Finding Home on a Solo Bike Tour

Jerry Kopack [00:00:02]:
Welcome to Bike Life, a podcast from the Warmshowers Foundation. Here we celebrate our global community of touring cyclists and hosts who make life on the road unforgettable. Through stories, insights, and shared experiences, we explore the connections that fuel every journey. Whether you're pedaling across countries or welcoming travelers into your home, you're part of a movement rooted in generosity and adventure. Discover more and join the community at warmshowers.org now, let's hit the road together. Hey, everyone, this is Jerry Kopeck, the host of Bike Life, coming to you from the Rocky Mountains of Breckenridge, Colorado. Today, I'm joined by James Thomas, a UK cyclist who set out from London and rode east across parts of the Silk Road, a journey that eventually led him to India, where he now calls home. More recently, he started guiding cycling trips into the Himalayas.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:00]:
In this episode, we'll talk about what inspired that original ride, what drew him to India, and what a cycling adventure in the Himalayas looks like. James, welcome to Bike Life.

James Thomas [00:01:11]:
Hey, thanks, Jerry. Happy to be here.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:13]:
Yeah. So I have to tell you, and listeners will probably have heard this from me way too much, but I love India. I've been three times, and it is easily my favorite place to tour. So I'm probably going to get pretty excited. A little reminiscent, maybe a little nerdy in this episode, but what is it about India that you love? And I want to preface this because I realize that's probably a pretty broad question, but give me the condensed version and we'll dig deeper into it later in the show.

James Thomas [00:01:45]:
Yeah, it. From the point of view of a cyclist, which is what I'd say that got me here in the first place. It's just so expansive. There's so much variety, there's so much culture and so much terrain that it's. It's irresistible is the first thing. That's what brought me back here. The nuance of living here and the ex. You know, the expat lifestyle that I'm in now is a separate, different thing that the cycling brought me to.

James Thomas [00:02:19]:
But I'd say it's the land itself has this magnificent, expansive variety and excitement. You know, it's pretty intense place to do cycling and just the diversity.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:34]:
Right. To your point about expansiveness, like, you've got coast and you've got beach and you've got green mountains and Baron Brown and Himalayas mountains ones.

James Thomas [00:02:46]:
Yeah, yeah, it's exactly that. It's the variety, the diversity. And I was blessed in 2016 when I arrived. I crossed from Myanmar, which at the time was possible with special permission. And, you know, I entered the Northeast, which is not India at all. It's Asia, it's China, it's tribal. It's radically different to anything that I see day to day here in South India in Goa. But I traveled the Northeast, saw some of the most incredible mountainous regions like Sikkim and Darjeeling.

James Thomas [00:03:21]:
Like you basically in Bhutan, Tibet, terrain there, prayer flags everywhere, high mountains. And then there's Megalaya with the tree bridges and all this unusual kind of cultural stuff. The big rivers, the Brahmaputra and all the tea estates and stuff like that. And then you pop out of that side. You know, we spent a week with the tribe of the Cognacs in Nagaland, which was insane. Like, you don't see that stuff anywhere else. And you pop out of there into sort of Kolkata, West Bengal, and suddenly you're in India and it's so massively different. And, yeah, so that.

James Thomas [00:04:02]:
That in itself, that snapshot of India is really intensely diverse and has sort of a variety that you wouldn't get anywhere else, from the terrain to the culture to the food to the peoples, everything. And then you've got the whole rest of India to explore. And that's how I got to the thing. So I am.

Jerry Kopack [00:04:23]:
I am so glad you brought up Northeast India, because you probably realize this, that it's kind of the part of India that people forget about. They don't realize it's there. And I had the opportunity back in 2017 or so to go through some of those same parts, and you're right, it's like a different country than India completely. So I was in Nagaland and I was in Assam and Darjeeling and West Bengal, and it was incredible. I had the opportunity to actually spend Christmas in Darjeeling, and it was so cool. How did you think to enter India from that direction?

James Thomas [00:05:02]:
Well, you know, this linear journey that we all think we're going to make when we've planned a bike ride is. It's not like that. The geography changes. The road has its own surprises. And in the end, when I planned to leave London, I was probably three months later getting out of there than I'd anticipated. In all honesty, the wrapping up of life. I left my girlfriend, I sold my car, I gave up my job. The transition from committing to the bike ride and the breakdown of the relationship where, you know, my partner at the time, Rosie, she didn't want to do the trip.

James Thomas [00:05:44]:
We'd spoken about it, we'd done all this stuff, and for her, it was more important to go to Burning man and stay in sync with friends in London than it was to make some crazy ass bike ride with me. And I said, okay, well that's cool. Thanks for being honest. I gotta go.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:59]:
Yeah.

James Thomas [00:05:59]:
And I cycled from the UK across Europe to Turkey. Missed the weather window for Central Asia, so I flew from Istanbul to Hanoi and then cycled the length of Vietnam and then back to the uk. So I came into India from the Myanmar side because I'd had to re. Reroute basically for the seasons.

Jerry Kopack [00:06:24]:
Yeah. And so I'm curious, what, what was it about? Let me back up. You were living a very, I guess, traditional life back in London. What was that life look like and what sort of motivated you to, to take on this kind of an adventure?

James Thomas [00:06:41]:
So London for me was like a progression of career. It was like friends invitation to do something different. So I came up with like a very typical, kind of grew up in the countryside, went to small school, you know, in a village, all that sort of stuff. Very like wholesome, you know, childhood and all that stuff. And I've always cycled. So you, you know, you get a bike and you progress to the next bike or the next adventure. And through a bunch of friends that we have this unofficial cycling club called Mashupan District and that's our team ride. You know, we got together for weekends and then we do a trip for a week.

James Thomas [00:07:21]:
And then in particular, one friend, Adrian, he said, look, I want to do something a bit more. We've been doing the group rides for long weekends around the uk. I want to go somewhere else, I want to do something bigger. And originally we were going to do an end to end in the States or a crossways. This was like the end of a chapter. So we were both at the time living in Nottingham where we'd studied at university. It was kind of the end of a chapter for us both in some respects there with career and different aspects. And the idea was to do this trip and then move to London, which we did.

James Thomas [00:08:03]:
But the trip ended up not being in the States because the logistics, the seasons, the flights, the whole thing. What we did was cycle 20 countries in 100 days in Europe for charity. I don't know if you know the recycle charity, they prepare secondhand bikes and send them to Africa.

Jerry Kopack [00:08:21]:
Yeah, I've heard of that.

James Thomas [00:08:22]:
Helping people to get to school and Wells and all that kind of stuff. So awesome charity, great work. We raised a bunch of money, sent a container full of bikes to Africa. So that was the beginnings of me you know, a progression from weekends, a weekend Morocco, a couple of weeks in Europe, to a nearly four month trip that was 100 days with Adrian. And we got sponsorship. It was 2011 out. You know, ALP kit were very generous. You know, we did a tweet and Nature shop sent us a bunch of merino base layers.

James Thomas [00:08:58]:
We got momentum where today it would be like, oh, you're doing a bike ride, Cool. Like, I literally just put it out there. We built a website because that's my background in digital marketing. And all of a sudden we were gifted stuff. We had discounts, people were interested, we did the sponsorship and it took off. And that's where the website came from. So the trip that I made solo was a graduation of coming up with a group of cyclists, building confidence, building appetite. And I'd always kind of had in mind that I'd do a big trip, however that would be.

James Thomas [00:09:37]:
It wouldn't just be piecemeal, it would be a big trip. I needed to do it. And by the time I left in 2015, I done the trip with Adrian in Europe. We'd raised the money, we built the website, we had all the kit, some of the best kit you can put your money down on. You know, we had a tent from Hilleberg, you know, Mountaineer, way over, engineered for anything that I ended up doing, but plastic, bit of kit, very light.

Jerry Kopack [00:10:03]:
Yeah.

James Thomas [00:10:03]:
You know, leap bags. We bought traditional British bikes at the time, which was the Doors Galaxy, which I still love. It's basically the original gravel bike at this point. The geography, the geometry and the drops and everything. It's basically a gravel bike that's been made for 150 years. And I basically got to the point in London where I don't a lot of money as a software consultant, love the lifestyle. All my friends were there, had this great relationship. I bought a sports car.

James Thomas [00:10:33]:
I was about to be promoted to the senior vice president or something. And I just thought, you know what, this is all going to be here after I do this thing. And I feel like I'm going to do it now while I'm young and fit and strong and I have the energy for it. And so I gave in my notice, like at 30, I think I was just coming up for 30, 31 years old. I was probably 30 and a half when I told everyone what I was going to do. And it took me till I was 31 to actually action everything. We went to Rose and I went to Burning man and had this breakup experience, went for dinner in Santa Barbara. It's all kind of like, you're gonna go.

James Thomas [00:11:16]:
I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna go. You're not gonna go? And she's like, no, I'm not gonna go. And it's like that, right? So crazy. We did the birdie man thing and we got back from there in September. I planned to leave in the March and I took off in the May to do the trip.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:31]:
So now did you, did you have a route already kind of sketched out in your mind?

James Thomas [00:11:37]:
It was vague at the best. I mean, I just said, I'm going to cycle east. I know I can cycle across Europe. I've done it before. I'll do that. So my idea originally was just to cycle to China. I got a couple of friends who've done it and recommended was a continuation of the, like, low carbon. I'll take a ferry, then start cycling.

James Thomas [00:11:59]:
So it was not lots of flights and logistics. It's just, I'll ride to the ferry, get on a boat, and then I'll be in Europe. And I got a whole bunch of land ahead to tackle from there. And that's what I did. But because I didn't leave until May, by the time I got to Istanbul, it was like not looking like a good weather window for Central Asia and the big Pamier stuff. And I'm not going to say I'm a fair weather cyclist. I can handle the rain and the snow. I'm not, you know, I'm not like afraid of it.

James Thomas [00:12:30]:
But I just didn't factor that in at all at the time and thought, well, what to do? I had a friend in Vietnam who's ready. You know, she just launched a career as a travel blogger and I flew to Vietnam. Okay. And that changed the nature of the trip somewhat. So I didn't have a route. I just had adventure as a sort of idea. And I took off and started.

Jerry Kopack [00:12:57]:
How did, how did India make its way into that plan?

James Thomas [00:13:02]:
Well, having crossed Vietnam and been totally blown away by it, like, it's definitely my. After India, it would definitely be where I would end up because I loved it. I just fell in love with the place. It's incredible. I did the end to end in Vietnam. Cambodia. Kind of had to make a decision about the visa, about the logistics. So it was either a winter across the Taklamakan Desert or like Myanmar and India.

James Thomas [00:13:30]:
And I thought, well, okay, the visa certainly for India will be easier. I'll get six months from Thailand and that will give me four months in country by the time I arrive, which is what I did because the visa starts the day you receive it, six month paper. So there was practical stuff like that that governed that decision. And I sort of, you know, you have to make these things on the road. And by the time I got to Cambodia, I was like, well, yeah, I definitely want to see Myanmar while it's available. I can cross to India. That's possible. I need a special letter.

James Thomas [00:14:05]:
I can do that. I got friends in India anyway. And one of the things that Rose had said when I left was do try this thing called Vipassana. It's a meditation thing. You'll probably love it. I, you know, I recommend it. So that was kind of in my mind and I made the decisions, got the papers and took off. And yeah, it was definitely for me, definitely the right way to go.

Jerry Kopack [00:14:31]:
Now India is obviously big, as we've talked about. Did you have a place that you really wanted to see in India?

James Thomas [00:14:39]:
You know what? Not really. Just like the idea of doing a big trip was this loose kind of I just want to experience it idea. Okay. I just thought I'll go and see where is that what's happening in India. I think by dint of the route that I took, I got the best of it because I saw northeast first. It was like obviously from Southeast Asia to graduation. It's kind of like, oh, this is like here, it's a bit like there and it's similar to that and nothing like India. So actually by the time I got to Bengal, Kolkata, it was like, ah, this is India.

James Thomas [00:15:15]:
Okay, cool. Everything up to that point is an approximation of, you know, Southeast Asia with a bit of this and a bit of that and tribal and mountains and stuff. So I definitely wanted to go because I have a friend who was running the school here in, in. In where we stay actually in this village now in a place called Mandram. So I had a friend to visit, Holly. I had some practical stuff. Like I'd ordered some stuff from Decathlon to her address so that I had spares to arrive to like a new chain cassette and all that stuff because Decathlon had just arrived in the country. So there was a practical thing.

James Thomas [00:15:56]:
It was my birthday so I felt like nice time to visit some friends and celebrate. So I guess go was there. I went to Kolkata because I had a friend there also which was kind of my orientation to big India, real India, Ellie. And that friend Ellie, she actually helped me book a bunch of trains around India and also got me onto this Vipassana course in Kolkata. So my introduction to India was actually beyond The Northeast was immediately to go to this night train. So I took a train from njp, which is at the bottom of the mountain of Darjeeling, New Jalpaigira station. And that took me to Kolkata. 10 hour night train in GC general class, sitting on a wooden bench.

James Thomas [00:16:46]:
Like the people on the train couldn't understand why this massive white guy was getting on the train. I put all my luggage in the thing, like the luggage car at the front of the train and I had to run to the end of the train. And these trains are massive, you know, super long trains. And I'm the last guy to get on the train. And all the folks are like, what's happening? Because it's just not. Don't get into GC for a night train. They usually in 2ac with a bed and all the rest of it. I had no idea.

James Thomas [00:17:15]:
It's the only ticket I could get. So I just went for it and I woke up in Kolkata and the next day I enrolled on a Vipassana meditation and I sat ten days of silent retreat, which was transformational.

Jerry Kopack [00:17:30]:
Yeah, I have so many questions. From what you just said, I've never done that night train. I've done a night train in Vietnam, from Hanoi all the way to the north to somewhere around Sapa or something like that. And that was, that was okay because that also had a bed. But I've read stories about the GC carriage in India. So I'm curious what that was like for 10 hours overnight.

James Thomas [00:17:57]:
Well, it was as basic as you could imagine. It was packed full with people. India is not like the pictures you used to see back in the day where everyone's hanging off the side and sitting on the roof and stuff. They got that, they stopped that a long time ago. But it was definitely like elbow room. It was very tight. And I was standing up for a couple hours and like, okay, wow, okay, I'm standing up. There's people sat in the luggage rack.

James Thomas [00:18:21]:
There's people laying down on the floor. And I was like, okay, this is, this is how it's gonna be. And then this young guy with Pink Floyd T shirt was like, struck up a conversation and bit of back and forth and he, he offered me a seat for a minute and I was like, are you sure? Like cool. And I sat down and we shared this seat the rest of the way and it was like, wow, okay, super cool place, super cool guy. And it was obviously a hardcore journey, like sitting on a wooden bench for a few hours, standing up for a few hours. But I At the time, I was like. I'd accepted my trip was going to be whatever it was, and that's what I'd chosen to do. So, yeah, it was all part of the fun.

Jerry Kopack [00:19:09]:
You know, I. I remember my first experience in India. And of course, you know, you can. You can read stories in books, you can watch television programs, but it doesn't really hit you until you actually are in country. Right. And so I had been there a couple of times. I've been in the north, in lay Ladakh. I'd been the Northeast as well.

Jerry Kopack [00:19:28]:
So I'd spent probably six months there, and I felt I had a pretty good lay of the land. And this would have been 2016, 2017, maybe around the same time when you were first kind of getting in country as. But four years ago, my partner and I decided to go to India as well. And I took for granted that I had been there. I knew how things kind of worked. I understood the organized chaos and the beauty that is India, but she hadn't experienced those things. And she also wasn't a lifelong cyclist in the way that I was. So, you know, we've done some bike rides in the States, but nothing like India.

Jerry Kopack [00:20:03]:
Nothing can really prepare you for India besides India. And I remember her saying the first two weeks we were there that she was overwhelmed. She shouldn't be there. It's too much. And she couldn't deal with it. But by the last two weeks, do you know what she said? I don't ever want to leave. And so I wonder, did you have experiences the first time you crossed over in India?

James Thomas [00:20:28]:
Yeah. Wow. I mean, that's. That's not typical, but it is typical.

Jerry Kopack [00:20:33]:
Okay.

James Thomas [00:20:33]:
India's like, right. Your partner's experience there can be. For a lot of people, it's that. And those people come back. I've met people not having that experience, and they've been 24 hours off the fly, and they're walking around in, like, some state of shock, and they're like, gotta get out of here. I don't know what the hell's going on. And I've seen that, and it's like, okay, I understand. I understand.

James Thomas [00:20:58]:
For me, like, yeah, there was a special feeling, the whole thing of coming to India. This. There's a texture to the experience. I mentioned Vietnam. It's incredible. I love it. I definitely go back there, and I've got friends there still and friends who've moved from India to there, and there's a whole, like, dialogue between those places. For expats.

James Thomas [00:21:20]:
India still is top of the list for a bunch of reasons. And I think probably the language is part of it. Like, culturally, India's got a sort of Britishness about it. That obviously legacy of the old days, the railways, you know, part of that, but it feels comfortable. It's. You know, I've been here seven years now. I can, I can understand it a little bit and I still feel welcome. You know, I mentioned this guy on the train giving up his seat.

James Thomas [00:21:52]:
That's. That happens. You know, the people are genuinely like, like friendly and helpful and curious and good natured. You know, of course there's like tourist places where it can feel very intense and not like that at all. But cycling isn't about those places anyway. It's about the other places, the between those places. And I've been hosted everywhere in the country. You know, village life, you know, here's a bed, please stay with us, come and drink some tea.

James Thomas [00:22:28]:
Like stay the week. It's like, I've got to keep moving.

Jerry Kopack [00:22:32]:
Yeah.

James Thomas [00:22:35]:
And when I left, you know, I had to go carry on with my journey. And that was 2016. I spent a few months back in the UK with some projects and then I came back in 2018 with my sister and I've been here pretty much ever since.

Jerry Kopack [00:22:52]:
So when did you decide that the UK just wasn't going to work for you at that point in your life and that India just felt good or felt right.

James Thomas [00:23:02]:
Yeah. And it wasn't even a decision like black and white like that. It was, I'm caught up in some project in the uk. I'm going to take winter in India because I can, I want to visit. My sister's keen to join. I'll make some adventure and see how it is. And that was it. It was.

James Thomas [00:23:19]:
I'll go for six months and see what's up.

Jerry Kopack [00:23:21]:
Okay.

James Thomas [00:23:22]:
And that was 18 into 19. I met my partner Charlie in 1920, Christmas Day, 2018. We hung out for the rest of the season and then we went back to Europe, did some stuff at Ibiza and then came back in 2019, which is like the season here in Goa is like October to March. That's typical. The weather's good, the climate is like kind of cool and there's other expats around and it's an interesting and easy place to be. Coastal, you know, beach life. Right. So we came back and then 2019 into 20, the world locked down.

James Thomas [00:24:04]:
Right.

Jerry Kopack [00:24:05]:
Yeah. What was that like in India? Because this, the proximity of people is, is a little more dense than in other places.

James Thomas [00:24:13]:
Yeah. You know, well, for us, it was the best single thing we could have done because we got a home, we were happy, we're in a new relationship, and we've just felt comfortable. So we stayed. We had the choice to leave and a lot of friends did, but a lot of people actually said, you know what, the world's gonna go crazy. Maybe we'll just sit it out while, while we can while we're here. And that's what we did. And for us, it was a blessed time. We, we, you know, became pregnant, we had our daughter here, and it's become home for us ever since.

James Thomas [00:24:45]:
So it wasn't like we said, let's move to India. We just, we got on with life and it became India. Right? So for us, it's been, it's been a blessing. There's a lot of. It's a spacious reality for us. I work online, you know, Charlie home educates our daughter and some of, some of my daughter's friends. It's lovely. It's a beautiful time.

James Thomas [00:25:06]:
Sees the weather's good, the kids are outdoors. It's got a realness to it, like India itself. There's a real kind of hands in the soil, outdoorsy kind of connectedness to it. So it's beautiful. The pandemic time was three weeks of real, kind of, oh, wow, this is. Could be serious. We've been lucky enough to stock up with dry foods and all the rest of it, and we were kind of prepared for a bit of a ride. And then, you know, it's India.

James Thomas [00:25:35]:
There wasn't like in the uk, there was this thing called furlough where they just paid you to stay at home and not go to work or something. I don't know, I'm not sure how it worked. But in India, that doesn't exist. People got to make money, people got to live. It's a hand to mouth kind of reality for most of the population. And so after three weeks of buying watermelons on the black market down an alleyway and some mushrooms from another guy in a shop that used to be like something else, but they're selling vegetables because that's what's happening. After three weeks of weird kind of is this going to be all right kind of stuff, and everyone being quite afraid, that was real police on the streets, you know, trying to figure out where we can get these black market items for fresh food and stuff. That went on for a short minute.

James Thomas [00:26:21]:
And then the country just opened up with like a pragmatic, be sensible, distanced, wear your mask kind of deal. Because it had to. It had to. You know, people need to go to work to make money, to buy food, to live. That's India, right?

Jerry Kopack [00:26:41]:
The general population probably is not seeing a home, working from a computer, right?

James Thomas [00:26:45]:
Absolutely not. They're outgrowing vegetables, they're farming some animal, they're building some stuff, they're doing some textiles. It's. It's a very real economy. You know, people need to work. So go is obviously different because there's tourism. But for the most part, it was blessed in where we were was absolutely amazing. The locals are super cool and friendly.

James Thomas [00:27:07]:
We still live in the same house. We're like seven years in with our landlady. She's lovely. We shared vegetables, we had family meals. And then kind of by the summer, like the June, July time, bars and restaurants were open on the beach, we had birthday parties. It went back to a level of normalcy that didn't happen in the rest of the world for another year or more. Yeah, by 20, 21, the autumn of 21, my daughter was six months old. And Charlie said, look, I can handle it.

James Thomas [00:27:40]:
It's last time you're going to get to go off for a while. You should go and do something. And I bought a secondhand mountain bike and went to Ladakh. I took a big train, a train from Goa to Chandigarh and cycled from Chandigarh to Leh over those five big passes. And there was no one on the train. You know, I got sick the day I got off the train because I'd moved around a lot. But also I traveled from sea level to the north. It was a real rainy day.

James Thomas [00:28:08]:
The first day on the bike, it rained the whole day. And I cycled for eight hours because I just thought, why not? And I. So I was pretty sick. And then I felt like I was getting ams. Once I got into altitude, I was like, maybe I've got Covid. Maybe it's ams. Maybe I don't want to do this trip because I'm fat and lazy and these mountains are really big. And I met this Indian guy called Avinash and he's.

James Thomas [00:28:33]:
He'd been. Well, he's a doctor. He's an intensivist. It's called an intensivist in India, like, which is like an A E doctor. He runs his own hospital. So he'd spent two waves of COVID saving people's lives and needed to decompress. And at the point where I'm about to quit riding this bike after the first big day because I'm like, what is this? He's like, no, no, it's. I've ordered a Sumo, which is like a support vehicle, like a pickup truck.

James Thomas [00:29:00]:
I've ordered a Sumo, got some supplies. This guy's going to carry all our luggage. Because I was camping you, I had a lightweight hammock and all this stuff. Bike packing setup. It's crazy. And he's like, yeah, no, we're going to get this truck and we're going to do it. And I was like, dude, that's incredible. And so that was.

James Thomas [00:29:17]:
We'd done one big mountain together, which is called the Rohtang Pass, which is about 4300 meters. This conversation took place in the village called Jisper. And once you leave Jisper, you're up at elevation then until you reach Leh. And it's not a little bit. It's like the highest pass on that route is 5,300 or something, maybe even 55, I can't remember.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:42]:
Yeah. And it's like 18,000ft. For those of us in the United States, you bet.

James Thomas [00:29:47]:
It's a big mountain. It's about as high as you can go on a road. There's a couple that are a bit higher, but if we're talking about what's possible in the world, it's one of the highest motorable passes there is. And that was on our route to Lay. And so we did it. I mean, the guy said, let's do it. I said, okay, I trust you. Let's go.

James Thomas [00:30:09]:
And we completed it together. And incredible again, like, without this friendship with Avinash, without this support, I probably would not have done that journey. I would have turned around, gone back to Manali and said, you know what? I'm going to go home because I don't feel great. And it's a big ride and no big deal.

Jerry Kopack [00:30:26]:
Yeah. Today's episode is brought to you by bikeflights.com Bikeflights delivers everything you need to ship your bike, whether you're riding a bucket list tour, selling your bike online, or moving across the country. Bikeflights. Easy to pack bike boxes. Carbon neutral shipping and pickup to delivery monitoring. Make it simple and save you up to 40%. Visit bikeflights.com warmshowerstoday to book a shipment. Now back to the show.

Jerry Kopack [00:30:58]:
And just think about, think about the concept of serendipity. The people you meet just because you are in that place and at that moment. For example, if you would have done something different, if you would have gone and gotten a snack for five minutes or whatever, you may not have ever crossed paths with him. You may not have ever have completed that journey, but because you're in that moment and you're open to it, you met this amazing human and here you are doing this incredible journey. Right. So it's the Layman Ali Highway. Is that what you're talking about?

James Thomas [00:31:29]:
Exactly that.

Jerry Kopack [00:31:30]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James Thomas [00:31:31]:
And it, it incredible road. I mean, highways, like saying something that won't make sense to folks in. Right. For most people, the highway is wide and straight and flat. It's not that it's called the highway, it is a mountain road that is five of the highest passes in India between two and a half, 3,000 meters at Manali, up to 3,000 and a half meters in Leh, up to five and a half thousand meters over Tang Langlor. It's a big, massive mountain road, but it's called the Manali Leh Highway. And serendipity, yeah, I mean, fortunate to meet Avinash. It totally made the journey possible for me and we conquered it together.

James Thomas [00:32:15]:
And he ended up in the national newspaper, the Indian Times, because he's such a hero in his local place in Pune. He's from a village called Sangler, which is. It's a day's ride for me. So when I got back from the trip, a couple weeks after we both got home, I actually got on my motorbike and went over to visit his family for a few days and went to the hospital and met all his friends and stuff because he's got a little cycling club there and it's a real friendship now and again. Serendipitous and synchronicitous and really like India's like that, you know, it's beautiful.

Jerry Kopack [00:32:52]:
Yeah, I. I had the opportunity my first time in India. I started in Lay and went the other direction and went south over those same mountain passes. And did you go, you said you meant you went over Cardung La.

James Thomas [00:33:07]:
No, I didn't go that way. That's more into Ladakh. It's not somewhere I've been yet.

Jerry Kopack [00:33:13]:
Okay.

James Thomas [00:33:13]:
I did a trip recently with some friends, but we were going to go that way. But the snow and the weather and the conditions were so hardcore. Going over between Saw Chew the night that we used to sleep at 4,000 meters, there's the Gutter loops, that which is like a 22 hairpin bends up a mountain with perilous falls and trucks and chaos. And then it's that day it started to snow. And I'd warned the guys about the weather and they just weren't prepared for it. So we're freezing cold going over this high pass. Then there's Barichalala and it's like that's 4, 800 meters and you've got to do that. And then you've got kind of the Moors plains, which is 60ks of headwind and freezing snow.

Jerry Kopack [00:33:59]:
Yep.

James Thomas [00:34:00]:
Right. And then you've got to go over this five and a half thousand meter mountain to get to Lay. It's an absolutely massive day and we got to lay. The guys survived just like it was really sketchy and they said, look, we'll do anything you want but we're not going to go back down that road. I said, okay, well I planned the whole trip around going to Kardongla and Honda Valley and Pangong Lake and going back down that way and they're like, nope, ain't gonna do that. So figure something else out. So we actually end up going through Kashmir to Dar Lake and over Zodia and coming back that way. Ah, it's a very different trip but.

James Thomas [00:34:42]:
And that was cool. But the weather, the whole thing, it's, it's, it's mountains, it's super, super intense.

Jerry Kopack [00:34:49]:
It's real. And there's people out there. Like there's the Indian military that's out there. But you need to be relatively self contained, right? Like you need to be able to, to take care of yourself out there for sure.

James Thomas [00:35:02]:
100%. Yeah. Self sufficient, strong, ready for anything.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:05]:
Like there's no bike shop out there that's going to help you fix something, right?

James Thomas [00:35:11]:
No, no, no. When I did the trip in 2021, I actually sold this secondhand mountain bike in lay. Okay. The guy, it's amazing. There's this guy up there and he's like a bike collector and he's got all these rare and unusual bikes that travelers have arrived with and sold to him over the years. And there's not many bike shops there, but there's this one guy who's got these like awesome collection of vintage steel bikes and yeah, he's a great guy to meet actually.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:41]:
So we've been kind of talking about how transformational travel can be, not just geographically, but you've also mentioned how it can be transformational internally. Talk a little about that. And did anything change with you along any of these big rides?

James Thomas [00:35:58]:
Wow. I mean, yeah, the whole trip was exactly that. My original trip, which is brought me to it in the first place. After I sat the meditation, kind of this whole weight lifted of like any anxieties or any kind of worries and all this Kind of little frictions in life that you feel like are there, they just kind of dissipated. And my enjoyment of the trip, I'd already loved the trip. I mean, I was like a cycling monk already. I'd renounced everything, sold the car, given up material world, the promotion, all the stuff. And I'd cycled across continents.

James Thomas [00:36:41]:
And then I did the meditation and I'm like, oh, wow. Really went in deep, finished around India's super spiritual. Anyway, it's built in Southeast Asian India. The cultural spiritual life is built in to the system. It's everywhere you go. It's in every shop name, it's in every temple, every village, every flower mandala. It's wild. So that prepared me real good for when I got home.

James Thomas [00:37:07]:
And, you know, I walked the Annapurna circuit. Couldn't leave India over land because the border thing. So I flew from Kathmandu to Kazakhstan and then cycled back to Europe, is this massive, big nature experience. So I'd learned to meditate and then went out into huge nature peace and quiet and silence. And it was like, oh, wow, you know, so all kind of consolidating experiences of stillness. Right. I was still cycling, still moving through the world, but my inner peace was profound. So I got home to the UK and the first thing I did was go to the Vipassana center in Herefordshire, Dharma Deepa.

James Thomas [00:37:52]:
And I sat to meditate. I sat the course, I served a course and came out of there feeling like, changed, totally, radically different. Like you said at the front end, I had a big beard, I had long hair. My parents like, what the heck's going on? You know, friends are saying you're looking like Jesus and it's all that kind of stuff. And I spent the next two years from when I got home volunteering to serve at the center. I'm an old student of the practice now, so probably between the courses and my own personal practice, many thousands of hours into this silent meditation practice, it's created a transformed way of navigating the world. You know, the baseline that I experience in terms of personal peace and inner stillness is profound. It's just incredible.

James Thomas [00:38:48]:
And that all happened before I came back to India and became a parent. So kind of good training for what was to come, you know. Yeah, because that's my practice now. You know, I've got a young daughter, she turns five next month. And so I feel blessed to have come to India, to have had this information to go and do the Vipassana. The fact that it became such a, you know, familiar practice, it became Easy. Having done the bike trip and not be attached to anything, you know, everything I own on the bike. It's very easy to go and sit the meditation when you're not worried about the rent and the this and the that and the job.

James Thomas [00:39:27]:
All of that have gone away. So it was easy to become, you know, a daily practitioner of the meditation. And the travel in itself was fundamental to that and the continuation of that practice. You know, in the uk, I cycled everywhere. I slept in a hammock almost the whole time I was back in the UK or before I came back to India, where I, you know, India is the home of the pasta, pretty much. I mean, it's Goenkaji is Indian. It's a Buddhist practice from Myanmar that really, that's the spiritual, truthful home of it. But India, there's like a hundred centers where you can go and meditate.

James Thomas [00:40:08]:
So I've been to a few more of the centers to set courses and serve courses and transformational travel really is a thing. And it, it's a embodied and felt experience. And in my case, it was, it was significant.

Jerry Kopack [00:40:26]:
Wow. I'm, I'm just trying to take this all in because I definitely felt a lot of the same things that you felt. So when I was in India, I was actually, before that, I had had a similar story. I had left a significant partner, had left a job. Both things are very important to me. And I was just going to get on a bike and try to do a reset. And I had a friend down in Lusaka, Zambia, and so I was going to go down there for a few weeks and cycle around and spend time with him and just disconnect before coming back, plugging back in and then going forward with my normal, my normal plan of life. And I was, I was open minded and I was traveling with an open heart.

Jerry Kopack [00:41:11]:
And I just kept meeting more people and they said, hey, if you'd like Zambia, go check out Zimbabwe, go check out Madagascar. And interestingly enough, I was getting ready to fly back from Madagascar, back to the States in Colorado, and I met a woman in the airports in Madagascar from India. And I was telling her what I had done in Madagascar. And she says, if you thought this was amazing, then you should come to my home in India. I live in the north, in Ladakh. And I had, at that point, I had never crossed my mind to go to India. Like, it was, it was never anywhere near anything I wanted to do. But I thought, you know what, I'm gonna give it a shot.

Jerry Kopack [00:41:49]:
And so I went and I spent was supposed to be four weeks riding the Lehmanali highway down and then flying out of Manali or something like that, back to Delhi, back to the States. But I kept meeting more people and I found my way into Nepal and then northeast India and then Thailand, then China, eastern Tibetan and so long story. Long. To hear you tell these stories about how you just changed internally and your passion and what became important to you just really resonates with me. So I'm really grateful for you for sharing those stories because it definitely hits home for me. Yeah. So I want to start wrapping this thing up here and it's been really fun to reminisce about India and I can't wait to go back. I told you offline that I'm.

Jerry Kopack [00:42:41]:
I'm probably heading back there with my partner this fall, so in October for her birthday. But maybe Spitty, give me a couple of minutes of even more of why India is important or why bicycle travelers should go check out an adventure in India.

James Thomas [00:42:59]:
Wow. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Like the itinerary you just described started in Ladakh and going down through the Himalayas, tracing through Nepal to northeast. There's nothing like it in the world. Nothing gonna. Nothing gonna match that. Obviously, Asia has a radically different texture to Latin America and all the rest of it in Europe.

James Thomas [00:43:26]:
I get it, there's different geographies, different places. But for me, I live here, so obviously I can speak with some level of experience, having explored the country end to end and end to end and across ways and round and about. I'm going to spit in September actually, so maybe we'll catch up when we're there.

Jerry Kopack [00:43:43]:
Right, Brilliant.

James Thomas [00:43:45]:
Taking a group up, first two weeks of September. I'm taking a group up there, so I'll be there from mid August.

Jerry Kopack [00:43:52]:
So you're doing some guiding?

James Thomas [00:43:54]:
Yeah, yeah. So one of the things that, like you just alluded to there, I left my career in London behind and I become freelance because my priorities shifted and my appetite for adventure increased. And I thought, I can trust myself and the world. I'll do it how I'm going to do it. I don't need this nine to five thing anymore. So I. I went fully freelance and I built myself sort of online business because I'm into web design and not really web design, but online marketing and stuff. So that's how I get by now with it, with India and stuff.

James Thomas [00:44:30]:
And one of the things I really got into after the trips that I did was folks started to a want to meditate. So I took people to meditate with Me because you start to lead by your own example. That's what I've really learned in this whole thing. So people want to come on the adventure. So I had like half a dozen friends join me on my big trip. Can I join you for a week here? Can I do three months there? And that that all started to happen. People gravitated towards this adventure. So since I moved to India I had some friends come and stay and we've gone up to Ladakh and we made a trip there last year, Ladakh and Kashmir loop.

James Thomas [00:45:14]:
And then this summer, end of August we're going to go to Spiti Valley and I'm going to lead some rides up there. We can cycle the Manali Leh Highway. Gonna find. I've got this book actually I can I show it to you but I'll send you the link. It's out of print now. It's called the Himalayas. Bye bye. It's written by Laura Stone.

James Thomas [00:45:31]:
It's out of print. You can't buy it anywhere because nobody bought it at the time. But for me it's the bible because it goes into detail. All these little routes that you can do around North India. Right. Really in detail. And with that book plus the. I don't know if you've heard about the Pikes on bikes.

James Thomas [00:45:52]:
Yep. Harriet and Neil, they did extensive stuff in Peru but they also, before they did all that, did a lot in the Himalayas. Between their stuff that's online and this book, there's some untouched gravel bike packing routes in the Himalayas that I want to investigate and bring people to. So that's where I'm at. That's how I've gotten to this place. It's had a transformational spiritual shift. In reality, I'm freelancing out of Goa, homeschooling my daughter. And when I get time and people got the appetite, I'm leading these tours in the Himalaya.

James Thomas [00:46:31]:
Bike packing, camping out there, gravel cycling like the wildest terrain you can imagine

Jerry Kopack [00:46:38]:
and hopefully encouraging likewise transformational change with the people who are going on these adventures with you.

James Thomas [00:46:47]:
100% life changing experience in the mountains.

Jerry Kopack [00:46:51]:
Oh man, I love this. I have goosebumps. James, I want to thank you so much for hanging out with me today. How can our listeners find out about these adventures?

James Thomas [00:47:02]:
I'm online, I've got a website, it's really bigbycryde.com. i'm on all the socials. It's at Real Big Bike Ride, however you want to get me there. And I also do Substack which is Alchemy of Adventure, which is like a newsletter that's a bit of everything. So there's the cycling stuff and the Alchemy Adventure is like, I'm up to this crazy ass thing now and this is what it's like living in India. So it's a. It's a bit different than the hardcore cycling stuff, but it's. It's a bit of everything.

James Thomas [00:47:31]:
So.

Jerry Kopack [00:47:32]:
Yeah, I love that. And we're going to post links to all those on the show notes for this and, and one real quick thing in passing and real quick. It's very cliche. You probably been asked this far too many times, but Shantaram, have you read it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I figured it's a great read.

James Thomas [00:47:53]:
Look, if you're going to talk about books about inter, Shantaram is a great place to start because it has the heartbreak and the intensity and the magic and the spiritual all in there.

Jerry Kopack [00:48:02]:
Yeah.

James Thomas [00:48:03]:
Mountain Shadow, the sequel's kind of good as well. But there's. If you can handle it, there's a. There's. Avinash gave me a book. I'll say, I'll send you the link. So you've got a direct link to it. It's some three Indian weightlifters went cycling around the world in like 1930 or something.

James Thomas [00:48:22]:
Like the OGs of Indian bicycle touring. That's my favorite Indian bicycle touring book

Jerry Kopack [00:48:28]:
now, definitely some of that. I want to check that out as well because I thoroughly enjoyed Shantram. Took me a while to get through it because it's a thousand pages, but it was.

James Thomas [00:48:37]:
Yeah, yeah. Incredible book. Yeah, it gives. It's a snapshot of India right there.

Jerry Kopack [00:48:42]:
Yeah, yeah. Well, cheers, mate. I appreciate your time. And hey, I will look you up this fall. We're probably there. September, October. Ish. So I hope we cross paths.

Jerry Kopack [00:48:55]:
I think it'd be a lot of fun.

James Thomas [00:48:56]:
We're going to do it. We're going to drink some chai, some raw omelettes and some aloo paratha and talking about the good times and then

Jerry Kopack [00:49:05]:
all the veg Thali we can eat. Right?

James Thomas [00:49:07]:
Bottomless thali. That's right. I'll be getting one in the. I'm a couple hours away from lunch here. I'm going to be getting a fish thali today, so I'll remember you when I'm taking lunch.

Jerry Kopack [00:49:18]:
I love that. I want to thank you everyone for listening to my conversation today with James Thomas. Hopefully, stories like these will inspire you to set off on your own bicycle adventure and maybe make the world feel a little bit smaller, one pedal stroke at a time. Until then, keep the wheels rolling and the story's coming. Thanks for joining us on Bike Life. I'm Jerry Kopeck, and I hope you enjoyed today's episode as much as we enjoyed sharing it with you. Please leave us a rating and review or just tell your friends. This helps us reach more cyclists and hosts around the world.

Jerry Kopack [00:49:53]:
To learn more or become part of this amazing community, Visit us at warmshowers.org or follow us on Instagram at warmshowers_org.

Jerry Kopack [00:50:05]:
If you'd like to be a guest on the show or have a question you'd like us to explore, email us at podcast@warmshowers.org.