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Resting in Kanpur we realised how much our mental, emotional, and physical stamina had drained away. In addition Nic developed a middle ear infection, which resulted in him being deaf in one ear – I said DEAF. Alas it meant we could not cycle until he was better.
6 days later, there was no sign of improvement. We spent our days reading books and finding solace in the bottom of our coffee cups and chocolate cakes (having found, amazingly, a decent coffee shop!).
We were both getting rather depressed at the thought of another 1000kms to Calcutta through what is regarded as the poorest and the most corrupt region of India (the state of Bihar specifically), and under the cycling and living conditions we have encountered, and the very real threat of being hijacked by bandits (dacoits). Each day in the paper we were reading news of banditry, traffic accidents and killings (mostly of the burning alive category) in Bihar which made very depressing reading… A dozen in the last week alone!
We finally decided that we would have to get back on the road one way or the other – normally we would encourage/motivate/force (!) each other to get back on the road if one of us was struggling… alas this time we had both run out of steam! With Nic’s ear showing no sign of improvement we resigned ourselves to the fact that we could not cycle further in India. We booked ourselves train tickets to Kolkatta, where we could have a long rest with our friend Tat’s family to recharge our batteries and prepare for the next stage: Thailand.
Little did we know that our luck was to get worse…
