Confederation’s immediate past president, Brian Walker, relates his experiences as he cycles through West Bengal on an Australian-made Greenspeed recumbent tricycle. His goal is Darjeeling in the foothills of Kanchenjunga, the world’s third highest mountain .

At last, I’ve made it! I am actually in India, sweltering in the humid air inside the arrival hall at Calcutta airport, surrounded by shouting Indians with enormous bundles wrapped elaborately in pink and blue plastic.

No sign of my precious trike yet; I’m anxious to see if it has arrived safely. Once past the immigration desk I try to avoid having my bag of film put through an X-ray scanner (I lost the argument.) As I approach the luggage carousel I see my trike sitting forlornly beyond it, the broken chain dangling limply from the chainwheel.

With perspiration pouring off me, I spend 15 frustrating minutes untangling the chain. It is wrapped tightly around the rear wheel. Finally I free it and manoeuvre the trike through the throng of curious Indians to Customs then out into the open car park. I’m wondering how the hell I am going to get the chain fixed. There are no bike mechanics at Dum Dum Airport.

To my enormous relief I spot a Hare Krishna devotee in an orange dhoti waiting for me. Two others join us and help wheel the trike to a van sitting in the blazing sun. It’s like an oven, but beats by a mile the alternative of being stranded at the airport with an unrideable trike and no Indian currency.

At the Hare Krishna temple in Albert Road I am given a shabby guest room with adjoining bathroom. The squat toilet is on a raised platform in front of the window. The window shutter is broken so anyone using the toilet is in full view of passers-by. In India nothing gets fixed.

But back to the damaged trike. On inspection I find that repairing the chain is fairly straightforward. Getting the gears to change properly is another matter altogether. I suspect the derrailleur has been wrenched out of true. I decide I’ll have to contact home and ask my wife to fax me the instruction manual for the derailleur as nothing I do seems to be fixing the problem.

Then the real frustration begins - trying to find someone who can send an e mail message for me. All my inquiries are met with dumb incomprehension and shrugs. Finally I locate the operator of a computer who won’t let me near his precious equipment, but grudgingly agrees to send my message if I write it down.

Several more hours are spent fiddling with the derailleur, to no avail. Then my luck changes - I bump into an old friend who was once the Hare Krishna secretary for Australia years ago. As soon as he hears of my problem he escorts me back to the office, ousts the computer guardian and opens up the e-mail program himself. Success!

Unfortunately my friend is leaving the next day, but he tells me there is a bus on Friday to Mayapur where I know more people and expect to be more welcome than I am in the Calcutta temple. The bus has a roof rack that will hold the trike so I purchase a ticket. With my usual optimism I believe all my problems will be solved once I get to Mayapur.

The 160km trip takes more than three hours. The roads are packed with buses and trucks, and I am vastly relieved I am not cycling. The road surface is unbelievably bad. As the monsoon season is not yet over there is water everywhere and many areas are flooded - the Ganges is running a banker.

While waiting for a reply to my messages I decide to go for a walk. All the low-lying land around the temple is under water, the once-beautiful temple garden is a muddy swamp. There are birds everywhere - white egrets wade among the reeds, a large hawk or eagle perches on a tree behind the restaurant. This morning the air is filled with the sounds of doves and bulbuls.

Food, as usual, is plentiful. Breakfast costs me about 50¢; lunch and dinner are free. Rice is accompanied by dahl with two or more vegetable dishes and a pakhora, followed by a Bengali sweet, fresh fruit or sweet rice.

I am persuaded to remain in Mayapur until September 12 when a number of people who live along my proposed route will be here for the Radhamastami religious festival (in celebration of the birthday of Krishna’s consort, Rhada). I am to meet them and arrange where and how to contact them.

National Highway 34 - the main road to Darjeeling - is no more than a series of potholes linked together by patches of fractured bitumen. I soon realise the trike and I are in for some punishing riding. Yesterday while inspecting the road I was accosted by an old man who said, in beautifully enunciated English: "Excuse me, Sir. I make my living by begging. Could you please make a small contribution? Any small amount to suit your convenience would be satisfactory."

At 7.30 in the morning I leave without fanfare and am on my way. The minor roads are crowded with rickshas, bicycles and oxcarts, but no trucks and buses. The sight of my trike causes great excitement wherever I go - men fall off their bicycles or collide with one another while gaping. An old man peeing against a wall turns around and almost sprays me as I pass. Children dance and shout and run after me, their eyes and teeth gleaming in their excited brown faces.

The humidity is awful. Once the sun is up I am constantly dripping with sweat. Although the road is almost flat, with my heavy load I can manage only about 15-20 kph. The road surface is appalling - at times so bad I have to ride a slalom course between the biggest holes. Pot-holes filled with water are the worst - there’s no way of knowing how deep they are until a wheel disappears beneath the surface and my head is almost jolted off my neck.

The traffic and road surface are worst in the towns. Here the potholes are like bomb craters. The attention I get is amazing - policemen halt all traffic to let me through, people stop what they are doing and rush to the roadside, calling out and waving.

Some towns consist almost entirely of roadside truck workshops - mechanics, auto electricians, motor body builders and so on all have stalls beside the road. The combination of dreadful roads and ancient vehicles ensures they have plenty of work. Broken-down trucks are a common sight along the road, their drivers tinkering with the engine and parts spread around in the dirt. I’ve seen some spectacular wrecks where trucks have run off the road, probably when the driver fell asleep.Although the traffic is very heavy I have not yet had any serious problems. Most buses and trucks give me a wide berth, the buses slowing right down so the passengers can have a good look as they pass.

The most striking feature of the scenery is the water everywhere - ponds, streams, canals and floodwater in every direction. Rice and jute are grown in the water, the latter a tall straight-stemmed plant with a few leaves on top. The stems are bundled and soaked in ponds to soften the bark before it is stripped off by hand.

After cycling 108 km on my first day, I find a likely camping spot beside a large pond in a patch of forest. As soon as I stop I have an instant audience of local people who watch intently as I pitch my tent, have a meal and go for a pee. They finally drift away once it is dark and I crawl into bed. In the middle of the night I am awakened by incredibly heavy rain, followed by loud peals of thunder followed by lightning so bright it shines red through my closed eyelids.

After about three hours the storm fades into the distance, and I fall asleep. When I wake I feel as if I am lying in a waterbed. I realise that the pond has risen and my tent is practically floating in about 4cm of water. Fortunately I remain dry as I alternately cat-nap and check the rising water level for the rest of the night. Just after dawn I hear voices outside - exclamations of concern and shouts to others still at some distance. When I peer through the flap I see a row of pink toes and brown legs - my audience of the night before has re-assembled. Their amazement that the inside of my tent is still dry is truly comical. They recover enough to help me move the tent to higher ground. Later they watch my every move as I pack my gear and sodden tent. Many willing hands help push the trike through the mud back to the main road, then wave a cheery goodbye.

Big piles of harvested grain are spread on the road surface to dry, creating another hazard for the unwary traveller. Occasionally I meet teams of ponderous buffalos plodding along the highway, treating blaring horns with disdain. Motor cyclists love to ride up beside me and shout questions in a weird mixture of Bengali and English: "Where you coming from?" (meaning what country). "Where are you going?" When I reply to Darjeeling, they almost fall off their bikes in astonishment.