13th November
The day always starts the same. The alarm rings at 6am and I get up to go to the toilet because I’ve been drinking so many fluids to hydrate. I go back to bed and put the phone on snooze. I dream but never sure what about but it’s cosy and warm and there are no trucks in it or obnoxious fumes being intravenously dripped into my veins. That happens later. 12 minutes precisely the snooze gives out and I get up. I do not jump up into my brand new day but instead regard waking as being its lowest point. I like sleeping, basically lazy and happiness along with all the crap I have to breathe also comes later. For me, sublime enchantment happens late afternoon and total excitement when I am in my room reminding myself that having survived the traffic, the cows on the road I am having an enlightened day. It does sound weird to say this.
Cattle Train on the Move
Next I pack my stuff. Plugs and wires. USB to USB-c, USB to iPhone, to micro USB. A pair of socks, 2 inner tubes, a spare Go Pro, front light. I wrap up my only clothing - shorts, Yamaha tee-shirt and flip flops, load my bike and ride and before long overtake 200 cows being led by the cow-keeper waving his stick. Where else in the world would you see this?
A Bit of Information
In Hinduism, the cow is considered a sacred animal and symbolizes wealth, strength, and motherly love. It is believed to be the earthly representative of the divine and nourishing Mother Goddess, who represents fertility and bountifulness. Their milk is believed to have a purifying effect on human bodies.
Family Homestead beside National Highway 3
Having spotted something, in this cows from a homestead disappearing into a field, sometimes I get led away from the main highway to go and have a look. Wonderful though India's temples and palaces are, for me and being 'on the road' I'm focusing on life eitherside of where I'm riding. It's all there, you just have to look. I've found that the camera phone is so ubiquitous, that everyone uses it and so the experiment between photographer and subject is no longer an alien concept and it's made it easier to get closer to people's lives that was more difficult before.
Map of the Day
Scene from Where I Stopped
I stopped in a small town, very rural, seemed quite poor and instead of showing the scruffiness I saw something much nicer as a motorbike with 3 people on it turned up to ring the bell and pray, as is the way with side of the road Hindu deities.
Beautiful filming such colours