South to Sylhet

November 22, 2010 to November 24, 2010

a few nights in the city's Hotel Supreme

It's light outside - at around six - and I'm already up and ready to get going.

The resort's restaurant won't open for breakfast till 8-ish, but no doubt there'll be alternatives not too far away from here so they've missed out on my custom. The owner doesn't need my few taka anyway.

It's light, but the sun is playing hide and seek behind a misty blanket of cloud and it's cool enough for me to don a long-sleeve merino jersey as off I go south happy to be riding along such a quiet route - one I'd imagined would be pretty busy.

There are no vehicles and maybe those diesel trucks are really nocturnal beasts and do only come out on the road at night. It's flat and easy riding and my speed is... well. There's something that I forgot to mention yesterday.

Backtrack:

After riding around 50 km from Shillong, I noticed my computer wasn't in its housing on the handlebars. Gone. Lost. If you recall, the housing got battered on a bus trip a few days ago and the computer didn't 'click' in anymore, it just slid in and stayed put. It had obviously slid out, perhaps when the bike went over a bump. I miss it.

Those things are addictive after having one 20 years and there's fat chance of finding a new one here. From now on daily distances will be guesstimates.

My speed is about 20 km/hour or more along the route's shoulder. There's not a lot to see and breakfast is in a tiny village after a while when I see the cook flippin' panthas on a hot plate I sit at a table inside and soon get served with three of them plus a bowl of dhal that's yummy.

It's a typical food joint that would give a hygiene inspector serious palpitations in the West, but I like its patina-covered décor and take the guy's photo and one of his shelf much to the amusement of the regulars sat at the other tables. Then it's a small cup of tea sweetened with a spoonful of condensed milk and then it's back on the road riding south.

My next photo stop is soon after - some lilies in a small pond - and as I get on my bike again a guy invites me to his house for tea. He's the nervous type and eager to prove his identity and shows me his card and says he's a health worker as we pedal along the shoulder for a few minutes before turning left onto a dirt track that leads us to his simple home.

Inside a variety of people - young and old - gather around and it's hard to fathom who is who in terms of family, but they're all friendly. The only female I get to talk to at first is a young girl of around 10 who's being tutored along with a younger boy sat at the table with me by a young man who says he's a home teacher.

They get to see some laminated photos of myself and my two brothers, my daughter and son and one of my wife and also my late father in his professional football days. The young girl likes Ruby's wedding picture and I tell her to show it and the women who I sense are lurking behind a curtain in a doorway - as they're expected to in many Muslim households.

Along with the sweet tea I get offered a bowl of white stuff that they tell me is called 'shamai' which seems to be made from rice and is sweet - so I've got a good sugar fix for this morning.

The health worker would like my help in going to England which is a thing I hear a lot and I tell him my home is Taiwan now and that I'm not at all sure what help I can be as we ride along the road to the nearby village of Jaintiapur, where he's based, to see a ruin that I would never have found otherwise. My book says it's a rajbari, which is a new word to me.

Alone again, tranquility resumes and I cross a wide turquoise river that I'd very much like to explore, but really I need to get to Sylhet to sort out my computer and do other city stuff and it's just before noon even when my wheels cross the outskirts, even though there are numerous stops for a drink or a snap, or sometimes both.

I pause outside Hotel Supreme and look in my book to read that it's classed as 'mid-range' and is 'good value with a great restaurant' - so decide to take a look and get offered a spacious room for 800 taka and take it.

The manager tells me where to go to get my computer sorted and when I walk there through the busy hot streets and talk to the engineer and turn on my Eee PC it bloody works and means I've wasted an hour, but at least its now useful.

No. Wait. Back at the hotel my dongle won't work and so it means another trek to the Grameen Phone service centre, where they say I must go to another service centre, which is what I do and once there the dongle works just like my computer did... jeez.

Today's ride: 10 km (6 miles)
Total: 886 km (550 miles)

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