Day 3 : the best day yet!

The night before i was super tired and had a pretty good sleep at the Ideal hotel. I think this is my fave hotel so far. We discovered that Matt has a few fears all stemming from a deep rooted Phantom of the Opera experience as a young lad in England. So of course when Shruti and I saw an extremely creepy mannequin we pointed it out to Matty and then photographed her as the 5th scorcher. [ G being our number 4 ]

 

Ride Stats - longest ride so far!
Strava Route: https://www.strava.com/activities/837101159
Miles: 64.1
Total Time: 7:30:05
Total Ride Time: 5:49:42
Pace per Mile: 11
Temperature: to be filled in
Start: Thanjavur, IN
End: Karaikudi, IN


So we set, out at 6:15am on our way to Karaikudi. Each morning we have been getting a bit earlier in our timings, trying to maximize the cool India morning's. We went along the back of the hotel using our lights which ran along a dry river bed. The back roads was severely potholed and made me appreciate my choice in a larger tire.


The day's ride was awesome. Beautiful roads, beautiful scenery and we had the wind at our backs which made the climbs so much better. We stopped along the way, had breakfast, took selfies with children and farm animals. This day was also a very special one for Matt. We were riding by a very large cow who was evacuating herself on the side of the road. I wont go in to any other description other than it seemed like a GIANT open faucet. So as Matt and I rode by we laughed, and then Matt says "I think it just splashed me". From this day forth we then dubbed this a bovine golden shower. Poor Matty ... as it just gets worse.


We got to see a group of monkeys, babies and all. We took pictures with a farmers cow who was less wet than Matt's friend :) and Shruti had a dream to take a picture with a lamb, we made that dream come true. We stopped by a school and spoke to the headmaster who was coming out. The rides day by day are just getting better and better as we get in to our groove. There are points where we are all in a line, tour de France style or we pair up, or ride 3 across [ avoiding traffic ] or a mix of everything. It is all working.


The people are beyond friendly, coming up to us and asking us where we are from, where we are going, what is our native place and everything in between. They are marveled by Matt's bike and his gadgets. My old trek is kinda ignored and maybe about 5 people have mocked it for not having a kickstand and gave me a sad look. :)


As we are riding along I am looking out in to the vistas of rice paddys or waves of 10' tall grass or dried up river beds and i just want to take the bike off road and explore what is out there. I think i missed my chance to walk through a rice paddy as the climate is getting very dry and hotter as we cycle more south. I should have just did it when i had the chance :)




As we were closing in on the hotel Matt and I had stopped for a water break as Shruti road on. Were getting ready to set off and I saw two older "foreigner" faces walking around going in and out of some historical houses. So I turned to Matty and said "should we say hello?'. I kinda felt obligated as there was no one around, it was 8k miles from home.... Obviously I went for it :) Turns out they were an older couple from London and told us a bit of history of the area. The rich merchants who lived in the area and had these grand homes and now there are some French architects who are revitalizing the homes and turning them in to hotels to save the history.


When we reached the next hotel it was just magnificent. The CGH Earth hotel was an old home of 15 rooms that was a present from father to daughter. The room keys were enormous old skeleton key types. We all had Tali for lunch and then hung out by the pool.


Later in  matt and i were by the pool and i'm yammering on about something when Matt stops me and says "it cant be" and shows me his leg, where he had a round white liquid which had fallen from the sky. :) Matty got nailed again from a friendly Indian bird. Wait until day 4 as there is more to come :)

Matty boy took up the drone and took some magnificent shots he is trying to sell to the hotel to make some spare change. :)







We then worked on the route for the next day. This became a bit of a debacle as the .gpx file we created on plotaroute.com was not loading in to Strava, the internet was flakey, we were tired and hungry and Shruti finally had a bright idea to remove one of the tiny roads and then read it. IT WORKED! The internet was flakey so it wouldn't save, but now that the file worked, I would do it later. Little did I know I would have more problems!


We went to dinner and had beet halwa which is a variation of the carrot halwa that I love. Was some pretty good food. The place was packed with westerners, all of them French. After seeing a number of them dressed in traditional Indian garb Matty dubbed the term "Frindu". :) :) this still makes me laugh every time I think about it! wait until day 4 and the Rindus :P


We walked back through some sleepy, quite dark alleys where we joked with Matt on his inner fears of the dark. Poor Matty boy. :)


It turns out Shruti and Matt had some super natural experiences in the evening and kept waking up due to doors rattling and noises. I guess the "pey" like me as none of them bothered me :)




To sum up Day 3, i think it was great all around as good or better than day 2. It had a very lengthy distance of 64miles which I loved, it had scenery, climate, a spooky house to scare Matty, a Tali to satisfy Shruti. It was awesome!!


Everything about the rides would change on day 4... we did more miles than we ever thought possible, faced the worst riding conditions to date and we split up for hours as there was an extended ride!! Lets go day 4!!