Bike Ride in Bundi

A good long while ago, Chris and I. With two french friends went on a bike ride. Not an ordinary bike ride. But an Indian one... this means, of course, crazyness. We rented the bikes for a little less than a dollar a day. Calling these bikes clunkers would be a compliment. There is only one kind of bike here, all the bikes are the same, even the new bikes are made the exact same. It is kind of odd to see bikes that look like they;re 20 years old and others with the bubble wrap still attached, all practically identical. Bubblewrapped motorcycles and bikes among other things can be seen cruising around the city. I assume that people just want everything to be as spanking new for as long as possible.
THese bikes have the weirdest and most un ergonomic handlebars, they curve backwards, towards the back of the bike, so that if I took a tight turn the handlebars would jab into my thighs. There are no gears. They deon't exist here.
Anyways, with the bikes between our legs. We were off, at a snail pace, but away we went. Each hill looked like a mountain on these bikes. Later I heard Chris say, "I would say that it was a flat bike ride, but with the bikes that we had, it was hilly." Nonethess, we strained up each and every hill. The moment we were out of the city I was blissed out. it was the first time that I had really gotten away from people since I'd gotten to India. And, more than that, we were on an adventure, we passed a lilypad covered lake which to me seemed too surreal compared to the desert that we had been traversing by buss. An indian guy tried to get us to come to his bar, he rode his motorcycle alongside of us for 10 minutes or so. finally he got the message that we were determined to make it to the far off waterfall (17 kilometers). Very early on in the ride, my waterbottle fell off of my bike and broke. This meant that for the rest of the time. I was carrying a 2 liter bottle upside down. It just made me seem that much goofier. We rode single file because at any moment a camel cart, bus, tractor blaring Indian pop from totally blown out speakers, or some other vihechal would round the bend and put us in eminent danger. But like all good tourists aclimated to the subcontinent, we barely batted an eye when busses would take up the whole road and push us off into the non-existant shoulder.
Climbing a hill, we passed under nothing else than a monolithic wall... Since I've been here, I ahve seen all sorts of massive, magnificent and beautiful buildings, seriously, this country has been dipped, fried and brushed with as mcuh history as the street food is covered in oil. Everywhere you turn there is some building that has been standing for over a thousand years. But, to see a relic of an ancient past, probalby 10 kilometers from Bundi and the old palace and fort. Basically out in the middle of the desert. The first line of defence of course, for the people of the past. Was enough to make everyone of us hop off our bikes, it helped that we were all exhausted as well. Chris found the way up, and I played invader, climbing a tree adjacent to the wall and getting over. The wall was 20 feet tall on the outside edge. A priminent line slicing across the empty desert. We clambored around for ten minutes or so before we left. Finding a wall out in the middle of no where was much crazier to me than a lot of the palaces and forts I had seen before. It felt like it came out of nowhere.
The rest of the ride was nondescript if you don't count the countless times we were almost hit by cars, autorickshaws or other vehicles. The most exciting thing was that people were genuinely excited to see us (and laugh at the 4 foreigners bopping along on bikes). At one point we stopped at a crossroads and a man walked up to me and handed me a beedie, an Indian cigarette, I smoked it in front of him and everyone was laughing and smiling... I guess because I was smoking a beedie, but who knows. Smoking them always gets great reactions from Indians, I ahve taken to carrying them around as a good will guesture. (in india people really don't have much of a sense of space, right now, in the internet cafe, there is a boy who is intently staring at my screen. hopefully he doesn't understand what I'm writing...) Anyways, back to the story, we made it to the waterfall... It was huge! The place was beautiful, and we were alone there for maybe 5 minutes before throngs of people arrived, to bathe and go to the little shrine under the fall itself. Everything is sacred in India, it seems that as far as people are willing to carry paint, plaques or statues. You will find temples to the gods or nature herself.
I swam in the water, the only time I've swam anywhere except for the ocean It was so refreshing after our long bike ride. We climbed up to the top of the waterfall and walked for a little ways until some Indian guys fllowed us with their cellphones, blasting indian pop. They were determined to bother the french women so we quickly descended. Back down where there were buildings(town?), we got some chai and sat down. we were sitting in one row of chairs facing a bunch of Indian men sitting across from us and facing us. They stared at us the whole time that we sat there, and when I pulled out my trail mix to eat some. They guestured that they wanted to see what I had. i gave them a little bit. Which, they didn't seem to enjoy(it's bird food anyways :D)
It was fun! The bike ride just proved to me that there really are people everywhere here. It was a mistake for me to bring camping gear. Better to just throw a blanket down in a vacant corner of the street like the houseless Indian people do. There just are no end to the people. The adventure was a blast, and my first real taste of nature in India.