On one of our Sunday trips to the India coffee house, I bumped into Brigitte Kleine. I had read an article about this 63 year old German lady traveling the world on her bicycle in the papers a couple of days back. I cross checked with Niya who also recognized her from the article. We immediately approached her and she was glad to meet someone who knew who she was. Unfortunately she didn’t understand a word of English (German was all she spoke) and couldn’t hear well too. However we began a broken conversation with her through sign language and sketches. I showed her the pictures of my Bamboo bike and she was excited to know I made it. We decided to meet again with a friend of mine who knew German and could translate.
She did make it to my workshop a few days later and this time we could talk thanks to my friend Katherine, the translator. I showed her my trikes, bamboo bike etc and we learnt more about her trip which has taken her to 28 countries already in a span of 4 years. So far she has cycled through America, South America and South Asia and she will be on the road for the next 6 years. She had brought her bike along. Made out of Cro-moly and complete with hub gears, it was custom made and sponsored for her trip by a German bike manufacturing company - Patria. She loved my Bambike and wanted to promote it on her onwards travels.
Later during the day she visited our house to see our terrace garden and some more bikes I had made. Since the translator friend could not accompany us then, we decided to use Google translator to communicate. We spent the entire afternoon conversing about her trip, her family and India among other things. She was very appalled to see the poverty and the divide between the rich and poor in India and was very curious to know how other countries can help India. She also shared with us some of her bad experiences on the trip like getting mugged and shot at in Honduras and getting pelted at with stones in Pondicherry! When we asked her if it was her choice to travel alone, she replied in affirmative saying she didn’t want her decisions on the trip to be influenced by any second person.
It was a great experience meeting this courageous lady who is all set to conquer the world on her bicycle. To know more about her bike trip visit (www.grannies-bike-world-trip.de)
