Travels with my Bike

Don’t worry about what you don’t have; focus on what you do have and make the most of your life. (Jude, speaking to the crowd gathered at Vavuniya today.)

Today we visit a rehabilitation centre in Vavuniya. It is special in itself for the great work it does for people with physical and intellectual disabilities, but is extra special because it is the place where Jude went as a young boy after being injured in the Sri Lankan civil war. In some ways it is a homecoming for him, and he has worked hard to organise this day. …

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Anuradhapura is an ancient city that dates back to the 5th century BC. It was the capital of Sri Lanka for many centuries, from around 4th century BC until 11th century AD. The ancient city is a UNESCO world heritage site.

We stay in a hotel in the “new city” and visit the sacred old city by bike (naturally), doing a 26km tour over the course of a few hours. Most of the sites around the sacred city are not accessible, with rough paths and many steps, so our hand cyclists are not able to visit. The rest of the group visit the Bodhi Tree and Mirisawetiya Stupa, returning with photos and stories to share, but for the remainder of the sites we stick together and just view them from the outside. Our local guide seems to be in a tearing hurry to get us from place to place, so there is little time to savour the sights. …

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I curse jetlag when I wake at 3:30, then do the timezone maths and smile. It is 9am in Melbourne, and everybody is at work. I try to sleep some more, but give up eventually and go for a walk by the lake, where all is quiet and peaceful. The town is starting to wake, and the sun is rising.

I am joined at the lake by some cows, with their egret companions. You hardly see a cow in this country without its bird friends, who scavenge worms at other goodies as the cows eat, and occasionally sneak a tasty morsel from the cow’s hide.

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I am fortunate enough to meet with Sawan, a former work colleague who is now living Sri Lanka, for breakfast. Over a quick hour we catch up on news. He returned to Sri Lanka to rescue his family’s flagging business. They run a restaurant in Negombo, not too far from our hotel in Minuwangoda. We plan to catch up again on the last day of the trip when I am back in Colombo. With luck I will get to meet his family – including his new baby – see the restaurant and maybe experience some of his mother’s cooking!

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I love to travel. I love going to new places, experiencing new things, and being out of my normal zone. The being there is great, but the getting there can be sometimes quite tiresome, especially if you are travelling with more than just a manageable set of luggage.

Flying with bikes can be a challenge. You are all set once they are checked in and sent off on their way through the oversized luggage x-ray machine, but trying to haul them around with your other luggage can cause stress and sweat, and shorten even the sweetest of tempers.

The CyclePower group takes this up several notches. …

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Tomorrow I join twelve other adventurous cyclists on a CyclePower trip to Sri Lanka. We are cyclists, with and without disability, riding to raise awareness about disability and what can be achieved. Five of these awesome cyclists will ride hand cycles, and the rest of us (also awesome) will ride conventional mountain bikes.

Over ten days, our group will ride almost 500km through Sri Lanka, visiting Colombo, Anuradhapura, Kandy, Galle and many other places in between. …

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