I had planned two rest days after my three days exploring the ancient temples and palaces in Hampi.
Nikhal, one of the clerks at the front desk in my hotel, suggested that I book one of their ebike tours. The tours are early (5:30 am until 8:30 am) before the heat of the day. I would be accompanied by a guide/mechanic.
I love ebikes! I own two at home: a Specialized Turbo Vado (class 3 with rigid frame for paved roads and dirt trails) and a Specialized Turbo Levo (full-suspension class 1 for off-road and mountains). I checked out the ebikes at the hotel. Far inferior to mine. Hub motor, class 2. But not a cheap bike. Well suited for the terrain around here.
I booked a trip for Thursday morning.
At 5:20 that morning, I found my guide already working on tuning up two bikes for our tour. He suggested that I take mine for a test ride around the parking lot.
After my quick ride, I told him I wasn’t happy with the front brakes. He checked them but couldn’t improve them. He offered to trade bikes. (All of the ebikes on the rack looked identical.) I tested the brakes on the second bike. They were fine. So I used that one.
The guide offered me a helmet. Nobody around here wears a helmet. Not bicyclists; not motorcyclists. But, I still wanted to wear one. We had to adjust it. (Apparently tourist around here have smaller heads.)
Our first stop was an outcropping of rocks where we waited for sunrise. I was underwhelmed.
To me, a beautiful sunrise is one where the sun slowly rises. Just a sliver at first and finally a bright morning blaze. Not too much to expect. Right?
Here in India, the sun is never close to the horizon at sunrise (or at sunset). Instead, the polluted sky turns red. Well after the technical time of sunrise, the sun gradually burns through haze. It’s still orange/red for the rest of the morning.
Our next stop was a sugar factory. The farmers bring in huge piles of sugar cane on ox carts. The workers at the factory put the canes into a machine that squeezes out the sugar. The sugar syrup is sent out to be further processed. The remains of the canes are used as cattle feed.
Our third and final stop was a silk factory. The owner of the factory gave me a private tour.
Only one rack was in use. He had just feed leaves to the thousands of tiny silk worms on the rack. He explained that this batch was four days old. Soon he would split them onto two racks. Soon after that, four racks. At 35 days, all of the racks would be full with much fatter worms. His staff would then collect all of the silk worms and ship them to a different factory where the worms would spin their silk cocoons. Except for the beginning and the end of each cycle, his only work was to feed them leaves twice a day.
By the time we got back to the hotel, it was already getting hot. Far too hot to continue riding a bike.
The entire trip had been on back roads. We had passed many ox carts and motorcycles but not one car.
I was happy to escape to my air conditioned room for a well-earned shower!
