Which cycle to choose to cycle in Kerala?

I did serious cycling when I was in school, almost four decades back. Again cycling caught my interest when some of my good friends got into it seriously. I was not very sure whether I will be able to cope up with the pressures of cycling. The combined effect of cycling and photography (which I am already into) is quite compelling. As usual on impulse I went ahead and bought a brand new old fashioned Hercules without doing much research about cycling. My intent was to experiment with it to see whether my physique is coping with it at 53 years of age with a not so perfect heart. So, I got on to my cycle and started cycling again. It is continuing for the past one month, and now I am confident of sustaining it, hence started looking for models with gear at the local Decathlon store. There are good models, and as usual anything good comes with a good price tag attached to it. I am waiting for the the rains to subside to buy another cycle with gears. Sometimes I get confused between the benefits of a sophisticated cycle and a local brand which is easy to operate and maintain because the local cycle store can repair the local brand, where as the btwn can be maintained only at the Decathlon store. Some times I think I need both. While cycling in the level fields of interior Kerala for photography the Hercules cycle can be the most reliable one, and while going for that long distance above 15 km, I will need the geared ones with shocks, because the road conditions in Kerala is bad, and it calls for a hybrid bike, if not a mountain bike!.