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Tour de World: English biker Andrew Welch under the Parel bridge on a Saturday evening. Pic/Bhairavi Jhaveri |
For someone who has used maps, a compass, GPS and his personal sense of direction to bike his way from Stoke Albany in England to East Europe, Iran, Pakistan and India, it would be a breeze to find his way to High Street Phoenix from ITC Grand Central hotel at Parel. Or so you'd think. After an hour-long wait, when I was just about to call it a day, Andrew showed up. "I got typical 'Indian' directions," he said, without being amused.
He has been on the road since June 7, 2007, and I presumed that with his kind of exposure to cultures, people and eccentricities, came a sense of "being okay" with the incomprehensible. A web/graphic designer by profession, Andrew quit his desk job to fulfil his more outdoorsy passion of biking.
As he sipped his Latte, and denied a sandwich in order to stock up on a wholesome Indian meal later on, Andrew told me how he weathered sandstorms in Iran and tucked under frail sleeping bags in biting-cold Turkey.
An expedition to save the world found him love
But it was never just on a whim that Andrew and his best friend Tom Allen decided to take off. A student of Environment Economics in college, 26 year-old Andrew deployed a strict policy: No use of airways. So the duo took a boat into Holland from England, and occasionally used the bus or transit vans to move about to various other destinations. "Travelling with minimum possessions was another way to curb our carbon footprint on the planet," Andrew explained. "We sold most of our stuff on Ebay; our trailers consisted of the minimal: A stove, water filter, still and video camera, sleeping bag, tent, clothes for varied weathers, and a few shirts."
The WWF has taken interest in the duo's journey and so has UK-based film company, Stringfilms.com, which has acquired the year-long footage recorded on a hundred dozen tapes, under the working title of the film, Ride Earth. "Filming my emotions was a great way to vent when I was alone. On days I cried, other times I was elated. Being alone brings all kinds of emotions to the surface," Andrew says.
In Georgia, Andrew met his present girlfriend, who he left briefly to return to England in order to apply for his Pakistan visa. He spent 7 months in Georgia thereafter, before getting back to his journey. "Every time I was on the road, I thought to myself why I was doing this. Why was I constantly on the move, depriving myself from being around those I loved," he wondered out loud. But experiences like teaching English to Georgian teenagers, living with meditation gurus in temples in India, escaping the Georgia-Russia war, interacting with military escorts who guarded him during half his stay in Pakistan, and living with natives everywhere had made him what he is today.
The Indian experience is like a macrocosm of the eating experience
On his blog, Andrew drools over a meal he was served at a mess in Bikaner, Rajasthan âÃÂàa bowl of spicy creamy soup, chapati, a dish with freshly cut radish, lime, and raw onions, salt, a bowl of mango chutney, a glass of whisky, a glass of douk (yoghurt drink). Smooth, spicy, pungent, hot, aromatic, rough, tangy, nutty, creamy, he writes. "The people, their needs and emotions are the same everywhere, only systems are different.
But, the food in India is like no other," gushes Andrew.
Last month, Andrew rode from across the India-Pak border (where he was lucky enough to catch the border ceremony), into Punjab. He continued to travel south from Amritsar and Bhatenda. After attending a Rajput wedding in Surat, some more "delicious" customs and extraordinary forts and temples awaited him at Bikaner and Jodhpur. "But in Mumbai, I can somehow see myself working, living," he says, concluding with a succinct, "I like this place."
Find out what else Andrew is up to in India, on his blog
http://www.andy.ride-earth.org.uk/
Check out Andrew's around-the-world journey captured on
stills on www.flickr.com/photos/ride-earth
