By now I’m sure many of you are thinking, well if it’s that bad, why don’t you just stay home? No, because this is where the excitement is, the fun and the adventure are! Riding on roads outside of my comfort zone was one of the easiest ways to recognise my own health-and-safety dominated, sanitized existence. It put me right there in the thick of things. It made me understand that selling souvenirs and trinkets is how somebody feeds his family; the lovely smell emanating from rows of smokers tells me how that lady pays her rent at the end of the month. I’m not saying those things don’t irritate me, but it does make me think, and to try and see the world from their perspective.

You will come across everyone from toddlers to teenagers playing anything from badminton to hide-and-seek. Playing in lush green fields or perfectly flat spaces just doesn’t have that same allure as a hot and busy road. There’s no one to inconvenience there and it’s much more fun trying to see how many bus drivers you can give a heart attack to by running right onto their path as they frantically swerve into – you guessed it! – oncoming traffic. Indeed all these boring people using the road should realise life is about having fun and, as long as we are having fun, there can’t be any harm in it, no?

The road is convenient. No longer do you need to herd your cattle through dangerous open fields with healthy natural food growing abundantly. No, rather have all 264 of them strolling along the road, where they can find all sorts of nutritious snacks like plastic bags, water bottles, newspapers, cigarette boxes and sweet wrappers. And along with the dietary advantages of taking said road, there is the absolute inconvenience you get to cause to all of the other road users. All the socialisers, shoppers, players, other cattle herders and last (and definitely the least) the riders and drivers.