Bicycle Indians - Stories of somewhere between Berlin and Bangalore by Jakob Nößler

Hello! Great that you ended up here! This book about my bike tour to India is an absolute project of the heart and I am happy about everyone who embarks on the adventurous journey with me... 🚲😊

"Bicycle Indians - Stories of somewhere between Berlin and Bangalore" by Jakob Nößler
238 pages with 50 colour photos, self-published

Here is a small sample: 😀

At the age of 19, I could certainly have done other things: going to university, going to a sports club, spending evenings with friends in bars. Not a bad life actually, but still routine. It felt like I had experienced the same day over and over again. I missed the new, the exciting unknown. Days for which there is no ready-made timetable. Certainly it was also the search for the adventure and the challenge. Cycling from Berlin to India seemed to be guaranteed. India sounds like far away in the distance and also a bit exotic like elephants. My travel preparation essentially consists of taking a semester off and buying a bike. Within two days, I panic and get what camping equipment I think is necessary. A few maps are torn out of the school atlas and a red route is painted with the felt-tip pen. Then it's time to go...

A warm shower, a full fridge and a cuddly bed also have their advantages, but I never missed all this for a second in the following 120 days. The apartment is now being exchanged for a sleeping mat and a tiny fluttering one-man tent. The shower now replaces a plastic bottle held over the head.
My vehicle has more in common with a pack donkey than with a sporty bike. Loaded with this, I am asked from time to time where to go – and first answer with the intermediate destination "to Istanbul", whereupon either dismay or laughter breaks out. "You know how far this is?", they want to declare me crazy. You can tell from the people that when they see the boy on the fully loaded bicycle, they think: "He turns around again in Austria at the latest."

Two months later, I am standing with my bike in the desert in Iran. Instead of commuting between the university and the swimming pool, I chase after the sun. In the morning it is bitterly cold and icy in the dark until the sun comes out like a red blazing fireball slowly but with full strength behind the plan horizon. Then it is more than hot and a dry dusty wind blows over the steppe. A sandstorm comes towards me on the straight road like a beige, unstoppable wall. What would I have done in Berlin at this time? I would probably be sitting in the S-Bahn right now. Would she be prepared for a sandstorm? Probably better than my bike...

The route of my trip was constantly changing and everything turned out differently than planned. But the good thing is, if you don't have a plan, no one can go wrong. In the end, I cycled 8,500 km, hitchhiked 1,500 km, flew 1,500 km and sailed 350 km by ship. I'm sitting at Bangalore airport on a cardboard box that houses everything I've had with me for the last four months. Nevertheless, I take so much more with me in my luggage, because my head is full of colorful memories. Some people I've met have treated me like their own son, others like a stray, and some like a hero. I cried bitterly and roared with joy.

I was accepted into a hippie commune in Bulgaria, stood in the smoke of the Bengalos among ultra football fans in the belgrade city derby, took part in gymnastics lessons in Tehran, was invited daily to couchsurf in Iran and showered with unimaginable hospitality or tried my hand at cricket in India and fished for coconuts. Sometimes stray dogs, camels and sometimes these nasty monkeys who want to steal the bananas accompanied me along the way. Riding on the saddle and sleeping in a tent... Bicycle + India = Bicycle Indian, that was my simple formula.

Make yourself comfortable on the luggage rack and off you go!