yet there were no carsonly people, bicycles, rickshaws, motor scooters, and a few sacred cows milling about. Tiny wooden kiosks large enough to seat one or two adults lined the alleys. The kiosks were shops that sold everything from food to textiles to jewelry. No one in the shops spoke English, and the people in the town stared at us more in disbelief than curiosity. Eventually, we scouted out the town doctor, who understood our language, and led us to the only boardinghouse in Mainpuri. I waited with Geoff in the dusty, manure-strewn street while Larry went upstairs with the doctor to get a room.

By then, after two weeks in this overflowing country of dark-skinned people with their contrasting ivory teeth and penetrating eyes that continually searched our faces for answers to their silent questions (Who were we? Why were we here? Where were we going? Where had we come from?), Geoff and I expected the crowds. But we did not expect what was to happen next.

Word of our arrival spread instantaneously and mobs of Indians rushed toward us through the narrow alleyways, oblivious of any obstacles in their paths. Given our foreign appearance and our space-age fifteen-speed bicycles and equipment, we probably drew as much attention as would a flying saucer. Geoff and I, crushed and jostled by the force of the bodies around us, held onto our bikes and leaned our backs together in an effort to keep ourselves and bikes upright. The Indians on the outside of the crowd clawed and shoved their way forward in an effort to attain a ringside position, but those nearest us ran a tough defense, frantically protecting their prized positions. Some men attempted to climb up the side of the nearby kiosks for an aerial view, but the shopkeepers poked them with the long bamboo poles normally used for swatting at any sacred cows that tried to steal food from the shops.

Five minutes after the mob had begun to swell, a scream, pleading and helpless, slashed through the frenzy of the crowd like the cry of a drowning child over the pounding surf. Geoff and I glanced about nervously; because of the force of the bodies pressing against us from all sides, we were unable to move any part of our bodies except our heads. I swung my head around and spotted a rickshaw taxi that had been overturned and trampled by the walls of humanity pouring in from the side streets. The two riders, a man and a woman, were caught underneath, but the mob swarmed over the toppled carriage in total disregard of its buried and shrieking occupants. The man who had been pulling the rickshaw behind his bicycle had fallen free. He too ignored the trapped couple and abandoned his work to join in the madness.

While I surveyed the collage of staring faces jiggling around me and listened to the explosions of shouts and squeals echo through the passageways, I heard Geoff say something behind me.

Ah, B-Barb, he stammered. Ive got to go.

Both of us were near suffocation and about ready to bolt over the top of our spectators, but Geoff was referring to something else.

Barb, I cant hold it any longer, he whispered.

After picking up dysentery in Iran or Pakistan, Geoff was no longer very polished at controlling himself, and the picture that flashed in my mind of him losing control of his bowels right there in the midst of a few hundred unsuspecting Indian onlookers started me laughing hysterically.