For a little while now I have been planning to write a blog called “Is It Safe”? Today is the right day for it. I started Tour d’Afrique with Mike de Jong nine years ago and ever since than I have been asked repeatedly if it is safe to bike across Africa, South America, Asia and now India.
There is someone I know well who thought what I do is precarious and was worried that I would unduly influence her kids. She went to a dinner party at her best friend’s house, fell and broke her shoulder. She needed a complicated operation and spent months in rehabilitation. Is going to dinner at a friend's house safe? My sister told me this morning about a mutual friend who was replacing a light bulb at home last week, fell and broke some bones. Is it safe to replace your own light bulbs?
Every year over 40,000 Americans (over 4,000 Canadians) die in car accidents and three times that many have serious injuries that change their lives forever. Is getting into a car safe?
Is building nuclear reactors in Japan or California or Iran safe? I was trained as an engineer so I look at this question with a bit of scientific perspective. Do we really pay attention to what is safe or are we really just interested in satisfying our own psychological fears? And who really is a master statistician who analyzes every aspect of their life and than decides?
Over the years whenever the question is posed I respond that yes indeed, in relative terms, bicycling the world is safe and that the most likely danger, just as at home, is the motorized vehicle. After all it kills about 1.5 million people around the world every year. I tell people not to worry about bandits, diseases, wild animals.
So today I will write for all of those who are worried about the bandits, the wild animals, the foreign cultures and hospitals. Our company has had one hell of a week. First, four armed bandits attacked six riders on the tour in Kenya. Fortunately no one was hurt and no one left the tour.
Then on Friday morning, after spending a night at a wonderful lodge 120 km from Mysore, I was the last person leaving the area. About 5 km after I left the lodge, I was cycling uphill in a beautiful area, not a national park or any other nature reserve, when I and another cyclist about 25 meters ahead of me spotted an elephant with a couple of teenage elephants crossing the road. As magical a moment as they come. I kept on cycling. A car came by and honked, I'm not sure whether at me or at the elephants. Than a few seconds later to my left I saw the elephant, who, when she spotted me, immediately started charging.
I will not describe the next 40 to 60 seconds. I will leave that for another occasion. I will tell you that I am writing this from a hospital in Mysore. I will also tell you that if not for my helmet and some extraordinary good fortune, protection from angels, from cycling gods or other wonderful deities that they have here in India, or perhaps the one almighty from my religious tradition, or all of the above, I would not be writing this to you - using one hand only.
So is it safe? Is traveling to the US which has thousands of armed robberies per year, safe? Statistically the answer is "in relation to what ?". And what are the benefits versus the risks? But when you have a mother elephant cracking your helmet with your head still in it, is cycling in India safe?
At the foundation of our lives we have to make our own decisions and take responsibilities for them. Is cycling safe? Absolutely not because others people who are probably good parents and even good citizens - drivers, city officials, politicians, even other cyclists make it unsafe. Can random and not so random incidents happen? Absolutely! Will I continue cycling? Barring a delayed psychological trauma from having an elephant mother tap dance on top of me, I certainly will. Will I now wear a helmet every time I plan to ride? I sure hope so.
The doctor just walked in. He has looked at the variety of my wounds and as my mom likes to say ‘so far so good’. He is releasing me from the hospital. I will mend. I am mending already. The ugly bruise on my face is beginning to disappear. The arm broken in four pieces is in a cast. The cracked ribs and my lower back will heal naturally especially if I can find a position to sleep. The various bruises and scrapes are minor and receding already. Soon I will not be stared at.
One more thing, if like me, you ever need a medical professional while you are in a foreign land, I hope you have the good fortune to find people like Dr. Shree Harsha and others at the Apollo BGS hospital in Mysore. I could not have asked for a more competent and better team.
My deepest thanks to all of my staff who had a long week but were true professionals all the way. And my apologies to Shanny, the Indian Adventure Tour Leader, for having to listen to my bad jokes for two hours on the way to the hospital. It was either that or passing out.
All our tours or rather expeditions are about experiencing new lands and cultures, pushing one’s limits, getting out from our own defined world. But once in a while something else happens that transforms us into another reality and touches us in a way which we did not expect. Today in Mumbai was such a day, at least for me. We are in Mumbai for 36 or 38 hours and for those of us who are here for the first time, this time limit is simply a tease. With such a time limit, what is one to do? This is one hell of mega city, filled up with old and new architecture, art, culture, cuisine, street life and 18 million stories. Today some of us touched at least 42 of those stories.
Our company has a Foundation that in a small scale tries to do something good, something small in countries through which we travel. On the Indian Adventure we have one remarkable young woman, Morgan, who had a spine injury several years ago, and now is riding with us, to raise awareness, for an adventure, for a challenge and probably many other reasons. Before the tour started Morgan made contact with a small Canadian charity called
The Dirty Wall Project that has undertaken to create a space for a playground, an area for community celebrations in one of Mumbai's slums.
At some point Morgan decided to donate two hand cycles for a couple of handicapped individuals in the community. These hand cycles have the potential to transform individual lives. It gives them the ability to move, to expand their horizons, to improve their quality of their lives. Our Foundation decided that this was a good idea and we added another 40 hand cycles.
With the limitation of time, and the distance to travel, I was not keen to spend several hours to see 42 cycles donated. But sometimes just watching a simple ceremony in one the most famous slums in the world has more of an impact than seeing the most beautiful building in Mumbai. To see the smiles of little children as we make our way through the slum, to see two teams of uniformed cricket players playing on a field that was a garbage dump not too long ago, to see 42 individuals eager to put their hands on a new bicycle was more stimulating and rewarding than any other way I could have spent my time in this city.
And though I started this blog stating that our Foundation has today touched the lives of 42 individuals, the more honest truth is that today 42 individuals have touched my life.
It all started long time ago with a thought. What if we started the Tour d’Afrique, Cairo to Cape Town, at one of the wonders of the world, the Pyramids? It was just a thought, as I never expected it to happen. I did not expect that a small group of cyclists would be able to finagle a permit to stand with their bikes in front of the pyramids with the Sphinx, who must have seen a lot of things in his thousands of years watch, but 30 odd crazy cyclists starting their long journey down a continent was to be a first for him. But permission we got, and as often happens in life, when you get lucky, you start thinking "what is next?"
Well, next was a group picture for the inaugural Orient Express - a picture in front of the Eiffel tower. That turned out to be easy as there was no permit required. Next in line was the inaugural Silk Route Expedition. We stood on the shore of the Bosporus with Hagia Sofia shining in the early morning, but here again that was simple as no permit was required. More difficult, we were told, impossible to do, in fact, would be the final picture of that expedition on the main road in Tiananmen Square with Mao looking on. We were told several times that this was a no-no. No traffic is ever stopped for any reasons. But after a four month journey filled up with unbelievable challenges, we were not to be pushed aside easily and for an hour we posed and took pictures with Mao blinking in approval.
Our company's next big epic was from Rio to Quito. There were two iconic images that we discussed for the start of the tour - the Copa Cabana beach or Christ the Redeemer. Copa Cabana won simply because our hotel was there.
So this morning we were full of confidence that we would be standing with a bike or two in front of the most magnificent building in the world, the Taj Mahal. But all good things must come to an end and, in spite of all our efforts, the Indian bureaucracy won. Not only we were not allowed to take even one bike into the compound, we were not even allowed to take our helmets in. So there we stood for a group picture, with the first rays hitting the Taj Mahal, without the bikes or the helmets. But though we may have been defeated, one of our riders was not. Morgan managed what the rest of us did not and if you look at the group picture you will see Morgan sitting in her brand new hand-cycle.
And after the picture taking we were off through the chaotic traffic of Agra to a cozy hotel in Bhaaratpur were I now sit composing this email and sipping on an glass of beer while every one is sitting around the bonfire.
