Doctor Who, Visits India

"This Is A Time Machine – I am The Doctor."

In November 2008 my son Sam and I reached India, having already cycled around 5,000miles from Ireland. Due to increased terrorism outbreaks we had been unable to cycle into Pakistan and had decided instead to fly down to Kerala (we had previously only planned to cycle through Northern India via Amritsar and Rajasthan). This detour made up for the distance we had missed in Pakistan and proved to be our favourite part of the whole 10,000-mile journey. It was an overwhelmingly beautiful experience from day 1, despite arriving in a deluge of rain. Cycling away from Kochi's (previously known as Cochin) tiny ramshackle airport, we immediately found ourselves drenched and with our wheels sinking into a muddy, potholed road.
"Be careful Sam," I called out, "this is prime puncture territory!"
Sam did not take kindly to what he saw as a suggestion that he had not already considered this and he was therefore pretty crestfallen when he indeed succumbed to a puncture about 10miles from Fort Kochi. Nothing, however, could dampen our spirits about being in India. Beauty and intrigue surrounded us. Lush fields, trees and crops stretched to the horizons. Colourful huts with small naked children splashing in puddles lined the road. Calm, smiling people carrying produce to or from markets took the trouble to wave and call after us. This was very special.

Sam near Munar, Kerala - Yellapatty Tea Plantations

The overwhelming sense of beauty remained undiminished during our whole two-months in India. The people were lovely and there was so much to interest us in this busy, multi-faceted country, yet at the same time it was tough. Sometimes very tough. The roads ranged from bad to appalling. Stomach upsets sneaked up on us just when we thought we had become hardened to the diet. The traffic in the cities and the behaviour of drivers throughout India was tragicomic and the state of some guesthouses seemed like a film-set exaggerated beyond belief but we loved it for all these flaws. It attacked our senses from the moment we woke until the moment we fell asleep - even in our dreams in fact.

That first day in the rain, we sat at the side of the muddy road, trucks showering us with filthy water, and thought about trying to repair Sam's puncture. There was no way we could do it there, we realised. We pumped it up and rode half a mile before it went down again. This continued for about three miles until eventually the rain gave way to sun. Things looked rosier. Walking for a while, we were spotted by an old man sitting on a box at the roadside.
"Puncture-wallah!" he called to us. "Acha sahib, come come!"
We wheeled the bikes over aware that we were probably about to be ripped-off. We had grown somewhat suspicious during our journey so far. I pointed to the flat tyre.
"Puncture. How much?" I asked
The man wobbled his head. I was aware of this body language.
The puncture-wallah stood up and began removing heavy tools from his box. They were crude and looked more suited to truck mechanics. In the box I could also see a large tube of vulcanising solution and an array of butchered parts. He began removing the tyre.
"Please be careful," I said.
Quickly and deftly the man removed the innertube and located the puncture. In no time he had made a patch from a section of old tube and began roughing it up with a file. The job was completed with a soft mallet which he used to make sure of a good bond, before replacing the tube and tyre. I pumped it up. It was fine.
"Thank you so much," we said. "How much?"
The man rocked his head again. "As you like, sahib."
Nothing I said would make him give me a price. In my pocket I had some change. Having just arrived I was not sure of the exchange-rate. I held it out in my palm and the man nodded. I poured it into his palm and he smiled graciously. 50 Rupees. I was not sure how much that was worth, but I was sure it couldn't be much. Later at our guesthouse I realised 50 Rupees was only around 60p ($1). Despite the fact that the tyre had now gone down again, I felt this was a bargain, until the guesthouse owner told me 10 Rupees was the going rate!

After nearly a week in Fort Kochi, Sam and I were eager to discover more. We headed off into the hills inland. These soon gave way to mountains with stunning tea plantations, where the riding was hard. We had plenty of adventures in this area, which are all documented in detail in our book, Long Road, Hard Lessons. There is a bit of film taken on the road from Munar (Kerala) to the Yellapatty Dam.

After the mountains we headed back to the coast and up to Goa, where we took a well earned rest in a beachside thatched hut for 10-days. From there we headed up into Marharastra and Mumbai, just in time for the Mumbai Siege. We were held up in a village south of Mumbai until the siege was over and we cycled into the city the following day to see the Taj Hotel still partly on fire with bullet holes in nearby cafe walls.
"Get out of here," an Australian bank worker screamed at us, "It's not safe here!"
But we stayed. We loved it and were sad to move on.

 Bullet holes in wall of Cafe Leopold (Colaba)

The Taj Hotel (Fire now put out)

Continuing from Mumbai we made our way via the picturesque city of Udaipur, through Rajasthan and up to Delhi, where we met my wife and younger daughter. They stayed with us for Christmas and New Year, travelling around Rajasthan along with some friends. Sam and I were sad to set off towards Varanasi and Calcutta without them. It was on our way to Varanasi that we passed through Uttah Pradesh – an area we had been warned to avoid. People were unused to foreigners here and everywhere we went – especially in rural areas – we were surrounded by groups of men and boys asking questions. On one particular day we had spent hours cycling in deep mud where the road had been diverted and I was exhausted. As we pulled over to look at the map, Sam saw a large group of young men outside a shop heading towards us. This had already happened a number of times that day and I was totally fed up with it.
"Oh dear," Sam muttered. "Keep calm Dad."
My temper was not good but I was doing my best to remain calm. These guys meant no harm I was sure, but I could do without more inquisition at this moment. They arrived and the questioning began.

"You are American sir? No, Germany? Italy?"
"England," Sam replied. "We are from England."
One man pointed to Sam's bicycle. "Cycle? Is this a cycle?"
"Yes," said Sam, "It's a cycle."
"No, no I don't think it is cycle," said another. "Petrol?" The man pointed at the water bottle.
"No," said Sam,"water."
Another young man pointed at the rear panier. "Motor?"
"No, luggage," said Sam, opening it to reveal some dirty washing.
"Friend?" said another young man, pointing at me.
"Papa-ji," I said, "Father. I am the father. He is my son."
"Where is your Mercedes?" asked another man. "Why do you ride cycle – you are rich man?"

An Audience in Fatehpur

And so the conversation continued until we managed to move on. Like all Indians they were kind and well meaning, but I felt glad to escape their questioning and equally glad to be out of the mud. Five miles further on, however, stopping to buy water from a shop, we were surrounded by more inquisitors as we were having a refreshing drink from the bottle. Quickly the crowd around us grew until there were twenty or thirty of them, clamouring to get close to us and to examine our bikes. I became exasperated. Anticipating the usual questions, I dismounted from my bike and somewhat theatrically began a pre-emptive spiel.

"Good day dear fellows, my name is The Doctor. This is my trusty assistant, Sam."
Sam was staring at me. He looked worried. The audience looked on, wide-eyed and fascinated.
"Dad, have you completely lost your mind?" muttered Sam, quietly.
I continued. Showing them the bicycles I began pointing out the various parts.
"These are time machines. We have travelled here from another realm of time you see." I pointed to my bar-bag. "This is a warp accelerator. It is powered by plutonium. Can I buy plutonium around here?" I pointed to the grocery shop.
"No sir," said one man. They all shook their heads.
"My brother can find it for you, Doctor sir," said another man. "Yes, yes, it is very expensive but he can obtain for you a good discount."

Doctor Who and the Tardis - A good discount on Plutonium

After a few minutes of this drama, my exhaustion overtook me and the performance had to be brought to a close. The men of the village waved after us as we left. Unfortunately I was unable to perform the disappearing tardis trick but they seemed adequately impressed with the bikes nonetheless.

"Dad I think you need a day off," said Sam. "For a moment back there I thought you might end up being carted off to an Indian asylum!"

View From A Calcutta Guesthouse

Arriving in Calcutta (now called Kolkata) a week or so later, we realised we would soon leave India behind. It was a sad thought, but we knew we would come back. Thailand would be great but India had truly won our hearts.

In 2008/9 Mark Swain cycled from Ireland to Tokyo, a journey of 10,000 miles, with his 18 year old son Sam. If you would like to read their bestselling travel book 'Long Road, Hard Lessons', you can find this, along with his two collections of short stories, on Amazon, Smashwords etc. 

In the UK his books can also be found in all Waterstones Bookstores.

Mark Swain on Amazon.com

Mark Swain on Amazon UK

Mark Swain on Smashwords

Do Not Speak Her Name

Time Travelling in Hungary

In 2008 I found myself cycling through Southern Hungary with my teenage son. It was the first part of our ride from Ireland to Japan, via the UK, France, Germany and Austria that had surprised us by its sense of being trapped in an older time. It was beautiful and the sun shone, but there was something surreal about it.

After a long day's ride from Budapest, we arrived at a river and had to wait half an hour to cross on a floating bridge (flat boat with an outboard that crossed every hour). We were nearing the town of Csongrad, the boatman told us. By the time we entered town it was dark.  It was not a large place but it was bustling with people heading home.  After asking a number of people for help, we managed to get ourselves directed to the only accommodation - a hotel. Arriving at a large old building we lifted a heavy brass ring that pulled a cord and agitated a bell inside. The old door creaked open and revealed a pale young girl. We were startled.

“Welcome inside. Step forward please.” 

We thanked her and cautiously moved towards the reception, behind which sat an elderly lady. She smiled and said something in Hungarian.

“My mother does not speak the foreign languages,” said the girl. “I, however, can speak English, Russian, German, French, Italian and Serbo-croat. Yes, yes, and Hungarian of course. Please have look the prices here. We have the hot water and bath. Breakfasts will be included please.”

We relaxed. The price seemed fair and the old lady seemed kind, as did the somewhat cybernetic daughter. "Orlovka," she said abruptly, handing me a pen.

After signing the register, we were led upstairs. Before opening the heavy bedroom door, the girl turned towards us and hesitated a moment.

“My name is Greta,” she said, her stare uncomfortably direct.

Greta was about 16, wearing a rather trendy tracksuit and narrow glasses, yet somehow she still managed to look like a 1950’s Soviet woman.  Her fixed stare held us there stiffly for some moments.  Her wide face was friendly enough, although she did not seem to smile. There was certainly something abnormal about her manner. Sinister even. I wondered what might be behind the door.  Eventually, one of her eyes began to twitch and she looked down.  With a heavy turn of the key the door creaked open.

Timorously my son and I followed Greta into a large room. It was fitted out with what seemed to be furniture from the post-war era.  A shaft of dusty light cut through a crack in the heavy curtains, giving us the sense almost that we might have stepped into the past. There was a strange smell I could not quite identify. Something medicinal, perhaps. She drew back the long heavy curtains to reveal a large sash window that looked down into a grand cobbled courtyard.  We noticed a pair of bikes standing against the wall and realised that they were our own. The elderly mother must have moved them, although it seemed unlikely. It all felt very odd – rather dreamlike. Looking out onto the ancient Austro-Hungarian courtyard, I felt that a horse-drawn carriage, or mounted soldiers with muskets, might arrive at any moment. I looked at Sam. It was not only me; he too looked mesmerised.

“This courtyard is beautiful, not?”

Greta’s words echoed in the high-ceilinged room and it was a moment or two before I realised it was she who had spoken. Pulling myself together, I turned to look at her. I smiled. The full sun on her face had revealed a surprising feature – she had one brown eye and one blue. I tried not to stare. She turned and began showing us the room, opening every drawer and cupboard as if carrying out an obsessively practiced routine.

“It is a spracious room, not?”

“Very precious, yes. Thank you,” I replied.

“Yes, much space. It is our pleasures. We have few stranger guests such days. We will try hardly to give you comfort.”

“We will try hard to be good guests,” smiled Sam.

There was a moment's hesitation as she turned. A change had occurred in Greta’s eyes. There was an awkward silence, followed by a radiant smile. Sam had thawed her. Thank God, I thought. Maybe now we won’t be tied up and held prisoner for years in the cellar.

Greta showed us into a large historic bathroom. Over a large rust-stained bath was a device I had seen before, or something similar at least. My grandmother had one when I was small.  It was known as The Geyser: a huge threatening gas boiler smelling of burning gas, that shook and gurgled when lit, threatening to explode at any moment. The fear I reserved for this monstrous device as a child was still there now. I had no intention of using it, or of allowing Sam to.

Greta had become animated and was now eager to talk, asking us what we had seen on our journey and what we thought of her country. She was also very informative. She sat down at the writing desk and began to give us a potted history of Hungary. Sam and I, meanwhile, were transformed into an attentive audience, perched on one of the beds. In addition to enlightening historical and political facts, Greta provided local information.

“I want to commend you about a very good pizza restaurant near to this establishment,” she said.  “It is very marvellous.” 

This didn’t sound particularly enticing to me – commended or not.  Eating there later, however, we found it did indeed serve excellent pizza. More surprising though were the exquisitely prepared Hungarian dishes, with very fresh fish and delicious wild game.  It was better than anything we had found in Budapest. The staff also seemed entirely out of place. The elderly waiter was dressed in black trousers and a stiffly starched white jacket with gold braided epaulettes. He was reminiscent of someone from a grand Monte Carlo hotel in the aristocratic opulence of the 1920’s. I doubt this small rural town had ever seen more than a dozen foreign tourists let alone opulence.

Photo courtesy of ipernity.com

As the lid was lifted on another large silver terrine, this time containing an enormous bird that could only have been a peacock or a small ostrich, it all started to seem rather surreal again. I glanced across at the hotel and saw the old woman's face disappear behind the twitching curtain. The waiter followed my gaze and sighed.
"Be careful."
"The old lady?" I asked.
"No, no, young girl. Old mother is dead."
"Dead?"
"No old mother now. She die five years before. In the river. They say accident but... I don't think. Be careful."
"Greta?" I asked.
There was a crash as he dropped the lid on the terrine. He looked down at me. 
"Better don't to speak her name, my friend."

Short stories by Mark Swain can be found in the book 'Special Treatment & Other Stories.'
The title story won the Kinglake International Short Story Prize in 2010.
Link to short story book on Amazon

Link to Long Road Hard Lessons (cycle travel book) on Amazon

Parental Gap Year

Saved By a Ten-year-old Boy

My father died when I was 15yrs old. He was 37 and very healthy - or so it seemed. He had a heart attack caused by a burst artery or vice-versa. I had never even known him have a day off sick from work. Now I realise that this last fact was perhaps a clue to the cause of his death. He would not allow himself to be sick. If he ever got flu he would go to bed when he got home from work, pile on the blankets and sweat it out so he could return to work the next day. He was an avionics engineer. It wasn't that he loved his work so much, it was more to do with an ethos. You don't give in to things. This is how a man can become enslaved.

Image courtesy of Dreamstime.com

For myself, I did not begin as a dedicated hard worker. I loved primary school at first but as soon as the serious curriculum and rigid discipline kicked in I loathed school. I only went there to cause trouble - to fight against oppression, and school seemed to me to be its cradle. Later I could see that offices and factories were the same. Grown-up theatres of oppression. Places of drudgery where you were required to conform. It was not for me. I went to art college. But at art college I lacked anything to fight against. I left in search of adventure and found it at first in an army recruiting centre. I found plenty of authority and rules to fight against there. I left and after time hitch-hiking around Europe and Asia I eventually set up my own business. Here I made the rules. At last I was in the right place. I liked what I did and I worked with enthusiasm. I was determined not to work myself to death as my father had but after only a few years I found myself working longer and longer hours and driving 50,000miles a year. I became stressed (as I realise my father was) and short tempered at home. I was in denial. Money flowed in and fired my passion. I basked quietly in the glow of having built a successful consultancy business from scratch, but I could feel myself gasping for air – trying to cram more into every week. The eventual outcome of such a life is not hard for someone to predict, but I couldn't see it.

You will probably be expecting me to tell you I got a serious disease or had a heart attack like my father, but that's not what happened. I was saved from that.
So how was I saved?

Remarkably, I tell you, I was saved by a ten year old boy. My son.

Sam in Tarbet, Kintyre, Scotland.

It was the week before Christmas 2000. I had suffered a manically busy year at work. Arriving home I met my 10 year-old son Sam on his way to bed. I kissed him goodnight.
"Daddy," he said, "do you have any time off this Christmas?"
"Yes, I'm finished on Friday for around 10days."
"Could we go on a bike ride?"
The weather was cold but we did go on that bike ride. Around 20miles to nearby Folkestone. We camped the night and awoke with the tent frozen up with ice. Arriving back home that afternoon, shattered, I had a hot bath and lay on the sofa. Sam came and sat by me. I'd been worried about him but he seemed to have thrived upon it.
"Daddy, when I'm a big boy, would you cycle to Japan with me?"
"Do you know how far that is, Sam?"
"No, but if we go after I finish school - before university - we'd have a year!"

Eight years later, having found someone (the incredible Colin Bowyer) to run my business for me, we set off for Japan. 9 months and 10,000miles after that we rode into Tokyo. At 18 it was an amazing coming of age experience for Sam, but for me it was unexpectedly life-changing. Over those 9 months I had learned what was important in life, and it was not work. I had also finally come to terms with my own father's death. I felt reborn – a second chance. And all this was my son's doing. It had been his idea. My wife had encouraged me, and I'd done all the planning, and Colin had appeared at the last minute like a kind of miracle man, but without Sam it would never have happened. Bizarrely, at the end of the trip, it almost felt like he might have saved my life.

 Sam - Laos

 Sam with fellow cricketers - Cochin, India. He was their hero for a day.

 Iran was like a biblical landscape with 100miles between villages. We had to get water from truck drivers.

The return home - June 2009. Explorer's beard came off next day.

As a result of the cycle trip I had been encouraged by people I knew in the publishing and media industries to write a book about the experience. It was during the writing of that book, that I realised I owed it to other parents to share this experience with them – to encourage them not to allow work to enslave them. All too often I heard retired people and old people saying near the end of their lives that they wished they had spent more time with their children while they were young, rather than toiling away every day to provide for them. Kids, you will find, value one-to-one time with their parents far more than big houses, holidays, cars and money. An experience like the one I had with Sam is one Sam will always draw upon both in work and family situations. It will be a great story to tell his own children and grandchildren, long after I'm dead and gone. Sam says a gap year with a few mates bumming around Thailand, Vietnam or Australia would have been great but it would not have given him as much in the long term.

There is always a sticking point. I can see two.

1. Permission: Many of my friends asked me how I persuaded my wife to let me go. I didn't have to. My wife could see how valuable the trip would be for Sam as well as me and all of us as a family. I was lucky. Not all partners are as understanding, as selfless or have such foresight (although she did really enjoy the challenge of managing alone with my younger daughter during those 10 months). It must be seen as a joint effort. My wife was excited about the trip but would not have wanted to cycle 10,000miles. She played her part in the organisation and in providing support services.
Similarly, many employers would not take kindly to a request for 10months off by a valued member of staff. I was lucky enough to be self-employed. Except that this gave me more worry. Finding a replacement to run the business was very tough. However he turned out to be so bloody good that I have left him running the business ever since. How fortuitous is that eh?
Most of my clients were very supportive and I think they would have been just as supportive if I had been one of their own employees. It does no harm to ask.

2. Money: People also pointed out to me that I had the money. In 10months we spent £11,000. It sounds a lot, but I worked out that I spent far more when I was at home working as usual. And we needn't have spent that much. We stayed in B&Bs and hotels quite a lot when we could have camped more. I can honestly say that knowing what I know now, I would do it again with half that much.

So please, people, do not be one of those parents who gets to the end of his or her life saying, I wish I'd done more with my kids. Do something before it's too late.

Book is on Waterstones core list for non-fiction & a best seller on Amazon (cycling / travel)

More details in our book 'Long Road, Hard Lessons'. Available in Waterstones Bookshops all over the UK & Ireland and via Amazon worldwide. There are lots of colour photos and each chapter contains a section written by Sam (very humorous and most popular with readers).
Go to Amazon.com
Go to Amazon.co.uk
Go to Mark Swain on Smashwords

The Dunwich Dynamo

For Directions Always Ask Three People

When my son Sam and I were cycling from Ireland to Japan, there were a few occasions when we had to ask for directions. For various reasons, people sometimes send you the wrong way. Why?

1. You haven't made yourself understood (usually a linguistic problem).
2. They don't know, but don't want to feel stupid or don't want to let you down.
3. Even before you ask, they're sure of where you want to go. So they stick to it, blindly.
4. They think it's funny to send someone the wrong way.

From painful experience, we learned that the surest method of avoiding this problem, was to ask three separate people. That nearly always seemed to work.

The Dunwich Dynamo is an overnight cycle ride. It's a 'Turn Up & Go'. It requires no registration or collection of sponsorship money. People do it for the fun of it. At around 125miles, fun would not be the word used by most people. And it's 125miles if you don't go wrong. With minimal signposting (a candle in a jar at some key junctions) and no marshals, it's easy to miss turnings – especially if you don't have GPS (spits in disgust). Last year a bunch of about 20 of us went the wrong way after the half-way refreshment stop (in a village hall around 1am). For us our ride became hillier and extended to 145miles. I also ran out of water last year since after around 1am everything is closed and there are no water stops. I was dizzy and ready to collapse with dehydration 20miles from the finish and only made it by dogged refusal to get off the bike. The pint of Guinness I downed after I staggered through the door of the Ship Inn in Dunwich at 5.30am, was the best thing I ever drank. "Never again," I said as my wife arrived. But this year, there I was again – ready for more 'fun'.

Determined not to repeat the mistakes of last year, this year I had energy drink to sustain me and a plan to buy more water before the shops closed. I ate a good dinner with plenty of carbs at 7.30pm in Essex Road before heading down to the start area at London Fields in Hackney. Like last year the park was already packed with cyclists and a dense swarm surrounding The Pub on the Park. Slipping behind a car I removed my trousers and underpants before niftily getting into my cycling shorts – eating in a restaurant wearing lycra cycling shorts still rates somewhere below the plimsoll line for me. Getting naked behind a car in a busy Hackney street in broad daylight, however, is fine.

Outside The Pub On The Park before the start

At 9pm the diverse mass of cyclists began to move off. As the ad says, 'total gridlock'. The Kingsland High Road, running out through Lea before it hits the edge of Epping Forrest, is not a cycle friendly place at the best of times. At 9pm on a Saturday night, gangsters in pimped-up BMWs and Mercedes compete with peroxide blonde mothers in huge hoop earrings in a game of cyclist swatting. They're pissed off to be held up, but at the same time elated by the chance of verbally abusing and splatting so many cyclists in one place. "Like shooting ducks in a **kin' barrel," one said as she passed us.

Filtering out onto Hackney main roads - Bewildered drivers

Fortunately, this urban street hell doesn't last long at the speed most of us start at. Within half an hour you are in Essex countryside, passing Harvesters, Indian megga-restaurants and wayside inns now turned into pole dancing clubs. Gradually it gets quieter and darker until the streetlights disappear and you are in the world of old English villages, churches and small country pubs. Some cyclist begin to peel off for early refreshment at this point. Others plough on, head down until they are nearing the Suffolk borders in the early hours. I waited until around 11.30pm and stopped at The Bell. A lovely old pub in the small town / large village of Bardfield. Here, to my delight, I found they were serving free tea and coffee with Mars Bars. This explained the popularity. Inside at the bar, a lady at the head of a long queue filled water bottles. I chatted to a fellow cyclist outside for 20mins and got back on the bike. I'd already covered 49miles in 2.5hrs. Not too bad.

The Bell at Bardfield - Free Tea & Coffee

After you get into Suffolk it becomes very dark. Villages are more spaced out and there are no street lights. Now I found myself sticking with groups of cyclists with crazy headlights and separate battery packs. Without them you often find yourself hurtling at a sharp bend in pitch black and suddenly losing vision as the road turns but your light is still shining straight on. Later I discovered the benefit of putting on my head-torch so I could look around the corners. Even at 20mph, hitting a tree can be somewhat painful! This kind of riding continues for a very long way. All the way through Suffolk in fact until daylight begins to break. At around 80miles there start to be a few painful hills. Don't let anyone tell you Suffolk is flat. It's not the Alps but it still hurts. By around 2am you get the first indications of needing to re-stoke the boiler. Last year I didn't eat enough and this had compounded my dehydration problem. You don't want to suddenly run out of energy 20miles from the end. At around 2:30 I stopped and ate my packed dinner/breakfast. Peanut butter and cheese sandwiches with some cherry tomatoes and dried figs. Delicious. When I got back on half an hour later I felt pretty good. I had learned my lesson, I told myself.

By the time it got light, most of us were cursing the weather reporters. It was not dry and clear. There was now a wet mist that seemed to drench you without it actually being visible. But it was not cold. My route plan, however, was in my back pocket and I could feel it was papier-mache. Not a problem, I knew the way and there were loads of people in possession of GPS who I could follow. I passed the 100mile mark still feeling good. At 110 my wife texted me to say she would be at the finish area by the beach at 6am. It was 4.30am, so I had plenty of time. Soon after I saw a tea stop and pulled in. No point arriving early, I told myself. I asked how much further.
"Twelve miles," said the man behind the tea counter. I took my tea, filled my bottle from a hose and lay down for a well earned rest on the wet grass. I was almost there.

Last tea stop - 22 miles from the end (not 12)

At  5am I set off to complete the final 12miles. It seemed a tiny amount now. I stepped up my pace, racing past other groups of cyclists. After about 10 miles I asked a guy with a GPS how much further.
"Ten miles," he said, looking down at his screen.
It seemed impossible, yet I knew how these things worked. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me now, I reminded myself. It easily happens after such exertion and no sleep. I speeded up, feeling my legs burning and a sick feeling in my gut. But I'd be there soon.

Ten miles later there was still no sign of Dunwich. Stupidly I had raced ahead of the group with the guy who had a GPS. I looked back. They were nowhere to be seen. I had to face the fact that I'd missed the turning. Just about to turn around though, I saw two other cyclists arriving from another road. They were heading for Dunwich, they said, but had got lost. We headed back towards the way I'd come but met two other cyclists speeding along. One had a GPS.
"Is this the road for Dunwich?" I asked.
"Yes, follow us," said the guy at the front.
The three of us raced after them and managed to catch up.
"How far is it to Dunwich?" I asked.
"About twenty miles, he replied." He had a strange accent. He almost sounded a little drunk.
"Twenty miles! I choked. I was told 6 miles back that it was 3 miles!"
"Twenty miles," he repeated, pointing at his GPS.
I was going mad, I told myself.

After a further ten miles I felt sick and exhausted. Surely we must nearly be there now, I asked him as we approached a junction. He stopped and suggested I cycled back to London with them. The other two guys seemed to have got left behind.
"I can't, I laughed, my wife's waiting for me in Dunwich."
"It's about another ten miles," he said. Still speaking like he might be drunk.
Then, all of a sudden, through blurred exhausted eyes, I noticed something. A transparent plastic earpiece inside his ear. That explained his speech. He was hearing impaired. We cycled off together, with me trying to get my brain to work enough to work out what this all added up to. I was ready to keel over into the ditch, I was so tired.
"Sorry," I said, "I just have to have a break."
I watched the two of them cycle onto a roundabout and along a dual carriageway. I was sure there was no dual carriageway last year. It was definitely wrong. Then I saw another group of cyclists. I waved and shouted, then spent my last ounce of energy to catch them up.
"Mate, is this the road for Dunwich?" I called breathlessly.
"Dunwich? the back-marker said, open mouthed, "that's thirty miles back the way you've just come!"
I pulled over and stopped. They did the same. They could see the look of bewilderment on my face. How could this have happened, when I was only 3 miles away?
"Mate, this is Ipswich!" one said. "You'd be better off getting the train back to London from here."
"Wife's waiting in Dunwich," I murmured, turning my bike around.
I looked down. 139 miles, my cycle computer said. I got out my phone.
"Is there a hotel or a cafe there?" said my wife.
I told her there was a sign for a big country hotel called Scatfield Hall.
"Go there and order breakfast," she said. I'll be there in an hour.
Lycra was not the dress for breakfast in this hotel. A cravat might not have gone amiss. I piled energy-giving food onto my plate and slipped a croissant into my backpack to pacify my wife when she arrived.
Later I completed the last three or four miles and we had dinner in The Ship Inn, in Dunwich. The car-park was deserted. I still couldn't believe what had happened.
"But I asked three separate people!" I kept saying.
It didn't feel like my fault (which of course it was). But how can you be cross with a deaf man for not hearing you?
Next year I'll get it right.

A deserted Dunwich beach car park. They don't call it 'The Lost City of Dunwich for nothing you know!

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Cycle Travellers See So Much More

Slower But Deeper

I remember back in the 70's people used to say that the best way to travel and really experience a country was overland. Overland meant taking buses and trains, buying a VW van and putting a mattress in the back, sometimes even hitch-hiking. I did a great deal of this in the 70's and 80's and certainly found it to be true. You got to meet real people and to get some idea of what it was like to be a local, living there. You also got to travel at a relaxed pace; giving yourself time to absorb your experiences, meet people and also to adjust to changes as you moved on. But by the turn of the century (hah, I sound like old father time!), I had taken up long-distance cycling as a means of travel.

Hippy Travellers - Courtesy of Flickr

Once you travel through a country by bicycle, you realise how much you miss when you travel by the usual 'overland' means. Buses and trains allow you to meet local people, but more often than not, backpackers use them to get between two major towns – either that or to a beach resort, temple or other place that draws travellers (and tourists). There are plenty of places out in the sticks that buses and trains don't go to. You could take a taxi, but how many do? And this is the reason for what I have come to call 'Lonely Planet Syndrome'.

Sam as we pass through rural North Vietnam (one of the better roads)

Lonely Planet Guides are fantastic. They have been around since the early 70's. I think they started out as something produced by amateurs on a hand operated bandalith copier (or similar). I actually had one. It was called 'Overland to India and Beyond' or something like that. It had a tatty pink cover and was available from BIT information office in London. It was bought by hippies like me (then) wanting to doss their way across the world in flipflops, shorts and t-shirts with very little cash, smoking dope, living in caves and meeting other beautiful people. It was a great time. The book was hard to obtain and got out of date quickly but it told you stuff that Fodor and Letts guides (All the important tourist locations along with useful phrases to use in your hotel etc) didn't. It told you about places young people wanted to go and things they wanted to know.

My copy was more pink than red. It eventually disintegrated.

Of course over time, Lonely Planet Guides have become more like the old fogeys guides they replaced. No longer do they tell you where you can score great dope! Like modern day music festivals, they have become sanitised and are aimed at a more establishment crowd (wipes away a tear). Now they say of places 'Nothing to see here,' just because a town has no 'attractions' for tourists. They ignore the possibility that interest can be found just in the local people and their simple way of life. Hence, young gap-year back-packers along with many others, follow the guides travelling to the same towns, the same back-packer attractions and the same 'home-food' cafes. I have long stopped caring. It keeps the hoards from spoiling the real life of the country by staying on that well beaten track.

But how to get to those out of the way places if you want to? Bus routes are often there to supply the demands of these happy bands Lonely Planet naives. This is where the bicycle comes into its own. It will take you anywhere (almost). My son Sam and I even climbed a mountain in Tamil Nadu (Mount Adai Mudi), carrying our bikes, passing through tiny mountain hamlets with little wooden houses on stilts. People at both ends of that trek told us that few people in the villages below had ever climbed over that mountain let alone foreigners. It is a tough, two day experience burned into our memories.

 A tiny hamlet at the foot of Mt Adai Mudi. Adimali Reserve, Kerala, India.

Nearing the summit of Mt Adai Mudi, carrying our bikes.

That 10,000mile cycle trip from Ireland to Japan took us through numerous countries. It was of course incredible getting out into the backwoods of countries like India, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. But one needn't go so far to experience the surprises of a different world beyond the well beaten paths. We had similar experiences in Romania, Bulgaria and even Germany. It taught me to keep an open mind about what may lie just beyond the routes most people take. Indeed, since returning from that trip, this has become even more clear to me. Over the four years since our return to England, I have made many shorter cycle trips and many of those on my own doorstep. I am regularly surprised by what I find cycling through the backwoods of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Devon. Even my local county of Kent holds many hidden treats. A bicycle takes you everywhere, and at a pace that puts you in touch with everything and everyone. It immerses you. You can hardly avoid it. And let's not forget, that you can do all of this very cheaply, avoiding jams and without causing harm to the environment. No wonder bicycle use is increasing so rapidly!

My cycling friend Martin Ashton struggles against wind somewhere in wilds of Yorkshire

If you would like to read the bestselling travel book 'Long Road, Hard Lessons' by Mark Swain, you can find this, his two collections of short stories and other books on Amazon, Smashwords etc.

Mark Swain on Amazon.com

Mark Swain on Amazon UK

Mark Swain on Smashwords