‘People in Kanpur honk without reason': UK Cyclists

Michael Hawthorn

and

William Capper

, from

Birmingham

, England are on a world tour but with a slight twist. The teacher and writer, respectively, are travelling the world on cycles. Having covered a distance of 6000 km of the total 9,419 km as planned, on bicycles, the two have travelled to 15 countries till now including France, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey and

Georgia

. The cyclists reached Delhi on July 25 and were recently in Kanpur. "In India we have been covered cities like Aligarh, Agra, Bulandshahar and

Shikohabad

," says Michael, who is the writer.
William and Michael, having a mutual interest in travelling, got together in April this year and set out on their bikes for a world tour. "I always wanted to visit

Japan

but the problems was that I wanted to go to Japan on my cycle. One can easily board a flight and travel thousands of miles in just a few hours. But being a teacher, I wanted to enhance my knowledge of places while travelling," says William, adding, "Michael Hawthorn who is a writer in Birmingham, is a good friend of mine and one fine day I shared my plans with him. He was super excited to hear my plans and decided to join me and on April 10 we left England on our bikes."
From Kanpur, the duo headed to Lucknow and will also be visiting Bihar, before moving on to Myanmar. The vibrant and colourful culture of India has left a deep impact on both the cyclists. “People are really hospitable and Indian food is awesome," says Michael, adding, "In Birmingham there are lot of Indian restaurants but food in India is an altogether different experience."

Michael

shares, "Till now, wherever we have gone, we have made friends. While coming to Kanpur we got in touch with a Bangalore-based biker Ronita Das. She also has a house in Kanpur and helped us find our way here in Kanpur. She came all the way from Bangalore to meet us and helped in our accommodation in the city."
Like any other tourists

William

and Michael don't believe in visiting tourist spots in any country. "We believe in meeting more and more people of the countries which we visit. This provides us with an in-depth knowledge about the culture of the country we are travelling in. In Kanpur too we got a chance to meet some students. We were also invited to a radio station for an interview," says William.
Michael and William who will also be visiting Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, China and South Korea say language is not much of a problem for them to communicate with the locals. "Getting visas in some countries was a problem but the best part of our journey is that we get to meet really nice people. In some countries language was a problem but we somehow managed to communicate with locals in sign language. That is great fun. Initially in India, we faced problems owing to chaotic traffic but later on we got used to it. Honking is big problem in India, especially in Kanpur as people keep on honking without any reason," shares Michael.