I’ve had a strange last week. The urge to use some of my newly rediscovered lateral thinking skills has been bubbling to the surface.

When I was in my late teens I found an early website online of design methods. I forget the name of the guy whose website it is (I think his first name was Martin), but its long been taken offline. However, it introduced me to concepts such as lateral thinking and Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies.

Is Indian food addictive I ask myself as I find myself craving it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Perhaps it is the amount of spice and flavour. In India they don’t seem to eat just for sustenance but for explosions in their taste buds. Every meal is a different adventure in food. The whole Indian experience is a bit like a macrocosm of the eating experience.

One night I stayed with the police near Bikaner.

Experiences are so varied and often unique to anything I’ve experienced before. For example, being on a holy mountain, meeting an ascetic smoking opium with his colleagues then giving a packet of pineapple biscuits to Jain pilgrims speed-walking up the 22km climb to Mount Abu (they actually overtook me cycling at one point).

I was in awe of the exotic palm trees and tropical plants, watching the monkeys frolicking by the road side. I became utterly euphoric at the solitude and feeling of freedom, slowly crawling up the road, high on caffeine, fresh air, stunning scenery and Richie Hawtin. A man wearing an orange sheet, driving a tractor, waved at me whilst puffing on his pipe.

I am in the Gujarat capital, Amdavad, spending a few days relaxing before continuing on to Mumbai. It’s a nice city to spend some time. I’ve been using Couchsurfing here and my hosts have really made the experience special. Of course, so has eating plenty of delicious Gujarati Thalis.

Photo credit

I’ve visited a friend at the architectural university. I strolled around the campus, attended his lecture and saw an exhibition of Krishna paintings. I saw the Amdavad ni Gufa which is an underground art gallery designed by the architect Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi which exhibits works by the Indian artist Maqbool Fida Husain.

I have noticed since entering Pakistan and India the significant drop in air quality in general. In Pakistan if I blew my nose I would get similar coloured nasal mucus to if I had spent a day in Central London.

The air pollution is quite visible in even small urbanised strips. This is unsurprising as there are plethora of old diesel engines, fires and rubbish burning and smoking chimneys (from brick furnaces for example). I am surprised because although the areas I am referring to looked generally less developed in terms of industry they were very busy with traffic and extremely smokey. The industries that did exist relied heavily on burning things.

I’m in India and I feel tired to be honest. It’s a good job that I have the opportunity to rest for a few days. Yesterday, riding to the Pakistan-India border I got delayed by load of super-rich looking Dutch classic car enthusiasts. After finally crossing I sat at a small kiosk and had a beer whilst waiting for the famous border ceremony to start.

Hindi is buzzing around the humid atmosphere of this internet cafe. Last night I cycled from the border to Amritsar in the dark in the chaotic headlights of rickshaws and taxis, along shop-lined streets, and eventually swept along in the crowd and traffic leading up the Golden Temple, where I am now staying.

I'm in Lahore after gradually making my way up here from Quetta. The mountains down from Quetta to Sibi were beautiful but in Sibi I ran into my police escort. They proceeded to ruin the process for the next few days. This meant that I couldn't do what I wanted, I had to stay in cockroach infested cheap hotels, I wasn't allowed to stay with locals or follow the usual routine of camping.

I cycled from Kerman. I was scared. I’d heard nothing positive about the road after Kerman. Luckily as usual the negative hot air is hyped out of proportion. I met a great guy in Mahan who gave me a huge insight into the Iranian and Islamic way. He spoke good English and we chatted for about 4 hours.

Iran has at times been a challenge with regards to cycling alone. I have dealt with this mostly by recording myself talking on a voice recorder, singing, shouting, listening to the Mighty Boosh and occasionally weeping.

However, along with feelings of lonliness which quickly evaporate I am presented with the content and playful feeling that the freedom of decisions and the imagination manifests.

There is a wonderful sense of balance with the surroundings when alone on the road amongst the exotic and mysterious landscape of the stony, dry and dusty plains of the desert reaching up to bare, steep, rocky mountains, floating gently on beds of sand dunes and haze.

Just a quick one this. I’ve pedalled down into the south of Iran. The weather has been pretty hot during the middle of the day so I’m on the road by 6 to make the most of the cool clear mornings. I’ve visited the cities of Esfahan, Yazd and Kerman. Esfahan has a river (mostly dried up now) with some fantastic ancient bridges, the huge Imam square, mosques and Persian palace of Hasht Beseht.