Potatoes, Onions and India

The jet-lag is slowly ebbing away, the main issue is that I feel a bit groggy in the morning, but that is about it. The weather today was dull but pleasantly warm and not too windy. In fact it must have been the ideal weather for cycling because I saw 15-20 cyclists out and about cycling through the Fens. From families with trailers and young ones pedalling furiously through to fully kitted racers. It was great to see and everyone was friendly. In fact the other thing I noticed was that whilst trundling around some of the tracks between Lode and Quy is passed quite a few dog walkers - most not on leads as the area is ideal for dog walking and none of the dogs was at all troublesome. My theory is that people who are prepared to take their dogs on serious walks into areas that are fun for the dogs are also people who know how to train a dog and ensure they are not a nuisance.

It has been quite dry and so the farmers are having to irrigate their fields - here is a potato field being watered. The thing that surprised me is that these potatoes will be late and I had always assumed that farmers tended to grow earlies for the price premium they gave. Mind you this could well be the second crop for the field this year.

I mentioned the other day that I had seen a farmer pulling up onions - well here they are drying in the "sun". The thing that gives the field away was the strong onion smell as you get close.

So what has all this to do with India - not much, except last week I got an email from the organiser of my upcoming cycle tour in India. It is good to see efficient organisation. He was reminding us to consider (if not already done so) booking flights, injections and visas. We have around 8 weeks to go so a timely reminder. I spent this morning researching flights. Well to tell the truth the first thing I did was check to see whereabouts in India the trip actually was. 

I have not been able to embed a Google Mymaps of the relevant part of India - but it is here if you would like to look at it.

View Cycle Tour in Southern India in a larger map

So I spent Sunday morning checking into when I would need to fly. There is a chance my son will also be able to make the trip - but he will need to take time off work which is not so easy. It looks like we will be able to fly out on a Saturday and return on a Sunday, two weeks later. We will probably have to fly out through Bangalore and catch connecting flights to the relevant areas as the tour starts in one part of India (Trivanundrum) and ends in another part (Kochi). We also get to go on a train journey. The total distance is around 680Km/425miles which should not be too bad in 14 days, we do get a few rest days thrown in. We will also climb up to around 2000m as well which should provide some great scenery, apparently the climbs are long but not steep! I work from home and in my study have a couple of white boards for work purposes - one of them is now taken up with trip planning.

Over the next week I must also check with my GP (family doctor) to ensure I am up to date on my inoculations, although having recently been to Peru and Cambodia I don't think it should be a problem. I must also check out how to get a Visa. I am also going to check out GPS maps to see whether I can get something to put on my Garmin Edge GPS.