Dutch Sven Bakker on cycling through India to the Himalayas

The blue-eyes on the Dutchman stand out. His cycle chain's broken and he's looking for the spare master link in his tool kit. On finding it Sven Bakker squats on the ground in the parking lot of a Khar maternity home to get his cycle going again. After all, he has a long way to go.

"I always wanted to criss-cross through India on a bicycle to explore it," says the 24-year-old process engineer from Breda in the northern Dutch province of Brabant. He quit after a tiff with his boss which provided the perfect break. "It was like the opportunity I was looking for. I began cycling towards end of January from Bengaluru and I want to go all the way to the Himalayas."

Bakker's journey so far has been a mixed experience. "Soon after I began, I hit a bad stretch of road where a really large pothole caught me unawares, breaking the frame of my bike. An employee with a French sporting goods retailing brand who recognised me from my earlier visits to their store helped me," he says, speaking warmly of his interactions with people. But laughs while talking about Indian roads.

"I am used to flat roads in Netherlands. Here, on the other hand, often there are ups and downs with steep climbs, sharp descents and many curves, which can make it very challenging." However, for him, the bigger challenge is traversing on the roads with other motorists, especially truckers. "The roads are narrower and few, and they don't seem to like sharing them with cyclists."

Sweating profusely, he also admits that the weather is also an additional challenge. "Especially in Mumbai, the crowds, narrow roads and the huge developmental projects can at once seem much," he says, admitting he's getting a hang of it. "I am eager to head out and get on track with my journey. Much of which will now happen in the early hours or post afternoon when the sun stops beating down mercilessly."

All we can say is Bon Voyage!