80 km cycle trip to Keukenhof (Holland)

Well for a long time I wanted to go on a long bike ride, travelling through the fields and meadows of Holland and yesterday (17 April 2011) provided me an opportunity to do so. My class mate Anand Teke is a couch surfer and he got to know via the couch surfing website that a group will be going on a bike tour to keukenhof starting from Leiden Central station. So I was very much game for it and excited, quickly agreeing to cycle all the way to Keukenhof from Delft (the place where I currently live).

So I woke up at 6:00 in the morning, had my headbath, finished my breakfast and packed my lunch and other drinks in my backpack and reached Anand's place at 7:45. From there Anand, Pavan, Kaushal and myself started at 8:15. Vignesh and Vishwesh, the twins in my university were also supposed to accompany us but they said they would be joining us at Leiden (they would bring their bikes on train). We followed the road besides the canal for 16Kms. By the way Leiden is about 25 kms from Delft. We did biking for about an hour and then took a short break to stretch our legs. We reached Leiden bang at 9:45.

At Leiden central Vishu and Viku joined us and we also met with the tour guide Roman, who was going to take us through the Tulip fields on our bikes. I had never done a bike tour before and this was all making me more and more excited.

Just a small note for the readers who do not know about Keukenhof. This is place where the tulips in Holland are grown in large numbers and exported worldwide. Its world famous and people from all over the world make a visit to Keukenhof if they tour Holland during spring time. This place is akin to the rose garden in Ooty, India or the Lalbagh at Bangalore.

We started our tour at 10:15, at snails pace and few kilometers down the trail we had three people who reported flat tyres. Hence we took an emergency stop for some time and our guide made arrangements to fix the flat tyres of the people's bikes. There were about 25 to 30 people in the whole group, from various nationalities- Iranians, Indians, German, Canadian, Dutch, Singaporeans, Chinese. So diverse was the group that it was amazing that so many people were there together. Roman, our tour guide took us through the Tulip fields and all of us were enthralled by the Tulips and the Daffodils growing in those fields. To put in simple words it was mind blowing and sooperb.

After few hours of bike riding, when we were in field we realised that one of the girls in our group was missing. I don't know who or how people contacted her. We just moved on to go to the Keukenhof park.

But to my amazement I saw that girl at the park. God only knows how she managed to get there or may be someone went in search of her.I am sure without any guiding or GPS device with you one will surely get lost in the biking lanes of Netherlands.

The entrance to the park cost us 12.5 euros each but it was worth the buck. We had our lunch inside the park and then decided to go around the park in small groups. We were asked to report by the fiets stand (fiets=bike, the Dutch word for bike) by 18:00 hrs. So our Indian group separated and we went around the whole park, enjoying the Tulips, appreciating its beauty and clicking lots of pictures. each tulip was unique and  exquisite. They were available in all colours and shades possible.

My favourite ones were the bright red Tulips growing, they were looking absolutely stunning. Pavan, Viku, Vishu and Kaushal were very busy clicking pictures and I believe their camera's memory must have been almost full.

We saw the tulip fields and the windmill, the place where 'Kumari' song of the tamil film ANNIYAN was shot. I was told that during the shoot the filmmakers got special permission to get into the fields.

After about 2 hours of roaming round the park and shooting pictures we all were tired, partly because we hadn't packed sufficient food but our moods were quite high. After quite an intense search we managed to find 'Tulip Aishwarya' and Vishu was the one who got close enough to her. There were other tulips named aftre prominent people, grown along the patch of grass termed 'Hall of Fame'

We gathered at the fiets stand at the said time but the Iranian group was missing. We departed the park at about 18:15 hrs and slowly cycled down another path. Many of them were not used to such strenuous activity and were quite exhausted. Finally we reached Leiden at 20:00 hrs.

I was always in for the whole cycle trip and so was Pavan. But Anand was a little frustrated and wanted to get back to Delft via train, partly because he was not on his bike (a really good road bike) but was on a bike that he borrowed from his friend. But finally we decided to get back to Delft by cycle. We followed the GPS all way through till Rijswik.

At 21:30 hrs we reached Delft safe and sound. Oh my God, biking for 80 kms that was too good. The only thing is that my A** hurts a little and I am getting crazy to get a new bike for myself just for going for these kind of cycle tours.

Hollland- too good a place to bike and Keukenhof hats off to that place