Mar. 4 - Lucknow, India
Saturday, March 4 :: Lucknow, India :: 90km today / 5730km total
A very late morning start, I really wasn't interested in riding after yesterday's poor showing. But Sitapur had nothing to hold me there for a day, so I left. It was, after all, less than 100km to Lucknow down a dead flat road.
The ride was thankfully uneventful, other than the usual nonsense which is par for the course for cycling in India. Even after my massive meals last night I still felt weak, but the road offered no challenges (other than the 85km of it) and I spun my way relatively easily into Lucknow. Lucknow is a surprisingly clean city with a nice downtown... but strangely quiet? Much of Lucknow turned out to be closed today - there was some rioting in town yesterday (which left 4 dead any many wounded) related to either Bush's trip to India, or the Indian President's appearance here in Lucknow, or both. This type of thing seems to be cursing me this trip... unexpected political events causing hiccups for me. This Internet cafe was the 4th I checked, the only one open, with only 1 computer terminal! The first few hotels I came across were "full" and turned me away... I'm not sure if I believed them or not, Lucknow is quite heavily hoteled and this is not the high season... I think that with the anti-Bush rioting yesterday some hotel owners were leery of having a Western guest.
The tomb/mosque/labyrinth that I had come to see was closed, along with almost everything else, so I will try to see it tomorrow morning. Its about 275km to Varanasi, and if I ride it all the way (which seems likely at this point), my final trip total will be a nice round number! No, I did not plan it this way.
A very late morning start, I really wasn't interested in riding after yesterday's poor showing. But Sitapur had nothing to hold me there for a day, so I left. It was, after all, less than 100km to Lucknow down a dead flat road.
The ride was thankfully uneventful, other than the usual nonsense which is par for the course for cycling in India. Even after my massive meals last night I still felt weak, but the road offered no challenges (other than the 85km of it) and I spun my way relatively easily into Lucknow. Lucknow is a surprisingly clean city with a nice downtown... but strangely quiet? Much of Lucknow turned out to be closed today - there was some rioting in town yesterday (which left 4 dead any many wounded) related to either Bush's trip to India, or the Indian President's appearance here in Lucknow, or both. This type of thing seems to be cursing me this trip... unexpected political events causing hiccups for me. This Internet cafe was the 4th I checked, the only one open, with only 1 computer terminal! The first few hotels I came across were "full" and turned me away... I'm not sure if I believed them or not, Lucknow is quite heavily hoteled and this is not the high season... I think that with the anti-Bush rioting yesterday some hotel owners were leery of having a Western guest.
The tomb/mosque/labyrinth that I had come to see was closed, along with almost everything else, so I will try to see it tomorrow morning. Its about 275km to Varanasi, and if I ride it all the way (which seems likely at this point), my final trip total will be a nice round number! No, I did not plan it this way.
posted by Graham Durrant at 4:25 AM
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