Day 42 – Chennai to Nellore

After a fairly good breakfast I headed out early in the hope that I would beat the traffic when riding through Chennai.  I think I probably did, but an Indian city is an Indian city and the drivers are still crazy.  In case anyone is thinking of going there, my brief travel guide: some brilliant architecture, a couple of nice beaches, but away from that area, not all that great.

Having not really looked at the route last night I was surprised at how big it was.  Riding through a city is slow, but the constant need for attention means that your mind is on other things and the miles ticked by nicely.

The rest of the day was spent on a pretty major road with not much to look at.  Considering it was a fairly long day, only stopping twice was a pretty tough ask and I am pleased that I managed to do it with not too much difficulty.  This excludes a very brief stop for someone on a motorbike who really wanted a photo with me.

At one point a tuk-tuk driver came up beside me and told me to hold on.  Now this, I think, would be cheating so I declined, plus, any health and safety people reading this would have a fit.  I felt a bit rude turning him down though so I dipped into his slipstream for a while.  I think it took him a while to realise what was going on but when he noticed I could keep up, he instantly got carried away with the speed.  It was a fast but difficult couple of kilometres.  When I dropped off, he came back and offered me a poppadum from a bucketful in the footwell.  It was a bit stale but the gesture was really appreciated.

The rest of the day passed fairly well.  It wasn’t that exciting but I was in a good mood despite the changing wind.

Upon arriving at my destination – very early considering the distance – the day took a downhill slant and I am now not really feeling that great which is down to a combination of incompetent city planners, incompetent hotel staff and credit card issues.  I won’t go into detail because on the whole, today has been a good day.  I will offer some advice though – if you happen to work in a hotel and you do a bad job, do not wait around in my room expecting a tip….And if one does come your way out of pity, do not bring up the fact that normally it would be more….that will not please me!

For those back at home, please note, I am not stingy – but it just so happened that he managed to do a worse job than the person who made the traffic laws in this country.

I think I have now vented my frustration : apologies to all of you who took the brunt of it.  I am looking forward to a good sleep.

Today’s ride:

Distance: 118.12 miles / 190.1 km

Riding Time: 7:30:24

Av. Speed: 15.7 mph / 25.3 km/h