I love the variety and surprises each day brings. The first half of the day we cycled past beautiful fields of rice, temples, rural villages, and a slight low fog. The routes through the villages and smaller roads are just fantastic. I really did not expect it to be so nice… and the roads are almost all paved and in decent condition. I also love the fact that you always see people out and about and will pass through a village every 5 miles or so, its fun and it really makes the miles tick by quickly. 

We were originally planning a somewhat short day but when we arrived in Bhadrak, it was still pretty early, the city was bigger and more hectic than expected, and it was going to help tomorrow’s profile if we made a bit more progress… so we decided to continue another hour and a half, but before doing so, we had a great lunch at the newly opened @what_a_sandwich_bhadrak , the owner Aditya took great care of us and we even video chatted with his brother who is in Japan.

After lunch, we jumped on the highway for a bit (it’s not as bad as it sounds) and came across a fellow cyclist Attila @adv.blessed so we did as you will and just stopped on the side of the highway for a chat. Attila has been cycling around the world for over a year and we’re definitely looking forward to connecting again to share more stories from the road and hopefully create some new ones together. It was really a great surprise to cross paths… on the side of a highway.

After that short bit of highway, we were back on rural roads for another 30 minutes, found a decent hotel, showered, did laundry, and went on the hunt for food. Turns out there was some festival going on with loud music and a bunch of drunk young men… not entirely sure what it was all about but was a fun surprise in this small town. Dinner was dosa from a somewhat sketchy place that I’m hoping we won’t regret.