Jan. 12 : Calicut, India - crash

Thursday, January 12 :: Calicut, India :: 120km today / 2445km total

Lets play a game. Its called Which Type Of Road Hazard Left Graham Scraped and Bleeding on the Road Today. Here are your options, the 5 most dangerous hazards on India's roads:

a) bus
b) truck
c) bicycle
d) pedestrian
e) tourist/pilgrim minibus

Have you picked your answer? Good, here we go.

I woke tired, very tired. I've only had one day off the bike since leaving Bombay, and its really starting to show in all sorts of aches, pains, and general fatigue. I set a destination of Calicut, 110km away, and a probable full day off tomorrow. It took 15km to wake the legs up, and even then I was struggling.

-> Buses and trucks tend to hang out in the centre of the road (since they own it). Although they pose a tremendous hazard to each other, it is rare that they hang out at the paved margin, where I do all my riding, so an encounter with them isn't that likely. Also, they are loud on the horn and rumble along quite noisily, so I always know where they are. No, it wasn't a) or b).

My first wrong turn of the trip added 10km and many steep hills to my ride, and I cursed my foolishness. Already tired, this was not what I needed. But the ever-helpful Indians guided me back to the main highway, now 60km out of Calicut. It was hot, I was tired, but the road was immaculately smooth and quite flat, so with renewed energy and optimism I pushed forward.

-> Pilgrims drive with complete reckless abandon, and are a real danger. I'm guessing that its either that they feel extra-blessed and protected while on their pilgrimage, or they are partaking of sensory-enhancers to liven the pilgrimming mood. Tourist mini-buses, very similar, are driven madly by Indians who know a good tip awaits a fast delivery to/from the airport. Outside of Goa tourist minibuses are fairly non-existent. But no, it wasn't a minibus that did me in today.

20km from Calicut it happened. I was hammering along a flat, down on the aerobars, taking a corner. At the same time an Indian cyclist took the same corner. The problem was, he was on the wrong side of the road - my side - riding against the traffic. What was he thinking - suppose I had been a motorcycle or tuk-tuk? Neither of us had much time to react, basically, the options were Swerve Left or Swerve Right. I went Right, he went Left - which meant we both went the wrong way (consider direction of travel). SMACK. If you remember your High School Physics and know that I had about 50lbs, 15km/h, and a few inches height on him you'll know how things ended up - me and my bike on top of him and his bike. First thought: GET OFF THE ROAD. Second thought: CHECK THE WHEELS. A very tense, slow, 5 seconds... my wheels are unreplacable in India. Amazingly the rims were not bent. The bike was still ridable.

Now I turned my attention to him. I'm not really prone to anger or outbursts, as you probably know, but 2400km of dealing with psycho, idiotic drivers came out of me in one shot at him. I didn't touch him, but a physical beating would probably have left shallower scars than the browbeating and screaming that he took, in both English and Hindi (or maybe he'll just laugh the whole thing off later). He was young, so I knew he understood the simple, emphatic English that came out of me. He acknowledged fault, whimpered Sorry over and over again, but it just wasn't good enough. Eventually he rolled off, escaping from my rage, seemingly unhurt.

As I straightened the handlebars I noticed blood dripping off me onto the road. Fucking great. Turning attention to myself for the first time I realized that two of my left fingers were bleeding heavily enough to more-or-less cover my hand in blood, and my left elbow was scraped up. I walked over to the nearest house and politely asked if I could use their water tap. They were more than happy to help and I had to softly refuse all sorts of amenities. I did a quick wash/Polysporin/band-aid job and rolled off slowly towards Calicut, steering now with one-and-a-half hands.

Unbelievably, no more than 500 metres later two women darted out onto the road, oblivious to traffic coming in either direction. I was one of the eithers, and brushed heavily against one woman, but I did not go down. What the Hell, was this National Knock The White Guy Off His Bike Day? Am I taking crazy pills? I pinched myself to see if I was awake, recounted that I haven't had any alcohol, dizzy spells, heatstroke, etc. today. My only two contacts with traffic in India, within 1km of each other. How is this possible? I had to stop for a drink of lime water, just to re-boot and try to dispel whatever karmic nightmare I'd gotten myself into. The ever-friendly Indians asked me the usual "How are you?" to which I had to respond, bloody and scraped and incredulous at the past 20 minutes, "I'm doing shitty, how are you?" When learning English in Grade School this is not the response they are taught to expect, so they kind of wandered off without answering, perplexed.

In Calicut I did a more thorough cleaning and splinted the badly cut middle finger - its cut at the knuckle, so the finger needs to be kept straight for the skin to heal properly. Stitches would probably be overkill - only 3-4 would be required, and I've handled cuts like this before. It'll be fine in a few days. Needless to say, I won't be riding ANYWHERE tomorrow.