Making breakfast and dinner

From 3 February 2020, I will be taking on the epic challenge of cycling 4,500km across the entire length of India. Starting on the very southernmost tip in the city of Kanyakumari, I will end up 45 days later in Kashmir, almost in the foothills of the Himalayas! 

My goal is to raise $450,000 for the Loomba Foundation. Each cent I raise will help to empower widows in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.  

Day 4 From Madurai to Trichy – 400 km completed (4,100 km left)

Another day completed. The day was hot, very hot. It is well into the 30s centigrade so I’m sweating a lot but I’m keeping well hydrated with lots of electrolytes.

Making dosas for breakfast

Breakfast was fun because the owner of the restaurant allowed me to make some dosa, plain dosa. There was a big pot of it next to the wood burning stove and its rice paste which had been ground. The paste is then poured into the hot plate and the cup is used to make the circle. Frankly, mine was a bit of a disaster compared with his beautiful ones. Funnily enough we had to eat mine and he served it to Sachin. Sachin kindly ate it and we had to pay for it too.

The rural lanes were a bit too rural!

We went down some back lanes a few times today which was nice to get away from the monotony of the big highway lanes. There are rural roads and there are rural roads! The roads I took were a dirt track with rocks so it was a bit of a challenge to cycle on. I suggested to Sachin that we don’t go down such rugged roads.

Lunchtime naps

People are sometimes a little suspicious when we explain what I’m doing. When I ask them for a place to sleep after lunch they wonder what we’re up to and whether we have inappropriate thoughts. So they are a bit suspicious until they understand what we’re doing. We didn’t have a room today but I was able to sleep under some trees on a day bed.

Did you hear my screams?

My bottom is pretty much the same but the good news is that I’m using the drop handlebars on my road bicycle which is moving me a millimetre or more forward. This is taking a bit of pressure off my left butt cheek which is definitely helping. So I’m in less agony today. Sachin is working on my upper body as I’m not used to being over hunched so much when using the drop handlebars.

Sachin thought it would be a good idea to get the dressing and tape off my bottom sooner rather than later. Rather than waiting to get my Oyo Hotel room Sachin said he would rip it off. Frankly I’m surprised people couldn’t hear me in London, Singapore or even elsewhere. As my boys know I’m not very good with pain and I was screaming and screaming as the hairs were being ripped out of my bottom.

Sachin and Abdul to the rescue

We went out to eat before going to the hotel. We were waiting to eat so long Sachin got frustrated so he started cooking. He is making chapatis and Abdul is cooking them. The 2 guys from the establishment were doing something else.

Will I survive Sachin’s regime?

To my surprise and more to my horror Sachin has decided that I not only need to stretch in the morning but I also need to do 15 minutes of hard exercise. So planks, press ups, squat thrusts, lunges, sprints, etc. He wants to strengthen me and my core for the cycling. He wants to me think that cycling is just part of the exercise in the day. I was about to get in the mug and bucket shower and he has messaged me asking if I can do some exercise. So I’ve agreed to do it and I will definitely be quite fit by the time I get back to London, assuming I survive his regime.

Median nerve entrapment

I made an error saying in a previous blog that the physio sessions weren’t as painful as last time in 2015 as I spoke too soon. I have been in a lot of pain with some of the stretches and nerve exercises. The median nerve in particular which runs from the neck all the way through underneath the shoulder, through the armpit down the arm into the fingers. The fingers in my right hand are getting quite numb from the pressure of my hands on the handlebars. So he is doing some pretty extreme stretches trying to release the pressure and that’s not a pretty sight.

I love you Deb 💘

A special mention to my wife Deb. Not only is she putting up with the fact that I’m not there to help she has also broken her wrist on her right hand. She is right handed so she is coping with one hand. My son Ed who joined me for the last 4 marathons in 2015 has managed to dislocate his thumb playing rugby and he’s also right handed so he can’t use his right hand very much. Debs is supporting him but she’s had some very bad news as a close friend has passed away. Love to you Deb.

Atul’s day trip to the temple 🙏

Atul wasn’t with us today as he left at 6 in the morning to visit a temple and let me explain the significance of this trip. As a Hindu he wants to visit the Char Dham which is a set of 4 pilgrimage sites in India as its considered good fortune if achieved during a person’s lifetime. With the visit to Rameswaram temple he has now visited 2 sites. He has already visited Puri and the other two sites are Dwaraka and Badrinath. Rameswaram is situated on the south eastern coast of India in Tamil Nadu and is the nearest point to Sri Lanka.

Atul said a prayer in the sea and also entered the temple to pray. He told me that he prayed to God so I could successfully complete the journey without any issues. He also asked for good health and prosperity for everyone including his family. Thank you very much Atul.

Yesterday’s loop

Yesterday ‘s loop was to do with the accommodation that Oyo Rooms is kindly providing me with. They wanted to make sure I got a good hotel and it just made sense for me to go back to Madurai rather than going further on and not being somewhere adequate. Today we were able to catch up on our route through a combination of taking a slightly more direct route to my next accommodation and travelling in the car for a bit after I completed my 100 km. We have made sure that I am still cycling the whole length of India and the route in total is 4,500 km. I will definitely cycle 4,500 km even if it involves a few loops.

I hope I answered your question Helen and if anyone has any questions please ask in the comments and I’ll do my best to provide an answer.

Thank you Jose and Kritika

A big shout out to Jose for being a star and making sense of the stuff that we send through for the blog. I just send a few notes via Whatsapp through voice messages and Jose does a super job of making sense of it all and pulling together photos to make it all hang together well. I also want to thank Kritika Venugopal who is one of our star associates working in our Singapore office. She is very kindly managing the Cycling for Widows Instagram account. She has been diligently posting material which has got some traction. Thank you Kritika, I really appreciate it.

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Thanks and I will update you tomorrow.

Chris

PS Thank you tpmo, jlimo, Mark, Damien, Paula Hodges, David, Ben W, Helen Munn & Prutha vyas for all your comments yesterday. Keep them coming please.

Why I’m cycling across India 

Unfortunately, many widows in India are very badly treated when they lose their husbands. As well as facing verbal and physical abuse, rape and the threat of being evicted from their homes, they often have no income whatsoever after their husband dies. 

This is where the Loomba Foundation comes in. Through their empowerment programmes, the charity provides skills training and other support to help widows become self-sufficient so that they can support themselves and their families. 

I’d like to ask for your support I am already more than half way towards raising $450,000 – I’d love it if you could help me smash my target. Your support would mean the world to me and would help to change the lives of thousands of widows and their families. 

If you are in India, you can make a donation here: 

Ketto (India)

If you are in the UK or elsewhere in the world, you can make a donation here: 

JustGiving 

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